Jeff didn't get specific, but he wanted me to write about baseball.
I'm pretty disgusted with the game right now under the control of Rob Manfred and between Manfred's tweaking of game-changing rules. his determination to take down minor league baseball, and now his bungling of an already-struck deal for compensation with the players in a shortened season, so I'm going to add some notes in various styles of baseball-related topics that might get your brain thinking a bit to agree, disagree or even add an option of your own.
Five players that have been overlooked for the Hall of Fame (excluding the obvious)
1) Dick Allen
2) Curt Schilling
3) Dale Murphy
4) Minnie Minoso
5) Luis Tiant
The team that I wish would use 70s Uniforms Full-Time
Rangers
Top Five Pitchers of Baseball's Greatest Era-1960s
1) Sandy Koufax
2) Bob Gibson
3) Juan Marichal
4) Ferguson Jenkins
5) Jim Bunning
If I was drafting a team from scratch and the player talent was equal, what position (other than pitcher) would I draft?
1) Shortstop
2) Catcher
3) Center Fielder
If Minor League Baseball cuts the 42 teams as planned, will Hagerstown and Frederick survive after both were named on the original list?
Hagerstown-No
Frederick-Yes
Will Hagerstown ever see affiliated or independent baseball again?
Affiliated- Never.
The one asterisk- IF Frederick would not survive (Frederick would own the Hagerstown territory)
and a new stadium would be built (Same chances of ice surviving hell), then maybe eventually.
Independent- Atlantic League-Only with a new stadium
College Summer League-Maybe, but it'll be a failure.
If I could pick ballparks from the past to return with modern amenities, but with original dimensions.
which would I pick?
Bonus points for replacing a current park that I dislike.
1) Comiskey Park- White Sox
2) Polo Grounds- Giants/Mets
3) Yankee Stadium-Yankees
4) Crosley Field-Reds
5) Tiger Stadium-Tigers
Asterisk- Forbes Field would have made this, but I love PNC Park in Pittsburgh.
And I'll wrap with the one topic that Jeff did ask me about- pitchers with personal catchers.
It's happened more than you think through the years.
Often, it has been catchers that are needed to catch the knuckleballer that fills this role.
It does vary depending on team and situation as sometimes it can be a case of the starting catcher struggling to catch the knuckler and in others, it can be that a team has a backup or an available catcher that does an excellent job in catching the knuckler such as Boston keeping Doug Mirabelli for Tim Wakefield as one example.
With Boston, Jason Varitek hated catching Wakefield, and Mirabelli did well catching him and it worked well.
It worked so well that Boston took Mirabelli's skills for granted and traded him to San Diego as the BoSox thought Josh Bard could move into the slot.
That was a disaster as Bard struggled defensively and Wakefield struggled as well, so Boston was forced to get Mirabelli back and it cost them Bard, a decent reliever in Cla Meredith and cash to land Mirabelli, who basically had one big-league skill that was keeping him in the league.
Another pitcher with a personal catcher was Mel Rojas, who closed games for the Expos in the 1990s.
Rojas would enter to save a game and the Expos would send in Tim Spehr, who was the only catcher with Montreal that could handle the vicious forkball of Rojas in an unusual case of a reliever having his own catcher.
There have been some all-time great hurlers that used them as well- the two most famous examples were Tim McCarver catching Steve Carlton for the Cardinals and the Phillies, Charlie O'Brien with Greg Maddux and in recent years, David Ross catching for Jon Lester with the Cubs and A.J. Ellis backstopping Clayton Kershaw with the Dodgers.
There can be baseball reasons and there can also be personal reasons.
Steve Carlton was known for his eccentricities and McCarver, who was the starter for a young Carlton with the Cardinals but was nearing the end of the line with the Phillies, was able to deal with those awkward issues and helped Carlton relax a bit as well.
Carlton's tremendous 1972 season with the Phillies (mentioned on Facebook recently as the 1973 Baseball Card of the Day) was with McCarver behind the plate until late in the season when McCarver was traded to Montreal.
Carlton lost twenty games in 1973 without McCarver and even though he improved some in 1974 and 75, it wasn't until the Phillies reacquired McCarver in 1976 that Carlton began his return to dominance for close to a decade, although McCarver would stay only through 1980 before retiring.
Clayton Kershaw has been known to be high-strung on the mound and A.J. Ellis provided a calming influence as the catcher that moved through the minors with him.
Kershaw has been an excellent pitcher in his three seasons since the loss of Ellis with numbers that would be considered outstanding for the average pitcher, but aren't quite as dominant as those with Ellis.
Jon Lester of the Cubs had tremendous numbers at his peak, but Lester struggled in keeping runners close to first base and would allow many stolen bases.
Pairing Lester with David Ross, a strong-armed backstop that was excellent defensively made sense and allowed Lester's liability in holding runners close to be a less important factor in the game as base stealers would be less likely to challenge Ross.
The Braves had a similar issue with Hall of Famer Greg Maddux with runners on base as Maddux would literally ignore a man on first base as he intently focused on the hitter.
Charlie O'Brien was a journeyman that had one elite skill- he was always at or near the top of catching base stealers by percentage and therefore it made sense to give the veteran Maddux a catcher that had a chance to nullify the runners' advantage.
I don't have an issue with personal catchers, but there can be situations that affect the roster, and a catcher that often catches one pitcher can become a burden under certain conditions.
One can make the argument that when you have a Hall of Fame level pitcher with what they can do and for the money that you pay them that you keep their performance as high as possible and that's a good path to take- as long as the performance is elite.
Should the pitcher's performance drop to the point that they are average for two years or so, the personal catcher might be a luxury that contending teams cannot afford.
Thanks to Jeff for the personal catcher and I hope he (and you reading) found the other parts interesting.
I still have more from the Friends and Family series to go and an inbox that is beginning to need cleaning, so which post will be next up will depend on what I feel like writing about next.
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