Starting IX Newsletter: The coolest players of all-time; the Pirates fall again; “Turkey Mike”; and much more

For those unfamiliar with the set-up — welcome! Here’s the scoop. Otherwise, let’s dive right in.

“Starting IX” Excerpt:

For this week’s “Starting IX” excerpt, it’s one of the most lovable and coolest players to ever grace this earth. Expect a couple of Starting IX top nine lists and plenty of gushing about Griffey.

CF Ken Griffey Jr. (1989–1999; 2009–2010)

Griffey was born November 21, 1969 in Donora, Pennsylvania. One might have guessed he was destined for greatness not just because his father was a great ballplayer, but also the fact that a pretty decent outfielder in his own right shares a birth date (November 21) and hometown (Donora, Pennsylvania) with Griffey. That man: Stan “The Man” Musial.

Griffey became the face of the Mariners franchise soon after his debut as a 19-year-old in 1989. He ushered in a new era of baseball, and his backward hat and perfect-looking swing became the envy of every young baseball fan across the globe. Even though it has never been stated, I’m convinced Griffey was the inspiration for Benny the Jet Rodriguez in Sandlot. True, Rodriguez was Hispanic, but there’s no way Griffey’s baseball mannerisms didn’t impact how David Evans wrote the part and Mike Vitar played the part. He also seemed to spawn half the characters in Backyard Baseball, the classic computer game that came out just after his prime.

Griffey managed to have quite an impact on the field as well. He played centerfield with an awe-inspiring grace, leading to no less a source than Ozzie Smith calling him the second best defensive outfielder all-time. His smooth uppercut swing led to huge home run totals in his prime. In fact, no one had more total bases in the `90s, and no one ever hit 350 home runs faster start a career than Junior. Griffey also holds the MLB record with a home run in eight straight games, and his total of 20.3 WAR through his age-22 season was a record among outfielders at the time.

From 1996–1999 alone, Griffey hit over 200 home runs, well over 1,000 RuBIns (runs+RBI), had 75 steals, an OPS of .996, and was worth over 30.0 WAR — all for the Mariners. In fact, his WAR and adjusted statistics, including OPS+, are not quite fair. One thing that is never heard about Griffey, despite the era in which he played, is any accusations of steroid or PED use. For one, he didn’t look the part, relying more on lithe, lean power and a long swing with strong wrists (àla Alfonso Soriano) instead of the (unnaturally) bulging muscles of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. Given the era in which he played, this makes Griffey’s numbers even more impressive.

Outside of just his numbers being impressive, it speaks volumes to Griffey’s character that he never fell into the steroid trap. It’s made even more noteworthy because unfortunately Griffey’s career was knocked off track by injuries. Many players, including Mark McGwire, said that if it weren’t for injuries they never would have used steroids. In fact, here’s what McGwire said in an interview with Dan Patrick, “If I never had injuries, I don’t think I ever would have even thought of doing what I did. I didn’t need to do anything for any more strength. I was already a home run hitter. You do stupid things in your life. You do things that you think might help you at the given time, not knowing what the ramifications are later on. It’s something I have to live with every day.”

That’s a pretty telling quote, and one can see his thought process, especially when MLB was doing such a good job of looking the other way. But, by proxy, it only helps to embolden Griffey’s character — this is a man who had injuries rob him of becoming one of the five-to-ten greatest players of all time. Griffey staying away from PEDs is all the more impressive with the full context.

Given the impact Griffey had on the sport as a whole, it’s only fair that he receive a spot in two Starting IX lists just in his write-up alone. First, he is the captain of the coolest players of all time (this list skews more modern since I was able to see far more to judge cool in person).

C) Carlton Fisk — How his epic arms-waiving home run in the 1976 World Series doesn’t have a nickname for itself is one of the world’s greatest injustices.

1B) David Ortiz — “This is our fucking city.”

2B) Chase Utley — This one will piss some people off, but his hair alone is almost enough to get him on the list, but the clincher was his multiple references on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, including Mac’s incredible letter to him.

3B) Mike Lowell — No one outside of Clooney mastered the silver fox look as well as Lowell did.

SS) Derek Jeter — He and Cristiano Ronaldo will hold spots on lists of this type forever. Or at least until until hooking up with gorgeous women becomes uncool.

LF) Stan Musial — As if I could leave him off of any list, ever.

CF) Ken Griffey Jr.

RF) Vlad Guerrero — My favorite player to watch of all time.

DH) Joe DiMaggio — The baseball-wide crush on DiMaggio was unrivaled.

SP) Tom Seaver — Just read Bill Simmons article on meeting Seaver and revel in the awe of an amazing fan-meets-player story.

RP) Mariano Rivera — The ultimate crunch-time performer.

As noted earlier, Griffey redefined baseball culture, making the sport “cooler” than it had ever been, and there’s a strong case to be made that no player will ever reach the height of “Griffey cool” ever again. Part of it was the popularization of backwards hat (when he was a kid he’d wear his father’s cap and it slid over his eyes, so he just flipped it around), part of it was video games and Hollywood cameos, part of it was the sleek late-`90s Mariners jerseys, but a whole heck of a lot of it was the swing. Oh, that swing. As such, Junior also deserves his spot on the Starting IX of most aesthetically pleasing swings of my lifetime:

C) Joe Mauer 1B) Albert Pujols 2B) Alfonso Soriano 3B) Chipper Jones SS) Alex Rodriguez LF) Barry Bonds CF) Ken Griffey Jr. RF) Gary Sheffield — I’ll defend this til the day I die. DH) Will Clark

Two thoughts on the list above: left-handed batters are just guaranteed to have nicer swings — that’s a fact. Also, the reason I chose “of my lifetime” was because I could flash back to imitating the swings of all my favorite players growing up. Is there anything better than being out in your yard as a kid, throwing a wiffle ball around and pretending that you are leading your squad to the World Series? No, no there isn’t.

OOTP Year-by-Year Re-Simulation: 1903

Here’s the third year of our long-term project to re-simulate each season in baseball history using Out of the Park Baseball 21.

MVP: Honus Wagner and Bill Bradley

Cy Young: Rube Waddell and Deacon Phillippe

Honus Wagner and Rube Waddell are two of baseball’ greatest characters, but both are covered well in Starting IX, so let’s focus on the other two. Phillippe was the turn of the century running mate for Jesse Tannehill, who we covered in the 1901 re-sim. He shone bright but briefly, like many of those early starting pitchers, tossing 2607.0 innings over the course of a 13-year career (1899–1911). All but one of those seasons came with the Pirates, and only once did he top 5.0 rWAR in a season — he was more typically solid than amazing.

Bradley, on the other hand, had a three-year peak (1902–1904) in which he was elite, averaging basically 7.0 WAR a season while manning third base for the Cleveland Naps. Nineteen hundred and three was indeed his best season.

Crazy Stats:
* Roger Bresnahan: .411 batting avg; .496 on-base percentage; 209 OPS+
* Honus Wagner: 11.5 WAR
* Rube Waddell: 1.45 ERA; 1.80 FIP; 15.4 rWAR; 12.7 fWAR; 301 strikeouts
* Deacon Phillippe and Bill Donovan: 1.88 ERA

While Bresnahan’s .400+ batting average was a little less shocking in faux 1903, that’s still a historic number that is always going to get a look in Crazy Stats. Wagner’s MVP was clearly deserved, as was Waddell’s Cy Young, with Rube having a particularly dominant season.

On to the team wrap-up.

American League pennant winners: Philadelphia Athletics

National League pennant winners: Pittsburgh Pirates

World Series: Athletics 5, Pirates 1

The poor Pirates. That makes three OOTP re-sims and three World Series losses for the Pirates, who are quickly turning into the simulated version of the 1990 Braves. Actually, a more appropriate comparison for the Pirates would be a pair of early-era real-life dynasties: the 1907–1909 Detroit Tigers (Ty Cobb, Wahoo Sam Crawford) and the 1911–1913 New York Giants (Christy Mathewson, Laughing Larry Doyle). The Pirates join those two as the only in baseball history to make it to, and lose, three straight World Series.

In the real world, neither the Tigers nor Giants were able to break through in that fourth year, both failing to even get there. In the OOTP re-sim next week, the Pirates will be looking to finally get some luck, as the 1903 re-simulated Series was as painful as they come.

In Game 1, a three-run seventh won the game for the A’s, 4–2, a rather painless loss in comparison to those to come. Game 2 saw the Pirates give up the lead in the eighth; score a run in the top of the tenth; only to then see Lave Cross walk them off in the bottom half. Another one-run win put the Athletics up 3–0 in the series, but Game 4 was where the heartbreak reached a new level. The Pirates went ahead 1–0 in the bottom of the first, and their ace Deacon Phillippe kept it that way until the eighth when Philly tied it. Then, in the top of the fourteenth (!) with Deacon still on the mound, Ollie Pickering gave the Athletics the lead, a lead which Ed Pinnance closed out to take the 4–0 series lead in the best-of-nine World Series (one of three years the World Series chose to require five wins for a ring).

Somehow the Pirates bounced back for a one-run win of their own in Game 5 (6–5), but the Athletics finally took a comparatively easy 5–2 win in the clinching Game 6, with Harry Davis the Series MVP.

“One Final Imagination of the Baseball Hall of Fame” Pre-excerpt: “Turkey Mike” and some other THAT GUYs

In the “New Baseball Hall of Fame” (NBHoF) created in this book, the second floor has a wing of THAT GUYs. For those unfamiliar with the concept, basically it’s the type of player who, upon being reminded of them, any fan goes “Ohhhh, THAT GUY”. These are the type of players we all love and baseball has such a rich history of, but who don’t get as much shine in the Old Baseball Hall of Fame. This is the longest section of the book, so we’ll do lots of pre-excerpting from here.

Mike Donlin: “Turkey Mike” holds high regard in my heart. He got his nickname for his strut, and his cockiness was legendary. He had dreams of being a Hollywood star, but the closest he came was marrying a vaudeville star. He certainly lived the seedy, Hollywood lifestyle, often drinking to Nicholas-Cage-in-Leaving-Las-Vegas levels. It was because of these vices that his career lasted only 1,049 games. He also didn’t care much about defense, but his bat certainly shone through, with a career OPS+ of 144 that ranks in the top 50 all-time.

Donlin’s first season came with the 1899 St. Louis Perfectos, a team created in much the same fashion that my immature friends and I would create super teams in the ESPN public fantasy leagues back in high school. The 1898 Cleveland Spiders and St. Louis Perfectos were owned by the same pair of brothers, and before the 1899 season, the Robisons sent all his best players from Cleveland to St. Louis, gutting the Spiders (who lost a record 134 games!), but the Perfectos still only finished fifth in the NL despite their name and the owner’s malfeasances. It should be noted that the team that did win the pennant (Brooklyn Superbas), also benefited from a similar “trick,” and after the season, the league outlawed such manipulations.

Jack McDowell: McDowell had himself a nice peak, going 98–58 (23.7 WAR) with a 3.54 ERA (118 ERA+), with three All-Star appearances, a Cy Young, and a Cy Young runner-up for the White Sox and Yankees from 1990–1995. He was an innings horse on good teams, and the advanced metrics (correctly) call a bit of BS on the plaudits McDowell accepted during that time. What isn’t overrated is the fact that he once flipped off the Yankee faithful, or the fact that he played guitar for a couple legitimate bands both during and after his (baseball) playing career.

Babe Herman: Not Babe Ruth; not George Herman Ruth; just Babe Herman.

Mickey Tettleton: This cat claimed Fruit Loops were the source of his prodigious power.

Jim Piersall: A very interesting chapter of baseball could be written about Piersall. His SABR Bio is among the most interesting reads you’ll find, excellently scripted by Mark Armour. Among his most famous anecdotes, he suffered a nervous breakdown in 1952, acting out and losing the clubhouse in his first true, extended time in the major leagues. Manager Joe Cronin responded by sending him to the minors which only escalated his “strange” behavior. Eventually Piersall was diagnosed as (in modern terms) suffering from bipolar disease. At the time, shock therapy was common for this diagnosis, and he was indeed “treated” as such.

Incredibly, Piersall was able to overcome this diagnosis and the struggles that come with living with bipolar disorder to play a 17-year career. He was notorious for yelling at umpires and opposing players, but he never suffered another setback to the extent of his 1952 demotion. In fact, his most famous moment in the modern Baseball Culture is when he rounded the bases running backwards when he hit his 100th career home run. He went on to become one of baseball’s greatest entertainers and wrote a successful autobiography: Fear Strikes Out.

Tommy Bridges: Get your “second floor NBHoF” BINGO cards out. Bridges was 1) scrappy, 2) diminutive, 3) played for one team his whole career, 4) has a bit of black ink on his B-Ref page (led the league in strikeouts twice, and win and shutouts once each) and a few All-Star appearances but not too much as to require a higher floor, and 5) Free Space. That’s a good BINGO!

Fun Stat of the Week

Not a stat, per se, but here are the odds for next year’s World Series winner.

Any bets jump out to you? Leave a play in the comments.

P.S. I’m a bit of a gambling fan, and this column is already all over the place, so I’m debating throwing a gambling section in ever now and then. Let me know if that would be something you’d be interested in.

Who Is This Player?

Answer at the end of the newsletter (I’m debating formats here, so feedback on how easy/difficult this section is would be appreciated)

Weekly Best Reads

Really cool article from Michael Waters on the future(?) of baseball cards: Digital!

I’m guessing some of y’all have thoughts on local broadcasting teams… FanGraphs is here to collect those thoughts and eventually disseminate them so we can love and scoff the best and worst teams out there.

Rob Arthur is one of the foremost baseball minds we have, so when he writes an article planning out how to “fix” baseball’s entertainment dip, it’s worth a read.

Long-form Corner: This week’s selection is neither baseball-related nor is it even recently released, but this Wired article from Jean Guerrero entitled “My Father Says He’s a ‘Targeted Individual.’ Maybe We All Are” is one of the best long-form articles I have ever read, so if you have some down time in the post-Thanksgiving haze, give it a look.

Article Idea I’m Too Lazy to Write

Do players actually hit better than expected after the batter before them gets intentionally walked? It’s a coach’s dream to send their hitter up to the plate with that little bit of added motivation to prove the opposition wrong, but do the numbers actually play out that way?

Pop Culture Recommendation of the Week

We’re going to tip-toe into the world of music this week, an area where I admittedly don’t know nearly as much as any of the real music heads out there. That being said, I do think that Sarah Jaffe’s album Suburban Nature (from 2010, so I’m really bringing the timely heat with this one…) is a stone-cold lock to please any and everyone who gives it a listen. (Well, as confident as any one person can be when giving a music recommendation to an unknown audience…)

Keep You On Your Toes

With the holidays fast approaching, if you are like myself, you: A) have not yet started your shopping, and B) would like to be socially conscious once you do start shopping. If so, see if you can carve some time out of your calendar this upcoming Wednesday, December 2, for an online event: “Gifts That Do Good”, hosted by EventBrite, and free to attend! Click here to check it out.

Quiz Answer

The answer to this week’s trivia question: Jackie Robinson’s 1947 rookie season. There’s a good case to be made that Kim Ng’s recent hiring by the Marlins is the most progressive move made by the sport since Jackie’s historic breaking of the color line.

Remember to follow along here on Medium for the first few months before I move to the actual email newsletter format.

Feel free to reach out to Jim.Turvey21@gmail.com for any feedback or inquiries.