Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 241: Manny Ramirez and Other Players Who Refuse to Retire/The Loveable, Hateable Yankees

Episode Date: July 11, 2013

Ben and Sam discuss batter-pitcher matchup stats, ancient players on the comeback trail, and the underdog Yankees.

And Durham hits one high and deep down the left field line. Out of here! Good morning and welcome to episode 241 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives. I'm Sam Miller with Ben Lindberg. How are you doing today, Ben? Very well. Still healthier than you. Mm-hmm. It's true.

Mm-hmm. Well, so it goes. Yeah, and so it's gone for the last couple of weeks. Yeah. It's odd too because you're the one who doesn't sleep. Yeah. But I also have no human contact. So I can't catch anything.

That's a good point. Yeah. I mean you have a daughter that's like a disease incubator from what I hear. But I was at the BP events this weekend and shook a lot of hands and kissed a lot of babies. So, but I'm okay. Did you let anybody sneeze on you? No, I don't think I was sneezed on. Okay.

So what are you going to talk about today? Well, first I wanted to... No, no, no, no. First we'll do the topics, then you can do your Ray Durham, and then we'll go back to the topics. All right. I am half-heartedly talking about the three ancient rehabbing players who are about to, or might be about to, return to the majors. who are about to, or might be about to, return to the majors. There's some suspense in that one,

because the third one doesn't come to mind right away. Well, the third one is not actually rehabbing, I guess. I was going to just lump Manny in. Oh, that's interesting. I was going to talk about Manny. Partly. Manny was part of mine, too. We'll see how that goes.

Tell me about Ray Durham. Yeah, so yesterday we stumbled across a really interesting stat while we were both racing to see which of us could look up Mariano Rivera's batter matchup stats first. And Ray Durham was 0 for 26 against Rivera with three strikeouts. He never reached base. He finished with a zero, triple slash line all the way across. And your radar, your finely honed, interesting stat factoid radar said that this was the longest such streak, or the longest such career head-to-head record. And you were right. Or at least since 1950, you were right. Before that, the matchup stats are not complete. So there may have been a longer one before that, but since 1950, there has never been a longer head-to-head matchup than Ray Durham, Mariano Rivera that did not result in some sort of on-base event or at least a hit, a walk, or a hit by pitch. I think there were about 20 instances of 20 or more plate appearances, but many of them were pitcher versus pitcher, like Tom Seaver pitching to Don Sutton or Steve Carlton pitching to Jerry Kuzman. So we can pretty much toss those out. So Ray Durham, that's historic lack of success. But there have been longer streaks of not reaching base.

There have been quite a few more streaks longer than that one. The longest was 33 plate appearances. Frank Tanana pitching to Thurman Munson was the longest. And there was actually Hunter Pence broke a 27 plate appearance streak of not reaching base against Clayton Kershaw earlier this year. And there is an active streak, I believe, of 28 plate appearances between Adrian Beltre and Darren Oliver. Oh, wow. Yeah. Do we have a – I don't suppose you have the longest hit list streak.

I do not. Although, I'm glad you don't, because as it is the policy of the Effectively Wild podcast to treat no-hitters as nonsense and only perfect games as significant, it would be pretty hypocritical if we started talking about a hit list such streak. Now, I love the idea of the hidden perfect game when the hidden perfect

game is do you remember whose invention that was is that no it's one of one of our guys right i think so but i i don't know i can't swear anyway the idea of a hidden perfect game is a pitcher who retires 27 batters in a row but not you know not in in one game so it would be a perfect game but it would be hidden by you know by the calendar and i i always actually like the idea of of hidden perfect games in in even non like kind of linear ways so like if if durham had had one more at bat against rivera and he'd been 0 for 27, then that would have been a hidden perfect game. I like looking for sort of the most obscure expressions of a hidden perfect game, and this might have been it if it had been true.

I don't know if I'm counting the ones that are not, like the Beltre one that's ongoing, it's actually a hidden, hidden perfect game. Yes, right. I mean, he has gotten on base against Oliver. He has had hits or a hit against him. There's some weird ones, though. I mean, you wouldn't think that anyone would have this, really,

ones that I mean you wouldn't think that I mean you wouldn't think that that anyone would have this really but but Beltre and Oliver is just a strange one it's like he has he has the platoon advantage and Oliver is not not dominant uh or at least not so much for the entire life of that streak that you would expect that it's I especially because Oliver's really only been good as a reliever, and you would think as a reliever he probably hasn't faced Beltre that much as a reliever. Like a lot of these probably came when he was still a starter, you would think. Yeah, I think so, or I can check that. But yeah, there's some very strange ones. But yeah, there's some very strange ones. Like Willie Mays had a 29 plate appearance streak of not reaching base against Joey Jay.

Oh my gosh, that's such a good, that's a good fun fact. Yeah, that's a great one. That's a great fun fact. Joey Jay was a bonus baby with the Brewers, pitched for the Brewers and the Reds in the 50s and 60s. with the Brewers, pitched for the Brewers and the Reds in the 50s and 60s, and the Braves briefly and retired with a 99 career ERA plus. So basically just an average pitcher holding Willie Mays off base completely for 29 plate appearances. That shouldn't have happened.

It's very strange. Anyway, I like these stats. So I put out some feelers to Ray Durham today because I'd like to talk to him about this. Seriously? Yeah. Wow. Because I'm sure he's just enjoying his retirement,

hoping that someone will contact him to talk about being completely owned by Mariano Rivera. I'm sure he enjoys reminiscing about how he never had any success whatsoever. Beltre and Oliver were teammates, of course, for a year or two recently, like toward the end of this. And I wonder if either one of them was aware of it. I mean, I'm sure that they know that there's – I think you always hear that pitchers generally know which hitters

they've had success against and vice versa. But I wonder if they really know that there's, I think you always hear that pitchers generally know which hitters they've had success against and vice versa. But I wonder if they really realize that it's been, Beltre got two hits, one hit in 98 against him and one hit in 99. And then it looks. 2001 he had a double, or no he didn't, no. Okay, so yeah, it's since. Yeah, 0 for 11 in 2003. Yeah, so yeah, it's since 1999, right? Yeah, 0 for 11 in 2003. Yeah, so since 99. And it looks like probably about 17-ish were when Oliver was a starter.

So like 2003, Oliver was not a very good pitcher. But of course, it's only 11 plate appearances. Anyway. If I do get to talk to Durham, I'd like to ask him, like at what point you start to feel like you have less chance of success? Because I guess like a true sabermetrician, if you asked him what Durham would hit against Rivera in another 26 plate appearances, if you could somehow replay those plate appearances, would probably just say that your best expectation is that he would just hit like Ray Durham just against a really good pitcher, probably. But I would doubt that either Durham or Rivera believes that.

So it would be interesting to, I guess, ask what he thinks his true talent against Mariano Rivera is. Especially because I guess it wasn't dominant in that he only struck out three times. So it must've just been lots of weak contact. Like everyone has against Rivera and lots of broken bats and bloopers and that sort of thing. And I don't want to, I don't want to ask you to reveal any secrets. So if you,

if you prefer not to answer this question, that's fine. But I'm curious, how did you reach out to Ray Durham? Like what is your um well i i don't it hasn't been successful yet but i just uh i emailed someone on the the giants media relations staff who i've i've uh who's helped me before with contacting players and uh and someone else who i thought might know him personally.

And so I just put those out there. So we'll see. And those stats, by the way, come from Rob McEwen, who looked them up for me on the BP database because it is a hard thing to look up through conventional means. All right. Okay. Why don't I start?

Okay. So mine's kind of a joint thing. One is that I just wanted to mention Manny in some context and I didn't realize that you were going to, so it's not as important. But I mean really like, well Manny is sort of the cruxx of the topic but i also want to mention raul bonyas uh who i went on a little bit of a raul bonyas fun fact terror the other day because bonyas is a guy who you don't and it's not actually true i guess but in a way you don't really realize that you've been watching a hall of Fame level of play from him for the last 10 years. It's just the back half of a Hall of Fame career when usually most Hall of Famers aren't nearly as good. So it's not like you've actually ever seen him

put up a 10-win season or anything, but he has actually been as good since he turned 31 as the median Hall of Famer by Winslow Replacement. So he has been just as good after 31 as all these Hall of Famers or most of these Hall of Famers that you've grown up watching into their golden years. And he also is 15th all-time in total bases from 31 on. And I noticed while I was looking at that list that it's a lot of guys who are recent.

That list is, you know, you've got your Pete Rose and your Sam Rice, but you've got a lot of guys who are recent, like Steve Finley and Omar Vizquel and Luis Gonzalez. And it seems like it's mostly populated with recent guys. And so when i was a kid growing up uh and you know the the salaries were worse i think the salaries were still sort of shocking people a bit more than they do now um free agency wasn't new exactly but it it was you know it was new enough that there were still players playing who had been playing before free agency.

The guys were getting paid a couple million dollars a year. You heard a lot at the time that these contracts were going to make it so that players wouldn't play into their old age anymore. You'd quit seeing players playing past, you know, 36 or whatever, because they don't, you know, they wouldn't need the money and they wouldn't work as hard to stay in shape once they got all this money. And it's just so crazy how wrong that is. I mean, we see guys and Manny is the reason I thought about it for obvious reasons. Manny is a guy with, you know, no financial stake in what he's doing right now. He's been disappeared for the last two years. He's left in disgrace. And he had to go to Taiwan, of all places, to get another chance. And now he's riding buses to perhaps get a shot as a

part-time DH for what I assume is going to be something like the Major League minimum. And so it's just notable to me how badly we misjudged human nature in this case. And I also find it sort of fascinating that there have been so many players who have aged so well because I understand that medicine is better and conditioning is better. So you would expect players to age better, but the level of play required these days is so high compared to what it used to be. I mean, guys, certainly in like the 20s and the 30s were barely athletes at all. And now they're really elite athletes. And they're doing things that are sort of unthinkable.

The pitches they throw and the speed at which the game is played. I saw some old video yesterday. I forget the context of guys from the 1934 All-Star game swinging. And it's just a joke. It really looks like slow-pitch softball swings. And so you would think that by raising the standard of play as much as it would, it would really eliminate the possibility that even a player who stays in shape could possibly hope to be playing after 40.

stays in shape, could possibly hope to be playing after 40. And so I would have, knowing this, I might have hypothesized that the game would actually get more condensed with players in their peak, that you would, you know, if you're requiring the level to be higher, that you're really only going to get the guys alive who are in extremely good shape, especially because we haven't had expansion in 15 years. So the field of the number of jobs haven't grown. And in that time, Japan has really sent a lot more major leaguers over, and the population of the world and the country has grown.

And just generally, the level of play from, you know, you see these 20 and 21, 22, 23 year olds coming up who are like incredible right now so it's surprising to me that a guy like Raul Abanez would be able to keep playing the way he has and to really do things, I mean he's better right now than virtually

every Hall of Famer was at 42, he outlasted all of them you know, if he is he has a good shot at breaking the At 42, he outlasted all of them. You know, if he is... He has a good shot at breaking the record, right, for home runs hit by someone his age, I think. Maybe. Maybe he does.

I heard that at some point. So, yeah, I wonder... So that's all I wanted to say. And then one last thing is, I wonder if the, I wonder if there will ever come a day where there's some sort of senior tour of baseball players, you know, like if there would ever be a market for like a seniors league where these guys could all play against each other. Cause they're in really good shape. They're all, I mean, you know, I would bet that there's probably a hundred guys who are currently retired, uh, who are, you know, better than almost anybody

who was playing in the sixties. Yeah, sure. Um, I don't know. I, I guess there wouldn't be much money in it probably. Yeah. We don't really need to talk about that. Okay. I didn't mean to. Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you actually need to say something about that. Okay, all right, fine. Well, yeah, I mean, so I guess the conclusion is that players like playing baseball. Some do, and then a lot of them hate it. That's the other thing, is that you can find examples where you're like... You think a lot of them hate it?

And then a lot of them hate it. That's the other thing is that you can find examples where you're like – You think a lot of them hate it? I was reading that Joe Posnanski, Jeff King story the other day. You've read that? It's about how Jeff King, who is a decent player, corner infielder, third baseman for the Pirates and Royals, just hated baseball as far as Posnanski could tell. Just really did not enjoy playing it. And retired at age 34 very suddenly in the middle of the season, apparently immediately after he qualified for the pension plan.

He just retired the next day. Didn't he have back problems or something, though? I mean, he cratered. He was, yeah, I mean, if you look at his 93 to 94. Kind of a league average-ish hitter when he retired. I mean, maybe not for the position, but. I'm misremembering. Yeah, I'm totally misremembering.

I'm looking now, and I'm just flat out wrong. Yeah, so he's just very, very suddenly retired because he had his time to guarantee his pension and he left because he didn't like playing baseball. That's not what I'm talking about. I think that they all love baseball, but they all – it's a job. And I think that all jobs are terrible after not that long. It doesn't take that long for everybody to hate their job. And I think a lot of these guys don't – it stresses them out. It's a lot of stress for them.

I wonder if it is once you're kind of Ramirez at this point, you're either going to be a Hall of Famer or people are going to keep you out because they don't like you and you took things. But playing-wise, he doesn't really have anything left to prove. If he fails, he's not going to lose any luster from his career. He kind of has nothing to lose now. from his career, kind of has nothing to lose now. I don't know. I wouldn't. And I guess, I mean, if you believe all the things that people say about Manny,

maybe he never felt any pressure anyway because he's just kind of oblivious to that. Plus his heart. Yeah. So I didn't have much to say about these guys either. I just wanted to talk about which one we would take if we were drafting them. Hey, Rod. Yeah, really? Well, okay, so Manny, I kind of didn't really expect to make the majors again. I was talking to Jason Cole, who covers the Rangers

closely this past weekend at the BP events, and he thought that Manny was probably just signed as sort of Nelson Cruz insurance, just in case the biogenesis stuff happened and Cruz was suspended. The Rangers don't really have a major league ready outfielder in the upper minors and it would just be kind of a fallback plan um so there's that he he did homer i guess tonight um so so there's the biogenesis issue with cruz but then there's also the biogenesis issue with, with A-Rod. I would think that performance wise, A-Rod probably would have the best shot at still being somewhat productive. He's,

he's the youngest of the three. He was, he was decent for a while last year. He's, he's, well, he's coming off a serious injury also, but I would probably take him just on a performance basis.

But I guess it's sounding like the real possibility that he could be suspended for the rest of the season or something, even if he manages to come back. So even so, you would still take him? Well, so yeah, I didn't factor in the... to come back. So even so, you would still take him? Oh, well, so, yeah, I didn't factor in the... I guess I didn't realize my relationship to the player that I was choosing. Like, I have some sort of financial stake in it

if he gets suspended. This is not just, like, who I would pick to play one game. Yeah, right. You're, well, I mean, you're you're so now you're asking me to price in the likelihood of suspension yes wow well that makes it tougher now i gosh i don't think that he's gonna get suspended uh i still think it's i still think it's probably a long shot that he gets a suspension that's actually upheld. But, I mean, that whole thing is just such a weird mess. I mean, everything about him right now is such a mess.

His team hates him. He hates everybody, and they all hate him. And it's weird. Like, I just don't know what's going to happen right now with him. Like, who knows, right? I honestly don't know what's going to happen right now with him. Who knows, right? I honestly don't have any idea. So maybe the uncertainty about all those relationships knocks him down.

I mean, yeah, he was close enough to Jeter last year, but I think I consider Jeter's age plus injury to be more troublesome, and I think I probably consider A-Rod. And the fact that Jeter is still expected to play shortstop which he couldn't do a decade ago yeah but like you said that and some show long ago maybe that doesn't matter with Jeter because he's not going to be that much worse than the negative 25 shortstop that he's been all along right he might get into Jose Molina territory soon. The minus 100 that we hypothesized? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I think probably secretly, if you asked me who I wanted to pinch hit, and it was only one at bat, I think secretly I might pick Manny. Like, I kind of want to believe that he can hit still. any. I kind of want to believe that he can hit still. And if you wanted me to pick a player to do defense and everything for a season, I would take A-Rod. And if you wanted me to pick one of them to put on my team, I would pick

Jeter. For the heart? For the heart and for the general reliability, I guess. Yeah, that sounds reasonable. I think I'd take Jeter for the one at bat pinch hit appearance. But yeah, I don't disagree with you. Okay, how about another trio of injured or possibly injured players um who are not ancient uh who would you take if you had to choose between matt kemp matt kane and ryan howard uh for for what time period for what rest of this season and Ryan Howard. For what time period? For what time span? Rest of this season.

Well, Howard last, Kane first. Yes. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Yeah, there's the possibility that Kemp could miss the most time of the three. But yeah, I guess Howard has to be last and Kane has to be first just because we don't know for sure that there's something wrong with him yet. So about a week and a half ago on the Orioles broadcast of the game against the Yankees, the Orioles radio guy Joe Angel, I swear I heard this and I still doubt myself because it seems impossible,

but he said that the Yankees are right now the worst team in the division and possibly the league. The league that you know the league that involves the astros um and so since then the yankees have basically been on a roll they i think they won the next five games after that and they're like seven and three in their 10 games since then um if the yankees somehow somehow make it into the playoffs, given their roster that they've had this year, given what they've overcome, given the kind of very non-Yankee players that we've seen, and guys like Hafner and Overbay, there's some snark, I guess, about them from time to time, but generally I think they're liked, right?

I mean, they're just sort of lunch pail type mashers. Sure. Nobody's got any issue with either of them. Nobody's really got an issue with any current Yankee, any Yankee who's in the lineup right now. They're all basically likable. So this is, are the Yankees lovable underdogs? Are the Yankees, if the Yankees go into the postseason this year

with their stars back on the field, are people going to root against them as stridently as they generally root against the Yankees? Or will there be some sort of recognition that this is like a fun team of destiny sort of season? And backup question, same thing, but let's say the stars don't come back. And it's still the scrubs. A-Rod never comes back. Jeter comes back and immediately hurts himself. Maybe they get Granderson. Nobody hates Granderson. But basically they're the patched together team that is a $ know a 30 million dollar payroll uh you know team yeah and it's uh

it's luis luis cruz and austin romine and and travis ishikawa and yeah and then some yeah yeah and then and then mo rivera at the end of the game with this like great narrative uh i would i would root for that i think uh i don't know the yankees have built up so much resentment and animosity over the years and and just i guess envy that i can't imagine people really warming to them in that way um i can't i think it would probably just be taken as another example of everything working out for the Yankees. And if anything, would just engender even more envy because there's really no way that this should be happening. There's really no way that they should be as successful as they've been

to this point. Yeah. At the end of the day, the only thing that's really consistent about any of these teams is their fans and i think that a lot of what people outside of new york hate about the yankees is just that their fans get to have this sort of team that they don't that that you know a lot of other people don't respect year in year out winning games for them and so even if even if it was chris stewart that you were watching on the screen I think in the back of a lot of people's minds, they'd still be imagining the Yankee fan that just gets to win World Series after World Series. Yes, definitely.

All right. Done, Ben. We're done. Okay. All right, then we will come back for one more show tomorrow.