The fame game
The 2009 Yankees fell short of my Cooperstown expectations because the game and our perceptions about players changed. Plus: Pete Rose's first hustle.
TOP OF THE FIRST
Did Rose lie about his age when he signed with the Reds?
Pete Rose’s greatest accomplishment was setting the record for most hits in a career, a testament to his longevity almost as much as his prowess at the plate.
He collected 4,256 hits and played his final game when he was 45 years and 125 days. Or was that 46 years and 125 days?
In Al Michaels’ autobiography, “You Can't Make This Up: Miracles, Memories, and the Perfect Marriage of Sports and Television,” the former Reds announcer relates a story about Rose.
“Another Pete story: Two nights earlier, the Reds played in Atlanta. During the broadcast, Joe Nuxhall and I had made a big deal about it being Pete Rose’s thirtieth birthday. Can you imagine Charlie Hustle— thirty years old? After the game, we were on the bus going back to the Marriott hotel in downtown Atlanta. Pete was sitting across the aisle from me and I said to him, ‘When we get back to the hotel, let me buy you a drink for your thirtieth birthday.’
“Rose looked at me and said, ‘If you wanted to have done that, you would’ve had to have been here last year.’ ’’
Rose, Michaels asserts, was born on April 14, 1940, not 1941 as listed well . . . everywhere.
Baseball-Reference.com among other places marks Rose’s birthday in 1941, making him 83 when he passed away, which is what all the obits had.
I thought I had a definitive way to verify one version or the other. Back in the day, daily newspapers ran notices of death and births. Two Cincinnati daily newspapers from that era, the Enquirer and the Post, are available on Newspapers.com. Neither ran birth notices in 1940 and 1941
Why would Rose lie about his age? Well, it’s not uncommon for baseball prospects to take a year or two off their ages.
Baseball development thinking goes like this: If a kid can hit .280 at low-A as an 18-year-old, think how good he will be at 21. But if he is already 21, well, there is not as much upside.
Sometimes the fakery is done with the scout’s knowledge; sometimes without. In this case, if “Charlie Hustle” was lying about his age, the scout was in on it. The scout pushing the Reds to sign Pete, Buddy Bloebaum, was Pete’s uncle.
Pete was a marginal prospect anyway. If the Reds found out that he was 20 in 1960 instead of 19, it’s doubtful they would have taken a chance on him.
If Michaels’ version is true, it makes me like Rose more — unlike other things I learned about Pete after his playing days.
HEART OF THE ORDER
How 10 Yankee Hall of Famers became three
No one will confuse the 2009 New York Yankees, the club’s most recent World Series champion, with the 1927 Yankees.
Don’t get me wrong. The 2009 edition was an excellent team. They went 103-59 and defeated worthy postseason opponents in the Angels and Phillies in six games each.
But the 2009 edition was nowhere near as dominant the 1927 team, which went 110-44 -1 and swept the Pirates in the World Series, or even the 1998 Yankees, who went 125–50 and swept the Padres in the Series.
Yet the 2009 Yankees had a load of individual talent. The 1927 Yankees sent six players to the Hall of Fame, and as I looked over the 2009 Yankees after the World Series that season, I thought as many as 10 players had a decent shot at going to Cooperstown — if everything broke right.
Sixteen years later, CC Sabathia became the third 2009 Yankee voted into the Hall. So what happened? Why was I so wrong?
First of all, I never thought the team had 10 players who were lead-pipe cinches for the Hall.
Secondly, the game changed.
More importantly, how players are viewed, particularly by Hall of Fame voters, changed.
And the 2009 Yankee still could come up with as many as six inductees.
The players
My picks from 2009 Yankees for the Hall of Fame can be divided into tiers.
Absolute locks:
Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, CC Sabathia, and Alex Rodriguez
Strong possibilities
Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada and Mark Teixeira
Outside chance:
Young talents who if they panned out ...
Robinson Cano and Joba Chamberlain
What I got right
I was right about Jeter, Rivera, and Sabathia. And Sabathia’s selection may drag Pettitte across the line.
Voters have shown little enthusiasm for Pettitte in his first six years on the ballot. But he doubled his percentage this year, showing up on 27.9% of ballots this year, up from 13.5% in 2014.
That is still a long way from the 75% need to get into the Hall.
More on Pettitte later.
A-Rod’s fall from grace
Of my locks, I got one wrong: Alex Rodriguez. That could still go right . . . in theory.
He received 37.1% of the vote this year, his fourth on the ballot. So he’s closer than Pettitte and has twice as many years to get to 75%.
But A-Rod is a polarizing candidate. So I don’t see much movement in his support.
Before the 2009 season, A-Rod’s rep had taken its first big hit — he admitted in an interview with Peter Gammons on ESPN that he took steroids.
Jose Canseco had accused Rodriguez of steroid-use in a 2008 book, but Canseco had issues after a troubled career and his accusations could be dismissed as not credible.
Sports Illustrated reporter Salena Roberts was coming out with a book on A-Rod in 2009, and she reported that sources said A-Rod had failed two tests for PEDs and been tipped off about another test and thus been able to pass it
In the interview with Gammons — both men were visibly uncomfortable throughout — A-Rod admitted he took steroids during his years with the Texas Rangers. He said he realized he was hurting his body and stopped.
Before those revelations, A-Rod was baseball’s Great CleanHope. He had 553 homers entering the 2009 season, and he seemed to have a good shot at surpassing Barry Bonds’ 762 career total. And, I think the public viewed A-Rod as fairly clean after his admission.
In 2013, A-Rod became the lead figure tied to Biogenesis, a Miami-area-based lab involved in selling PEDs to players. He was suspended for the entire 2014 season.
That was it. He is permanently on the naughty list.
So A-Rod’s support will be limited to those who believe that we probably already have some steroid users in the Hall, so let’s not single out those who got caught.
It is impossible to argue with his numbers. He has 693 career homers, a .930 OPS and 117.6 WAR.
Borderline
Robinson Cano finished 2009, his age 26 season, with a .320 average and 25 homers. The 2005 Rookie of the Year, Cano was a second baseman with pop who won two Gold Gloves, I had every reason to think he was bound for big things. And he was.
He finished his career with a .301 batting average and 335 career homers. If he’d retired at 35 instead of 39, his chances of election to the Hall might be better. He had injuries and missed a season on a PED suspension.
If not for the PED suspension, I’d like his chances. He is two years away from the ballot, and by the time he goes through the balloting process, which could stretch out another 10 years, the electorate may have softened on steroid use.
It didn’t work out
Johnny Damon finished the 2009 season with 2,425 hits. He would likely make it if he got to 3,000 career hits. He needed to last five seasons and average 115 hits a season. Everyone else with 3,000 hits had made it to Cooperstown.
He was entering his age 36 season. It was possible. Players had been aging well in the previous couple of decades.
Damon lasted two more full seasons, then was released by Cleveland in August 2012. He finished with 2,769 hits.
It’s easy to forget what a talent Joba Chamberlain seemed to be. He was in age 23 season, his first as a starter. He had come up with the Yankees in 2007, a chunky kid who played at the University of Nebraska and threw 101 mph. The Yankees used him out of the bullpen and he appeared in 19 games, giving up two runs in 24 innings.
The Yankees imposed special rules, “The Joba Rules,” on themselves to keep from over-using him.
In 2009, they switched him to a starter and he was only average, starting 31 games and going 9-6 with a 4.75 ERA, and a 97 ERA-plus (which rates a pitcher against the rest of the league taking into account park factors).
He went back to the bullpen, but the magic never returned. He underwent Tommy John surgery in 2011. He bounced around to the Tigers, Royals and finally the Indians.
He was quite effective with the Indians in 2016, making 20 appearances and giving up five earned runs in 20 innings pitched (2.25 ERA). But they released him July 10. I am not sure why.
He signed with the Brewer in the off-season and was released in spring training.
How likely became unlikely
So what happened with Teixeira, Pettitte, and Posoda?
Let’s start with Teixeira.
Teixeira hit .292 in 2009 and led the league in home runs (39), RBIs (122) and total bases (344).
Heading into this age 30 season, had a .290 career average, 242 home runs, and a .923 OPS.
Teixeira was a switch hitter, with more power from the left side of the plate and a better batting average from the right.
Around this time, teams began increasingly over-shifting, especially with left-handed hitters.
His average as a left-hander dropped from .282 in 2009 to .244. His batting average on balls put in play fell from .302 in 2009 to .268 in 2010, and it never got as high as .268 again.
Pettitte’s career totals are similar to Sabathia’s.
Pettitte
256-153 record, 3.85 ERA, 117 ERA+, 60.2 WAR
Sabathia
251-161 record, 3.74 ERA, 116 ERA+, 62.3 WAR.
Sabathia has a more impressive career peak than Pettitte. But Pettitte was an excellent postseason performer.
Pettitte was 19-11 with a 3.81 ERA in 44 postseason starts. The 19 wins are a record.
Pettitte has a ding for admitting to using PEDs, supposedly for a short time while recovering from injury.
Teixeira and Posada were one-and-done on the Hall of Fame ballots, both failing to get the 5% required to remain on the ballot.
Through 2009, Posada .277/.379/.480 with 243 homers and an OPS-plus of 124. He was 39 when the season ended.
His offensive production was down the next two seasons. Still he finished with a 121 OPS-plus, meaning he was 21% better than other players in his era, adjusting for park factors.
Cooperstown Cred compiled this list, and Posada is in elite company for catchers with at least 6,000 plate appearances and 50% of their games played as a catcher.
Mike Piazza (143)
Mickey Cochrane (129)
Bill Dickey (127)
Johnny Bench (126)
Ernie Lombardi (126)
Gabby Hartnett (126)
Yogi Berra (125)
Jorge Posada (121)
His career WAR is 42.7, better than two Hall of Fame catchers, Roy Campanella and Roger Bresnahan, and ahead of Posada’s contemporary Yadier Molina, who I think will make it into the Hall.
So what went against Posada?
His counting numbers aren’t great. He only has 1,664 base hits, fewer than anyone in the Hall who played after 1958.
And he wasn’t a great defender.
And where Teixeira was undone by the shift, I think Posada was undone by a shift in what the voters considered.
Posada was a great offensive catcher. And a player’s offensive stats were mostly what voters used. That is probably still true.
WAR and dWAR and dWAR were not even published by baseball-reference.com when I was calculating those 2009 Yankees players’ Hall of Fame chances.
But now we have a lot of different ways to quantify defensive skills. Posada is just below average at throwing runners out. His dWAR that is the WAR he received for defense — is only 2.6, and his catcher’s ERA is slightly higher than when another Yankees catcher caught.
He played on seven American League championship teams and four World Series winners. From what I have read about voters explaining their process, it doesn’t seem like that gets much weight anymore.
He, Petitte, Jeter, and Rivera formed the Core Four. These players were with the Yankees during their 1990s title run and were still there for the 2009 World Series win (although Pettitte spent three seasons with the Astors before returning). Again, whereas I think Posada and Pettitte would have benefitted because of that in the past, today’s voters find that irrelevant.
More methodical approach
Based on what voters write about their Hall of Fame ballots, numbers have become more important in the past 15 years. I think the farther back you go, the more voters relied on impressions and then checked those against numbers.
Look at the plaques on Cooperstown. They do not include charts. It’s a bronze relief of the player, a list of the teams he played for, and 80 to 100 words describing why the player was selected.
What are the criteria for becoming a voter? You must have been a Baseball Writers of America Association member for 10 years. The Hall wanted writers who had seen a lot of baseball. Operating a slide rule (this was well before calculators) was optional.
Voting for the Hall of Fame began in 1935. There was no baseball encyclopedia until 1952, and then it contained only rudimentary info.
Starting in 1934, The Sporting News published stats of retired baseball stars in something called Daguerreotypes. So if the player made the cut there, you at least had access to their stats.
But if they were underappreciated, how could you make a case for them? How would compare them with the league as a whole?
This is better.
Unless you are Andy Pettitte or Jorge Posada.
Mark Texiera and Jorge Posada afe examples of Hall of Pretty Good players