THE HOT CORNER
Baseball coverage from the inside — Sacramento Prayers and the FBL
By Claude Playball | Baseball Insider & Analyst | Host, "Hot Corner" Podcast
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October 25 – October 30, 1997 | World Series | Sacramento Prayers Are Champions Again
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THREE CHAMPIONSHIPS IN FOUR YEARS, MACDONALD HANGS UP HIS SPIKES, ESPENOZA IS TESTING FREE AGENCY AND SACRAMENTO HAS THREE PROSPECTS IN THE TOP TEN
The Sacramento Prayers defeated Vancouver in five games to become World Champions for the sixteenth time in franchise history, and Bernardo Andretti is the World Series undisputed MVP. He started Games One and Five, threw fourteen combined innings, allowed two runs, and bookended a championship. He went eighteen and ten during the regular season against the best competition in the American League. In October, against Vancouver, he was something purer than that — the experienced arm that took the ball in the biggest spots and gave the offense exactly what it needed. Lets talk briefly about the way those five final games went.
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DID YOU CATCH THOSE GAMES? — WHAT THE SCORECARDS SAY
Game One (October 25, Cathedral Stadium): Sacramento 4, Vancouver 1
Andretti threw seven and a third innings of shutout ball, Perez hit a two-run homer in the fourth off Hernandez — his seventh home run of the postseason — and Choi drove in two more in the fifth with a double off the wall. Gonzalez allowed a run while recording two outs in the ninth, and Benson finished the game cleanly for the save. Four to one. The Prayers take the opener.
Game Two (October 26, Cathedral Stadium): Sacramento 10, Vancouver 2
Strickler threw seven and a third innings and struck out eleven. He did not walk a batter. Vancouver committed three errors behind their starter Quirarte, who allowed five runs in four and a third innings, and Harlacher was even worse in relief — four runs in a third of an inning. Rodriguez went three for five with three RBI. Van Ham, starting in left field in Lopez's continued absence, drove in two runs. Pat Chambers, the reclamation-project arm purchased from Triple-A Oxnard in October, threw a clean inning and two-thirds to finish the game. Ten to two, Sacramento.
Game Three (October 28, Sins Field): Vancouver 1, Sacramento 0
Sacramento put eight men on base and scored none. Rubalcava threw six shutout innings. Jimenez threw two more. In the bottom of the ninth, Andy Benson entered, threw one pitch, and Jordan Farmer hit it over the left-field wall. Walk-off homer. One to nothing.
The Hot Corner has been documenting Benson's blown saves since May. There are no more words to add to that documentation. One pitch. One homer. One loss. To sum it up in one word — disappointing.
A very special moment of that game, a moment, significance of which did not become apparent until few days later: in the eighth inning George MacDonald entered at first base as a defensive replacement. At that moment nobody could have guessed that it was the final appearance of his professional career.
Game Four (October 29, Sins Field): Sacramento 2, Vancouver 0
Espenoza threw six and a third shutout innings in thirty-four degrees at Sins Field. He finished the postseason with a 0.87 ERA across three starts. Mollohan's run-scoring double off Varela in the second provided the first run. Choi's sacrifice fly provided the second. Jimenez held for one and two-thirds, and Benson — deployed with a two-run lead and presumably under strict instructions — struck out the side in a clean ninth. Two to nothing. Sacramento extended lead in the series three games to one.
Game Five (October 30, Sins Field): Sacramento 4, Vancouver 2
Andretti took the ball in the rain at thirty-seven degrees and threw seven innings against a team fighting to extend its season. Lozano hit a two-run homer in the second off Hernandez, immediately erasing the Farmer solo shot from the first inning. Mollohan hit a two-run homer in the sixth — his second home run of the series, from a player who was not on the projected postseason roster four weeks ago. Andretti allowed those two runs and no more. He left after seven innings with a four-to-two lead. Gonzalez came on, not Benson, and retired the final six outs cleanly. Four to two, Sacramento. Sacramento Prayers are Champions of the World!
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THE SERIES IN FULL
Andretti finished three and zero in the 1997 postseason with a 3.51 ERA. He won two of those games against Vancouver, the deciding series of the championship. At thirty-seven, with his extension running through 1998, he is the anchor of whatever rotation Sacramento builds around the Espenoza opt-out this winter.
Espenoza finished the postseason three and zero with a 0.87 ERA. He is now testing free agency. Those two facts sit beside each other in the organization's ledger and neither cancels the other out.
Gonzalez saved the championship-clinching game. Benson earned his two World Series saves in Games One and Four when the lead was large enough to absorb a mistake. The Hot Corner notes Aces made the correct decision in Game Five and trusts the front office has noted the same.
Perez was the LCS MVP and hit .471 with six home runs across the full postseason. Cruz hit .500 in the Division Series. Rodriguez hit his second career postseason home run at a critical moment in Game Five. The lineup produced when it needed to despite missing Lopez for the entire postseason.
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GEORGE MacDONALD — CAREER FAREWELL
George "Big Mac" MacDonald announced his retirement on November 1st at the age of thirty-six. He played one thousand nine hundred and ninety-four games, hit .262 with two hundred and sixty home runs and a thousand and fifty RBI, and won seven World Series rings — every one of them as a Sacramento Prayer.
He came to Sacramento in July of 1989 in a trade from Brooklyn and never left. He won the ALCS MVP twice, the Division Series MVP three times, and was named to the All-Star Game in 1992. He hit for the cycle against Tucson on August 17th, 1985. He scored his thousandth career run in 1996. He drove in his thousandth career RBI in 1995. He finished second in the FBL in games started twice, led the league once. He was a first baseman in his prime who became a designated hitter late in his career, a backup this season appearing in a handful of games, and still a World Series champion on the final day of his professional life.
Big Mac was never the loudest name on the roster in any given year. He was a career Prayer in the truest sense of the word. This franchise produced Fernando Salazar with his name on the outfield wall, and it produced George MacDonald, who just kept winning quietly alongside everyone else. Seven rings. The Hot Corner tips its cap and means it.
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THE ESPENOZA SITUATION — THE BIGGEST OFFSEASON QUESTION
Mario Espenoza has opted out of the final year of his contract and will test free agency.
I am not going to soften this. Espenoza posted a 3.05 ERA in the regular season with two hundred and fourteen strikeouts. In the postseason, he went three and zero with a 1.19 ERA. He threw eight and a third shutout innings in the Division Series clincher, eight and a third innings allowing two runs in Game Four of the LCS, and contributed to the World Series run as the most consistent arm Sacramento had in October. He is thirty-three years old, a lefthander, and he is now available to every team in the FBL, unless Sacramento wins a bidding war for a pitcher who posted a 0.87 ERA in the World Series — which is not a bidding war this organization is likely to win.
Sacramento's rotation entering 1998 as of today: Strickler under his new five-year extension, Rubalcava, Andretti under his extension through 1998, Jimenez. Beyond those four, the answer is a question mark. What the organization does in free agency or via trade to fill the Espenoza slot will define next season's ceiling before a single spring training pitch is thrown.
Lopez exercised his player option and will return. His twenty-eight home runs and fifty-five stolen bases — compressed into fewer games than a full season after the September fractured hand — are the offensive foundation of the 1998 lineup. Cruz returns. Perez returns. The core championship lineup is intact for 1998. The question is who starts between Andretti and a bullpen that spent most of October holding its breath.
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THE PROSPECT PIPELINE
Three Sacramento Prayers appear in the BNN Top Ten Prospects ranking. Alejandro Navarro at shortstop is number three overall at age nineteen. Ji-hoon Jeon, a right-handed pitcher, is fifth overall at twenty. Edwin Borjas, another right-hander, is ninth at seventeen years old. The Hot Corner has one observation: three top-ten prospects means three players who are not yet here. Addressing Espenoza's departure through the draft or development pipeline is a slower solution than replacing him through free agency. Both paths are being walked simultaneously, and the health of the farm system entering 1998 is real.
I should also point out what the prospect list signals beyond the immediate: this franchise is not in decline. The MacDonald era is closing, the Espenoza era may be closing, but the scouting operation is producing names that will be discussed in future editions of this column for years to come.
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AROUND THE LEAGUE
Four organizations changed general managers and one changed managers after the season. Fort Worth dismissed Marcos Sanchez. San Antonio let go of Trinidad. Seattle removed Randy Flora. Charlotte dismissed Bobby Nolan. The common thread across all four is franchises that underperformed in 1997 and made the obvious organizational decision. The Salt Lake City Prophets were sold to Jeremy Hollie, described as fiscally generous — which is the kind of ownership description that either produces a contender or a payroll disaster, depending on the general manager hired to spend the money.
Chitoji Kitagawa of Charlotte is the number one overall prospect in baseball at twenty-one. Long Beach's Ruben Perez is second. The top prospect not on a Sacramento farm belongs to Charlotte, who fired their GM this week. Whether Kitagawa and the new management will be discussed in baseball circles for good or bad reasons in coming year is one of the more interesting Charlotte storylines of 1998.
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THE INBOX
From Agnes Yeboah of Sacramento's Oak Park neighborhood, a middle school principal, who asks: "What's your single image from this World Series?"
MacDonald at first base in the ninth inning of Game Three. Down zero to one, rain coming, series on the line, and a thirty-six-year-old backup first baseman who won his first championship in 1989 standing in the field for what turned out to be the final time in his career. He didn't bat, but he was deservingly there, and seven championship rings can attest to that.
From Saoirse Donnelly of Sacramento's Land Park neighborhood, a ceramicist, who asks: "Third championship in four years — is this a dynasty?"
It is. The word gets thrown around carelessly and I have been deliberately withholding it for two years, but sixteen total championships with three in four years — with the same manager, the same organizational philosophy, and a rotation that was rebuilt and re-fortified twice in that span — earns the word. The only dynasty question worth asking now is whether the Espenoza departure marks the end of this particular peak or simply reshapes it.
From Marcus Webb of Sacramento's Natomas neighborhood, a plumber, who asks: "Seven rings for MacDonald. Shouldn't he get his number retired?"
Marcus, Fernando Salazar's number eighteen hangs in the Cathedral Stadium outfield. The criteria for number retirement in this organization has historically been generational impact across a sustained era rather than championship count alone. MacDonald is the quieter argument for the exception to that rule. I won't make the case for or against — that belongs to the front office — but I will say that seven rings acquired without ever leaving feels like a number worth considering.
From Hiroki Matsumoto of Sacramento's East Sacramento neighborhood, a software developer, who asks: "Benson or Gonzalez in 1998?"
Gonzalez. Aces gave us the answer himself by handing him the ball in Game Five. Benson has seventeen regular season saves and a postseason ERA approaching thirteen. The evidence is complete.
From Valentina Cruz of Sacramento's South Land Park neighborhood, a veterinarian, who asks: "Three championships in four years, an eighteen-win season from a thirty-seven-year-old Venezuelan right-hander, and a World Series MVP named Andretti. Did you see any of this coming in March?"
The Andretti arc — eighteen wins, a 3.17 ERA, then fourteen championship innings — is the most complete individual story of the 1997 season. In March I expected Strickler to win the Cy Young and I expected Rubalcava to anchor the playoff rotation. Both happened. What I did not see was Andretti, twice on the biggest stage, throwing the ball the way he threw it in October. Some things resist projection entirely. That's why they play the games.
From Takeshi Ogawa of Elk Grove, a high school chemistry teacher, who asks: "What does this championship mean for Choi's contract situation?"
Choi is twenty-three years old, coming off a forty-six-homer, hundred-and-twenty-seven-RBI season in year two of what should be a lengthy prime, and he just won his second World Series ring. He has leverage, the organization has money, and both sides have strong incentive to resolve this before it becomes a free agency negotiation. If Sacramento loses Espenoza in free agency and then faces a Choi contract standoff simultaneously, the offseason becomes genuinely complicated. The chemistry teacher would note that two unstable elements combined produce unpredictable reactions. That is the correct framing.
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The 1997 Sacramento Prayers: one hundred and fifteen wins, the best record in the American League, the Cy Young Pitching Triple Crown for Strickler, forty-six home runs and a hundred and twenty-seven RBI from Choi, an ALCS MVP for David Perez, a retirement for Big Mac, and a sixteenth championship banner, third in four years, for Cathedral Stadium.
The 1998 season is four months away. Espenoza's next team is undetermined. The rotation has three slots spoken for and one to fill. Lopez is coming back. The top three Prayers prospects are nineteen, twenty, and seventeen years old.
It was a very good year. See you in 1998.
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Claude Playball is a baseball insider and analyst and host of the Hot Corner podcast, based in Sacramento, California.