*** VD 13 Commentary Thread ***

[Bene Futuis]

We should.

[revo]

It would be hilarious to change it back to roto after the draft is done.

LOL. I can toss this mock in the trash since it won't replicate for a moment how my real redraft will go down. Thanks, stooopid Fantrax.

[The Feral Slasher]

We should.

I disagree

[Kevin Seitzer]

We shouldn't?

[Ken]

We shouldn't?

You should

[The Feral Slasher]

Gracias. If Feral would stop stealing all the good players, this would be easier. McCullers was the latest ARGH elicited.

Nice !

[heyelander]

#29 Eddie Collins

https://theathletic.com/1633330/2020/02/27/the-baseball-100-no-29-eddie-collins/

And then, you can manipulate statistics — which is to say you can use small sample sizes or designer numbers or statistics formulated for other purposes — to make seemingly incontrovertible points that are, in reality, not true at all.

Take a look, for example, at the numbers for these four players:

Player 1: .375/.394/.563 with 1 home run, 5 runs, 6 RBIs and 0 errors.
Player 2: .324/.324/.500 with 1 triple, 4 runs and 0 errors.
Player 3: .233/.258/.300 with 1 triple, 5 RBIs, 1 steal and 1 error.
Player 4: .226/.273/.258 with 1 double, 2 runs, 1 RBI and 2 errors.

Now, I’m going to tell you: Those are the statistics of four players on the 1919 Black Sox team that threw the World Series. Three of those players were permanently banned from the game. Can you pick out the player who was not?

Because of the way I framed this — and because you know it wouldn’t be a trivia question if it had an obvious answer — you undoubtedly guessed the one player not banned has to be Player 3 or Player 4.

It is indeed Player 4.

Player 1: Shoeless Joe Jackson
Player 2: Buck Weaver
Player 3: Chick Gandil
Player 4: Eddie Collins

Nobody, not even Collins’ greatest enemy — and as you will see, he collected enemies because his personality annoyed the bejeebers out of certain kinds of people — would have suggested that Collins was complicit in the Black Sox scheme. He was utterly incorruptible. Also, the Eight Men Out loathed him about as much as they loathed owner Charlie Comiskey.

...

Collins actually had a renaissance season in 1919. He hit .319 and led the league in stolen bases and plate appearances. But his White Sox were a wrecking ball of bad blood, nasty feuds and incessant greed. You might know that many of the near-universal beliefs about the Black Sox are probably not true — check out SABR’s excellent Eight Myths Out to get a taste — and that while the team was talented, it was also fundamentally broken.

“From the moment I arrived at training camp from service,” Collins would say, “I could see that something was amiss. We may have had our troubles in other years but in 1919, we were a club that pulled apart rather than together. There were frequent arguments and open hostility. All the things you think (and are taught to believe) are vital to the success of any athletic organization were missing from it.”

“And yet,” he would add, “it was the greatest collection of players ever assembled, I would say.”

How much of the blame should Collins take for the White Sox’s descent into baseball infamy? He certainly had nothing at all to do with the team consorting with gamblers or deciding to throw a World Series, but he was that team’s captain. He fully admitted that there were two distinct cliques on the team, his group and the other group led by Chick Gandil. He did nothing to bring the team together — quite the opposite. While history has made owner Comiskey the villain of the story, many of the Black Sox hated Collins every bit as much, perhaps even more.

And it’s also true that Collins undoubtedly caught wind of the scheme early — he would say he suspected it for a long time before the World Series and knew for sure after the first inning of the first game — and seemed entirely paralyzed about how to deal with it. The following May, the Sporting News ran a story on its front page under the headline: “Why Do Honest Ball Players Stand For Crooks In Ranks?”

What did Collins do? It’s unclear. He did have a meeting with Comiskey in early September and he claimed that he brought up potential game-fixing. Comiskey denied it, saying only that Collins complained about the motivations of pitcher Eddie Cicotte. Either way, nothing came of it. The fix was in and Collins stayed on the sidelines.

Later, though, he attacked the Eight Men Out with a fury unmatched by anyone. He never did forgive any of them, not even Buck Weaver, who claimed until his death that his only crime was knowing about the scheme and not turning in his teammates. Collins believed Weaver was lying and never hesitated to say so. “If the gamblers didn’t have Weaver and Cicotte in their pocket,” he wrote, “then I don’t know a thing about baseball.”

...

But if he is remembered at all for his days in Red Sox management, it was for the sham Jackie Robinson tryout. In 1945, when Collins was general manager of the Red Sox, he received an impassioned letter from Boston city councilman Izzy Muchnick demanding that the Red Sox give African-American players a chance. Collins, to his credit, responded.

But the response itself was certainly not to his credit.

“As I wrote to one of your fellow councilors last April,” he replied, “I have been connected with the Red Sox for 12 years and during that time we have never had a single request for a try-out by a colored applicant. … It is beyond my understanding how anyone could insinuate or believe that ‘all ballplayers regardless of race, color or creed have not been treated in the American way’ so far as having an equal opportunity to play for the Red Sox.”

He actually claimed the black players did not want to play major-league baseball. When Muchnick called him on this absurdity, Collins replied again, stating that the Red Sox would enthusiastically offer a tryout to talented black players if Muchnick could find any.

It seems certain that Collins did not think Muchnick could find such players. But Muchnick was working together with Pittsburgh Courier sports editor Wendell Smith, who suggested three players for such a tryout — a talented young infielder named Marvin Williams, a breathtakingly fast player named Sam “The Jet” Jethroe and, yes, Jackie Robinson. Collins was cornered. He agreed to the tryout, and there Robinson — only just back from military service and having not played much regular baseball since college — crushed line drive after line drive.

The Red Sox manager Joe Cronin was duly awed and said so to reporters. Collins was mum. Nothing came of it — the Red Sox would be the last team to sign a black player — and when the Dodgers signed Robinson six months later, Collins said: “More power to Robinson if he can make the grade.”

Was Collins a racist? Some, including Howard Bryant in his book “Shut Out,” believe so. Others have written he was just a man of his time, perhaps even better than most.

But it must be said that for a person who held himself in as high regard as Collins did — for a person who never hesitated to emphasize his own ethical standards — he did find himself on the wrong side of history in the two biggest scandals in his baseball lifetime, the Black Sox scandal and segregation in baseball.

In late 1950, Collins suffered a cerebral hemorrhage that left him partially blind. His last public appearance was in February 1950, where he was among those in baseball being honored. Another of the honorees was the National League Rookie of the Year who had played across town from the Red Sox — the Boston Braves’ Sam Jethroe.

Collins congratulated Jethroe and made an off-hand remark about how the Red Sox could have used a player like him. Jethroe quietly but firmly said: “You had your chance, Mr. Collins. You had your chance.”

[heyelander]

I gotta say... the cleanse that they give you to take before a colonoscopy is incredibly effective. I'm shitting liquid that is a crystal clear as a rocky mountain spring right now.

[heyelander]

#28 Randy Johnson

https://theathletic.com/1633348/2020/02/28/the-baseball-100-no-28-randy-johnson/

But Randy Johnson? Yes. Of course. You don’t forget your first 6-foot-10 pitcher. That’s really all he was known for then: Being the tallest pitcher in the history of professional baseball. He was drafted by the Expos in the second round out of USC, where he had gone on a joint basketball-baseball scholarship. Everyone knew he had great stuff, otherworldly stuff, but whether or not he would ever be a major-league pitcher was an open question. He didn’t have a windup and delivery in those days so much as he unfolded before your very eyes, like an air mattress being filled with air and coming to life. He more or less had no idea how to control his stuff. It wasn’t clear he could ever learn.

When I asked someone in Jacksonville if Johnson would become a big-league star, the answer was as direct and memorable as such an answer can be:

“Johnson? Hell no. That guy could throw a pitch from under the Eiffel Tower and not hit Paris.”

...

He went to Indianapolis the following year and somehow — it’s unclear how he did this — managed to balk 20 times in just 113 1/3 innings. He had three balks in one game in Louisville. He did combine with former U.S. Olympian Pat Pacillo on a no-hitter in Nashville, but even that wasn’t ideal. Johnson lost the game by walking Lenny Harris in the first inning and then allowing Harris to steal second and third. Harris scored on a groundout for the only run of the game.

...

And then Johnson came to Seattle and promptly made an impression. He threw a no-hitter against the Tigers in his first full season with the Mariners. He also led the league in walks three years in a row — his 152 walks in 1991 are the most for any pitcher in the last 30 years. In 1992, he had a particularly strange year — he led the league in walks, strikeouts, fewest hits per nine and hit-by-pitch — his 18 HBPs was the seventh-highest total for a pitcher since World War II.

...

He had Nolan Ryan himself.

“You’ve got to get your control,” Ryan said to him, and it meant a lot because Johnson was more than just a gruff-looking Big Unit who scowled at everyone. He was a lover of baseball history. He was a guy who would occasionally — and without any warning at all — drop a Kid Nichols or Christy Mathewson reference in conversation. He had the numbers of Warren Spahn, Sandy Koufax and Steve Carlton* plugged into his phone, and he took them up on their offer to call and talk baseball.

...

But because of the odd shape of his career, I’m not sure people quite grasp his place in baseball history. He came along at the very golden age of baseball pitching, when three other all-time greats — Greg Maddux, Clemens and Martínez — were all at their height.

And Johnson had the quirkiest of the four careers. He was traded before he really began. He was a misfit before he became an ace. He didn’t play in a major market until he was 41 and spent a couple of declining years with the Yankees. While Maddux was beloved by fans in Atlanta and Chicago, while Pedro was idolized in Boston, while Clemens was a larger-than-life character, Johnson kept to himself. And I’m just not sure that, for most people, his name is among the first that comes to mind when thinking of the best pitchers to ever take the mound.

But it should.

[Kevin Seitzer]

I gotta say... the cleanse that they give you to take before a colonoscopy is incredibly effective. I'm shitting liquid that is a crystal clear as a rocky mountain spring right now.

[The Feral Slasher]

That wasnt what they gave me for the cleanse, but it makes sense

[The Feral Slasher]

This thread represents all that's good and holy about Rotojunkie.

or unholy some might say

[Ken]

or unholy some might say

No. Holy. He likes kens lite Caesar

[The Feral Slasher]

No. Holy. He likes kens lite Caesar

true story....walking thru the grocery store tonight, my daughter yells in excitement. "Ken's lite Caesar!!" I'm thinking, no way. I run down the aisle, pushing over an elderly lady and small child. I find my daughter holding a bottle of Ken's "simply vinaigrette Caesar". I explain that it isn't the same, but she claims it is still good. wtf. I thought she knew better. I thought I raised her better. Such a disappointment.

[The Feral Slasher]

I might have cut into my overwhelming advantage by my misguided last two picks. Panic picks, both! Hopefully Kyle Tucker gets a job out of ST with the Asterisks.

I traded Lamet and an upgraded first round pick to GITH for Tucker. I hope he explodes this year, but I can wait a year if needed. As long as he doesn't suck