Thursday, July 16, 2009
2nd Half Kicks Off
The first post of the month and guaranteed not to be overly exciting. The generally acknowledged second half of the baseball season gets underway this hour, despite every team past the 81-game mark.
A blasé slate of games tonight, with the most interesting match-ups being Phillies-Marlins and Reds-Brewers.
Here's some interesting things that the pros are saying & writing:
Rob Neyer writes the Sox are looking to dump Julio Lugo (and that's newsworthy because?), and the Jays are scouting Montero, which keeps my buddy's dreams of the Yanks acquiring Doc somewhat based in reality.
I got to thinking . . . if the Yanks do get Halladay, when would be the last comparable pitching acquisition? I'm thinking in terms of flexing their monetary muscle and potentially having an indelialbe effect on the team's fortunes.
Mussina? Didn't have as big an impact on the team's fortunes as I expected to at the time of the signing. Although he probably had one of the top 10-15 Yankee careers among starting pitchers.
Clemens? The team was coming off one of the top seasons in the history of the sport. There was no way he was going to take them to "another level," and outside of occassional post-season brilliance he was more of a coat-tail rider. Especially in '99.
Cone? Great comparison. Cone came to the team in July of '95 and was a huge factor in their run to the A.L. Wild Card. And he subsequently played a key role three other championships.
For some reason I thought about Catfish Hunter. I've always paired the Catfish signing before the '75 season with the emergence of those late 70s Yankee teams. He was the first big fish, awful pun intended, that the Yankees' cash reeled in at that time.
Funny thing though: in '74 (Hunter's last season in Oakland), the Yanks went 89-73, good enough for a second place finish. In Catfish's first year in pinstripes, the Yanks actually took a step back, going 83-77 and dropped to third. I don't have the time or knowledge to break down what happened in '75 to cause the misstep, but it certainly had little or nothing to do with Hunter. In 39 starts (328 innings!) he went 23-14 with 2.58 ERA (144 ERA+).
In a '76 campaign in which his production declined (98 ERA+), Hunter still won 17 games and pitched nearly 300 innings for the first Yankee pennant winner since '64. The best starter on the staff that year was actually Ed Figueroa.
And that was basically it for Catfish. From '77 to '79, Hunter, beset by age/arm problems/wear & tear, went 23-24 with a 4.52 ERA in 62 G/61 GS.
Speaking of, here's Pete Abe's post about what it would take to get Halladay. Sounds about right to me.
I'll try and get one more post in this weekend, but it might be tough. Have a lot going on, both recreationally and not.
Enjoy the weekend.
The first post of the month and guaranteed not to be overly exciting. The generally acknowledged second half of the baseball season gets underway this hour, despite every team past the 81-game mark.
A blasé slate of games tonight, with the most interesting match-ups being Phillies-Marlins and Reds-Brewers.
Here's some interesting things that the pros are saying & writing:
Rob Neyer writes the Sox are looking to dump Julio Lugo (and that's newsworthy because?), and the Jays are scouting Montero, which keeps my buddy's dreams of the Yanks acquiring Doc somewhat based in reality.
I got to thinking . . . if the Yanks do get Halladay, when would be the last comparable pitching acquisition? I'm thinking in terms of flexing their monetary muscle and potentially having an indelialbe effect on the team's fortunes.
Mussina? Didn't have as big an impact on the team's fortunes as I expected to at the time of the signing. Although he probably had one of the top 10-15 Yankee careers among starting pitchers.
Clemens? The team was coming off one of the top seasons in the history of the sport. There was no way he was going to take them to "another level," and outside of occassional post-season brilliance he was more of a coat-tail rider. Especially in '99.
Cone? Great comparison. Cone came to the team in July of '95 and was a huge factor in their run to the A.L. Wild Card. And he subsequently played a key role three other championships.
For some reason I thought about Catfish Hunter. I've always paired the Catfish signing before the '75 season with the emergence of those late 70s Yankee teams. He was the first big fish, awful pun intended, that the Yankees' cash reeled in at that time.
Funny thing though: in '74 (Hunter's last season in Oakland), the Yanks went 89-73, good enough for a second place finish. In Catfish's first year in pinstripes, the Yanks actually took a step back, going 83-77 and dropped to third. I don't have the time or knowledge to break down what happened in '75 to cause the misstep, but it certainly had little or nothing to do with Hunter. In 39 starts (328 innings!) he went 23-14 with 2.58 ERA (144 ERA+).
In a '76 campaign in which his production declined (98 ERA+), Hunter still won 17 games and pitched nearly 300 innings for the first Yankee pennant winner since '64. The best starter on the staff that year was actually Ed Figueroa.
And that was basically it for Catfish. From '77 to '79, Hunter, beset by age/arm problems/wear & tear, went 23-24 with a 4.52 ERA in 62 G/61 GS.
Speaking of, here's Pete Abe's post about what it would take to get Halladay. Sounds about right to me.
I'll try and get one more post in this weekend, but it might be tough. Have a lot going on, both recreationally and not.
Enjoy the weekend.
