2020 astros offseason

[texashorne 1178]

Lots of data can be derived from that site.. Good stuff. Would like to see hits that followed a bang 

[pepper brooks 580]

1 hour ago, woohorn said:

Lots of raw data in this Twitter thread, but I can't figure out what it means...
 

this dude needs to discover some of the better things to do on the internet.  good lord.  

[RGBIII 22840]

Y’all sure are negative. Dusty Baker is a great club house guy and has won at multiple stops. He is very well suited to deal with the shit storm of this season. Just because he’s not an analytical guy doesn’t mean he can’t adapt. If the GM is analytical and mandates something to Dusty it’s not going to be one of those Phillip Seymour Hoffman money ball type of deals. The Gm here is crucial, the manager is not an organization changer. You’re acting like the team doesn’t have probably 10ish potential all stars on it. Even if Dusty sucks it’s not like Springer, Altuve, Bregman etc are just going to forget how to play baseball at a high level. Worry about the GM situation but the manager hire was never going to be an organization changer. And yes, analytics is still going to be a gigantic part of the organization, not like they are just going to flip script just because Luhnow is gone. Crane hires Luhnow specifically for his approach, he will hire the next one following in that same mold because why the hell wouldn’t he. Can we just fast forward to opening day already

[Scraps 13577]

[pepper brooks 580]

to further the analysis we would need to analyze the efficacy of the banging.  What was the result on the pitches where there was a bang.  not that it changes anything.  I would simply find it interesting.  I want to know how effective their cheating was.  

[MAROON 445]

8 minutes ago, pepper brooks said:

to further the analysis we would need to analyze the efficacy of the banging.  What was the result on the pitches where there was a bang.  not that it changes anything.  I would simply find it interesting.  I want to know how effective their cheating was.  

his data files are available to download on that site.  I think what you need to do is say any at bat with a bang is a cheating at bat since no bang could be a fastball.  Then see how those at bats turned out.  I'm going to go out on a limb and say it didn't help.

[MAROON 445]

5 hours ago, hookem48 said:

So you want him to completely lose control of the team and be a fucking idiot on top of that?

if he wins us another ring I don't give a shit what else he does!

[Guadaloopy 11013]

15 minutes ago, MAROON said:

his data files are available to download on that site.  I think what you need to do is say any at bat with a bang is a cheating at bat since no bang could be a fastball.  Then see how those at bats turned out.  I'm going to go out on a limb and say it didn't help.

I’m mostly of the mind that it didn’t help, but then I see Cam Maybin get a third of his season RBIs in his first two weeks with the Astros.  So I don’t know that it didn’t help.   And that’s what sucks about this whole deal.   

[Scraps 13577]

his data files are available to download on that site.  I think what you need to do is say any at bat with a bang is a cheating at bat since no bang could be a fastball.  Then see how those at bats turned out.  I'm going to go out on a limb and say it didn't help.

I bet it helped Marwin. He used it alot and had career numbers

[MAROON 445]

4 minutes ago, Scraps said:

31 minutes ago, MAROON said:

his data files are available to download on that site.  I think what you need to do is say any at bat with a bang is a cheating at bat since no bang could be a fastball.  Then see how those at bats turned out.  I'm going to go out on a limb and say it didn't help.

I bet it helped Marwin. He used it alot and had career numbers

wouldn't doubt it.  The data is there to analyze.

 

I did look through some games and what I noticed that makes me think it didn't help much (but I did not look at just Marwin specifically).

1. majority of bangs are off speed pitches, but NOT all off speed pitches resulted in a bang during an at bat. Assume that means they couldn't get the sign - which leaves the batter really screwed - he thinks no bang = fastball, when its actually off speed.
2. Some bangs for fast balls - assume they screwed up the sign steal or the other team changed the signs. Again this screws the batter.

[WBT 20669]

Joe Posnanski has been writing up his 100 greatest players of all-time.  Today was Bagwell at #58.  If anything I think that's a little too low but the comments are full of people saying he shouldn't be on the list.

The article is just ok.  It spends way too much time on Boston and Frank White for some reason.

https://theathletic.com/1546428/2020/01/29/the-baseball-100-no-58-jeff-bagwell/

Spoiler

 

The Baseball 100: No. 58, Jeff Bagwell

By Joe Posnanski 7h ago 226 

Starting in December and ending on Opening Day, Joe Posnanski will count down the 100 greatest baseball players by publishing an essay on a player every day for 100 days. In all, this project will contain roughly as many words as “Moby Dick.” Yes, we know it’s nutty. We hope you enjoy. 

---

In Kansas City, at what is now Kauffman Stadium, there’s a statue of Frank White just beyond right field. People not from Kansas City might not get that. White hit just .255 in his career, though he got better as the years went along. He stole a few bases. Yes, non-Royals fans might know about his defense — he did win eight Gold Gloves as the Royals’ second baseman — but they probably don’t know it the way Kansas Citians do.

In Kansas City, it’s simply accepted fact: Nobody played second base quite like White.

Why? Well, you see, White spent most of his career playing on Kansas City’s artificial turf, which was one of the world’s most dangerous surfaces. When you combined the city’s sweltering summer heat  — “hotter than two rats in a $*%&#*# wool sock,” as Ichiro once described it* — and the Royals Stadium turf, it became almost impossible to play the infield. Baseballs skipped like stones on a lake and attacked like rattlesnakes. And all the while you felt like you were walking on hot coals.

*Listening to it again, I think Ichiro actually said “$*%&#*# old sock,” but it’s usually quoted as “wool sock,” and that sounds better.

White was like a dancer and a bullfighter on that turf. He caught bullets. He jumped on high choppers that attacked like angry bees. Nobody was better at going back on bloops and inconveniently placed pop-ups. His first baseman John Mayberry used to yell “Frank!” instead of “I got it.”

But we still haven’t gotten to the real reason there’s a Frank White statue. See, White grew up in Kansas City — virtually in the shadow of old Municipal Stadium. He learned to play ball on Kansas City streets. When he was a hopeful young player, he spent his summer working construction on what would become Kauffman Stadium.

And when he became an All-Star, a Gold Glover, a World Series hero, he came to represent all the dreams of Kansas City kids hoping to be Royals themselves.

There are a few players around baseball who were like that. You can think of them — obviously, there’s Pete Rose in Cincinnati. Tony Gwynn did not grow up in San Diego (he grew up a couple of hours away in Long Beach) but he went to play college ball at San Diego State and came to represent all that is that wonderful city. Rickey Henderson grew up in Oakland, Ryan Zimmerman played college ball close to Washington, Cal Ripken’s father was a Baltimore Orioles coach. There are others.

But it seems to me that no player in baseball history — not even Rose or White — had the stars aligned to become a hometown hero the way Jeff Bagwell did in Boston.

Look: He was born in Boston. His father Robert had grown up in Watertown and played college baseball at Northeastern. His mother, Jan, grew up in a large Irish family in Newton and played in Boston park softball leagues for years after high school. Both of them spent the best parts of their early lives at Fenway Park. This guy is as New England as the Kennedys.

Oh yeah, what does every cliché New England kid need? Right! A grandmother who lives and dies with the Boston Red Sox — and Jeff Bagwell had one of those, too: Alice, his mother’s mother, who religiously listened to games on the radio and scoured over the box scores in the Boston Globe.

Jeff’s family did move a couple of hours away to Killingworth, Conn., still there in the Red Sox sphere of New England. When Jeff was just a year old, his parents taught him to throw a baseball. The Red Sox dream was launched. Sure, he was too small as a kid, but he refused to give up because his baseball hero was a normal-sized guy who hit like he was a giant.

Jeff Bagwell grew up idolizing Yaz. Well, who else could it have been?

Seriously, this is a Boston Red Sox movie, right? And it only gets better because Bagwell was considered a non-prospect in high school. As Middletown Press reporter Jim Bransfield said in SABR’s comprehensive book, “Jeff Bagwell in Connecticut”: “I remember one scout telling me that he had a plus bat but couldn’t run, didn’t have much of a glove, had an ordinary arm and didn’t have a position. ‘Lots of kids like him,’” the scout said.

So he went to the University of Hartford, which was the only Division I team to offer him a scholarship. And there, he met more New England characters. His first coach, Bill Denehy, had grown up in Middletown, Conn., and pitched for the New York Mets for a while. He played the hard-nosed coach who humbled the cocky young Bagwell. At one point, Denehy moved Bagwell from short to third, and Jeff complained about it.

Denehy looked him straight in the eye and said: “You’re too $*%&#*# slow to play shortstop.”

Denehy was fired shortly afterward for a reason that has nothing to do with our story here but is too good to skip. It seemed that the Harford and UConn players had a massive fight on the field during a game, and Denehy’s post-fight commentary to one reporter was to say he hoped that when UConn assistant coach Mitch Pietras came to town, somebody would bomb his car. There is actually even more to that story, but we will leave it there.

Dan Gooley — a fourth-generation Irish American born in New Haven, Conn. — became the new Hartford coach. He had such a huge impact on Bagwell that he got named in the Hall of Fame speech.

So here’s a New England kid raised by New England parents, coached by New England coaches, and he’s an obsessive Red Sox fan who idolizes Yaz, and he has Grandma Alice cutting out Sawx boxscores back in Newton. How can this story end any other way but with this kid stealing the hearts of Boston fans? I mean, just cast Matt Damon and Ben Affleck right now.

And then it looked like it would happen! The Red Sox took him in the fourth round of the 1989 draft, and he went to Winter Haven and hit, then he went to New Britain and hit even better, and, well, you know what happens next.

Yes! That’s right!

They traded him for a 37-year-old reliever named Larry Andersen.

Seriously. It has to be one of the biggest bummers in baseball history.

There’s no way to explain it now, no way to give enough context. Sometimes, managers and general managers of teams with bad bullpens lose their minds. The Red Sox are not the first nor last team to have this happen.

In 1993, for instance, the Royals had bullpen woes and rather suddenly determined they could not live without a guy named Stan Belinda for the stretch run. Belinda was their only hope. So the Royals traded one of the best pitching prospects in baseball, Jon Lieber, who went on to win 131 games and finish fourth in the 2001 Cy Young balloting.

Belinda, as you might have guessed, did not prove to be a difference-maker in Kansas City.

The Red Sox in 1990 were even more frantic — it’s hard to replicate now that they’ve won a bunch of championships, but from 1919 to 2003, the Red Sox grew increasingly desperate. And their desperation was particularly acute in 1990. The memories of the heartbreaking 1986 World Series loss were still vivid. In 1988, the Red Sox got swept by Oakland in the ALCS. The fear that the Red Sox would never, ever win a World Series was at its fevered peak.

And the 1990 Red Sox had severe bullpen problems. It had everybody in Boston shouting at shadows and lampposts. Something had to be done. But what? Well, Larry Andersen was pitching well. Yes, he was 37. Yes, he had bounced around the game — been traded, purchased, released and signed as a free agent. But he found a nice groove in Houston in 1989 and 1990.

And when you are panic mode, frankly, you’ll do some crazy things.

So the Red Sox traded Bagwell for Andersen.

“Larry is a veteran major-league reliever who should bolster our bullpen for the stretch run,” Red Sox general manager Lou Gorman said. “Although the price was high, we are happy to have acquired a pitcher with postseason experience.”

The price was high? Yeah, the price was high — the Red Sox traded a brilliantly talented 22-year-old kid who was born and raised to be a Red Sox superstar for a month’s worth of Larry Andersen. Sure, the Red Sox tried to explain it away. They said they already had a third baseman they liked more in Scott Cooper (and another named Tim Naehring) and a first baseman they liked more in Mo Vaughn, and so Bagwell was the odd man out.

“I admire Jeff Bagwell, and I hope he goes on to have an outstanding career,” Gorman told reporters. “But right now my job is to help the Red Sox win a championship.”

Yeah, Lou didn’t do that. Andersen pitched a few innings, the Red Sox lost the ALCS to Oakland in four straight again, and Andersen bolted for better weather in San Diego.

When Jeff Bagwell called his grandmother Alice to tell her about the deal, she cried.

---

I’ve had an ongoing argument — well, not so much an argument as a joyful discussion — with my friend Michael Schur about whether Jeff Bagwell or Gary Sheffield was more intimidating at the plate.

Mike, for good reason, sides with Sheffield. I totally get it. Sheffield at the plate was like a man being held back from a fight. He waggled that bat back and forth, and his whole body was like a rattlesnake coiled to strike, and you could almost hear him shouting “Let me at ’em, let me at ’em!” before every pitch was released.

Bagwell was exactly the opposite. He would get into that weird batting stance — legs spread as wide apart as they could go — and he looked like he was sitting very uncomfortably on a stool. He had his bat pointed straight up to the sky, and he was entirely motionless. Well, all of it was motionless. That was the eerie part to me, the part that makes me think that might have been even more intimidating than Sheffield. He would just stand there, a statue, an ice sculpture, a Hollywood cowboy just before the draw, and then he would uncork the shortest right cross of a swing you ever saw and it was utterly devastating.

If I may, I’d like to compare the two giants to Rocky opponents.

Sheffield was Clubber Lang, shouting and attacking and pitying all fools.

Bagwell was Ivan Drago, standing there with that blank look on his face and then saying, in the worst Russian accent west of John Malkovich in “Rounders”: “You ‘vil lose.”

They’re both frightening. But I lean slightly toward Bagwell — or, maybe I should say slightly away from Bagwell.

As a player, the thing that gets overlooked with Bagwell was how well-rounded he was. He was one of the best baserunners of his generation — he actually had multiple 30-30 seasons — and he was a terrific defensive first baseman. He walked 100 times in a season seven times, and from age 24 to age 32, he walked more often than he struck out.

If not for his last two seasons, which were struggles, he was a .300/.400/.500 career hitter.

Ted Williams himself called Bagwell the closest thing he saw in the modern game to Frank Robinson, which is just about the highest praise imaginable.

Bagwell’s best season, 1994, was shortened — but not by the strike. One day before the season prematurely ended, Bagwell was hit by a pitch from Andy Benes and broke his left hand. That was a common theme for Bagwell because of the way he crowded the plate and where he held his hands. He broke that hand three straight seasons on hit-by-pitches.

The 1994 season had been astonishing. He hit .368/.451/.750 with 39 homers, 116 RBIs and 104 runs in just 110 games — and he did it while playing half his games in the hitter’s death trap that was the Houston Astrodome. Bagwell hit an extraordinary .373 in the Astrodome that season, far and away the highest average any Astros player had ever managed in that place:

Highest Astrodome batting averages (min. 150 at-bats)

1. Jeff Bagwell, 1994: .373
2. José Cruz, 1978: .353
3. Jeff Bagwell, 1998: .347
4. Dave Magadan, 1995: .344
5. Craig Biggio, 1991: .343

It’s always tempting to wonder just what Bagwell’s 1994 numbers might have looked like had he played a full season. But in Bagwell’s case, because of the injury, the timing of the strike helped him. He won the MVP award unanimously, and almost certainly would not have won it had the season played to the end.

Bagwell was never quite 1994 Good again, but he was close. In 1999, he had 42 homers, 30 stolen bases and led the league in runs and walks. The next year, he scored 152 runs, which is the most scored by any player since Lou Gehrig in 1936.

In 1997, he had 40 homers, 40 doubles, 30 stolen bases and 100 walks.

The list of players who have done that is one — Jeff Bagwell and Jeff Bagwell alone.

You probably remember that Bagwell did not make it into the Hall of Fame right away. It actually took him seven ballots to get in. The reason was almost certainly because people suspected him of using PEDs. He was never connected to steroids in a public way — no positive drug tests, he was not mentioned in the Mitchell Report or by José Canseco, nobody in the know ever publicly charged him, and he publicly denied using. But there were whispers just the same, and Bagwell did offer a fascinating quote to Mike Berardino in 2001 about using steroids:

“In my case, the temptation is always there. One thing I know is I can go home after my career is over and say, ‘I did it myself.’ … Now let me tell you, if I’m on the bubble, the amount of money that’s in the game, I probably would already have a needle in my butt. There’s too much money out there. If it does make you better, why wouldn’t you at least give it a shot to hang on? All you have to do is have one big year. Next thing you know you’re around for five or six more.”

And then this, on his judgment of players who do use PEDs:

“Sometimes I don’t blame them. Yeah, it might be kind of risky but they still have a family to feed. That’s the big question. You have to go with yourself and determine what’s more important to you.”

Bagwell was finally elected in 2017 — and with more than 86 percent of the vote. Whatever doubts might have lingered about him all but disappeared by the end.

 

[clapclapclap 9000]

42 minutes ago, MAROON said:

if he wins us another ring I don't give a shit what else he does!

I'd guess with Baker this team won't give as many shifts this year....

Edited January 29, 2020 by clapclapclap

[Pig Bellmont 8738]

21 hours ago, pepper brooks said:

his handling of pitching and the fact that the game, like it or not, is now analytics driven no matter how "old school" you are.  The Astros fired guys and paid their fine.  Outside that they should make zero changed to organizational philosophy.  Promote the best of Luhnow's guys or go hire one of his guys who has moved up within the ranks at another organization, hire a younger analytics driven manager, and keep the train on the tracks.  Just do it without using enhanced sign stealing.  

In my opinion, hiring Dusty for a year reflects management/ownership belief that the players are in place to win, and Dusty will keep the players happy. Positive PR and a belief that he can’t fuck it up. 
 

I personally agree with pepper here - sure seems like an abandonment of philosophy. Surely there was a balance between good analytics and “win at all costs”. Dusty is fine, but not great and he’s frustratingly stubborn

[ChickenSandwich 9852]

If they sign a Analytic-minded GM they could still stay the course

[pepper brooks 580]

56 minutes ago, Pig Bellmont said:

In my opinion, hiring Dusty for a year reflects management/ownership belief that the players are in place to win, and Dusty will keep the players happy. Positive PR and a belief that he can’t fuck it up. 
 

I personally agree with pepper here - sure seems like an abandonment of philosophy. Surely there was a balance between good analytics and “win at all costs”. Dusty is fine, but not great and he’s frustratingly stubborn

it's going to look really bad if/when they fire him after one year too.  First thing the media is going to do is say it's because he's old/black.  that won't be true, but they will say it, and then bring up the Taubman stuff and bag on how the astros are the devil again.  and to be clear, I like dusty baker a lot as a manager.  i'd personally love to play for a calm, old school players coach like him.  I simply think this is not a good fit for this organization.  

[Hank Chinaski 6320]

1 hour ago, WBT said:

Joe Posnanski has been writing up his 100 greatest players of all-time.  Today was Bagwell at #58.  If anything I think that's a little too low but the comments are full of people saying he shouldn't be on the list.

The article is just ok.  It spends way too much time on Boston and Frank White for some reason.

https://theathletic.com/1546428/2020/01/29/the-baseball-100-no-58-jeff-bagwell/

  Reveal hidden contents

 

The Baseball 100: No. 58, Jeff Bagwell

By Joe Posnanski 7h ago 226 

Starting in December and ending on Opening Day, Joe Posnanski will count down the 100 greatest baseball players by publishing an essay on a player every day for 100 days. In all, this project will contain roughly as many words as “Moby Dick.” Yes, we know it’s nutty. We hope you enjoy. 

---

In Kansas City, at what is now Kauffman Stadium, there’s a statue of Frank White just beyond right field. People not from Kansas City might not get that. White hit just .255 in his career, though he got better as the years went along. He stole a few bases. Yes, non-Royals fans might know about his defense — he did win eight Gold Gloves as the Royals’ second baseman — but they probably don’t know it the way Kansas Citians do.

In Kansas City, it’s simply accepted fact: Nobody played second base quite like White.

Why? Well, you see, White spent most of his career playing on Kansas City’s artificial turf, which was one of the world’s most dangerous surfaces. When you combined the city’s sweltering summer heat  — “hotter than two rats in a $*%&#*# wool sock,” as Ichiro once described it* — and the Royals Stadium turf, it became almost impossible to play the infield. Baseballs skipped like stones on a lake and attacked like rattlesnakes. And all the while you felt like you were walking on hot coals.

*Listening to it again, I think Ichiro actually said “$*%&#*# old sock,” but it’s usually quoted as “wool sock,” and that sounds better.

White was like a dancer and a bullfighter on that turf. He caught bullets. He jumped on high choppers that attacked like angry bees. Nobody was better at going back on bloops and inconveniently placed pop-ups. His first baseman John Mayberry used to yell “Frank!” instead of “I got it.”

But we still haven’t gotten to the real reason there’s a Frank White statue. See, White grew up in Kansas City — virtually in the shadow of old Municipal Stadium. He learned to play ball on Kansas City streets. When he was a hopeful young player, he spent his summer working construction on what would become Kauffman Stadium.

And when he became an All-Star, a Gold Glover, a World Series hero, he came to represent all the dreams of Kansas City kids hoping to be Royals themselves.

There are a few players around baseball who were like that. You can think of them — obviously, there’s Pete Rose in Cincinnati. Tony Gwynn did not grow up in San Diego (he grew up a couple of hours away in Long Beach) but he went to play college ball at San Diego State and came to represent all that is that wonderful city. Rickey Henderson grew up in Oakland, Ryan Zimmerman played college ball close to Washington, Cal Ripken’s father was a Baltimore Orioles coach. There are others.

But it seems to me that no player in baseball history — not even Rose or White — had the stars aligned to become a hometown hero the way Jeff Bagwell did in Boston.

Look: He was born in Boston. His father Robert had grown up in Watertown and played college baseball at Northeastern. His mother, Jan, grew up in a large Irish family in Newton and played in Boston park softball leagues for years after high school. Both of them spent the best parts of their early lives at Fenway Park. This guy is as New England as the Kennedys.

Oh yeah, what does every cliché New England kid need? Right! A grandmother who lives and dies with the Boston Red Sox — and Jeff Bagwell had one of those, too: Alice, his mother’s mother, who religiously listened to games on the radio and scoured over the box scores in the Boston Globe.

Jeff’s family did move a couple of hours away to Killingworth, Conn., still there in the Red Sox sphere of New England. When Jeff was just a year old, his parents taught him to throw a baseball. The Red Sox dream was launched. Sure, he was too small as a kid, but he refused to give up because his baseball hero was a normal-sized guy who hit like he was a giant.

Jeff Bagwell grew up idolizing Yaz. Well, who else could it have been?

Seriously, this is a Boston Red Sox movie, right? And it only gets better because Bagwell was considered a non-prospect in high school. As Middletown Press reporter Jim Bransfield said in SABR’s comprehensive book, “Jeff Bagwell in Connecticut”: “I remember one scout telling me that he had a plus bat but couldn’t run, didn’t have much of a glove, had an ordinary arm and didn’t have a position. ‘Lots of kids like him,’” the scout said.

So he went to the University of Hartford, which was the only Division I team to offer him a scholarship. And there, he met more New England characters. His first coach, Bill Denehy, had grown up in Middletown, Conn., and pitched for the New York Mets for a while. He played the hard-nosed coach who humbled the cocky young Bagwell. At one point, Denehy moved Bagwell from short to third, and Jeff complained about it.

Denehy looked him straight in the eye and said: “You’re too $*%&#*# slow to play shortstop.”

Denehy was fired shortly afterward for a reason that has nothing to do with our story here but is too good to skip. It seemed that the Harford and UConn players had a massive fight on the field during a game, and Denehy’s post-fight commentary to one reporter was to say he hoped that when UConn assistant coach Mitch Pietras came to town, somebody would bomb his car. There is actually even more to that story, but we will leave it there.

Dan Gooley — a fourth-generation Irish American born in New Haven, Conn. — became the new Hartford coach. He had such a huge impact on Bagwell that he got named in the Hall of Fame speech.

So here’s a New England kid raised by New England parents, coached by New England coaches, and he’s an obsessive Red Sox fan who idolizes Yaz, and he has Grandma Alice cutting out Sawx boxscores back in Newton. How can this story end any other way but with this kid stealing the hearts of Boston fans? I mean, just cast Matt Damon and Ben Affleck right now.

And then it looked like it would happen! The Red Sox took him in the fourth round of the 1989 draft, and he went to Winter Haven and hit, then he went to New Britain and hit even better, and, well, you know what happens next.

Yes! That’s right!

They traded him for a 37-year-old reliever named Larry Andersen.

Seriously. It has to be one of the biggest bummers in baseball history.

There’s no way to explain it now, no way to give enough context. Sometimes, managers and general managers of teams with bad bullpens lose their minds. The Red Sox are not the first nor last team to have this happen.

In 1993, for instance, the Royals had bullpen woes and rather suddenly determined they could not live without a guy named Stan Belinda for the stretch run. Belinda was their only hope. So the Royals traded one of the best pitching prospects in baseball, Jon Lieber, who went on to win 131 games and finish fourth in the 2001 Cy Young balloting.

Belinda, as you might have guessed, did not prove to be a difference-maker in Kansas City.

The Red Sox in 1990 were even more frantic — it’s hard to replicate now that they’ve won a bunch of championships, but from 1919 to 2003, the Red Sox grew increasingly desperate. And their desperation was particularly acute in 1990. The memories of the heartbreaking 1986 World Series loss were still vivid. In 1988, the Red Sox got swept by Oakland in the ALCS. The fear that the Red Sox would never, ever win a World Series was at its fevered peak.

And the 1990 Red Sox had severe bullpen problems. It had everybody in Boston shouting at shadows and lampposts. Something had to be done. But what? Well, Larry Andersen was pitching well. Yes, he was 37. Yes, he had bounced around the game — been traded, purchased, released and signed as a free agent. But he found a nice groove in Houston in 1989 and 1990.

And when you are panic mode, frankly, you’ll do some crazy things.

So the Red Sox traded Bagwell for Andersen.

“Larry is a veteran major-league reliever who should bolster our bullpen for the stretch run,” Red Sox general manager Lou Gorman said. “Although the price was high, we are happy to have acquired a pitcher with postseason experience.”

The price was high? Yeah, the price was high — the Red Sox traded a brilliantly talented 22-year-old kid who was born and raised to be a Red Sox superstar for a month’s worth of Larry Andersen. Sure, the Red Sox tried to explain it away. They said they already had a third baseman they liked more in Scott Cooper (and another named Tim Naehring) and a first baseman they liked more in Mo Vaughn, and so Bagwell was the odd man out.

“I admire Jeff Bagwell, and I hope he goes on to have an outstanding career,” Gorman told reporters. “But right now my job is to help the Red Sox win a championship.”

Yeah, Lou didn’t do that. Andersen pitched a few innings, the Red Sox lost the ALCS to Oakland in four straight again, and Andersen bolted for better weather in San Diego.

When Jeff Bagwell called his grandmother Alice to tell her about the deal, she cried.

---

I’ve had an ongoing argument — well, not so much an argument as a joyful discussion — with my friend Michael Schur about whether Jeff Bagwell or Gary Sheffield was more intimidating at the plate.

Mike, for good reason, sides with Sheffield. I totally get it. Sheffield at the plate was like a man being held back from a fight. He waggled that bat back and forth, and his whole body was like a rattlesnake coiled to strike, and you could almost hear him shouting “Let me at ’em, let me at ’em!” before every pitch was released.

Bagwell was exactly the opposite. He would get into that weird batting stance — legs spread as wide apart as they could go — and he looked like he was sitting very uncomfortably on a stool. He had his bat pointed straight up to the sky, and he was entirely motionless. Well, all of it was motionless. That was the eerie part to me, the part that makes me think that might have been even more intimidating than Sheffield. He would just stand there, a statue, an ice sculpture, a Hollywood cowboy just before the draw, and then he would uncork the shortest right cross of a swing you ever saw and it was utterly devastating.

If I may, I’d like to compare the two giants to Rocky opponents.

Sheffield was Clubber Lang, shouting and attacking and pitying all fools.

Bagwell was Ivan Drago, standing there with that blank look on his face and then saying, in the worst Russian accent west of John Malkovich in “Rounders”: “You ‘vil lose.”

They’re both frightening. But I lean slightly toward Bagwell — or, maybe I should say slightly away from Bagwell.

As a player, the thing that gets overlooked with Bagwell was how well-rounded he was. He was one of the best baserunners of his generation — he actually had multiple 30-30 seasons — and he was a terrific defensive first baseman. He walked 100 times in a season seven times, and from age 24 to age 32, he walked more often than he struck out.

If not for his last two seasons, which were struggles, he was a .300/.400/.500 career hitter.

Ted Williams himself called Bagwell the closest thing he saw in the modern game to Frank Robinson, which is just about the highest praise imaginable.

Bagwell’s best season, 1994, was shortened — but not by the strike. One day before the season prematurely ended, Bagwell was hit by a pitch from Andy Benes and broke his left hand. That was a common theme for Bagwell because of the way he crowded the plate and where he held his hands. He broke that hand three straight seasons on hit-by-pitches.

The 1994 season had been astonishing. He hit .368/.451/.750 with 39 homers, 116 RBIs and 104 runs in just 110 games — and he did it while playing half his games in the hitter’s death trap that was the Houston Astrodome. Bagwell hit an extraordinary .373 in the Astrodome that season, far and away the highest average any Astros player had ever managed in that place:

Highest Astrodome batting averages (min. 150 at-bats)

1. Jeff Bagwell, 1994: .373
2. José Cruz, 1978: .353
3. Jeff Bagwell, 1998: .347
4. Dave Magadan, 1995: .344
5. Craig Biggio, 1991: .343

It’s always tempting to wonder just what Bagwell’s 1994 numbers might have looked like had he played a full season. But in Bagwell’s case, because of the injury, the timing of the strike helped him. He won the MVP award unanimously, and almost certainly would not have won it had the season played to the end.

Bagwell was never quite 1994 Good again, but he was close. In 1999, he had 42 homers, 30 stolen bases and led the league in runs and walks. The next year, he scored 152 runs, which is the most scored by any player since Lou Gehrig in 1936.

In 1997, he had 40 homers, 40 doubles, 30 stolen bases and 100 walks.

The list of players who have done that is one — Jeff Bagwell and Jeff Bagwell alone.

You probably remember that Bagwell did not make it into the Hall of Fame right away. It actually took him seven ballots to get in. The reason was almost certainly because people suspected him of using PEDs. He was never connected to steroids in a public way — no positive drug tests, he was not mentioned in the Mitchell Report or by José Canseco, nobody in the know ever publicly charged him, and he publicly denied using. But there were whispers just the same, and Bagwell did offer a fascinating quote to Mike Berardino in 2001 about using steroids:

“In my case, the temptation is always there. One thing I know is I can go home after my career is over and say, ‘I did it myself.’ … Now let me tell you, if I’m on the bubble, the amount of money that’s in the game, I probably would already have a needle in my butt. There’s too much money out there. If it does make you better, why wouldn’t you at least give it a shot to hang on? All you have to do is have one big year. Next thing you know you’re around for five or six more.”

And then this, on his judgment of players who do use PEDs:

“Sometimes I don’t blame them. Yeah, it might be kind of risky but they still have a family to feed. That’s the big question. You have to go with yourself and determine what’s more important to you.”

Bagwell was finally elected in 2017 — and with more than 86 percent of the vote. Whatever doubts might have lingered about him all but disappeared by the end.

 

And that's why I don't read comments. 36th all-time in position player WAR (per FG); 29th all-time in wRC+; ROY, MVP, 5 top-7 MVP finishes, etc...

[Scraps 13577]

He ain't getting fired after 1 year. He may die, but he ain't getting fired.

This team wins 95 games with a 6 yr old picking a lineup out of a hat.

[Player 4576]

Lilshep for manager!

[HtownHorn 14779]

I wonder how "short" this "short term" agreement is. Probably at most 3 years, which is probably the shelf life of the current iteration of the team.

[TonyTexas 10527]

On 1/28/2020 at 11:04 AM, TonyTexas said:

I absolutely agree. I see him here for 2 years when the team has a good chance to go deep. Beginning in 2022, this team will go through somewhat of a rebuild and will bring in someone more appropriate for that role. 

 

[Pig Bellmont 8738]

7 minutes ago, TonyTexas said:

 

I wonder how cheap the buyout is after 1 year

[WBT 20669]

Damnit I was still holding out hope.

This sure feels like Manfred is dictating the hire.  Crane would never go along to get along though...wait, what?  We're in the AL west now?

[Snake Diggity 4627]

I now expect a full year-down after the 2021 season.  Springer, Brantley, Verlander, Greinke, Correa, and maybe McCullers will be issued QOs upon reaching free agency.  Bregman, James, and Pressly will be traded.  A new core of Whitley, Tucker, Alvarez, Urquidy, and whatever prospects they add will be ready by 2024.  But 2022-2023 are gonna be a huge dropoff from 2015-2021.

[TonyTexas 10527]

13 minutes ago, Pig Bellmont said:

I wonder how cheap the buyout is after 1 year

 

[Pig Bellmont 8738]

1 minute ago, TonyTexas said:

 

That deal structure makes more sense IMO

[tx 3 putt 77426]

4 minutes ago, TonyTexas said:

 

that makes sense

he needs to negotiate a huge bonus for winning the 2020 WS !

[Storm the Field 5302]

11 minutes ago, Snake Diggity said:

Bregman, James, and Pressly will be traded.  

The fuck? Bregman is an emerging MVP-caliber player and is signed through the end of the 2024 season, at which time he will still only be 30 years old. 

[Snake Diggity 4627]

3 minutes ago, Storm the Field said:

The fuck? Bregman is an emerging MVP-caliber player and is signed through the end of the 2024 season, at which time he will still only be 30 years old. 

Depends on what teams will offer, but assuming they won’t be competitive for his age 28 and 29 seasons it might make sense to flip him for 2-3 core pieces that come with 6 cheap seasons each.  Obviously if no team will give up massive value (I.e. 3 MLB Top 75 type prospects) then I agree it would make more sense to keep him and try to extend him.

[Storm the Field 5302]

It's officially a 1 year deal with a club option + buyout for 2021.

[WBT 20669]

1 minute ago, Storm the Field said:

It's officially a 1 year deal with a club option + buyout for 2021.

Bring back AJ for 2021?

[TonyTexas 10527]

 

[TonyTexas 10527]

4 minutes ago, WBT said:

Bring back AJ for 2021?

Not a chance in hell. 

Edited January 29, 2020 by TonyTexas

[RGBIII 22840]

Y’all can back off the ledge now. A one year deal with analytically minded Espada as bench coach is the absolute best case scenario for this. Get an analytical GM on a similar deal and evaluate next offseason 

Edited January 29, 2020 by RGBIII

[tx 3 putt 77426]

I'm ready for opening day !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

what time are we meeting at Biggio's ???

[tx 3 putt 77426]

5 minutes ago, TonyTexas said:

 

 

all of this is awesome !

[Js1 85574]

This is about what I expected and I’m absolutely ok with it 

[Mez2 4025]

1 hour ago, tx 3 putt said:

I'm ready for opening day !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

what time are we meeting at Biggio's ???

15 minutes? 

[RGBIII 22840]

 

[RGBIII 22840]

http://kansascity.royals.mlb.com/kc/team/exec_bios/watson_gene.jsp

[Guadaloopy 11013]

Marwin has 21M reasons not to GAF what anyone else thinks of sign stealing.  

Edited January 30, 2020 by Guadaloopy

[DaysOff 7974]

No one can hate us now; everyone loves Dusty!!!

[Guadaloopy 11013]

So long Whitley...

[tx 3 putt 77426]

24 minutes ago, Guadaloopy said:

So long Whitley...
 

he's past due for a toughening up.

Edited January 30, 2020 by tx 3 putt

[runthebone 8042]

1 hour ago, Guadaloopy said:

So long Whitley...

 

57 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

he's past due for a toughening up.

 

'Tis but a flesh wound.

 

[tx 3 putt 77426]

That’s right, toughen up pussy !

[Beau Vine 54429]

8 hours ago, Guadaloopy said:

My quick takeaway... Altuve was not a fan. Neither was Reddick or McCann.   Kemp is clean.  Springer, Bregman, Correa, and Yuli partook freely.  Jake was all in on the banging.  

Funny thing is that Altuve was the very first bang of the season, but yeah, he was near the bottom in bangs.

<insert South Austin's mom joke here>

[RGBIII 22840]

Not sure if it’s been reported anywhere but watch for James Click (Rays VP of Ops) for GM. Definitely seems like an organization fit..really anyone from the Rays would be

[tx 3 putt 77426]

they've interviewed some quality candidates. i trust that crane will make the right choice 

[Hank Chinaski 6320]

44 minutes ago, RGBIII said:

Not sure if it’s been reported anywhere but watch for James Click (Rays VP of Ops) for GM. Definitely seems like an organization fit..really anyone from the Rays would be

This is more along the lines of what I am hoping for...

[Murfdogg21 4425]

[Analytics assistant]: Ok Coach Baker, we have tabulated 45,768 similar at bats to the present situation and predict with 92% certainty that a ground ball will track to the right side of the infield even though he’s a right handed hitter, so we should shift Correa here. Just look at the model generated on my iPad...

[Dusty]: Whaaaa? The shortstop doesn’t play over there you whippersnapper! That’s where the second baseman goes! And the batter is righty so we need to pull this lefty pitcher! I don’t care what your fancy math says about his tendencies! It’s called “playing the percentages!” It’s what smart managers do to win ballgames! And what the fuck is an iPad???