Relatively unheralded, primarily due to his being a 34th round “draft and follow” in 1998, Claussen arrived in 2001, leading the minor leagues in strikeouts. The lefthander uses a low-90’s fastball with a plus curve and adequate change. He spots his pitches well despite not having pinpoint control. While his success at AA was unquestionable, he was a little older than you’d like for “true” stud pitching prospects at that level. That makes 2002 huge for Claussen. If he is able to dominate at AAA in the same fashion, he will be up with the Yankees by mid-seasons as one of the games best pitching prospects. If, as I suspect, he will find the going a little rougher he still may see New York before season’s end, but his ceiling would really only be that of a decent mid-rotation starter.
Since returning, Claussen's been downright dominant:
W-L ERA GS IP H ER BB SO HR BABIP
Tampa 2-0 1.64 4 22.0 16 4 3 26 0 .281
Columbus 1-0 1.34 6 40.1 23 6 5 27 3 .180
Overall, that's a 1.44 ERA, with 7.7 strikeouts per 9 IP, a 6.6 K/W ratio, and only 0.4 HR allowed per 9 innings. Opposing hitters are batting only .171 against him, but there has to be a lot of luck in play there. His batting average allowed on balls in play an extremely low .214. Beyond the small sample size, it's tough to make heads or tails of that. I's hard to believe that pitching in front of the error-prone Drew Henson (15 errors) and David Post (10) is giving him special help defensively, but on the other hand, he's only allowed one unearned run.
The irony of Claussen's injury is that it may well have prevented him from being traded last summer. Now, he's reached the point of "untouchable," according to reports, and so this start is less a showcase for interested teams than it is an audition for the Yanks, the 2004 model if not the 2003. With Roger Clemens due to retire, Andy Pettitte headed towards free-agency, and the club holding an option on David Wells, the Yanks have only Mike Mussina, Jose Contreras, Jeff Weaver and Jon Leiber (currently rehabbing from Tommy John surgery) under contract for their '04 rotation. That's four righties, though at this stage it's obviously not the final word, especially as Weaver may be headed elsewhere as part of a big trade this season. Claussen may well be the heir apparent to Pettitte, whose struggles this season and hefty price tag ($11.5 million this year) may make him expendable. It's only one start for the rookie, but this one bears watching.
• • •
On the other side of the coin, the Yanks made a minor trade on Wednesday, acquiring outfielder Karim Garcia and reliever Dan Miceli from the Yanks for a player to be named later or cash considerations. If it's anything more than Don Zimmer's laundry or Juan Acevedo's lost luggage, the Yanks probably gave up too much, and this deal reeks of paper-pushing, the appearance that "we're doing something about our problems."
Garcia is a 27-year-old lefty bat who's been breaking hearts ever since he put up 20 HRs and hit .319/.36/.542 at Albuquerque (AAA) as a 19-year-old in 1995. Since then he's passed through the hands of the Dodgers, Diamondbacks, Tigers, Orioles, Indians, Yankees (two games last year) and back to the Indians, racking up some eye-popping AAA stats, but failing to stick in the bigs. Joining the Indians on August 6 last year, he finally put it together for the first time, hitting 16 HRs, driving in 52 runs and hitting .299/.317/.584 for the season. What's less than impressive is his control of the strike zone --- 6 BB to 41 K in that same span. For his career, he's a .234/.273/.428 hitter in about 1100 major-league plate appearances. He's struggled this year due to a wrist injury, hitting .194/.238/.366 with 5 HR and 14 RBI, and getting lost in a sea of young outfielders. And though he's replacing failed pinch-runner Charles Gipson on the roster, speed isn't exactly Garcia's game; he's 7-for-18 in steals in his MLB career.
At least nobody's every accused Garcia of a bad attitude. The same can't be said for Miceli, a well-traveled 32-year-old righty with a career 4.72 ERA whose career highlight was as Trevor Hoffman's setup man for the 1998 San Diego Padres, who faced the Yanks in the World Series. Miceli's got a reputation as a clubhouse lawyer, most notably for his role in getting Florida Marlins manager John Boles fired in 2001 due to his lack of experience as a professional ballplayer. Not that Miceli's 6.93 ERA for the Marlins had anything to do with the issue. In the words of one Florida reporter, "Almost two years ago to the day, the words of a pitcher who had as much trouble telling the truth as he did getting outs toppled John Boles as manager of the Florida Marlins. Dan Miceli's public criticism of Boles -- his chief complaint was his manager's lack of big-league playing experience -- supposedly showed Boles had lost the team, which led to his firing. "
One of the season's more bizarre story lines was Miceli's rant against John Boles, in which he claimed the Marlins' manager couldn't garner respect because he hadn't played in the major leagues. The evidence that managers don't need MLB experience to succeed is overwhelming, so Miceli looked pretty silly. The fallout wasn't as amusing: Boles was fired, Miceli was exiled to Colorado, and both teams fell apart. Miceli is a free agent as we go to press; he can help a team, but so can a lot of guys who come without his baggage.
Greeeeaaaat. This will be Miceli's third team of 2003, having gotten bombed out of Colorado (5.66 ERA in 20.2 innings) and torn it up in Cleveland (1.20 ERA and 19 Ks in 15 innings). His success with the Indians was reportedly due to his dropping down to a three-quarter arm angle and adding movement to his 90 MPH fastball. He'll have a chance to aid the Yanks as their top righty setup man until Antonio Osuna returns from his groin injury; Joe Torre clearly doesn't trust Al Reyes or rookie Jason Anderson, even though the two arguably have more upside, if not more experience, than the well-travelled mouth. At least that mouth won't be tolerated here; Miceli's fastball better move, or his butt surely will.
Sometimes, after working on this site late at night, I spend a few minutes suspended in that zone a few inches above sleep, dreaming that I'm reading some fascinating words about baseball. Inevitably, I either fall asleep and forget those words entirely, or I wake up, only to realize that my brain has been poring over complete nonsense, lorem ipsum as if written by Bill James, perhaps.
And sometimes I just sit down and watch ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball, listening to the incessant inanities spouted by Joe Morgan. It's the same difference.
By now it should be apparent to anyone paying attention that the man identified as one of the smartest ever to play the game has developed a not-so-slow leak in his brain. Either that, or everything we've learned in the past twenty Bill James-enlightened years about baseball is a complete crock of shit, and only Joe Morgan, keeper of the flame, knows this.
Morgan's a Hall of Famer who could do it all -- hit, hit for power, run, field and throw. He played on one of the all-time great teams, he won World Series rings, he now works alongside one of the game's great announcers in Jon Miller, he's got a pleasant voice with a bit of Texas twang, and at first listen, he sounds like he knows what he's talking about. But listen more closely and you're liable to hear a man who steps all over everything we thought we -- and he -- knew about baseball.
No one has kept a closer eye on Morgan's profound disenlightenment than Mike Carminati of Mike's Baseball Rants, and no one sums up the Morgan paradox better than he does:
Morgan, as a player, was the epitome of everything sabermetric: a power-hitting middle-infielder who got on base and stole bases at a high percentage. As an analyst, however, he's a sabermetrician's nightmare, foregoing everything but batting average, RBI, and pitching wins to evaluate a player. Worse yet, his spurious logic and inability to answer a direct question make him the Reverend Spooner of baseball analysts.
Like a vulture who's been circling a desert highway in search of fresh carrion, Mike tears into every Friday's ESPN Chat with Joe Morgan for fresh insight into the good, the bad, and the just plain ugly of what Morgan's foisted on unsuspecting chatters. Here's a sample exchange from the most recent one:
Sam (Ypsilanti, MI): Joe, I'm a big fan! In your column about the AL West, you note that the A's "Big 3" have been more vunerable than in the past. But look at their ERAs - Hudson 3.08, Mulder 3.26, and Zito 2.92. Struggling? These three are what is holding this team to a good record! Zito's 7-5 record overshadows that he is 1st in the AL in BAA (.197). What gives?
Joe: I don't think I said struggle.. I said they were more vulnerable. ERA's are just a personal thing. Wins and losses are what the game is all about. BA and BAA are personal stats. Those guys don't walk out and win three games in a row anymore.
[Mike: Ypsilanti from the old Border League? Yes, ERA's a personal thing. Personally Joe dislikes ERAs. Wins are what matter to Joe. Don't explain to Joe that the A's have won one more game than last year to this point. Don't tell Joe that Mulder is having the best year of his young career and has three more wins than he did at this time last year. Don't tell Joe that Tim Hudson was 5-6 at this point last year. Don't even tell Joe that as he was writing this the A's were preparing to win their seventh—not third—straight.
Look, the Big Three and still the Big Three. Their strikeout ratios are all down but besides that there are no possible complaints.]
I wish I could say that's the only thing in the chat session for which Joe deserved to be raked over the coals, but then that would mean there's nothing else to read on Mike's site, and the evidence there has proven quite the contrary.
Not that Mike is the only one taking Joe to task. Travis Nelson of the Boy of Summer blog did his own entertainingly snarky take on a Morgan chat a few weeks ago. An angry mob of Baseball Primer posters recently compiled an extensive laundry list of Morgan's more glaring flip-flops and flubs. Now Aaron Gleeman of Aaron's Baseball Blog has his own axe to grind. A couple of weeks back, Aaron took Joe to task for failing to realize that Oakland A's GM Billy Beane did not write the bestseller Moneyball and yet foisting that disinformation on the public. Joe liked the mistake so much he made it twice: "I wouldn't be Billy Beane first of all!! I wouldn't write the book Moneyball!"
Jumpin' Jeebus Cripes! As Aaron wrote, "He not only had his facts wrong and he not only was upset with someone as a result of something they didn't do, but he was making a big deal of the situation, on a national stage(s), over and over again, based on his incorrect facts."
Morgan wages a disinformation campaign that would do a Propaganda Minister proud. Everything Joe believes now, he always believed, despite whatever he's on record as having said last week, and woe to you if you point that out to him. Take this exchange from another recent chat:
Stevie Ridzik (D.C.): Dig your work Joe...But one bone to pick, how can you say "the Blue Jays rely mainly on home runs." when they lead the league in BA-SLG-OBP-OPS-RUNS-RBI and are only 3rd in taters?
Joe Morgan: Listen to what I say and do not put somebody else's words in my mouth. I said they have a chance of winning because they have a great offense. I'm not sure where you got that. It seems that people want to put words in my mouth.
It should be noted that in the previous week, Morgan had this to say:
On offense, the Mariners are getting hits in clutch situations while featuring the hit-and-run, the sacrifice bunt and the sacrifice fly. This is in contrast to the Toronto Blue Jays, who rely mainly on home runs.[emphasis added]
Okay, he's not History's Greatest Monster. But with every passing week, Morgan continues to carve himself a reputation as a baseball reactionary, a boor and a bore. For those of us who grew up admiring his brand of heads-up baseball, it's sad to watch. But when a man's got the ear of a baseball-watching nation and he continues to shovel such a high volume of bullshit, he deserves to be called on it. Intelligent baseball fans are doing just that.
After doing his thorough job taking apart some of Morgan's recent gaffes, Gleeman notes that Morgan's actually written a book himself. On the ghost of Wally Post, I swear I am not making this up: Baseball for Dummies.
As for what's going on over to the right (on the new version of this page), it's pretty self-explanatory, a catch-all of some stuff I wanted to share as an aside. The book and music links are through the Amazon Associates program, which I've joined in the hopes of generating a wee bit of revenue to cover the costs of this site. The way it works is that -- at no cost to you -- I get a small percentage of any product I promote that you click through to purchase, and an even smaller percentage of other stuff you purchase if you enter Amazon via my link. Apologies to any of you who feel that this is a crass sell-out. Your refund check is in the... oh, wait. For the rest of you, I'm not asking you to spend more money on my behalf, just to tell Amazon who sent you if you're shopping there.
That they didn't has set off the alarm bells of conspiracy theorists heavily vested in "Yankees Suck!" regalia. According to the predominant theory, the Yanks preferred to bump Andy Pettitte back to Friday's Subway Series opener and knock struggling starter Jeff Weaver (0-4, 6.56 ERA in his last five starts) into next week, where he would face a less heated rival than the Mets -- the Devil Rays.
Lost in all of this is the fact that until the game starts, the decision to start the game rests with the home team, unless it's the final series of the season between the two clubs. In that case, the league may override the decision and force the start of the game. Once a game begins, it's in the hands of the umps.
Yankee GM Brian Cashman refuted the conspiracy talk, telling one newspaper, "I think it's irresponsible. If anybody wants to rip me for the decision based on the weather, that's fine, because it cleared up. But it was based on the forecasts saying we'd have rain all day and that it would get worse." He also pointed out that by opening the gates, the "game" cost the Yanks about $40,000 in salaries, not to mention the inconvenience of a day-night doubleheader in September.
Major League Baseball VP Katy Feeney, who is in charge of scheduling (a fact that didn't escape George Steinbrenner's notice a few weeks ago), backed Cashman's story: "It was no conspiracy. With weather, you don't know 100 percent. Both the umpiring crew and the Yankees were looking at the radar and in contact with local meteorologists and they were told it would get heavy and not stop. Obviously, it turned out wrong, but that's what they had to go on."
The irony of the situation is that Saturday's Yankee-Met game succumbed to rain after three innings, washing away a 3-for-3 Alfonso Soriano performance and an unspectacular start by Mike Mussina. On the other hand, it enabled Robin Ventura to make a Caddyshack reference: "I don't think the hard stuff's coming down for a while.'' The game will be made up as part of a crosstown day-night doubleheader, similar to the one three years ago. Meanwhile, Sunday night's game is equally endangered, with a forecast showing a 60% chance of showers (by the way, I'll put in a plug for weather.com as the best source for event-related forecasting. They may not necessarily be correct all the time, but the information is at least easy to find, unlike going through a particular team's sources).
The Yanks have already had four rainouts this year, so don't be surprised if some Yankee hater starts yammering about the Great Flood and jeering that the team should board a wooden ship by twosies. After all, wasn't that the last time the Red Sox won anything?
