FIRE JOE MORGAN

A few days ago, I linked to an article in the Toronto Star about David Eckstein, but mistakenly attributed it to the Toronto Sun. Then several of you emailed me with the correction, and pointed out that the Toronto Sun is a crummy like tabloid thing, and so the joke became that the article in the Star was so bad, not even the Sun would print it.

Oops.

A walk-on with the University of Florida Gators in 1994, David Eckstein hasn't walked anywhere since.

With the Anaheim Angels and the St. Louis Cardinals he was always the first player to sprint to his position when his team took the field.

That is, when he played. The guy missed 45 games last year and 39 the year before that. Maybe he sprinted into the trainer's room?

The 5-foot-61/2 Eckstein knew a tryout at the University of Florida consisted of a round in the batting cage, handling a few ground balls and being timed in the 60-yard dash.

So, sensing the lay of the infield, Eckstein, although uninvited, went to the pre-season scrimmages and sat.

There he was on the end of the bench like a grade niner, waiting and hoping the grade 12 student either would forget his cleats, get a detention or lose his way on campus.

This is how bad it's gotten: when discussing a young , college-aged Eckstein, the analogy Bob Elliott uses is to a younger, high-school-aged Eckstein. Journalists obsess over how young the guy looks. It's positively fetishistic.

Finally, Eckstein was given the chance to play and he not only fit in with the Big Men on Campus, but coaches took a liking to this imp.

He was just called an "imp." This is bordering on pedophilia.

Despite record revenues, baseball has warts and a case of acne worse than a goalie wearing those old form-fitting masks.

Gross.

But watch Eckstein run the bases a few times and he'll bring back memories of Pete Rose running with his page-boy hair cut.

Eckstein is in constant movement from the time he's on deck. He is a whirling dervish swinging bats in quick circles looking as if he might lift off, helicopter style.

I am scared for David Eckstein. I think Bob Elliott might have a crush on him.

We first met Eckstein in the Yankee Stadium clubhouse in 2001 before the Angels opened post-season play against the Yanks.

This was after a young pup looking all of 18 showed up at Eckstein's locker with close cropped blonde/white hair. We asked: "Know where Esksten is?" The 165-pound, 26-year-old answered "I'm David Eckstein."

Now I know he has a crush on him. A "young pup" with blonde/white hair? In my imagination, Bob Elliott is like a large Texan oil man in a 10-gallon hat, staring at Eckstein and hallucinating a delicious pork chop.

Labels: bob elliott, david eckstein, pedophilia

KT here. Back from the hospital after the successful and unironically life-changing birth of my first child, McCarver FRAA Tremendous. (We call him "Woody," for short.) Here's a picture of me with him in the hospital:

Cute, right?

After five days, I would like to say that this parenting thing is an absolute breeze, and that I don't understand why anyone would complain. Mrs. Tremendous and I are fresh as daisies and have tons of free time. Tonight we're going to catch a show, and maybe take off for the weekend. We're thinking of going to Coachella this year, too. Could be good.

Thank you to those who have emailed various kinds of congratulations. Those of you who find articles you want us to read might want to send those dak's or Junior's way, because -- again, though I have tons of free time right now -- holding a baby with one arm while fisking sports journalism with the other is a lot for one mom's-basement-confined Kansan nerd to handle, and I am currently 400+ emails in the hole.

But you guys didn't come here to read meae culpae regarding lack of blogging time. You came here to read about how David Eckstein is small and scrappy, right? Great! Someone has finally written that article. Prepare yourselves to learn something.

The Blue Jays family tree of shortstops begins with Hector Torres in 1977.

The next branch is Luis Gomez, followed by Alfredo Griffin, co-American League rookie of the year in 1979.

...

Sorry. I just fell asleep. I'm kind of worn out. Give me a second. Okay. Here we go. What about Blue Jays' SS again?

Had it not been for Griffin's persistence and insistence, the Jays might have had to look elsewhere for their shortstop for this their 32nd season.

Mmmmrph.

...

Ah! God. You scared me. I'm up. I'm up. Okay. Awesome. I am totally concentrating.

The Anaheim Angels were scuffling through the opening month of 2001 with a losing record. Benji Gil and Jose Nieves were splitting time at short, while a white-haired, mighty-mite, 26-year-old named David Eckstein was replacing injured Adam Kennedy at second.

A white-haired mighty-mite. I know it's like his whole deal, and it's what made him famous and rich, but would you like to be called a "white-haired mighty-mite" if you were 26 and a pro athlete?

With Kennedy due to be activated and a roster move coming, Griffin, the Angels' first base coach, headed into manager Mike Scioscia's office.

"Alfredo went to Mike, said they should keep me and play me at short," Eckstein said at the Bobby Mattick complex yesterday. "He'd never seen me play short. I heard later Alfredo told Mike 'Keep him, I'll teach him how to play.' "

Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, I have obtained the transcript of that conversation.

Mike Scioscia: Come in. (beat) Hey 'Fredo.

Alfredo Griffin: Hey Coach. Got a sec?

Scioscia: Sure. What's on your mind?

Griffin: Well, Kennedy's coming back, which means we have to make a roster move. I'm thinking we start Eckstein at short.

Scioscia: ...

Griffin: You know. See if he can handle it.

Scioscia: Eckstein?

Griffin: Yeah.

Scioscia: David Eckstein?

Griffin: Yeah.

Scioscia: ...

Griffin: What do you think?

Scioscia: (punches Griffin in the face)

Griffin: Hey!

Scioscia: Are you fucking serious?

Griffin: Yeah! I think he can do it.

Scioscia: Fredo, my kid's little league coach came by yesterday and asked Eck if he wanted to try out for the team.

Griffin: Let me just make my case. I know he's small -- barely 5'7", maybe 165 pounds -- but he's scrappy. He's also gritty, gutsy, and he hustles. He's an albino, which is kind of cool, in like a human-interest, fan-outreach kind of way. He has a lot of grit and hustle. He can't throw very well, which is a bonus, and he doesn't hit much, which is good, because we want our baseball team to be bad. He always runs to first base when he hits the ball -- most guys just jog down, or like kind of saunter. Eck runs. He's small, too, I don't know if I mentioned that. Now, granted, his lungs are too small to convert oxygen into carbon dioxide, and he has to play barefoot because no one makes cleats for dolls. But he's gritty, coach. And scrappy. And I think we should give him a shot --

Scioscia: Fredo. Stop.

Griffin: What, coach?

Scioscia: You had me at "doll cleats."

Griffin saw in Eckstein something all the king's men and all the king's horses with the Boston Red Sox did not.

Why the "all the king's horses..." trope? Odd choice. Also, the thing that Griffin saw was: a player who over his entire career has an 89 OPS+. That's right: Eagle-Eye Griffin had the præternatural 6th sense necessary to spot, from a great distance, a player who is 11% worse offensively than the average major league baseball player.

The 5-foot-61/2 Eckstein played second in the Boston organization from 1997 until he was released at triple-A Pawtucket in 2000 to make room for the redoutable Lou Merloni.

Framingham Lou, Career OPS+: 87. And please don't use the ironic "redoubtable" to draw a contrast between anyone and David Eckstein. And if you have to use "redoubtable," please spell it correctly.

Angels GM Bill Stoneman claimed Eckstein for $20,000 US, sending him to triple-A Edmonton for 15 games.

Stoneman had never seen the infielder play, but he knew Eckstein arrived at the University of Florida Gators as a walk-on without a scholarship in 1994 and left as an All-American.

But did he punt? I don't care about anyone's college sports career unless he was a punter.

Griffin, an 18-year major leaguer, has told us before he has to walk away from Eckstein to stop from hitting him ground balls.

Kiss-up.

Then Griffin would look up 10 minutes later to see Eckstein taking grounders from another coach.

Fine. Great. Admirable. But he's a kiss-up.

"They made me everyday shortstop after we lost two of three at SkyDome and I only started once -- as a DH," Eckstein said of the series against the Blue Jays.

This quote adds: nothing, to this story.

When the Angels returned to the West Coast, Eckstein was named the starting shortstop.

The boxscores from the games in Toronto show Gil had three clanks leading to an unearned run.

I don't understand this. Does that mean Gil had three hits? That he was 0-3? How did the unearned run factor in, from Gil's point of view? This is insanely confusing. My brain cannot process that sentence. I am going to stop, take a quick nap, and let my son take over for a few lines.

Despite his size, Eckstein is still a large enough target for pitchers.

grrph. ahm. sp.

He broke Frank Robinson's rookie record being hit by 21 pitches in 2001. He had 27 the next season and has been double figure in bruises each of his seven seasons.

fffff. bl.

Even his nickname with the Angels was short -- Eck -- as it rhymed with 5-foot-5 Freddie Patek, the shorty who played short for the Kansas City Royals in the 1970s.

Hey -- I have a headline for a potential article written about that fact: "Short Shortstop Has Short Nickname, Like Other Short Shortstop." That sounds interesting! Thank you for including that in your article. Fascinating stuff.

(That was McCarver. He's learning quickly. Let me just put him down for a nap and then I'll take over again.)

(Also, let me add something to what my son wrote earlier: the best you can do to prove that Eckstein is like good at baseball is to point out how often he is hit by pitches? That's weak, even by pro-Eckstein article standards.)

"He has been through it all before," manager John Gibbons said. "He won a World Series with the Angels and St. Louis. There is something to be said for winners.

Sometimes that thing is: "That guy was on a team that won something."

"He's small. He's a throwback player. He'll get on base for us and make all the routine plays."

Small? Check.

Throwback player? Well, he's white, so: Check.

"He'll get on base for us?" Check. 35.1% of the time he plays, which is not bad for SS. Of course, he has missed 84 games to injuries in the last two years, and he's no miniaturized spring chicken. He turns 33 next year, which is 57 in albino meerkat years, so expect his numbers to decline a little from their 11%-below-league-average status.

The routine plays ... ah yes. The Rogers Centre turf will be quicker than either Angels or Busch Stadium.

"If it's quicker, I'll play a little deeper, you never know until you get on the field itself," said Eckstein, who hasn't been in Toronto since 2005.

You, my friend, give electrifying interviews. Also, please don't play any deeper. It will be sad when you can't get the ball across the infield without doing one of those Eric Byrnes "run towards the target, release the ball, and Superman-it forward into the turf" things every time a 2-hopper comes your way.

Scouts don't expect Eckstein to have a problem getting on base -- he hit .309 with a .356 on-base percentage in 2007. They do wonder how he will handle the turf.

Of course, he only had 434 AB because he missed 45 games. So he only walked 24 times or something. Whatever. Eck can weasel his way on base okay for a SS, I'll give him that. The turf, however, is going to eat him alive. After which, the turf will be still be hungry.

(I just ran that joke by McCarver, and he said he thought it was 'kind of lame." I'll leave it in.)

Gibbons has said a couple of times this spring "Eckstein is our shortstop," and will not have John MacDonald as a defensive replacement/caddy when the Jays are up a run in the late innings. It is a situation worth watching.

...If you like watching incredibly boring things.

"The thing about Eckstein," Gibbons said the day the little big man showed, "is that he will never, ever look back and say 'I didn't give it my all.' "

You hate to give out year-end awards in February, but this is a frontrunner for Most Backhanded Compliment of the Year.

Signed as a free agent, Eckstein, who won every Most Underrated or Who Gets the Most of Their Ability poll we've seen, said he had other options.

He wins those stupid polls because you and your cloying, hacky brethren keep writing this same article over and over. I will also -- again -- point out that if a guy keeps winning awards for how Underrated he is, he is ipso facto no longer underrated. And as for Who Gets the Most of [sic] Their [sic] Ability, the answer is probably Alex Rodriguez. Or Pujols, maybe, or Miguel Cabrera, or maybe Jimmy Rollins, or something. They have more ability, and they get more out of it.

And by the way -- I know I keep interrupting it with dumb comments, but does this article have any cohesion or flow or point?

"This," he said, "seemed like a good opportunity. This is a team that wants to win, needs to win."

Meaningless.

I'll leave the final comment to my new son. What do you think of this article, McCarver?

McCarver: [spits up on me]

Labels: bob elliott, david eckstein, mccarver fraa tremendous, mother's basement

It's been several days since America's Favorite Little Scamp singlehandedly beat the Tigers for the World Series title, not only going 23-22 (he tripled twice in a single at-bat in Game Two) with sixteen doubles, but also throwing three consecutive no-hitters in Games 3-5, despite staying at the stadium late every night to help the concessions crew clean up the grandstands and tutoring his little brother in pre-calc.

In case any of you are wondering, we here at FJM do not hate David Eckstein. What we hate is bad sports journalism, and there has been a lot of it recently. Apparently, nothing brings out the cliche machines faster than a small man who plays sports.

David Eckstein started the World Series 0-11. Did anyone hear anything about how bad Eck was in the clutch? No. No one heard that. If Alex Rodriguez had an 0-11 slump in three playoff games, the hand-wringing and typewriter pounding would have been deafening. How do I know this? Because ARod did do that, and that did happen.

The point is, ARod is a large human, who makes a lot of money. Eck is a small human, who makes less money. Their career performances during the regular season and during the playoffs indicate beyond a shadow of a fraction of a smidgeon of a blorgtion of a flernson of a doubt that Alex Rodriguez is the better player by like eleven standard deviations. And yet: no one writes anything good about ARod these days, and everyone writes good things about Eckstein.

Does no one in the world remember the 2000 ALCS, when ARod was 9-22 with 2HR and put up this line: .409/.480/.773? Does anyone realize that in the last 2 series Eck played in before the NLCS he put up a scrappy little 6-35 with 6 singles? Does anyone care?

Well, we do. Because people love to attack big rich guys, and love to praise small little scrappy guys, no matter what the actual facts of their performances tell us. To wit, here's a quote from former Eckstein coach Joe Maddon, from yet another paean to a little man's big heart. Read the last sentence of the quote like seven times in a row, and try to figure out how this is possible.

"I've always said David was the smartest guy on the field every night, and that included both coaching staffs," Maddon said Friday. "And I've never seen the guy have a bad day. Even if he goes 0-for-4 and makes three errors, he helps you."

I don't trust that you all read that seven times in a row, so:

Even if he goes 0-for-4 and makes three errors, he helps you.
Even if he goes 0-for-4 and makes three errors, he helps you.
Even if he goes 0-for-4 and makes three errors, he helps you.
Even if he goes 0-for-4 and makes three errors, he helps you.
Even if he goes 0-for-4 and makes three errors, he helps you.
Even if he goes 0-for-4 and makes three errors, he helps you.
Even if he goes 0-for-4 and makes three errors, he helps you.

No. No he does not. He does not help you. He hurts you. Anyone who does this in a game hurts you, no matter whether he is 5'7" 165, or 6'4" 230.

I'm sure David Eckstein is an awesome dude. I actually do admire his ability to hang in a league where everyone is bigger than he is. I get the human interest angle. I get it. I really do. Nice work, Eck.

But David Eckstein is not great at baseball. He is almost like the definition of average at baseball. And people insist on saying otherwise, even when they admit that he is not that good at baseball.

The baseball season is over, now, and although we have a Hot Stove to look forward to, we here at FJM always lament the final days of October, because it's just not as much fun to post dumb things that Michael Irvin says about the Packers, or make jokes about Barry Melrose's mullet. So, we'll keep posting whenever we can, but as a final WS/Eckstein round-up, and to celebrate the end of a great year, here are my favorite responses to the Eckstein Height and Weight Contest. Thanks to all of you who wrote in -- more than 500 of you -- and thanks for being the snarkiest and most consistently amusing reader base a bunch of nerds could ever ask for.

Again, the questions:

1. How tall is David Eckstein?
2. How much does he weigh?

Joe:

1. How tall is David Eckstein?
Nelson De La Rosa plus two inches.

2. How much does he weigh?
Trick question, David Eckstein does not weight anything. He is composed completely of toughness and grittiness and those have zero weight.

Bob K:

All I *know* for sure is that he plays like he's 7'8" and 425 lbs.

Jeff:

170 cm, 75kg!
metric!
boo-yeah!
i have nothing better to do!

Alex:

Weight: As big as a 15 year old high school chess club president with the arm strength of the president's 9-year-old sister, but the minute you begin to doubt him, you're already out.

Height: Shorter than a pesky annoying toddler, but as soon as you look at Eckstein as an easy out he somehow makes contact with the ball and uses his peskiness to get the centerfielder to trip on wet grass, letting the ball land for a double.

Now, if you'll excuse me I need to get back to my math homework, whereby I calculate everything using only measurements of heart and soul combined with a little hustle. I have an F so far in the class, but that's because the teacher is a geek who thinks numbers are important.

Invisible200:

1. 5.515158362e-17 parsecs
2. 7.484274105e-8 teragrams

RocketRoss:

He was only 3'8'' and weighed 49 lbs when he was drafted by the Red Sox, but through grit, hustle, heart, scrappiness, and white-man blue-collar work ethic, he outhustled and outgrinded his genetic code and grew to the height of 5'7'' and the weight of 165 lbs. Sadly, no amount of grit and hustle could undo his terrible skin condition.

D K:

Height: Why the fuck does it matter? The bastard's got GRIT IN HIS FUCKING DNA.
Weight: Who fucking cares? He's the toughest player I've ever seen in uniform. THAT'S ALL THAT MATTERS.

Jeff:

1. How tall is David Eckstein?
Scraptastic!!!

2. How much does he weigh?
Translucent!

John:

1. 6'5"
2. 270

I may be confusing him with Frank Thomas. But how many World Series MVPs does the Big Hurt have? Exactly.

Anthony:

David Eckstein's height is: Clutch
His weight is: Hustle

Evan:

How tall is Eckstein? As tall as his heart is invaluable to the success of all teams everywhere.
How much does he weigh? He’s too feisty to get onto a scale.

Joe:

His hustle is 11 feet tall, and his heart weighs 2,461 lbs.

Also, this year his GORP (Grit over replacement player) was an astounding 193.8!

Avinash:

1. Doesn't matter
2. Doesn't matter

When you want to know the size of his heart, then we'll talk.

Labels: david eckstein

For those of you who are interested, there are several infielders available through free agency right now. Two of them are David Eckstein, an adorable 11 inch-tall translucent man who cannot play baseball very well, and Alex Rodriguez, who is better at hitting baseballs than every other person in the entire world.

Let's go to the journalistic/public opinion round-up. First, we have an ESPN.com poll, the final question of which is:

9. Which player would you rather have?

69.6% Alex Rodriguez
30.4% David Eckstein

Now, I suppose it is possible that some of the 150,000+ people who have voted in this poll were taking into consideration things like salary, or the current 3Bman on their favorite team, or something. But the question is, straight-up, who would you rather have?

And 30% say Eckstein. Thirty percent. Thir. Ty. Per. Ce. N. T.

That means that more than 45,000 people sat at their computers, and thought it over, and they said, you know, I don't want the guy who is 32 and had a .354 EqA+ last year with 54 HR. I want the 32 year-old who only played in 117 games last year (and 123 the year before) and hit 3 HR and had a .275 EqA+, and who needs a relay man to get the ball from short to first.

Who are you people? What is wrong with your brains?

Speaking of people whose brains are wrong, ESPN's Buster Olney has some things to say about Eckstein:

3. David Eckstein, SS

Injuries have limited the shortstop to 240 games over his last two seasons, and he doesn't have the body or playing style of someone who will last.

Sign him!

But nobody can argue this: When Eckstein plays, he produces.

I can argue that. I can easily argue that. You want me to argue that? I will argue that.

The man's career OPS+ is 89. That is below average for baseball players. His career high OPS+ is 101. That is one percent better than the average baseball player. He has never had more than 26 doubles in a season. He has never had a slugging percentage in the .400s. He is a terrible hitter.

His batting average in each of his last three seasons is .294, .292 and .309, and he made a couple of All-Star teams.

Oh my God. If Buster Olney were a GM, he would stock his teams with Ecksteins and Juan Pierres and Christian Guzmans and they would go 20-142.

He has been a shortstop and the Cardinals need a shortstop, and Eckstein may end up returning to St. Louis. But Eckstein could also be, for a big-market contending club, a very interesting buy as a super utility player, because he can play second base, and perhaps even third base, along with some shortstop.

David Eckstein playing third base would be amazing. I would love to see that. If Jacoby Ellsbury hit a ball down the line to David Eckstein and Eck had to backhand it and throw from foul territory, by the time the ball landed in the first baseman's glove Ellsbury would be sitting on the bench after his inside-the-park little-league HR and Kevin Youkilis would be at the plate with a count of 2-0.

You could move him around, give him days off when he had a nagging injury, and always inject energy into your team -- like a sixth man in basketball.

This is a reason to sign him?

GM: So, tell me why we should sign your client.

Eckstein's Agent: Tons of reasons. First of all, he's a winner. Second, he can inject energy into your team. Third, when we gets injured -- and he will definitely get injured -- you can give him days off!

GM: (has long since left room)

Pay him well on a two-year deal and promise him 400 plate appearances, and he could help you get to October.

Pay him well on a two-year deal, and he will certainly collect his paychecks while not helping your team at all. And if your team makes it to October despite his mediocre/bad play, he will totally help you win in October, with his career .278/.333/.335 line in the postseason.

Finally, here is the voice of reason, in the form of Keith Law:

Quite possibly the most overrated player in baseball because people say "gritty" and "scrappy" and "smart" when they really just mean "short." Eckstein has had a nice run in the National League as a slap-and-run guy who does all of the little things and not many of the big things: He's got a short swing and isn't strong, so he hits for very little power, and he's never drawn many walks or worked the count. He's still an above-average runner, but not a burner and not worth much on the base paths; the speed is most valuable in helping him bunt for hits or leg out some ground balls. He's a bad defensive shortstop, and given his age he's likely to get worse, so it makes much more sense for someone to sign him as a second baseman.

Ahhhhhh. Soothing. Although how he is at #15 I will never know.

Labels: alex rodriguez, buster olney, david eckstein, keith law, polls

Apparently he's an absolutely wonderful baseball player. He must be, because the goshdarn Newspaper of Record in the U. States of A. has written a fawning article about his bunting skills. It's called: The New York Times Sports Section Has Its Head Up Its Ass. Or something. I can't remember. But here are some gems:

Tony La Russa, the St. Louis manager, is a longtime advocate of the squeeze play. David Eckstein, the Cardinals’ leadoff hitter, is a master. Whenever La Russa is in the dugout and Eckstein is at bat with a runner on third base, watch for the squeeze.

Although St. Louis is still best known for Albert Pujols’s 450-foot home runs, Eckstein’s 10-foot bunts can be just as productive.

Well, um, er, ah, that is, gee...I...okay. Ahem. Here's the thing. A 450-foot HR produces one-to-four runs, at the cost of zero outs. A squeeze bunt, if executed well, can produce one run, usually at the cost of one out. There is no conceivable way a bunt can be as productive as a HR. If you squeeze with a man on third and do it so well you don't even get thrown out at first, well, it still is not as productive, because a HR in that situation would have been worth two runs. See how that works, Newspaper of Record in the U. States of A.?

His squeeze bunt Sunday night helped finish the San Diego Padres in their National League division series.

That is technically true. But at the time he did that, the Cards were up 5-2. And Chris Carpenter was pitching. The final score was 6-2.

Eckstein has pulled off 13 squeeze plays in his career, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, including one in each of the past two postseasons.

Albert Pujols hits like 50 450-foot HR a year, including many in the postseason.

He no longer benefits from the element of surprise, yet he continues to drive in runs with bunts.

Amazing. 13 RsBI, each of them probably at the cost of an out. What a valuable, valuable thing. Way way way way more valuable than a player who has knocked in 13 runs with ground balls to the right side. Or sac flies. Or -- here's an idea -- hits. Wouldn't that be something? If guys could drive in runs with hits? Wow. Imagine if that were possible, in baseball.

“I have been doing this my whole life,” Eckstein said. “Everyone is looking for it now, so we have to be really careful. The key is not giving it away too soon.”

This makes me sad. I can't explain why. Just the idea that this is all the guy has.

For any right-handed hitter, Eckstein included, a squeeze is a dangerous proposition. If the pitcher recognizes it, the batter can expect a fastball headed toward his face. And if the hitter fails to make contact, he will probably be plowed over by the runner charging home. At 5 feet 7 inches and 165 pounds, Eckstein does not win many collisions.

If he could hit better, he wouldn't be called on to squeeze so often.

But he has managed to keep his features intact, mainly because he is careful to disguise each bunt. Eckstein does not square around to bunt until after the ball has left the pitcher’s hand, and once he squares, he does not seem to miss.

“Tony does it every time he has an opportunity,” said Yadier Molina, the St. Louis catcher. “And David is the best guy you can do it with.”

"The reason we use 9 year-old children as chimney sweeps," said an old Cockney British guy in 19th century England, "is because they're small, so they're great at being crammed into chimneys."

So confident is La Russa in Eckstein’s bunting ability that he called for a squeeze in the sixth inning Sunday night, even though the situation was far from ideal.

The bases were loaded, giving the Padres a force at home plate. The runner at third was Scott Spiezio, no speed burner. The pitcher was Cla Meredith, a right-handed reliever with a sidearm motion, difficult for right-handed hitters to gauge.

And still, La Russa realized, the only way in hell Eckstein was bringing a run home was by bunting. Because he is bad at baseball.

An average bunt scores the run. Eckstein’s latest was right out of a manual. The ball rolled up the first-base line, away from the runner. The bunt was too hard for the pitcher to have a play at the plate, and too soft for the first baseman to have a chance.

The run scored. Excellent. The batter produced a perfect guaranteed out -- the opposite of what is a "good" outcome for a baseball player. So let's call it more good than bad. But let's also call a HR way way way way way better.

As the Cardinals celebrated their third straight trip to the National League Championship Series on Sunday night, Eckstein stood a few feet from George Will, the author and political pundit. Although Will might have seemed out of place in the clubhouse, it was important to remember the title of one of his books: “Bunts.”

Another good title for the book: "Outs."

Here's my favorite part:

If a manager is confident that a squeeze is coming, he will call for a pitchout. But if he does not, and the pitcher sees the squeeze developing at the last moment, he will throw directly at the hitter.

The Mets do not have a lot of experience in this area. They hit 62 batters this season — 18 fewer than the Cardinals — underscoring the possible need for target practice.

Mets fans, still delirious over events of the past week, would probably line up in the batter’s box to accept a bruise from Billy Wagner. At this point, better a bruise than a squeeze.

Does anyone understand this? Mets fans would line up in the batter's box to get hit by Mets' pitcher Billy Wagner...because they are afraid of the squeeze bunt...from the Cardinals? Am I just really tired?

The point is: David Eckstein is good at bunting.

Labels: david eckstein

That's my new horrible pun for articles written about MLB's Tinkerbell, David Eckstein. "Arteckle." Yeah. You're welcome.

You've read this article four hundred times before, when it was written by other people. Only this time it's from Canada!

Now, you pretty much know what we have to say about Eckstein. Or, more to the point, you pretty much know what we have to say about what other people say about Eckstein. So don't feel bad about skipping over this one. I mean, I don't know why you would ever feel bad about not reading one entry on a meaningless, hyper-niched baseball blog. What I'm trying to say is: this is going to be bad for everyone.

Underdog Champion
For Blue Jays shortstop David Eckstein, success forever will be measured in unexpected, hard-earned triumphs.

If it's possible to implicity dick-slap every other baseball player in the face, that's what's going on here. Are Matt Garza's triumphs easily earned? Did Yadier Molina expect to win the World Series more than Eckstein did, because he's a jerk or something? I say no. I'm calling dick-slap. (Implicitly...in the face.)

It is as it has been and likely shall forever be: David Eckstein has to prove himself all over again.

David Eckstein does not have to prove anything anymore. For the past seven years, he has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he is a not-that-great-but-fine-if-you-need-someone major league shortstop. In so doing he has been given every accolade known to man, including the Flomax "Look Again At This White Guy!" Award, and the coveted Purina Premium Pet Food Lowest Ratio Of Height To Hair Wispiness Order Of Merit ("The Wispy").

He is in his usual role -- unappreciated, undersized and under a mircoscope, just as he was as a small man on the University of Florida campus.

By the end of this sentence, I forgot whether author Bob Elliot had informed that Eckstein was undersized or oversized. Fortunately, he reminded me at the end of the sentence by pointing out that he was a small man back when he was in college. Speaking of -- why do they always mention that he went to the University of Florida? So did Brad Wilkerson. Who cares?

I mean, at least tell me the guy used to be a punter. Then maybe I'd get excited.

Eckstein has proved everyone wrong and now, at age 33 and standing at 5-foot-61/2, he will try to be Mr. Reliable at shortstop for the Blue Jays and an igniter out of the leadoff spot.

Note: (a) despite having proved everyone wrong, he still has to prove himself; and (b) third mention of his tininess in the span of like 30 words.

If this were Fark we would now be accepting entries in the "Photoshop David Eckstein as Mr. Reliable" contest. We are not Fark.

What's not to like about Eckstein?

Well, I wouldn't say that .356 OBP is terrible from the leadoff position, but it's not great. And certainly you'd hope for a little more --

Well, he committed 20 errors in 2007 with the St. Louis Cardinals.

Oh. Okay -- that was weird. I thought that was a rhetorical question, and I was trying to be snarky by answering it, but then you actually answered the question, sort of poorly I think, and now I'm kind of stuck here, and...fuck.

There's more, of course. It just doesn't seem worth it. I'm sure if Eck were writing this he would grind his way through the rest. Sorry kids. Maybe I'm just too tall.

Labels: arteckle, bob elliott, david eckstein

I'm kind of in the zone right now, posting-wise, so let's keep it going with a little thing we like to call:


Tim writes in and sez:

Just read your comments on Woody Paige's column about the Hall of Fame and had to point 1 thing out. The "Primarily a DH" comment concerning Jim Rice irks me. Paige is making a claim without bothering to look up anything to support it.

Jim Ed played 1543 games in the OF and 530 as a DH. In fact, he had only 3 seasons in which he played DH in more games than he played the OF. 1989 when he only played 55 games, all as the DH. 1988 when he was 35 years old and past his prime, and 1977 when the other OF options were Lynn, Evans, and Yaz. Between 1980 and 1987, Rice played an astounding 41 games as a DH.

This took me 2 seconds to look up, but I guess what Woody Paige recalls about the last 2 years of Rice's career is more important than what really happened.

I would have been ok if he had just said... he never lived up to his potential, or his career was over by the time he was 34, or even ... he was a poor defensive OFer, but he went with... he was primarily a DH.

To put Rice's designated hitting in perspective, Paul Molitor played 1174 out of 2683 career games as a DH... but his hands were just so damn quick.

We'll keep things going with Trey. This one is very important, so pay attention:

Just to add to the Eckstein discussion, I was the sports editor at the University of Florida when Eckstein played and I think you might reevaluate his scrappiness once you realize how many times he was hit by pitch in his collegiate career -- a school record 41 times! As I recall, he led the NCAA as a Senior and had a shot at the all-time Div. I record, but didn't quite make it.

I can't seem to verify any of this since this was just on the verge of the Internet being a useful historical tool and even now I can't really find NCAA records ... but I am certain we ran a particularly adorable cartoon with a caricature of cute lil' Eck taking a pitch in his tiny bird-sized chest and tumbling down with the caption Hitting the Deck(stein) or something like that. Even now, I can't decide the best way to punctuate that particular play on words. (Just found some UF stats -- Eck was HBP 25 times in 64 games in 1997.)

First off, I love this email very much. I love that people were ironically onto how "scrappy" Eckstein is, as far back as 1996. Second of all, I very much desire a copy of this cartoon. If anyone out there has a copy -- as unlikely as that may be -- I beg of you to scan it and email it to me forthwith. In return, you will receive a personal email from me, commending you for your duty and service in the name of American Freedom, as well as the knowledge that a crappy print-out of it will hang over my desk at Fremulon Insurance, Inc. as long as I am alive and working there.

But enough about Fremulon Insurance, Inc. Let's keep things moving with more of the


Stan asks:

Is that you in that Joe-Morgan-buying-a-beer-and-a-dog video? You're old.

No, it is not me. That is my son, Ken Jr. I am much older.

Justin chimes in on the Bob Elliott/NAMBLA David Eckstein Fluff(er) Piece:

I also especially like that when talking about how MLB needs to be cleaned up and have its image improved, Elliott then compares Eckstein to.... Pete Rose, one of the few men ever completely banned from baseball. Well-done, Bob.

Yey verily, love of Eckstein is a corruptive force. Besides melting men's hearts, L'il Eck will sometimes melt their minds, in a Death in Venice kind of way.

The Allan Ryan post, wherein he typed "David Eckstein scrappy" into Google and then wrote that fact into his article, let to a flurry of similar experiments. First, Andrew:

In light of your recent post, I typed in "Alex Rodriguez Scrappy" to google, and it gave me the following results:

Results 1 - 10 of about 59,000 for alex rodriguez scrappy (0.27 seconds)

That's more than 10 times as many results, and for whatever ridiculous reason, it's faster, too.

Labels: david eckstein, food metaphors, fremulon insurance, gallimaufry, woody paige

Me: the mild-mannered Pension Fund Monitor for Fremulon Insurance, based in Partridge, KS, who copies dumb articles about baseball and adds snarky comments.

You: the kind of article that was written a thousand times after David Eckstein won the World Series MVP Award, which contained lots of references to how scrappy and gritty he is, ignoring fully his not-very-good-at-baseball-ness.

Where have you been, baby? I've missed you. But all is forgiven, now that Eck is a free agent, and these articles are beginning to reëmerge. Come back to me. I promise, I'll be gentle. I'll only reprint the key words, just like I used to. What do you say?

Thinking -- and acting -- outside the box
provide some of the fire the team lacked last season
shortstop for two World Series champion teams in the last six seasons
Willie Randolph, an admirer of Eckstein's spunk,
MVP of the Cardinals' 2006 World Series champion team
overcome a modest arm to play regularly or almost regularly
Because of injuries
Despite the games missed
Eckstein is widely recognized as one of baseball's foremost gamers.
source of the grit and resolve their team lacked last season
Eckstein would provide some of the fire Paul Lo Duca provided in his two seasons
Eckstein is thought to be seeking a four-year contract worth $36 million
his defense deteriorated last season
Eckstein played fewer innings, 943 2/3, in 2007 than in any other season and committed a career-high 20 errors
a master of the contentious at-bat

For the record, in re: being a "master of the contentious at bat," Eckstein's 3.64 pitches per plate appearance would have ranked him #123 among MLB players in that category last year. I say "would have," because he was injured so much he didn't have enough AB to qualify. In 2006, his 3.75 was good for 95th.

Also, for the record, if I were Willie Randolph, I would not like to be referred to, in print, as an "admirer of Eckstein's spunk."

The article also has this:

Playing for an offensively-challenged team -- the Cardinals scored 725 runs, the sixth fewest in the National League -- Eckstein scored 51 runs and drove in 38.

Which is delightful, in that it does not allow for the fact that the Cards were offensively challenged in part because of Eckstein's presence.

Labels: david eckstein, fremulon insurance

I will quote this one in full.

TINY LITTLE ECKSTEIN ACTUALLY BIG AND GRITTY
Small Eck Comes Up Big Vs. Tigers
Diminutive Star Big at Heart

by Ken Tremendous

Picture it: Joel Zumaya, the Detroit Tigers’ flamethrowing righty, stands on the mound. He is capable of throwing a baseball 120 miles per hour with wicked movement.

Sixty feet away, gritty and determined David Eckstein, all 5-foot, 7-inches and 165 pounds of him, stands at the plate. Or, rather, he buzzes around the plate, like a gnat around a pitcher’s head.

“He’s the grittiest player I have ever seen,” says Everyone. “You think he’s too small, you think his arm is too weak, you think he is not that good at baseball, you think he is a small, small boy who is very small, you think he can’t hurt you. And you are right. But god damn, is that small boy gritty and determined.”

And gritty. In college – the same age at which Angels’ first baseman Darin Erstad was busy being a hard-nosed punter -- David Eckstein was told that he was just too small. So instead of riding the roller coaster at the amusement park where someone told him that, he tried out for the baseball team. The 5-foot 5-inch 128 pound Eckstein quickly demonstrated that he belonged.

Also, he is tough. The 5-foot 1-inch, 102 pound Eckstein – this year alone – has broken three fingers, shattered an elbow, slammed his other fingers in a door, dislocated his shoulder, had his eyes gouged when one of the older boys took his lunchbox, stuck a knife into his side on a dare, broke his own neck intentionally, ate his own ankle, and allowed teammate Jeff Suppan to open the top of his head with a corkscrew. That’s a lot of abuse for one 4-foot 2-inch frame to take.

But did he miss even one game in 2006? Yes. He missed 39, actually. But holy fuck, is he tough.

And did these injuries affect his performance? I don’t think so, friend.

He hit like .350 and always came up clutch every single time and tore it up all through the playoffs and basically out-hustled everyone to the tune of 50 doubles and like a thousand runs. I haven’t checked to make sure that stuff is true, but I don’t need to. Because even if Eck didn’t do any of that, he at least was always gritty, which is what counts more than anything in baseball. Also there are home runs.

“The thing that makes David Eckstein so great,” says a person with a computer, “is nothing. His offense is worth 9 more runs over the course of the entire season than the average AAA call-up. So. That’s…something, I guess.”

Something indeed. Something gritty, determined, and detertty – a word I just made up that means determined/gritty.

So when David Eckstein -- 2-foot-1 in bare feet, topping the scales at barely 40 pounds soaking wet, and appearing in the game only thanks to an MLB Outreach Program to give malnourished young mole people a chance to fulfill a dream of playing in the big leagues – stands in against 8-foot-11 Joel Zumaya, who can throw a weighted leather exercise ball 200 MPH with his penis, you might think Zumaya has the advantage.

But he didn’t count on the heart, or the determinittyness, or the sheer heartitude, or the gnatosity, or the dirtheart, or the toughgrit, or the dirtdirtdirt, of an 11-inch tall, 2-pound foetus named Dirtid Gritstein.

Eckstein hit a soft liner to left that Craig Monroe kind of misplayed on a wet track, and it fell in for a double.

So, yeah, he’s kind of the best ever.

Ken Tremendous is about six feet tall, relatively big at heart, and mildly gritty.

Labels: david eckstein

Reggie Willits is having an excellent year. He's absolutely slaughtering his 90th percentile PECOTA projections at the rookie age of 26. It is largely fair to say that his .439 OBP, and not Chone Figgins's .356, is what's making the Angels tick lately.

He is also under six feet tall and white. And he plays for the Angels.

Uh oh.

Reggie Willits is flattered by the many and obvious comparisons to David Eckstein, another leadoff hitter whose hustle and heart outweigh his small stature.

Allow me to blanket this entire post -- as well as Helene Elliott's excerpted article, just because I'm generous -- with a Small Sample Size alert. Reggie Willits has had 243 ML at-bats in 91 games. All of his stats are suspect in terms of their predictive powers...especially considering how much better he is doing than those pesky PECOTA computers predicted. However.

I am going to be as nice as I can to David Eckstein by cherry-picking his season high totals in a number of different categories.

BA: .294 (2005)
OBP: .363 (twice)
SLG: .388 (2002)
BB: 58 (2005)
2B: 26 (twice)
HR: 8 (twice)

In his career he is 102-41 SB/CS. That's 71.3%.

Again, small sample blah blah blah, and also he's never played a full season so we have to extend outwards which is always risky, but here are Willits's seasonal averages, with his career numbers stretched out over 162 games. This includes the like 45 AB he has last year over 28 random games, which drag down his overall numbers:

BA: .329
OBP: .434
SLG: .387
BB: 84
2B: 21
HR: 0

Willits is on pace to be far better than that in several categories this year, including 2B and BB. And thus, SLG. To put it another way, Eck's career EqA is .262, or ever-so-slightly above league average. Willits's this year is .326. Willits is on pace for a 7.4 WARP3. Eck's career high was 7.1 -- and Eck was a SS! (Willits plays mostly LF and CF.)

Oh -- and Willits is 18-2 in SB/CS this year.

It's early, but at this moment, it is insulting to compare Willits to Eckstein. (Insulting to Willits, I mean.)

"That's a pretty big compliment. I definitely don't think I am where he's at yet," Willits said of Eckstein, a catalyst in the Angels' 2002 World Series championship and the most valuable player in the St. Louis Cardinals' title run last season.

"He's proven it over several years, and he's done a great job."

He has done a league-average job.

Willits is aggressive on the basepaths, where he has 18 steals and has been caught twice. There are no statistics to measure how often he has pressured an outfielder into making a throwing error or how often he has prolonged an offensive flurry with patience at the plate and sheer grit.

All right! Now we're getting Ecksteiny. "No statistics..." "patience..." "sheer grit...". Makes my heart sing.

I must ask again: why are no minority players ever called "throwbacks" or praised for their "grit" and "hustle" and "old-school"-ness? It is one of the oddest things. No Dominican players, no Afro-Am players, not even the odd Curacaoian. The closest you ever get is Chone Figgins, but I think that's just SoCal reporters missing Eckstein so much they have to lob their "hustle" grenades somewhere, and Figgins isn't that tall, and he's fast...

"Fans are certainly drawn to players for different reasons, and I think it's obvious why they're drawn to Reggie Willits, as they're drawn to David Eckstein or Adam Kennedy," Scioscia said. "I think there's a blue-collar element. He's very well perceived….

Weird ellipsis belongs to Elliott, BTW. Incorrect word choice belongs to Scioscia.

Also: Willits. Eckstein. Kennedy. What do these three have in common? I'm surprised he didn't throw Gary DiSarcina in there for the hell of it.

The Angels just might keep him, even though he's not a second helping of David Eckstein and not the power hitter the other Reggie was. He's Reggie Willits, and that has been more than enough to excite everyone who sees him.

They should be thrilled he's not a second helping of Eckstein. That means he might become a better-than-average baseball player.

Labels: david eckstein, helene elliott, reggie willits

Allan Ryan of the Toronto Star boldly goes where every single other reporter in history has gone before:

Partner new Blue Jay shortstop David Eckstein and the word "scrappy" and a Google search will advise you of some 5,300 possibilities. In just 0.38 seconds, too.

1. I get 5940.

2. The tenth one down is a link to a post on this site, deriding reporters for using the word "scrappy" in articles about David Eckstein.

3. I love -- love -- that you cite the short time it took for Google to do the search. As if that is in some way indicative of just how fucking scrappy this guy is. "If you search for 'Carlos Guillen scrappy,' it takes Google .41 seconds to show results. 'Bill Doran scrappy?' .40 seconds. But type in 'David Eckstein scrappy' and you will have your results in .38 seconds. Even Google knows just how scrappy this guy is."

Then again, when you've hauled off a .289 average and .351 on-base percentage over seven major-league seasons that include a pair of World Series rings and a Series MVP award ... well, "scrappy" will turn up a bit.

Why? Why will it show up? Manny Ramirez has "hauled off" (and why that verb?) far far better numbers in the last seven years. He also won a WS MVP. No one calls him scrappy. Here. Let me rewrite your last sentence for you.

Then again, when you're small and you play baseball and are just kind of mediocre and lazy sportswriters don't want to bother coming up with anything new to say about you so they literally google your name and the word "scrappy" and then actually flaunt how lazy they are by writing into the article that the way they decided to write this article was to fucking google your name and the word "scrappy," in a move reminiscent of how we all used to begin Social Studies papers in junior high by writing like "Webster's Dictionary defines 'democracy' as..." or whatever... well, "scrappy" will turn up a bit.

There. I think that's clearer.

It's just in the mindset, Eckstein explained yesterday during a conference call from the Tampa airport. He'd just cleared his medical and was officially aboard for the 2008 season at $4.5 million (all figures U.S.).

After the doctors give Eckstein a medical examination, do they sometimes get confused and give him a lollypop? (I'm not sure that's a good joke, and I was just about to cut it, but now the image of Eckstein in like 1950's clothes licking an oversized swirly-colored lollypop is in my head and it makes me laugh. So: it stays in.)

"It's more an attitude of showing up every day, ready to give you 100 per cent," Eckstein said. "You'll never see me a take a pitch off, a day off ... that's what I bring. I think it's my best quality.

It certainly isn't "good hitter."

"It may be the reality – that when you're a smaller guy, you have to play better than the other guys – but I'm a little stubborn. When you're small, you don't think you're small."

Do you think you're "scrappy?" Because everyone else does.

If Allan Ryan is a high school student from a nearby school who has gotten an internship at the Star and this is his first published article: congratulations! I wish you the best in your career as a journalist. If this is any other situation: yikes.

Labels: allan ryan, david eckstein

When I tell you people that the reason we haven't posted more is because we haven't found that many good articles, I'm not kidding. We thank you for the links you send in, but more often than not they are little snippets instead of whole chunks of good ol' fashioned goofballness. We prefer the latter. However, in the spirit of...something...here's this weekend's Trite Snippet of Bonedumbiness:

Fox Saturday Blechball (that's the Mad Magazine parody of "baseball"). DBacks/Dodgers. Your announcers are Mark Grace and Josh Lewin. Your hitter is David Eckstein. Commence blechitude:

Lewin: David Eckstein jumps away from [an inside pitch]. He's been kind of a World Series Good Luck Charm himself. He's been there and made a difference with teams with red in their color scheme before, with the Angels and the Cardinals.

Grace: It's hard to win multiple rings, but Eckstein has done that.

All by himself, is the insinuation.

He's just a...he's a guy that just...everything he does just helps you win baseball games.

Except for hitting and fielding.

He's not flashy. Just a tough, scrappy out.

Lewin: A couple years ago, Sports Illustrated polled major leaguers, they asked, "Who gets the most out of the least?" And the runaway winner of that question -- 62% of the players -- said it's this guy, David Eckstein.

Grace: He just finds a way. He's smart. And you don't say that about too many ballplayers. [brief interlude, joking about how Mark Grace is a "genius."] But this is a smart ballplayer, he knows, he studies -- he knows his opponent. Great work ethic.

[wild pitch sends the runner to third with 2 down]

Lewin: We talked about Eckstein, who is listed as being 5'8".

Whoa whoa whoa whoa. It's my understanding that he is 5'7", 165. This I know to be true in the same way that I know the sun rises in the East. Now you're telling me that he's 5'8"??????

He cops to being 5'6".

[KT's brain melts]

And Mike Scoscia has said "5'3" of that is probably heart."

If this is true, it's a serious medical condition, and he should not be exerting himself.

Grace: And guts.

Makes less sense than saying that it's "heart."

[Eckstein strikes out swinging.]

Fin.

Labels: david eckstein, guts, heart, josh lewin, mark grace, scrappy

...and somebody did.

Thanks to reader Jeff E. for sending us this gem. So, Dan Connolly, whatcha got for us?

"The inaugural World Baseball Classic is over, and one can presume that the flag-waving, sign-holding Japanese fan base has finally strolled giddily away from San Diego's Petco Park wearing smiles and plenty of official Classic merchandise."

I guess one can presume that. I don't know that the Japanese fans bought any more merch than the other countries' fans. But, sure, okay, I'm with you. Three short paragraphs later:

"Meanwhile, the Japanese fans at the semifinals and final in San Diego couldn't have had more fun soaking up the experience and the souvenirs."

A good point. Even if the Japanese didn't buy more than others, they certainly did soak up more. (The hell?) But on to the good stuff:

"The most important lesson learned, though, came from the field. The disciplined teams without much MLB influence schooled the star-laden countries - and not because they had more talent or because the timing hampered MLB-heavy squads."

How this guy can conclusively disprove that the timing of the event didn't hurt teams like the USA, I have no idea. It seems to me that there's at least a good chance that teams like Cuba benefitted from being well in the swing of their baseball schedules.

"Simply put, Japan and Cuba didn't play ego ball. They didn't throw 100 mph or crush countless homers. They won by advancing runners and turning double plays. They scored with hard sprints and sweeping hand tags across the plate. They won by playing anti-modern-American, anti-MLB baseball."

Yay!

Okay. Now, Dan Connolly, honestly: would you really prefer that your favorite team not hit countless homers? Let's put it this way: you're a fan of team USA. A-Rod's at the plate. Would you rather he advance the runner or hit one of his team's limitless taters?

And!
Fact: No team hit more home runs than the representatives from that most famous of souvenir-buying nations, Japan.
Fact: Cuban pitchers were, as a generalization, some of the hardest throwers in the tournament. One Cuban pitcher was clocked at 97 mph while striking out Carlos Guillen.
Bonus Fact! As for fundamental defense, Cuba committed three more errors than any other team.

"It's just that our pro athletes are rarely asked to play as a team. They don't have to. It's not what they get paid to do and not what our fans want."

I'm sorry. The teams that these guys are normally paid to play for are somehow fundamentally different than the team they were asked to play for in the WBC? Aren't they paid to play as a team 162 times a year? If 24 of the Oakland A's decide to take the field against the Tigers at 4:00 pm, and then Mark Kotsay decides to take the field all by himself 4 hours later, does he get paid?

"A baseball purist can talk about fundamentals until he is Dodger Blue in the face, but ultimately, who would Joe Baseball Fan rather see with a bat in his hands, David Ortiz or Willy Tavares? Albert Pujols or David Eckstein?"

Is this a trick question? Is this a fake trick question? Please, please Dan Connolly. Tell me you're not suggesting that David Eckstein is a better player -- or even a better team player -- than Albert Pujols. Please tell me you don't think David Eckstein belonged on the WBC roster.

"Leaving the perpetually hustling, unselfish Eckstein off the U.S. roster wasn't a critical mistake, as some have suggested."

Whew. Thank God. Dan Connolly, I can certify you a sentient human being. Okay, now that --

"The Americans didn't need one Eckstein."

No, Dan! DAN! I'm trying to --

"They needed a roster full of them, or at least a roster full of guys who would morph into Eckstein when the situation arose."

Oh, Danny. Danny boy.

is almost as vexing to me as the cult of Joe Morgan. Here's Mark Kreidler's take:

Tony La Russa, a man with the gravitas to actually make the comparison, said this about Albert Pujols' home run: "It would be tied for first with the most dramatic home runs that have ever been hit."

Obviously unquantifiable, but...really? It was incredibly dramatic, but it won Game Five of an NLCS. Kirk Gibson? Bobby Thompson? Maz in the 1960 WS? Joe Carter? How about Hendu in 1986 -- that was a Game 5. Carlton Fisk? Jesus -- Bucky Dent?

Kreidler goes on to praise LaRussa for being stoic. Then he says this:

But in a roundabout way, maybe Pujols hits that home run because La Russa is who he is as a manager. Maybe the Cards don't panic, down 4-2 with two out in the ninth inning on the road against arguably the best closer in the game, precisely because Tony La Russa's emotional range as manager doesn't allow for free-form nervous expression.

I'm going to go ahead and say that in no way, shape, or form, does Tony La Russa's demeanor have anything to do with Pujols's HR. I think Pujols's HR is due to Pujols being the best hitter in baseball, and also due to Brad Lidge hanging a slider right over the middle of the plate.

If you want to see something almost as impressive as Pujols' home run, go back to the video and observe Pujols' expression during that at-bat. He stands in against Brad Lidge, and Pujols is just the embodiment of professional calm and concentration. His body barely moves at all. The swing on the home run is pure, of course, but it is also almost routine in its execution. Maybe Albert Pujols, as great as he is, also has a little La Russa in him. David Eckstein, too, for that matter.

There is no Tony La Russa in Albert Pujols. And to say that there is any "David Eckstein" in Albert Pujols (can we get through one article about the Cardinals without mentioning David Eckstein?), is to ignore the fact that Albert Pujols himself embodies all of the things that people praise David Eckstein for: hustle, determination, smarts, etc. Why does that mean there is "David Eckstein" in Albert Pujols? Did David Eckstein invent these things?

Plus, he fanatically studies video, researches the pitchers he is facing, and prepares for games better than anyone in the league. Which is why he hit that home run.

Also, Tony La Russa was being stoic, which totally helped him, I guess.

Labels: david eckstein, mark kreidler, tony la russa

It sneaks up on you sometimes. One day you're the heart and soul of a team. People can't praise your intangibles enough. Your grit. Your heart. Your leadership. You're white, you sort of suck at getting on base, you make a lot of serious faces on the field. All the ingredients are there.

Then one day you wake up and you're no longer a grinder -- and Joel Sherman is writing articles about your team with headlines like this:

SHAKE IT UP
METS WOULD GET MUCH-NEEDED JOLT FROM ROWAND AND ECKSTEIN

Hey, Paul Lo Duca just walked in. I'm going to let him type a little bit. Hold on --

Rowand? Eckstein? What about me, Paulie Bignuts?! I'm the Jolt cola on this team! I'm the hard-working stubbly lunch pailer! What happened to all those articles about how when Glassesface DePodesta traded me away the Dodgers lost their soul? I AM TEAM CHEMISTRY.

I am a pending free agent -- why isn't this article all about resigning me?

Randolph is now enlisted for next year and the Mets should work to build a team that works for him. Here's what Hardball would strongly consider:

1. MORE PASSION

Fuck me! (It's still Paulie here.) I just hit Open Apple-F in Firefox and searched for "Lo Duca." I'm not even mentioned in the article! Va fangoule, Joel Sherman! That's-a spicy-a meatball-a!

In general, I dismiss the emotional/chemistry stuff. Usually onlookers see what they want based on results (David Wells is a real-guy gamer when he succeeds and an out-of-shape dirtbag when he loses). But by the end of the disappointing season, Randolph and many of his key veterans were acknowledging a core that lacked urgency and ardor. There was too much privilege among this group, as if it were Duke waiting for its NCAA tourney invite rather than earning its way in.

Okay, Junior here. I've wrested the keyboard away from Lo Dukes. It's covered in marinara sauce. Sherman, seriously, it's hard to have it both ways here. How can you say "I dismiss the emotional/chemistry stuff" and then advocate signing a no-hit, no-field, aging Eckstein with your next breath?

Now the Mets lost because they had no "ardor"? Jesus Christ, man. What do you think ardor legitimately cost them? Two games? Three?

Lo Duca wants me to type that he's still extremely ardorous. Okay. Okay. I did it. Stop hitting me with your chicken parm sub.

There is a term in baseball, grinder, to describe those who bring it every day and treat each at-bat like a mini holy war.

What the Mets need is an Osama bin Laden-type in the two-hole. You know who was a phenomenal grinder? Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Too bad he was killed by a a laser-guided GBU-12 and GPS-guided GBU-38. Thanks a lot, troops!

The Mets need a whole lot fewer whiners and lawyers who sap the energy/togetherness in their clubhouse, and more grinders, especially because Randolph is so non-confrontational even with his worst offenders.

Tell me, please, which of these Metropolitans qualify as whiner-lawyers:

David Wright
Jose Reyes
Luis Castillo
Carlos Delgado
Moises Alou
Carlos Beltran
Shawn Green
Paul Lo Duca
Tom Glavine
Pedro Martinez
John Maine
Orlando Hernandez
Billy Wagner

You get the point. Actually, no. Let me spell it out for you. If the Mets win two more games, this is the exact same group of guys we're saying has incredible chemistry, whose unbreakable camaraderie bonded them together as the Phillies made their run, whose kinship and brotherhood and passion for the game carried them through tough times and led them to the playoffs. Am I wrong?

Look, the Diamondbacks are a club that believes in statistical analysis, yet recently gave Eric Byrnes a three-year, $30 million extension in recognition of what his daily zeal does for the group.

I'm really unclear on how much of that 30 million Josh Byrnes earmarked for daily zeal. Was it a 5 million zeal bonus? I think it was 2.5 million for the hair, 3.5 for falling down every time you throw the ball.

So the Mets should look seriously at free agents Aaron Rowand to play center field and David Eckstein to play second base, and/or see if they could pry someone such as the Angels' jack-in-the-box Chone Figgins to be their jack-of-all-trades.

Okay, Aaron Rowand had a great year last year. Career year. WARP3 of 9.6. Here are his WARP3s from the last three years: 3.3 (missed some games), 6.0, 6.8. If you're the Mets, don't you already have a guy playing center field? A Carlos somebody? Who had a mild down year to the tune of 9.5 WARP? Who has posted WARP3s of 11.9, 5.6, and 9.9 recently?

By signing Rowand, the Mets would rob the NL East champ Phillies of a big piece. Putting Carlos Beltran in right field might diminish his leg injuries.

Maybe Sherman knows more about Beltran's injuries than I do, but it seems like a pretty big waste to play a good defensive center fielder in right in order to sign an inferior center fielder.

With Eckstein, you must believe he could play second, that his body is not deteriorating fast at 32, and that he would accept a one- or two-year deal. If you buy all of that, Eckstein's peskiness and seriousness about winning would enliven the Mets.

Exactly like, say, Luis Castillo, a guy who was supposed to be pesky and winning-y and grinderish and who was already on the Mets this year? Castillo has 17 points of career OBP on Eck and he's faster, too. And he already plays second base.

Joel Sherman says the Mets need passion. Let's go through some of those 2007 Mets again.

David Wright
Great character guy. MVP-type. Leader. Incredibly mature for his age. Works hard, plays hard. Passionate. Smiles.

Jose Reyes
Fiery. Sparkplug. Catalyst. MVP-type talent. The future. Puts pressure on pitchers. Passionate.

Luis Castillo
Veteran. Pesky. Bat control guy. Comes from Twins' winning system. Passionate. Smallballer.

Carlos Delgado
Veteran. Knows how to win. Former MVP-type. Subject of innumerable Gammo articles praising his leadership and the way he mentors Beltran. Passionate.

Moises Alou
Veteran. Pisses on hands.

Carlos Beltran
Veteran. Uber-talent. Solid clubhouse presence.

Shawn Green
Jew.

Paul Lo Duca
Veteran. Heart, soul, heartsoul, leader, heartleader, guides pitching staff. Passionate. Hates to lose. Co-wrote this post. White.

Pedro Martinez
Once threatened to drill Babe Ruth, a dead man, in the ass. Passionate.

Really, you see a bad, passionless apple in this suitcase full of apples?

Ah, fuck it. Just sign Eckstein and win the World Series. Do it.

Labels: aaron rowand, david eckstein, grinders, mets, paul lo duca

Hey, everyone. I have a question. Whom do you think should have been elected to the Baseballings Halls of Famous?

Well, before the vote yesterday, Jayson Stark had some thoughts.

Tony Gwynn
Anybody who votes against this man should be embarrassed. If Tony Gwynn isn't a Hall of Famer, why do we even have a Hall of Fame?

ITA, my friend. I. T. A.

Gwynn's career batting average (.338) is better than any player's since Ted Williams (.344). Among men whose careers began in the expansion era (1961-present), Gwynn is out there at least 20 points ahead of everybody -- except two Hall of Famers (Wade Boggs and Rod Carew).

Yes, he was a very good hitter. BA is like the eleventeenth-best stat to use to prove his worthiness, but I still TA that he should be in.

Tony Gwynn hit .350 or better five years in a row -- a streak unmatched by any hitter since Rogers Hornsby. This guy won eight batting titles (tied with Honus Wagner for the most in National League history). He finished in the top 10 in the batting race in every full season of his career -- and finished in the top five in all but two.

Dude. Stop talking about Batting Average. Seriously. .306 career EqA. Career 132 OPS+, including 169 in 1994. Toss something fun in, like his four years of 10+ WARP3.

He was a 15-time All-Star.

All-Star appearances are exactly as good an indication of a player's abilities as are the number of pets he has, or the number of floppy hats his wife owns, or the fucking number of times he ate fucking skinless chicken breast in ninth grade. Do you people hear me? It's a goddamn popularity contest voted on by drunk idiots and 9 year-olds at Reds-Giants games in early May. Stop using it as a barometer of anything.

He won five Gold Gloves.

Gold Gloves are worth less than All-Star appearances. Derek Jeter has won 3 straight GG at SS, despite being -5 FRAA in 2004. His fielding cost his team a half win, and they gave him a GG. Raffy Palmeiro won a Gold Glove at 1B in a season in which he played like 7 innings there all year. Gold Gloves are often the baseball equivalent of Grammies -- they are given to veterans with famous names whose best days are far behind them.

He batted .500 (8-for-16) in the '98 World Series.

This guy went 12-27 in the 1996 NLCS. .444/.516/.630. Vote him in!

He was a total class act.

Marginally relevant.

...if Tony Gwynn isn't unanimous, I can't wait to hear the rationale of the folks who voted against him. They obviously weren't watching the same player I was watching.

Despite the fact that you did not mention any of the top like 6 reasons he belongs in the Hall...I continue to TA.

Cal Ripken Jr.
It's sure tough to think of any other negatives on this guy's report card. I've heard people say the streak was overrated. And in a vacuum, most iron-man streaks really are. But when you consider what this streak meant to the sport, what the night of 2,131 meant to the sport, how could we ever claim this particular streak was overrated?

The fact is, though, that Cal Ripken would be a Hall of Famer whether he'd played in two games in a row or 2,000 in a row. That streak made him an icon, but he was already a Hall of Famer. The streak was just a frame around a great career.

You're right on here, man. I mean, the guy put up some truly insane numbers for SS. He had a 17.0 WARP3 in 1991. Do you realize that is higher than any one of Barry Bonds's years? Even 2001? That's crazy. Think about that. Cal Ripken was worth more wins to the 1991 Orioles than Barry Bonds was to the Giants the year he hit 73 HR and walked a million times.

Ripken had six years of 10+ WARP3 and two more above 9.0. He had a .339 EqA in '91 and a .284 overall, for a guy who played 2600 straight games at physically demanding positions. BP has him at 130 FRAA career, which is pretty damned good. And many of his negative years came after he had switched to 3B. The guy redefined a position. He is the greatest power-hitting SS ever, considering ARod's ill-conceived switch to 3B. There is no legitimate argument to keep him out and a million reasons to vote him in. What do you choose, Starky m'boy?

Did you know that no player was elected to start the All-Star Game more times than Ripken (17 times in 18 years)?

I want to slap you.

(To be fair, he then goes on to talk about some legitimate stuff. But that is the first thing he cited.)

Mark McGwire

It's going to require quoting a lot of this section in order to get to the part where I get angry. Hang in there.

There are a million reasons not to vote for McGwire. But of all the reasons people have dredged up lately, the one I find most amazing is the revisionist history that he wasn't that good -- except for those four years (1996-99) when he morphed into Babe Ruth.

Well, hold on. Ask any scout who saw him at USC, and they'll all tell you the same thing: This guy was a big-time masher from the day he was drafted until the day he quit.

I'm not sure, but I don't think college scouts' thoughts on "mashing" count towards Hall of Fame candidacy. Can we get someone to check on that? Julie? (Julie is my Exec. Asst. here at Fremulon Insurance, Inc.) Julie? Can you real quick just stop filing those claims adjustments and figure out if college scouts' thoughts on "mashing" count towards HOF inclusion? No? They don't? And it's a stupid question? Thanks, Jules. Take the rest of the day off.

If it took Jose Canseco's magic potion to make him any good, how come he had a .618 slugging percentage in his rookie season? Andruw Jones, Adam Dunn and Jeff Kent have never slugged .618 in any season, if that tells you anything.

A fine point.

And if McGwire wasn't any good until 1996, how did he manage to put up six seasons with at least 32 homers and 90 RBI in his seven healthy seasons before that? That's as many seasons of 32-90 as Chipper Jones and Moises Alou have, combined.

You're kind of cherry-picking stats here, with the 32-90 thing, which is weird, but still, it's a good point, kind of. I hate using RBI for anything, but whatever, the point is: he was good.

If he wasn't any good, how did this man make 12 All-Star teams -- as many as Mike Schmidt?

No. No no no no no. No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no.

Everyone? Say it with me:

All-Star Game Appearances are Meaningless.

Do I need to keep saying this?

This guy was an All-Star twice. This guy was an All-Star. This guy had an ERA+ of 85 the year he was an All-Star. This guy is one of the worst hitters in baseball, and he was an All-Star.

And before you write me e-mails and tell me that it's the number of times that counts, that that is in some way a good representation of a player's value, Fred Lynn was an All-Star 9 times. Darryl Strawberry was an All-Star 8 times. Neither of them will ever sniff the Hall of Fame.

Stop using All-Star Game Appearances as a stat when you talk about a player's career value. It is dumb to the power of retarded.

The other shaky argument here is that McGwire just had one song on his jukebox, that all he could do was hit home runs, kind of like Dave Kingman. But if he was so one-dimensional, how did he win a Gold Glove? How did he compile that .394 career on-base percentage? And even if he had just one superior dimension, he had the best home run ratio of any player who ever lived (one every 10.6 at-bats).

See? Those are good arguments. I knew you had it in you.

Goose Gossage
The Goose has more than doubled his vote totals since 2000. So he's going to get in one of these centuries. But I have no idea why it has taken him this long. None.

Have the people who don't vote for him actually looked at his stats? In this guy's first 10 years as a closer, he spun off ERAs of 0.77, 1.62, 1.82, 1.84, 2.01, 2.23 and 2.27 twice. And he racked up those numbers while absorbing double the workload of today's closers. The guy threw 130 innings three times, and 99 or more two other times.

Good arguments.

No closer in history made more All-Star teams than Gossage (nine).

Bad argument.

And according to Retrosheet, he held right-handed hitters to a .211 batting average, .285 on-base percentage and .311 slugging percentage over a 22-year career.

Good arguments.

Andre Dawson
I covered the National League in the 1980s. And every debate about the best player in the National League back then included Dawson's name.

Neutral-to-bad argument.

He won an MVP award,

So did Terry Pendleton.

and finished second twice. He was a rookie of the year.

So was Walt Weiss.

He won eight Gold Gloves.

So did Mark Belanger, Dwight Evans, Garry Maddux, Frank White, George Scott, and Bobby Shantz, just to name a few. (BTW: based on these dumb arguments, why doesn't Dewey get more consideration? I don't think he should be in, but he's every bit as good as Hawk, and better than a lot of the other people considered "borderline.") Also, Gold Gloves are stupid and meaningless.

He had one of the most spectacular throwing arms of his era.

The same could be said of Cory Snyder.

And even though he needed to run his knees into more ice than the Titanic just to get out there, he still racked up 2,774 hits, 438 homers and 314 stolen bases. The only other players in history who can match that combination are Willie Mays and Barry Bonds.

This is one of the most egregious cherry-picks of all time. "The only other players with as many as 2774 hits, 438 homers and 314 SB are..." My goodness. (Although, now that I think about it, why is it any less arbitrary than like 3,000, 500, 300?)

So consider his whole package of credentials -- power and speed, defense and award votes, and the all-important non-statistical side of him, the leadership and the respect he commanded among his peers. Consider all that, and it's tougher to figure out why Dawson shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame than why he should.

I did consider that whole package, even the silly meaningless stuff, and I saw a guy who was very very good, but not great enough. If you don't believe me, read any of the previous posts where I break down the numbers. There's like fifteen of them.

Dale Murphy
...if we're entering an age when voters feel compelled to make moralistic statements against the cheaters, maybe those voters should think about making a more positive statement -- by voting for a guy so pure and clean, he made David Eckstein look like Albert Belle.

Even mentioning Eckstein in an article about the HOF makes my skin crawl. Because you know he's going to get like 40 votes in 2017, and there will be 1000 articles with titles like,

"Small Man, Big Heart, Why Not?"

and

"Cooperstown Should Open Its Big Doors to the Little Man Who Hustled"

and

"What the Eck? Why Not Cast a Big Vote for the Smallest Man With the Biggest Heart?"

and

"Little Man with the Big Heart Has a Tiny Chance of a Huge Honor"

and

"Big, Small, Big, Small, Small, Big, Small: Those Are the Sizes of David Eckstein's Heart, David Eckstein Himself, David Eckstein's Hustle, David Eckstein's Chances to Get Elected to Cooperstown, David Eckstein's Skin Pigment Count, David Eckstein's 'Talent,' and the number of Reasons David Eckstein Should Not Be Elected to the Hall of Fame Today, Respectively"

and maybe

"Smig: That is Small Plus Big, Which is What Eckstein Is"

Also, in re: making a positive statement by blah blah blah voting for clean people blah blah...I say to this: no.

Murphy's stats may not look so dazzling stacked up against the numbers of today. But in his heyday -- the decade of the '80s -- Murphy got more hits and scored more runs than anyone in the National League, tied Mike Schmidt for most RBI and was second to Schmidt in homers. He was also a back-to-back MVP, a five-time Gold Glove winner, a proud member of the 30-Homer, 30-Steal Club and a big enough star to lead the entire sport in All-Star votes in 1985. So he sure deserves to be getting more than 56 stinking votes.

He got 50 yesterday. Sorry, dude. He wasn't that awesome.

Jack Morris
Five years ago, Morris wasn't collecting even 100 votes. Now he's over 200. But you have to wonder if enough of these voters will ever be able to look past his 3.90 career ERA to get him to the podium.

Well, if you toss out that ERA (which is lower than Jason Schmidt's career ERA, by the way), what more evidence of this man's perpetual ace-hood could a voter ask for?

Jason Schmidt isn't a HOFer, so that's meaningless. Also, Jason Schmidt's career ERA+, which is an ERA-based stat that was invented in order to compare players of different eras, is 110, and Jack Morris's is 105. So, your comparison actually hurts your argument. So, you're a dummy for using it.

This is about more than just Game 7, 1991.

I should hope so. You don't elect HOFers based on one game.

Jack Morris pitched a no-hitter.

So did Eric Milton. Len Barker pitched a perfect game.

He started three All-Star Games.

I hate you.

He was a huge figure on three World Series pitching staffs.

He was a huge figure?! Hold the phone. Call Cooperstown! Did they know he was a huge figure?!

He always started Opening Day.

I just threw up in my mouth.

And consider this: From 1979 to '92, when Morris and Nolan Ryan were both doing their thing, Morris had 65 more wins than Ryan (233-168).

That's a very very very good indicator. Of how good the offenses of the teams Morris pitched for were. And how bad the offenses of the teams Ryan pitched for were. It is a very poor indicator of how good they were at pitching.

Jim Rice
The biggest reason I vote for him: The fear factor.

Insert Joe Rogan joke here. Or, if you're me, get sleepy and bail on it.

In the 11 seasons from 1975 to '85, Anerican League pitchers would have been happier to see Jack the Ripper heading up their driveway than Jim Rice heading toward home plate.

This is a very weird thing to write. I am tired. Pass.

Bert Blyleven
If Blyleven ever makes it to Cooperstown -- and he might, now that he's finally over 50 percent of the vote -- he'll owe it to men like Bill James, Rob Neyer and the bright statistical minds who now look at baseball in so many insightful new ways.

Until last year, I was one of those people who thought of Blyleven as a not-quite candidate, 287 wins or no 287 wins. But James did an incredible start-by-start study of Blyleven's career that convinced me it was only bad luck that kept him out of the 300-win club.

And Lee Sinins' indispensable Complete Baseball Encyclopedia proved just how dominant Blyleven was by computing how his Runs Saved Above Average compared to the greatest pitchers of modern times.

Blyleven gave up 344 fewer runs in his career than the average pitcher of his time. In the entire live-ball era, the only eight pitchers who beat him in that department are Roger Clemens, Lefty Grove, Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, Tom Seaver, Carl Hubbell and Bob Gibson.

Does a guy who hangs out with that crowd sound like a Hall of Famer to you? He sure did to me -- finally.

Out of nowhere, he ends with a rational, intelligent bang. Kudos.

And congrats to Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken. They deserve it. More than Andre Dawson.

Labels: all-star game, cal ripken, david eckstein, hall of fame, jayson stark, mark mcgwire, tony gwynn