## Standings / Recap / Comments
AMERICAN LEAGUE
LEAGUE STANDINGS EAST
Code:
Team W L Pct GB STR R RA AVG HR SB ERA BB/9 K/9 FA ZR RTO%
Detroit 37 18 .673 - W4 285 188 .299 49 48 3.11 3.4 5.7 .983 28.9 43.2
New York 32 24 .571 5½ L1 260 270 .250 63 15 4.37 2.6 4.7 .981 2.9 38.0
Boston 26 26 .500 9½ L3 236 189 .276 47 25 3.40 3.0 5.8 .980 26.7 46.5
Baltimore 21 29 .420 13½ W3 196 213 .247 44 20 3.62 3.6 5.1 .974 8.4 40.0
Milwaukee 21 33 .389 15½ W4 237 289 .266 41 41 4.80 3.8 5.1 .979 -8.2 34.7
Cleveland 21 35 .375 16½ W4 207 260 .245 51 20 4.33 3.3 5.5 .981 10.0 36.4
LEAGUE STANDINGS WEST
Code:
Team W L Pct GB STR R RA AVG HR SB ERA BB/9 K/9 FA ZR RTO%
Texas 34 18 .654 - W6 225 168 .270 38 22 2.86 3.6 5.2 .983 28.5 40.9
Chicago 30 22 .577 4 L4 210 191 .258 36 30 3.27 3.7 4.9 .982 27.7 42.9
California 29 24 .547 5½ L4 233 245 .258 42 40 4.02 3.4 5.0 .978 17.8 38.5
Kansas City 29 30 .492 8½ W1 291 308 .261 40 26 4.68 3.7 4.5 .983 7.7 26.8
Oakland 26 31 .456 10½ L4 211 239 .263 36 25 3.81 2.9 4.9 .978 7.5 38.6
Minnesota 18 34 .346 16 L3 199 230 .243 47 24 4.03 3.6 5.4 .978 9.3 28.2
NATIONAL LEAGUE
LEAGUE STANDINGS EAST
Code:
Team W L Pct GB STR R RA AVG HR SB ERA BB/9 K/9 FA ZR RTO%
Chicago 35 23 .603 - W7 244 216 .263 53 29 3.45 3.4 4.7 .986 43.2 45.2
St. Louis 33 21 .611 - W2 229 203 .254 56 17 3.50 2.9 5.6 .982 17.2 47.2
Philadelphia 30 25 .545 3½ W2 262 232 .250 37 37 3.73 3.1 5.0 .977 16.9 39.5
Pittsburgh 27 24 .529 4½ L2 179 173 .239 21 6 3.18 2.9 5.8 .982 12.6 37.9
New York 26 25 .510 5½ W3 186 213 .261 20 36 3.76 3.2 4.9 .982 15.3 48.3
Montreal 19 31 .380 12 L1 219 258 .254 39 24 4.25 3.5 5.4 .976 7.0 34.2
LEAGUE STANDINGS WEST
Code:
Team W L Pct GB STR R RA AVG HR SB ERA BB/9 K/9 FA ZR RTO%
Houston 31 29 .517 - W2 253 265 .254 61 24 3.89 3.8 5.7 .973 7.9 29.8
San Francisco 31 30 .508 ½ W1 236 246 .254 50 40 3.49 3.1 5.2 .980 10.7 33.3
San Diego 27 32 .458 3½ L2 231 209 .253 31 21 3.17 3.4 5.1 .976 39.4 44.9
Cincinnati 25 31 .446 4 L3 233 233 .251 46 25 3.92 2.8 6.0 .979 -0.0 23.8
Los Angeles 26 32 .448 4 L7 199 223 .254 59 16 3.38 3.1 5.4 .978 38.7 34.1
Atlanta 25 32 .439 4½ L2 221 221 .257 39 17 3.55 3.0 5.9 .982 9.1 30.3
I'm gonna keep this short (for me) because a lot has happened this week already and, frankly, I want to get back to OOTPeration...
The AL has started to separate the wheat from the chaff in a big waywhereas the NL... well, it's still working on that. Blame it on the lack of a DH I guess? I'm looking down the league and seeing that maybe I need to invest more in defense with Milwaukee because... hahah, wow. I think ZR tends to be based on Defensive Efficiency and so therefore in an environment where DE is higher than it is now, everything comes out positive... except for the Brewers (and the Reds at 0 even). Otherwise, though! I got nothin'.
The Yuppies of the Week have to be the Cardinals, who jumped 7 sppots in the power rankings from 11th to 4th thanks to a 6-1 week against would-be West contenders San Diego and Atlanta. Or maybe it's the Mets, up from 17th to 9th - ordinally a bigger climb! - thanks to surviving a 2-game sweep in Cincinnati to sweep the Dodgers at home. I'm giving it to the Cards because of WINNING. Cleveland also gets... something, leaping up to 18th from 23rd in sort of a dead-cat-bounce week where they split a double-header vs the also-awful Twins and then, somehow, engineered a weekend 4-game sweep over the actually-good White Sox.
San Diego is the clear dirty hippie this week, going from nearly top 5 - 6th! - to 16th in power rankings. To be fair - TOOO BEEEE FAAAAAIIIR - they did have to face two of the best teams in the NL East this week in the Cardinals and Phillies, but to be completely unfair - they finished 1-5 against those guys and are now not close to .500. Minnesota "only" fell 3 places because yoou can't drop further than 24th but after that aforementioned double-header vs Cleveland they got swept by lowly Baltimore so I wouldn't say they're doing great either.
That's it for now! Tune in next week, Thrift Champions!
## Major Transactions
June 6: The Cardinals traded RP Billy Munoz (3-0, 3.18) to the Rangers for minor league RP Ted "The Nuge" Nugent (2-1, 4.18 at AAA Spokane) and a 2B to be named later (.245, 1, 3 at AA Pittsfield). And I mean "to be named later" because this guy is currently a 21 year old who's looking good enough in AA that he might get a shot with the big league team soon. He doesn't grade out as a shortstop, unfortunately, but Texas is really really low on SS prospects at all.
June 7: The Yankees purchased CL John "The Assassin" Booth (3-1, 1.42, 7 Sv) from the Giants for $15,000. San Francisco is leading the NL West but man they are not hot on the status of the current team, I guess. Booth is a lefty so should fit right in with New York's plans but his K rate has been dipping haaaaard.
June 7: The Padres traded minor league SS Barry Bailey (.322, 5, 27 in AAA Hawaii) to the Cardinals for IF Buddy Miles (.214, 2, 16). Bailey looks like the best answer yet for the Cards at shortstop while the Padres will value Miles' versatility as they feel they already have their shortstop in Joe Wicker (.255, 2, 11). A REAL WIN WIN I guess we'll see...
June 7: The Braves traded P Santos Rodriguez (5-8, 3.57) to the Yankees for minor league P Rush Limbaugh (3-7, 5.03 at AAA Syracuse), SS Vladimir Matorin (.143, 0, 3), and minor league RF Ace Frehley (.225, 0, 6). Both Limbaugh and Frehley are top 100 prospects so this costs the Yankees a pretty penny. On the other hand, Rodriguez led the AL in ERA last year and was putting things back together after a rough start to his season. I think this trade does signal that the Braves are pushing more for the future than for this season after having won the NL West in each of the last 2 seasons.
June 9: The Padres organization purchased minor league P Jerry Washington (0-0, 13.50 in AA) and minor league OF Bobby Corley (.190, 0, 4 in AAA OKC). THis was really a deal with Hawaii, who I guess had a semi-affiliate relationship with the Pads this year, but hey, here we go. Both of these guys were on Cleveland's 40 man roster, although I am not seeing Washington being there for the new team.
June 9: Cleveland trades CL Jake Duckett (0-2, 2.28, 3 Sv) to the Royals for minor league RP Giorgio Cavazzano (4-6, 4.34 at AAA Omaha). Duckett was one of the last kind of good players left on this Indians team but at the same time was one of the last guys making any money. He'll go off to the Royals, who could definitely use a stopper, and they get back Cavazzano, who was a good enough prospect that he played a little in the major league club at the start of the year (he was bad though, a 13.50 ERA in 8 IP).
June 9: The Astros traded minor league SS Rob Reiner (.214, 2, 4 at AAA Denver) to the Cardinals for LF John Rohrbough (.360, 0, 0). The Cards continue to collect shortstops in the hopes they can turn one of them into something. Reiner is at this point a non-prospect who had a cup of coffee in 1971 and who is known for being a meathead. Rohrbough is blocked in St. Louis and kiiind of in Houston as well except that starter Jesse Lockhart (.267, 1, 11) is looking kind of average the last few years.
June 10: The Angels traded minor league CF Russ Deuser (.244, 6, 22 in AAA SLC) to the Padress for minor league P Mark Golden (6-2, 3.95 at AAA Hawaii). Both of these players are blocked in their current organizations and both walk into positions of relative need so hey. I guess the Angels are less needy of pitching but you can always use some of that.
## News
June 4: Wikipedia says that a US patent for the first ATM, the Docutel, was issued today, but I am skeptical. At the very least this was merely the first patent issued in the United States.
June 4: Murry Wilson, the father of 3 of the Beach Boys and their first manager, died today of a heart attack. The three Wilson sons had fired Murry back in 1964 but he controlled their publishing company, Sea of Tunes, before selling it in 1969. He also tried his hand at producing a sound-alike group called the Sunrays after his sons fired him and recording an album called "The Many Moods of Murry Wilson" in 1967, which is in that horrible and thankfully no longer extant genre called "easy listening".
June 4: Reds OF/1B Alonzo Huanosta (.273, 5, 23), trying to re-establish himself as one of the feared hitters in the league, was diagnosed with a broken kneecap after he was taken off the field following a slide on the 1st of June. He'll be out for the rest of the season. The normally healthy Huanosta hadn't played in fewer than 100 games in a season since 1966. MC Gainey (.204, 2, 8), who had a cup of coffee last year following a .307/18/64 campaign in Indianapolis, has not gotten off to a great start in Indy this year but he's what the Reds have at first base so in he goes.
June 4: On the same day we also got a diagnosis for Reds' RF Fred Grandy (.217, 0, 2). It's not as bad but it's a strained hamstring that's not expected to clear up for an entire month. Since Grandy's been struggling in this pinch-hitting role and his biggest asset right now is some decent defense, I'm going to DL him as well.
June 4: Onto some better news: Angels 1B Chris Seek (.363, 8, 31), who I'd just got done mentioning because he's 3rd in the AL in hitting, also won the Player of the Week award by going 12-30 (.400) with 2 HRs and 9 RBIs for the Halos. It was a big week for him and the 2nd time he's ever won the award, the first being back in 1969 when he was still with the Giants.
June 4: In the NL, Dodgers 1B Justin Stone (.333, 9, 23) has been quietly gaining ground on the rest of the league following missing all of April with an injury. Well, not so quietly I guess, as he went 12-24 (figure it out!) with 4 HRs and 11 RBIs. Stone, of course, is a bona fide Hall of Fame talent and has *23* Player of the Week awards, albeit none since the week ending September 19, 1971. He's also won the Player of the Month 22 times and the league MVP 6 times. Like I said, he's had a pretty good career. He's 26 HRs away from 500, which he could quite easily reach this season, missing month or no missing month.
June 4: SYD THRIFT'S NEATO STAT OF THE WEEK:
The top 5 guys in career, lifetime (i.e. not just current players) shutouts:
1. Jose Lugo (230-147, 3.08), BOS/CLE/WAS: 40. Lugo retired after an injury-ravaged 1961 season and was inducted into the Hall in 1967.
2. Jeff Borden (239-149, 2.83), BRO/LAD: 39. Borden's a guy I bring up every year when players try and fail to break his 1.62 single-season ERA record he set in 1956; he had 6 shutouts that year. I also got to use him when I took over the league in '69 but sadly he was simply too wrecked by then to reliably count on and he retired at season's end.
3. Tracy Mosher (181-120, 2.93), NYY: 39. I didn't notice Tracy had tied with Borden in this stat, wow. He's yet to get a shutty this year, and he was so bad to start that he was briefly relegated to the bullpen, although he never made an appearance in relief (he's 5-6, 5.40 and even that's with 2 ER in his last 18 IP). His next shutout, should he get it, ties him for the all-time mark. And he's still only 34 so if he can turn things around he has a shot, albeit a small one, at 50.
4. Andy Ring (170-132, 3.18), LAD/CAL: 34. Ring is also currently playing, although like Mosher he's off to a less than great start (3-4, 4.08). Unlike Mosher he's been really good the last 2 seasons, with 5 shutouts apiece in '71 and '72 - the Big A helped, no doubt - to get him into this conversation. He's also a year younger than Mosher. Maybe he'll be on top once all's said and done, who knows?
5. Lazaro Hernandez (226-194, 3.47), PIT: 33. Hernandez was Pittsburgh's ace from 1948 to 1964 and was inducted into the Hall just this year. He's the Pirates' all-time leader in wins and strikeouts although with this team's big three I could see at least one of them passing him (DJ "Old Money" Cheeves is 124-126, 3.38, Jeremy Battaglia is 91-80, 2.70, and Santos Arango is 145-102, 2.90). At second glance maybe his Pirates wins record is safe for now.
June 4: When you're on a 7 game losing streak, just ride on the back of... Carlos Torres (4-7, 4.48)? It seems like a less than great plan but it worked for the A's today. Torres threw a 3-hitter against the Brewers - okay, FINE, it was the Brewers - en route to a 6-0 victory. "I just put the ball where I wanted to put it today," said the 34 year old lefty. CF David Mesa (.281, 0, 12) broke the game open in the 3rd with an RBI triple, his first 3-bagger all season.
June 5: Known Canadian delivers an editorial on his radio show called "The Americans" that becomes popular in North America, so popular that two different versions reach the Top 40 after background music is added. The tenor of this editorial is not, as is often reported, an angry response to anti-Vietnam War protests, but a statement that the US steps in a lot when other countries face economic crises or natural disasters but when the same happens to the US it tends to brave things alone.
June 5: The Soviet satellite Kosmos 562 is successfully launched into low Earth orbit at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome.
June 5: Filipe Duarte, a Portguese film and TV actor, is born today.
June 5: Iiiiiiiiits draft day! I saw the notes in BB-Ref's transactions that it was happening on the 5th and thought I'd forgotten to move it up to match (which, Tuesday is a weird day to conduct the draft, isn't it?) but I guess I did!
Also, this is the Seahawkiest draft EVER. I guess also a Montreal Canadiens draft...
1. Milwaukee: 18 yo CF Penn Gillette
2. Cincinnati: 19 yo 1B (2nd overall???) Lawrence Krauss (wow, big scientific skepticism draft I guess)
3. NY Mets: 17 year old SS Bill Gates
4. NY Yankees, 18 year old CF Dave Schultz (known as the guy who beat up John Stossel when Stossel was all like oooo wrestling is fake in the 80s)
5. Montreal Expos, 21 year old RF William Katt aka the Greatest American Hero
6. Chicago White Sox, 17 year old SS Floyd "FORMER MARINER WOOOOO" Bannister
7. Kansas City, 18 year old CF Jay "Bright Lights, Big City" McInerney
8. San Francisco, 21 year old CF Robin Williams
9. San Diego, 21 year old RF Walter "Easy Rawlins" Mosley (a detective fiction novelist)
10. Minnesota, 18 year old WR/RF Steve Largent
11. St. Louis, 21 year old wrestling annnouncer/SS Jim "JR" Ross (who's actually from California, not the South)
12. Texas, 21 year old hockeyist/LF Guy Lafleur
13. Oakland, 22 year old singist/RF Luther Vandross
14. California, 21 year old 2B/GOATED GOAT Pete Carroll
15. Los Angeles, 21 year old bassist/2B Bootsy Collins
16. Houston, 22 year old hockeyizer/CF Larry Robinson
17. Baltimore, 21 year old actor/2B Chris Cooper
18. Atlanta, 22 year old fashion guy/3B Tommy Hilfiger (who knew this guy is an actual person? A lot of people I guess)
19. Chicago Cubs, 18 year old director/1B Ang Lee
20. Cleveland, 21 year old politician/CF Lee Hsien Loong
21. Boston, 19 year old inventor of the blue LED/3B Shuji Nakamura
22. Philadelphia, 21 year old director/SS Mamoru Oshii
23. Pittsburgh, 18 year old wrestler/LF Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart
24. Detroit, 22 year old Disney guy / 2B Bob Iger
Also, it's a very non-pitchery first round. I think this is pretty normal for this save; nobody seems to draft first-round pitchers unless I step in and choose something other than the scouting director recommendation. Oh well! The talent's still out there, I'm sure.
June 5: Sometimes you've got to take matters into your own hands. Jimmy Goddard (10-1, 1.89) had a no-decision in his last outing and it was looking like it could be the case tonight, too, but in spite of getting next to no support for 8 innings, the Tigers ace threw an 8-hit shutout against the Angels and the Detroit fanbase listening on the radio got to breathe a big sigh of relief when their team erupted for 4 runs in the 9th to win 5-0. The victory makes Goddard, who led the AL in games starts and innings pitched last year, baseball's first 10-game winner.
DH Danny Villegas (.222, 1, 4) was the big bat tonight, hitting the solo HR in the 2nd off of Angels starter Carlos Figueroa (3-4, 4.03) that for a while was looking like it was going to be the only run in the game. Then in the 9th he kicked off the scoring with an RBI single; he'd eventually come around to score himself. In spite of being a full-time DH now and being limited to just 17 games thanks to a hip strain that left him out for 6 weeks, Villegas is still nursing a sprained knee. "I guess at my age, these things are just gonna happen," said Villegas. "As long as I can hit through them, why worry about it?"
June 5: Houston's Joshua Waltenbery (.314, 12, 33) finished 3rd in the MVP race during the Miracle Mets season of 1969 but has been kind of mediocre in the 3 years since. In spite of being traded to the biggest park on the planet, the Astrodome in Houston, "Superman" sure seems like he's found that power stroke that got him a 36 HR, 100 RBI season that year. Tonight he ended a game with the Phillies with a 3-run shot over the left field wall at the 'Dome in the bottom of the 11th. That HR tied him for the team lead with CF George Foreman (.286, 12, 40) and for 2nd in the NL overall behind former Astro Jaden Weaver (.238, 13, 44), now with the Reds.
The win also evens up Houston's record for the first time this year since they started the season 4-4; now they're 28-28 and breathing down the necks of the struggling San Francisco Giants at 29-28.
June 6: West German President Gustav Heinemann signs a treaty with East Germany in spite of a challenge by the state of Bavaria as to the constitutionality of said treaty. The nation's Constitutional Court rejects the challenge and the treaty will take effect on June 21.
June 6: The very first Polski Fiat 126p is constructed from Italian parts. This Polish edition of the popular Italian car will be produced until 1993, with the original Italian product being mass-produced until 2000, one of the longest-produced cars in automotive history.
June 6: Jimmy Clitheroe, an English entertainer and host of the long-running BBC Radio program "The Clitheroe Kid", commits suicide shortly after his mother's death by an overdose of sleeping pills. His long-running show had also been canceled in September of 1972 and, as a person who'd made a living off of being 4'2" and able to pass for an 11 year old boy, entering his late middle ages (he was 51 when he passed away) probably did not look great to his prospects of future work.
June 6: Mets IF Danny Pellot (.242, 1, 1) wants to start. I feel like he should know better? I guess another way of putting this is, he's 38 and doesn't want to be a backup on a mediocre team, so, like, fix the mediocrity or the lack of starting or his standing on it. He's a former 5 time All-Star and still a fan favorite so cutting him comes with a cost. Man... I feel like I already had a succession thingerino set up at 2nd between the struggling Bill Heyen (.229, 0, 5) and Bora Dugic (.275, 1, 3) but screw it, I'll put Pellot out there for now. Let's see what he can do and maybe we'll get like some kind of trade value from him or something like that.
June 6: He was left stranded to end the game but Royals OF Tony "The Boss" Danza (.343, 5, 21) belted a 9th inning double, amazingly his 26th of the season. KC went down to the Red Sox on a 6-hit shutout by Justin "Ironworker" Kindberg (7-4, 2.27) but you know what? The doubles are the story here, as far as I'm concerned. Danza's now on pace for *77*, which would easily break the real-life all-time record by Earl Webb (who? what even are the 30s?) with 63, and, needless to say, would also break the REAL LIFE all-time record held by Senators/Twins Hall of Famer Fernando Rocha, who hit 49 all the way back in 1947 (a year he went .317, 22, 91 and I don't know how he didn't win the MVP but hey).
In a year where all the spotlight is once again on Ernesto Garcia and his own record-breaking exploits, I wanted to make sure this one doesn't get swept aside. Incidentally the doubles leader for the AL last year for the entire season was Jon Hernandez, who had 31 of them.
June 6: Shuffling up the lineup sure seems to have paid dividends for the Angels today... or, at least, their powerful 3/4 combo of 1B Chris Seek (.386, 4, 18) and 2B Rodrigo Juarez (.299, 11, 38) activated. The duo went a combined 6-10 with *8* RBIs to send the Detroit Tigers down 10-0. And oh yeah, David Camacho (3-2, 4.57) also pitched a gem, showing my confidence in him was not misplaced (I had to choose between Camacho and Al Gore in terms of who to dump into the bullpen as we moved to a 4-man rotation - see below).
The win breaks a 4-game losing streak for California and allows them to look right back at the AL West race again. Detroit meanwhile suffered from a rare poor game by one of their Big Three as SP Bruce Rubio (3-4, 3.58) was knocked out of the box in the 3rd after having allowed 6 runs on 7 hits in 2+ innings pitched.
June 7: Astronauts Pete Conrad and Joseph Kerwin successfully free Skylab 2's one remaining solar panel which had been stuck closed since the station was damaged on its May 14 launch. Now they can microwave some burritos!
June 7: The Tigers' Edgar Molina (10-5, 3.32) was looking at a potentially rough time of getting win #10, having to face off against 1967 Cy Young Award winner Andy Ring (3-5, 4.72) but it wound up being just about the easiest victory of his career. Molina allowed just 3 hits in a complete game shutout and his Angels opponent was knocked out in the 4th; the Tigers won in a laugher, 12-0. DH Danny Villegas (.211, 2, 8) hit a grand salami in the 8th off of reliever Mark Seitz (3-1, 2.57) with Detroit already up by 8 but hey, a dinger's a dinger, right? He wound up leading a balanced attack with 4 RBIs. CF Alvin Romeo (.323, 2, 28) was 3-6 with a triple, 3 runs, and 2 RBIs.
June 8: Major B. Coxson, a drug kingpin in Philadelphia and a former candidate for mayor of Camden, New Jersey, is shot and killed alohng with his daughter in an as-yet-unsolved shooting. His son and girlfriend will survive.
June 8: The owner of the San Diego Padres (in real life!) announces that as part of his sale, the team will be moved to Washington, DC, which has been without baseball ever since 1971.
June 8: Goring's wife dies at 80. Whoop de do! I guess I'm pointing this out in large part just to note that we're still only around a generation out from World War II.
June 8: Giants CF Danny "The Phantom" Seligman (.268, 1, 11) just cannot stay healthy to save his life. The 1971 NL batting champion is now going to be out for the next month with a... strained rib cage muscle. OKAY. In his stead, Danish jazz bassist Mads Vindig (.314, 2, 14 at AAA Phoenix) has been tearing up the high minors - do I smell TCR??? - and will step in.
June 8: And now it's time to move on to the FINAL positional rankings - right field! I kind of liked this exercise as a way to bide the time / showcase players before All-Star voting gets under way so yeah... let's go!
10. Jun Kim, MIL (.255, 1, 15). Kim's off to a kind of rocky start, although injuries haven't helped. What's not shown in the statline here is the defense and leadership he brings to this young and pretty bad team.
9. Tom Brown, BOS (.274, 4, 28). A little surprised to see Brown ranked so low but hey, he's starting to get on in years I guess (he's 34) and he was never quite an MVP candidate in his prime. He's also a guy who's probably better suited to left, where he played before the Bosox traded Jun Kim away, but now they've got Bruce Springsteen over there.
8. Chris Ward, ATL (.304, 4, 21). Ward is manning the position that Henry Riggs had a lock on for a decade and a half but time waits for no man and now Riggsy is in left for this team. Ward is considerably faster than Riggs but that speed doesn't translate into range so well. He's also had a weird dearth of gap power so far (only 2 doubles and 0 triples) which should increase his stock even more.
7. Tommy Pron, OAK (.322, 3, 22). Yet another product of the Cleveland fire sale, Pron, the 1968 AL batting champ, is still quite the hitter. I'm noticing a trend so far of putting guys who kind of aren't all that great range-wise into right; this is a thing OOTP is not a fan of.
6. Phil Hartman, NYY (.237, 6, 25). Speaking of... Hartman fields in right like a caveman, an unfrozen caveman lawyer if you will, and will surely move to left as he gets older. Still, even with the low average this year he walks a tooooon and turns a lot of those Ernesto Garcia bombs into 2 or 3 run shots.
5. Matt Williams, STL (.261, 8, 20). If you're wondering how the Cardinals are having an unlikely run so far this year, Williams is part of the answer. A former Chicago Cubs guy who basically had his career resurrected with the expansion Expos, the Cards traded for him this offseason and he's been great, especially in terms of secondary-average stuff: a .362 OBP, 19 extra-base hits. The man's 34 so he probably doesn't have a lot of years like this one left but hey, enjoy it while it lasts!
4. Brandon Anderson, CLE (.287. 7, 23). A rare bit of good news coming out of Cleveland here, as Anderson, who the Indians acquired in the Nelson Vargas trade, has turned out to be a legitimately good player in his own right. He did finish 2nd in the NL in intentional walks last year! I think that was from hitting 8th a lot. He's not going to hit 8th again any time soon.
3. Jaden Weaver, CIN (.238, 13, 44). Weaver is at least doing his part to punish the Astros for their trading him to the Reds. Unfortunately the Reds haven't been able ot get things done around him in the past year plus. At 25-28 they do look closer to being there in '73, especially given the state of the NL West, but you know, you do have to win games...
2. Jeremy Taylor, CHC (.299, 7, 18). The transition from shortstop has been pretty successful for Taylor, at least when he stays healthy. He's out for another 2-3 weeks with an ankle sprain that's caused him to miss pretty much all of May. The Cubs seem to be doing OK without him but of couuurse they can use the 1972 NL MVP's bat.
1. Dave "Cookie Monster" Corona (.293, 4, 23). I really feel like the Cookie Monster, not the Boss Tony Danza, is the real jewel of the Royals outfield. Corona won't hit .330 like Danza could but he'll hit for decent power and get on base a toooon. So far this year he has that disease Danza had last year with the steals: after leading the league in thefts in 1971 with 52 and going 40/50 last year, Corona's just 8/16 this year. KC likes to hit and run a lot I guess (Danza, who had 34 steals with a league-leading 30 CSes last season, has only attempted 4 so far this year... and whiffed on 3 of them).
June 8: Angels, what happened? Brewers - Brewers! - starter King Decker (2-1, 2.96), who the Brew Crew recently purchased from the A's system, threw a 5-hit shutout, but that's not even the half of it. Milwaukee destroyed the Angels 15-0 today. Gary Bruno (8-3, 2.20), the Angels putative ace with 6 complete games in 11 starts this year, couldn't even get through 6 today, allowing 7 runs in that time. It was frankly a well balanced attack too so I can't point to any one person. I guess LF Steve Winwood (.283, 7, 22) did the most with a 3-4, 1 2B, 1 HR, 2 R, 3 RBI effort.
The big loss actually puts the 29-22 Angels as now having allowed more runs (235) than they've scored (231). Milwaukee is still bad but the big victory means they're 6th in the AL in runs scored - middle of the pack! These guys were on pace to score the fewest runs ever at one point last year.
June 9: Spanish Navy Admira Luis Carrero Blanco becomes Prime Minister of Spain under dictator Francisco Franco, who, sorry to Chevy Chase, not dead. He won't hold the post long, being assassinated by Basque separatists in November.
June 9: Secretariat wins the Belmont Stakes. We have a triple crown winner in horse racing! It's the first since 1948 (and Man O' War I think? Nope, Citation). We're about to go through a string from this year to 1978 where there are 3 Triple Crowns in 6 years.
June 9: The Giro d'Italia cycling event, run between Verviers in Belgium and Trieste in Italy, is won by Eddy Mercx of Belgium, who's a big enough name that I thought he was a race car driver (I think maybe I had him mixed up with Jacky Ickx?).
June 9: FC Bayern Munich wins the Bundesliga easily 2ith a 25-4-5 record. #2 is 1. FC Koln at 16-11-7.
June 9: Janice Marie Young, a 15 year old runaway, is killed when she is pushed in front of a moving truck. Her body will not be identified until 2015 and confirmed by testing the DNA of a sibling. I do have to say, as annoying as the "missing white girl" stories were in the early 2000s, I'll take putting up a little too much press coverage over this whole deal where it seems like all kinds of teenaged girls just went missing throughout the 60s and 70s...
June 9: Pittsburgh PH Mike Grigg (.182, 0, 3) has confirmed he'll retire at the end of the season. Right now, I'm not at all sure he'll make it that far. Grigg was a minor league guy who got cups of coffee in the early 60s with the Mets and then, thanks to expansion, found a new role as a 4th outfielder and pinch-hitter with Minnesota for the last 4 years before moving on to Pittsburgh this season. Since he spent soooo much time in the minors, he's got only 408 major league hits in spite of a .286 career average.
June 9: The San Francisco Giants (30-30) fell to .500 with a giant thud today, getting absolutely blown out by the Montreal Expos in Montreal, 13-2. Sam Williams (4-7, 3.97) was the starter and didn't get out of the 5th and then the Expos brought in 6 unearned runs in the 6th inning off of long reliever Oscar Amador (0-0, 0.00), making his major league debut. 2B and former #1 overall pick Hudson Watts (.254, 3, 13) had a beast of a game, going 2-5 with a double, a HR, 3 runs scored, and 4 RBIs in this one. The Giants couldn't even get much going offensively as the old man Mike Johnson (3-1, 4.39) picked up the victory and his first complete game on the season.
This actually also puts San Francisco at 232 runs scored vs 243 allowed. Nevertheless, if Houston can't beat Pittsburgh today they'll still finish in 1st in the NL West... for now.
June 9: And the Astros took down the Pirates 3-1 in a very un-Astros game in the Astrodome to take the division lead! Roberto Ortiz (5-2. 3.09), the former AL strikeouts leader, went 7 strong innings and then closer Adam Eastin (0-1, 4.07) shut the door for his 7th save of the season. 3B Pete Little (.299, 6, 28) singled in the 4th and broke open a 0-0 deadlock when he scored off of Pirates ace Jeremy Battaglia (5-6, 1.86), who has had a very... Piratesy start to his season.
Houston has also failed to outscore their opponents (249-263) but hey, they do have a winning record at least!
June 10: Explorer 49 is launched to orbit the moon. This will be the last probe we launch to orbit the moon until 1994.
June 10: William Inge, the author of the play "Splendor In The Grass", commits suicide.
June 10: Erich von Manstein, the Nazi German field marshal and convicted war criminal who developed the blitzkrieg system, dies at 85.
June 10: Some good news and bad news for the Phillies today: on the good side, 2B Nate Rowe (.185, 0, 13), who's been out since mid-May with a sprained wrist, was cleared to play. On the bad side, 3B Mike Brookes (.296, 1, 13) suffered a setback in his return from a strained PCL and is going to be out for the rest of the month.
June 10: Dodgers PH Greg Cowan (.094, 0, 1) is mad about not playing more. He's also 3-32 to open the year. I get why guys do this - they're mad about their performance too - but all this does is make me want to chuck them out the door. Which, maybe it's time.... it is. He gone! Good luck finding a new team, Greg.
June 10: Indians P Robert Rivera (6-5, 3.93) is stuck on a bad, bad team but today he came 4 outs away from making history as he carried a no-hitter into the 8th against the White Sox. In fact, it was C Barry Melnick (.333, 0, 0), making his major league debut, who broke up the no-no with 2 outs. "That's the way the old cookie crumbles," said a mildly disappointed Rivera after the game. He still managed to pitch a complete game 2-hit shutout - DH Jeff Nation (.238, 8, 32) added another in the 9th.
The win also puts Cleveland, some how some way, in a position where they might only be tied for last in the AL East today should the Brewers lose in Anaheim.
June 10: But speaking of the Brew Crew... Milwaukee completes an unlikely road sweep of the Angels today with a 6-0 shutout by Tom Bertan (4-5, 4.58). I don't know that I'd necessarily call Bertan a former ace, exactly, but he did go 20-9, 3.69 in 1970 before having a Jose Lima-esque (who?) blow-up season in 1971 (2-10, 7.51). He's mostly in between now, which is to say he hasn't exactly been great but hey, this was Bertain's first shutout in 3 years so that's nice.
The win puts the Brewers all the way up to 21-33; still a mile behind the Tigers but hey, good for them I guess. The Angels meanwhile are just 29-24 and and now 5 full games behind the Rangers, pending their own game today.
## Teams in Review
June 5: The
St. Louis Cardinals (27-20, - GB) were doing OK before they got swept at home by the surging Houston Astros. That last loss was their 20th and so here we are. I feel like these guys are playing way over their heads, though: they're only 11th in Major League Baseball in ERA and are 4th worst in the NL in runs scored - some of the latter is due to not playing as many games as some of their opponents but at that, they're 2nd worst in BA (.248) and 10th in OBP (.315). The Mets were due for a fall and they fell; what can we do to keep the same from happening to the Cards?
Rotation: I guess first and foremost, we should drop to a 4 man rotation. The back 3 of the current 5 man is nothing special but the 1 and 2 are pretty great and we should be maximizing their starts. It looks to me like that makes 23 year old Tom Waits (4-3, 4.70) the easy choice for the odd man out.
Bullpen: Waits will move into the bullpen as the long reliever / spot starter and that in turn means sending Georg Bednorz (0-0, 0.00), who juuuust got called up long enough to pitch in 2 whole games, back down to AAA. Otherwise, I think everything is... fine. Billy Munoz (3-0, 3.18) is still pretty up and down but I'm way more OK with that from a setup man / middle reliever than as a stopper, and meanwhile Travis Livingston (3--1, 1.90, 8 Sv) has if anything shown we could probably use him more than we have / than the Twins used him last season.
Infield: I feel like maaaaybe 3B Mike Galeana (.212, 3, 22) has started to get his power going; after having just 1 HR heading into the final week of May, he hit his first 2 last week. It just... doesn't feel like enough and I want to push him a bit. I don't see any straight-up 3B in the high minors though. What I do see is 25 year old (so sorry, this is your real name) 2B Victor Rodriguez (.329, 2, 16) mashing at AAA Tulsa so I'm going to try and figure out a way to use him a lot at 2nd and have Tom Depew (.280, 2, 7) fill in at 3rd during that time. Depew is inexperienced at the hot corner but he's got the arm for it so why not?
Meanwhile at shortstop I really, really want to end this Buddy Miles (.214, 2, 16) experiment but... how? I put him there because the Cards are very very short on SS talent, hoping he wouldn't be absolutely terrible as a fielder while putting up 3rd base-y numbers at the plate. Half of that came true... he's been bad at short but not overwhelmingly so, but he's also hit like a shortstop.
The other options are 27 year old Angelo Serrano (.270, 0, 2), who came back in the Brian Wilcox to Oakland trade last year and who's never looked like a starter (also don't let the .270 average in 37 at-bats fool you; man is a career .188 hitter), and 28 year old minor leaguer Jason Williams (.320, 0, 5 in Tulsa), who did have 118 at-bats for the club last year. So... clearly, Miles is going down with Williams coming up and that leaves Serrano as the starter... until I can find someone else, somewhere.
Outfield: With CF Sonny Burwell (.252, 2, 7) still out for another month I really need an actual backup for Jim James (.233, 2, 4) and... man, the CF situation at Tulas is dire, with neither the former prospect Jah Lloyd (.173, 0, 6) nor the former Rule V pick by the Reds Gaudi Rodriguez (.189, 4, 10) doing much of anything. I guess I'll call up Rodriguez on account of his being more of the starter down there and also, at 27, his being pretty much the complete product, whatever that may mean. In fact, I'm just going to straight-up platoon him out there to start; yeah, he hasn't been swinging the stick but James is OBPing .246, which is kind of bad, and Rodriguez did hit .257 in full-time play in Tulsa last year.
June 6: The
New York Yankees (31-20, 2 1/2 GB) have really come back from their rough 69-86 season last year. Being the best team money can buy will do that. It hasn't been enough to better the Tigers though, at least not yet. Contrary to the Yankees' position in the recent past it looks to me like this team is built on offense - 3rd in the AL in runs, 1st in HRs (of course) but the pitching staff has been iffy at best.
Rotation: For the literal current time being, Manny Carbajal (3-4, 3,69) is hurt - as in, he just got hurt yesterday and his diagnosis is still pending - so both Tracy Mosher (5-6, 5.40) and Henning Mankell (2-1, 7.32) are in the starting rotation for the time being. The minor league AI manager insists that Rush Limbaugh (3-6, 4.46) is ready but the stats sure don't seem to back that up. For now I'll leave Mankell where he is but that could change once we know what's going on with Carbajal, as the bullpen's too big as it is.
Bullpen: Well, I mean, it's 4 men right now but that's with Mankell in the rotation. It was running at 5 men large and that's just plain too big for the AL circa 1973. My first thought would be to just send Mankell down but Ed Lagos (2-1, 7.25) is off to a really bad start - so ba he lost the closer role - and I'm not a fan of his K rate even for the era (just 9 Ks in 22.1 IPs after 23 in 54.2 last year). I'll just play it where it lays I guess...
Infield: I wouldn't say that trading C John Lennon was a mistake, exactly, inaas much as it was part of the asking price for Ernesto Garcia (.291, 22, 45). Catcher is not a position of strength right now. Khalil Tabb (.207, 1, 11), who relinquished the job to Lennon last year, has looked like he's still stuck in 1972 and Josh Paige (.138, 0, 2) has been even worse. What I think I'll do here is call up 27 year old Justin Inkster (.333, 1, 6 at AAA Syracuse), who is not even close to a prospect but looks like he could be a decent-ish hitter, and play him until I cna find something better in the long term.
36 year old 2B TJ Pritchett (.224, 2, 18) looks like he's maybe gotten washed up this year, which happens. I'm calling up Jaak Joala (.324, 3, 10 at AAA Syracuse) to play 2nd. Joala if you'll recall played a lot down the stretch in relief of 3B Tommy Weiss (.303, 7, 26) but couldn't edge the veteran out for the starting job. He's definitely a 3rd baseman more than a 2nd baseman, as he's not really great on the pivot and his plus-plus arm will pretty much go to waste there but he figures to hit better than .224 with no power.
Outfield: I finally cut bait on CF Marc Ash (.130, 1, 6) and we're back to using Micah MacMillan (.195, 1, 5) out there again. The Yankees are also reeeeeeally thin here and just buying someone seems like it should be a good option. They also have Jeff Murphy (.333, 0, 1), who isn't anything great either and is 29 but what the heck, MacMillan is a lefty and hasn't hit over .200 since 1971; it's time we platooned for the sake of platooning.
June 6: In spite of their recent/current 4-game losing streak, the
California Angels (28-20, 2 GB) are happy to be in the AL West conversation. It looks like they've pretty well turned the hitting around, so that instead of being towards the back of the pack it's 5th, and the secondary stats indicate that this is about a league average offense. The pitching on the other hand hasn't quite caught up yet.
Rotation: LA based teams RUN THE 5 MAN ROTATION. No... that's not a hard and fast rule haha. The Angels aren't getting great performance out of their #1 Andy Ring (3-4, 4.03) but dropping to a 4 man means they can drop Al Gore (3-5, 5.13) out of it. David "Macho" Camacho (2-2, 5.33) has arguably been worse but as the youngster of the group Gore is also the most vulnerable.
Bullpen: For right now I'll go with the 5 man bullpen but I might not need it, especially now that we have the longtime Orioles stopper Montay Luiso (0-1, 2.25, 7 Sv) on the roster. The rest of the bullpen looks pretty solid so it might have been Gore getting send down to AAA if I'd decided to go with an 8 man pitching staff.
Infield: At catcher, Shaun Dennehy (.194, 1, 11) and Mauricio Alvarez (.088, 0, 0) are stinking up the joint and it's just time to try Tsui Hark (.323, 7, 21 at AAA SLC), bad rep with the glove or no. Expect opponents to run... but then, expect catcher to not be a complete black hole.
Marc Aaronson (.200, 1, 12) looked good enough in spring training that he pushed the incumbent Travis Corley aside so hard that I cut him loose (which, to be fair, Corley's hitting .202 in AAA right now so it's not like we're missing much). And now he's forgotten how to hit. I'm going to push out Aaronson in favor of Ivan Hernandez (.182, 0, 4), who lacks that prospecty spark but did hit .300 with 19 HRs in 240 at-bats with Toledo last year so, you know, he might be a better hitter and stuff. Actually speaking of raking in AAA, Jean-Pierre Raffarin (.299, 6, 28 at SLC) was and so I'm sending little-used 7th(!) outfielder Brad Wagner (.273, 1, 2) down and calling him up to platoon out there... kind of.
Raffarin is also now the team's best backup middle infielder so he'll also take Aaron's place in spelling Ivan Perez (.193, 1, 6) at shortstop. Perez is not a hitter and at 29 will never be one. Man, for a team that's middle of the pack in batting, the Angels have a lot of straight-up holes...
Outfield: I'm not at all happy with Chris Tyree's (.237, 0, 5) lack of production in right field either but hey, at least he's hitting over .200 I guess. I'm still going ot try to work Jared Ferrell (.303, 4, 23) in a bit harder out there; between left and right he'll now be playing most of the time against right-handed pitching.
June 10: The
Chicago White Sox (30-20, 2 1/2 GB) have been doing well, especially considering where they were last year, but hey, it's as good a time as any to check in following a 4-2 loss to lowly Cleveland. They're not scoring runs super well (9th, 208) but are great with pitching (4th in starter ERA, 2nd in bullpen ERA, 5th in the MLB overall) and defense (2nd in ZR in the AL with a +18, also 2nd with fewest errors at 34). I don't expect to change a looot here...
Rotation: I do think it's time to transition to the old 4 man as summer comes upon us. This is a SERIOUS team and this is SERIOUS business. So Valeriy Borzov (4-2, 3.65) is the odd man out. He'll stick around in long relief and I'm sure he'll be back in at some point knowing how injuries go.
Bullpen: The bullpen is doing just fine, as noted earlier. The closes to not-fine you can get is middle reliever Gavin Yates (0-1, 3.98) but if he's as bad as it gets, it's good sailing.
Infield: So here's a spot where we do need to make a change. Rene Arnoux (.140, 1, 3) looked like he was good to go as a defense-first option last year but he just flat out hasn't hit in the major leagues this year. It's time to send him all the way down to the minor leagues. Which... man, the catcher situation is bad on this team. I put out a flier for an older replacement but in the meantime I'm going to dig all the way down to AA to call up engineering student Bruce Melnick (.293, 6, 27 at AA Knoxville). He's not really a prospect but he is 23 so hey, maybe he turned it around this year. And if not, he can just become an astronaut or something.
2B Yukio Hatoyama (.241, 0, 14) has been very mech as a hitter so I'm going to be a lot more aggressive in using Chance Hopka (.314, 0, 3), last year's starter and a far better fielder as well. He also carried a .217 average last season in 383 at-bats so I'm more hoping that a platoon will yield fruit than anything else.
Outfield: Center is also a mess right now but I'm going to keep going with the platoon of Mohamed Abdelaziz (.190, 1, 15) and Dave Concepcion (.278, 0, 2) for now. Abdelaziz only hit .241 last year but like in 1972 terms that was OK and I'd be kind of happy with that even in '97. We are not getting that though. Concepcion doesn't look like much of a guy, period, by his recent minor league track record. I'm not sure why he's here except that he fills a need.
When RF Josh Wade (.263, 4, 25) hits even in the .280s it's not really enough production from a corner OF spot. When he's hitting in the .260s... nah. He does seem to have more power than he did in years past but it's still like 10 HR pop at best. His backup Carl Weathers (.167, 0, 0) hasn't hit at all though so I'm reticent to just replace him at this point.
I'm also kind of unhappy with what Jeff Nation's (.239, 8, 32) doing at DH but I guess at least he's got some pop and some clutch hitting in the middle of the order. With all these other switch-arounds and with nobody like blowing up the high minors I guess I'm gonna have to stick with him.