Open Thread: Chuck Knoblauch
By
(AP Photo/Steve Mitchell)
I know almost everyone remembers Knoblauch for his unusual batting stance and the throwing issues and the Blauch-Head play, but his first two years in New York were pretty damn good. A leadoff hitter that got on base 37.7% of the time with more walks (159) than strikeouts (127) and the ability to hit 35 homers across two seasons? Yes please. At his peak with the Twins (1995-1996), Chuck was a .337/.437/.503 middle infielder. The end of Knoblauch’s career was a mess, but the team went to the World Series all four years he was in pinstripes, winning three of them. His last good deed as a Yankee came in Game Five of the 2001 World Series, when he led off the 12th inning with a single and later came around to score the winning run after Scott Brosius tied the game in the bottom of the ninth. Good times, good times.
Anyway, here is tonight’s open thread. The Rangers are in Newark playing the Devils, plus the Isles and Nets are in action. Talk about whatever you want, go nuts.
166 Comments»
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The Mason Williams Watch
Asshat:
http://mlb.fanhouse.com/2010/1.....all-voter/
Feel better by watching this, by seimiya/Hannah:
I wonder how Graziano can vote for anyone then?
I link to this as much as I can because I never knew it existed until someone pointed it out to me. It’s long but worth the time.
Bill James on the “roids”
http://tiny.cc/tgdai
Intelligent article.
“Nobody knows how many. It would be my estimate that it was somewhere between 40 and 80%.”
I believe this.
And that doesn’t include the 50′s and 60′s when almost everyone used ‘Greenies’, which had a more immediate and pronounced effect.
Great video
ZOMG TEH YIPS!!!!!111
I remember Knoblauch for his batting stance, the moronic play, and steroids.
Who would you rather have: Knoblauch at his peak or Cano at his (assuming he is peaking now)?
Cano’s OPS+ this year was 142. Knoblauch’s career high (also age 27) was 143. Cano has much more power, but I’d probably take Knoblauch. Dude had a .448 OBP and a .426 wOBA (Cano wOBAed .389 this year)
Cano, hands down.
Cano. Not close.
Knoblauch at his peak and it’s not particularly close.
I saw his stats from 1996, since that’s his peak I have to agree.
Ageed.
Most Yankee fans don’t even know how good Knoblauch was prior to coming to the Yankees, and he was also pretty good at the start of his Yankee career.
Knoblauch also had quite a number of big hits for the Yankees in the post season.
Can’t believe I’m saying this but Knoblauch. Just looked at his numbers I forgot how good he was.
I’d take Cano. And then I’d take Cano again.
It’s interesting that people have such opposing, passionate responses. Why Cano and Cano again? We’re not comparing Knoblauch-with-the-Yips to Cano today…it’s Knoblauch with the Twins to Cano today. Chuck was awesome in his prime, really. Better than Cano, and there’s not really a way to argue that…
My reasoning for choosing Cano over Knoblauch is not so much a matter of who I think is better. In fact, assuming Cano is peeking now, I do believe Knoblauch is the better player in his prime. However, if you asked me to assemble a team / lineup and you gave me option A) excellent lead off hitter with a disgusting OBP and a guaranteed 30 (or more) stolen bases, or option B) 200 +/- hits, 25-30 HRs and 100 RBIs, and can produce those numbers from the 2-6 holes in the line up — and both played Gold Glove second base, I’d choose option B.
So crazy to me that in 1998 the back of the Daily News was still black and white.
h/t @WARgraphs (which is Mike) :
http://www.fangraphs.com/graph.....9_2010.png
Mike, Knobby was a beast with the twins. It seams as though he stopped hitting line drive and hard grounders and started hitting more fly balls when he came to NY. Is there a website that shows these stats?
Fangraphs should have batted-ball-type data, if we have it going back that far.
We don’t. Batted ball data only goes back to 2002.
So a little snow shower knocked the RAB Radio Show off the air or…?
Discussion question:
Should MLB teams be allowed to trade draft picks? Why? Why not? GO!
What is the argument for why not?
Because most low spending shitty teams get better with young, cheap talent. If they trade that talent for a vet for the short run, it probably sets back the franchise.
yes. why not? you can in many other sports and it doesnt cause problems..
I just think teams may be more reluctant to give up anything for draft picks since MLB picks are way less of a sure thing than in other sports.
for the most part you know how a college basketball player or football player will fare in the pros, but baseball where 99.99999% of draftees will spend time developing in the minors, there is way less of a guarantee.
No. There’s so little value in a draft pick (just look at teams trading potential FAs for prospects) that there would not be much of a market for the picks. In that case, they’re not going to be the centerpieces of trades, and essentially they’ll just be a throw-in or replace a second tier prospect and so there’s really no benefit to allowing teams to trade picks. One potential downside to trading picks is that small market teams with high (top-10) picks will look to unload them to save cash. That would be good for the Yankees, but probably not good for baseball.
I think this is exactly why trading picks hasn’t been implemented.
Can you imagine if the Yankees and Sox had gotten into a bidding war for Washington’s #1 pick, so they could obtain the rights to Strasburg?
it would only make the game better… so what if the yanks and sox had a bidding war over that pick? It could have paid for jayson werth’s contract
But if the Nationals don’t have Strasburg, what’s the point of paying someone like Werth?
Fantasy baseball sleeper picks for 2011 anyone?
adrian gonzalez
Sleeper?
I was thinking a deeper sleeper. Like a Kyle Blanks-type.
kyle blanks
Brett Anderson? Is he a sleeper? Umm…Daric Barton if your league counts OBP?
a 4.9 fWar player is a sleeper?
If I asked the average baseball fan in my life who Brett Anderson was, they’d have no idea he was that good.
i was talking about barton
Still works!
actually, i think the average fan would see Anderson’s sub-3 ERA and assume he was way better than he really is
Anderson is awesome for a sleeper SP. As for Barton my league is Yahoo, anti-sabermetrics: Avg., HR, RBI, Runs scored, SB and W, SVs, ERA, WHIP, and Total Ks. He’d be an awesome pick up if he qualified at catcher or still good if not in the late rounds.
you can change the categories on yahoo
Not when you’re in a random, default league. Or can I?
get some friends and make a league!
Ha! If I had friends I wouldn’t be playing fantasy baseball!
A decent amount of Barton’s fWAR is defensive though, which doesn’t help much in fantasy.
Dan Hudson? Dude was a monster in Arizona, though I don’t know if he can repeat that.
Also, Aaron Hill. I can’t imagine he has a .196 BABIP again.
IPK!
I still can’t believe the White Sox traded him for Edwin, of all pitchers. Then again, Kenny Williams hates kids.
I’m not familiar with fantasy baseball but I’ll guess. From the Yankees I’d pick up Gardner and Granderson (not sure what his rank is in fantasy). I’d stay away from Martin, considering Montero will probably be up this season. Burnett probably has little value, but I assume leagues count wins, and he’s plenty capable of a 15+ win season if he bounces back. Ivan Nova should also be a candidate for some wins. Joba will bounce back, but I bet he’s overvalued in fantasy already. Vazquez and Nick Johnson should bounce back but I’m sure they have high values already. Outside of the Yankees, I like Pagan and Jennings in the outfield. Don’t know his value, but Mike Stanton is incredible.
R. Van Winkle was and always will be the ultimate sleeper.
S. White is a close second.
Any chance the Giants eat a lot of the contract and the Yankees trade for Barry Zito? Just kidding. Well, no not really.
i’m assuming this is aj burnett and that you’re just hoping for someone worse than you on the staff
and overpaid.
Not sure if serious…
and i quote…
“Just kidding.”
Why the hell would we make that move?
we need a LOOGY!
Burnett and Zito would be the ultimate wildcard rotation. I think I’ll pass.
Zito isn’t a wild card…he just sucks. His sucking is pretty much a given at this point
Disagree, Zito is just like Burnett. Fantastic breaking pitches, horrible results.
Zito pitched a 3.76 ERA in the first half last year, and a 4.7 in the second half. He’s a complete wildcard.
In the AL East he’d give up 4.7 runs per every 5 innings.
Who’s the guy here who is only interested in NL pitchers if they put up a Bob-Gibson-in-1968-style season? Forget him, I think that’s an absurd position, but it contains a kernel of truth — that certain types pitchers succeed more easily in the NL, and one of those is the soft-tosser.
The Barry Zitos, Doug Davises, and Jamie Moyers of the world are just asking for trouble.
Same reason I don’t want anything to do with Jeff Francis.
I always thought Francis threw a bit harder than they did.
Hmmmm.
I just looked all four of them up, and you’re correct. Moyer and Davis are low 80s. Zito is between 85 and 87, and Francis is 87-88. I still don’t want Francis.
Hmmm, yikes.
On the one hand, he’s had success (in Coors Field!) at that level.
On the other hand, 87 mph is 87 mph.
On the other hand, he’s a lefty, lefties don’t need gas to succeed.
On the other hand, Andy Pettitte has succeeded with similar velocity.
On the other hand, Pettitte threw (and throws) harder than that.
I’m turning into Shiva over here, but I’m a little less interested in Francis now.
The difference is AJ still can throw 93-95 mph. Some pitching coach would take a chance om him. Zito is now like 82-87 mph. Something happened to the guy.
Question: Is there anyone who still believes Mitre will be in the rotation at the start of 2011?
Personally, I feel that even given the worst case scenario – Pettitte retires and they don’t trade for anyone – someone from the Phelps-Noesi-Brackman group will take the 5th spot from him in Spring Training. I’d put my money on Noesi.
(Notice I didn’t include Joba…sad, but we fans gotta move on)
Personally, I feel that even given the worst case scenario – Pettitte retires and they don’t trade for anyone – someone from the Phelps-Noesi-Brackman group will take the 5th spot from him in Spring Training. I’d put my money on Noesi.
I think you’re absolutely spot on.
Girardi has given Mitre plenty of rope, and he (Mitre) hasn’t really shown much. I’ve more or less give up hope that he can be more than a mopup man/emergency starter.
MLBN has the best games of the 2000s (as in 2000-2009, which is of course correct) coming up at 9. Should see lots of Yankees, wooooo
I’ll guess 2001 WS G 3-5; 2004 ALCS G 4; 2009 WS G 4.
Aaron Boone, no doubt.
They already had the game where Varitek and A-Rod fought. Holy crap A-Rod beat him so bad, AND he had full catcher’s gear on.
A-Rod is a big man.
TWSS….too easy
Yum-my.
Amazing how many people think Varitek won that fight, or like he was so brave. He was in full gear and it was a cheap shot……He wears that C for a reason (and in Slappys book, it dont stand for Captain)
2001 WS Game 3 shouldn’t be there. Also, you forgot 2003 ALCS Game 7
Ew I think they have every Mariano blown save of the decade on here. All 6 of them.
you can’t deny that it takes a lot to comeback against Mo. It’s like a greek myth where they triumph over Zeus or something.
Sure, but of 15 games, 4 were blown Mariano saves, geez.
Anytime Mo blows a save is going to a triumph for the other team for two reasons
1 is that they know its only going to happen once in there individual career (he’s blown like 30 saves in the last decade out).
2 Mo is not human, he is a force of inevitability (as in its inevitable that you will lose if he makes an appearance)
It’s like a greek myth where they triumph over Zeus or something.
GTFO, Percy Jackson
any good looking chicks on this site? just wondering if there are any h-core yankees fans who are major hotties
Everyone is beautiful on the Internet
who would honestly respond to this lol…
Minka Kelly
me
a/s/l?
I’ve been described as a major hottie, but unfortunately for you, I’m a guy.
Or maybe it is fortunate?
me
/CryingGame’d
Hey…. Guess who’s on the Red Sox?
‘His ex-agent says Bobby Jenks used to call him D.J., short for Dirty Jew. The agent says Bobby would say it casually on phone messages — “Call me back, D.J.” — and while Bobby denies it, it’s a window into the mystery of a backwoods pitcher.’
h/t: http://www.theyankeeu.com
That’ll go over well with Youkilis.
Wait, so you are telling me that there are anti semitic people out there? Nooooooo, couldn’t be, ha.
Certainly offensive, but if he really hated Jews would he hire one as his agent? I don’t know. Jenks seems like a shady character but it’s not uncommon to poke fun at someone’s ethnicity when you’re close with them.
Considering that he and the agent departed on bad terms, I would say the term was not one of endearment.
Seemed like he called him “dirty Jew” when Sosnick (his agent) was representing him.
I can only imagine the NY Post and Daily News backpages if they got wind of this. Maybe this is the reason the Yankees never seemed interested. Thank god he is the Red Sox problem.
I wanted Jenks too and still feel like his contract is MUCH better than Feliciano’s (just saying his name makes me want to puke) but it seams like Jenks does have a lot of baggage. All the stuff from Ozzie Guillen’s son, the drinking, now this..
Jenk’s name should make you want to puke. Just imagine him being a NY talk radio topic. The new John Rocker. Feliciano is regarded as a very good guy who preformed well in NY. He is safe bet.
Jenks would have been a disaster with the backpage stuff. A $12 million dollar headache. We are learning more about Bobby Jenks than anyone should.
I hear you on Jenks but $4M to a LOOGY (lefty specialist) is absolutely asinine, especially when you already have Boone Logan. I don’t care how nice he is. No one in a million years can explain me the logic behind this.
There is no salary cap and if they want to buy a lefty reliever for 4 million, that is barely a drop in the bucket. The Yanks probably donate far more to charity in a year.
Offer Cliff Lee another $4M a year before you give it to Feliciano.
Somehow Jenks was on the crazy White Sox without even being close to Rocker level. I’m not crying 4-eva over losing him, but he would’ve been a nice piece to have and who knows what’s going on with his personal issues, but saying he’s Rocker is saying a lot.
That said, I hope he implodes spectacularly and the Boston smear machine goes into full force
Add Jon Heyman to the list of people taking the “fame” part of “Hall of Fame” literally.
Why shouldn’t he? The ballot doesn’t ask the voter to simply vote for the player that added the most wins for his team.
Then Jose Canseco should be a lock.
I saw Heyman’s comments, and he’s not entirely wrong. He’s not so much talking about fame as he’s talking about peak value. Players who are domiant during their peak, as opposed to players who compile numbers. I agree with his point. Where he loses me is when he starts saying Blyleven is not a HOFer, but Morris is. His words make sense, his actual picks sometimes don’t!
Beyond his picks, I’m on board with his thinking. The HOF should be about dominance.
YOOOUUU CAAAAANNNNN PUTTTTT IT ON THE BOOOAAAARDDDDD! YES! YES!
/Hawk Harrelson’d
I haven’t done it in a while. Sorry.
The whte sox have some of the worst broadcasters.
That countdown was fucking terrible.
At least it was the final one.
/wait
Chuck was won of my favorite players. What happened with him and the first base throw? That just seems insane…
Where can I find a good definition for WAR? I need something clear and concise, not 5 pages.
If you replaced the player with a readily available substitute, the amount of wins the team would lose is that players WAR.
Yeah I get that, but how do they determine how many wins a player is worth?
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs.....y-of-woba/
http://www.tigersbythenumbers......tions.html
The formula is long and complicated. I don’t pretend to understand it. I do know that the three major factors are OPS, defense ( be and fangraphs use different metrics) and position. Wish I could help more.
Got you. Guess I have to read through the whole formula to see how much value I want to put in the stat.
Do they factor in SBs and CSs?
I just Google “wins above replacement definition” (no quotes).
First dozen results were short-ish blog posts, ranging from Inside the Book to Yahoo Sports.
WAR (n): What is it good for? Absolutely nothin’.
/ugh. couldn’t resist.
Short version: it’s an approximation by calculating how many runs a player is worth by linear weights (assigning a run value to each single, double, triple, HR, walk, out, etc)
I see.
I basically see it as one persons evaluation of a players value. Also, in an area where there is a lot of gray, putting a number on a players overall ability makes it easier to discuss and compare. Taking those WAR numbers as gospel is foolish though.
Tough for me to say this as a long-time sabermetrics baseball fan, but I am not a fan of any statistic that uses a formula based on “replacement value.” JC Bradbury wrote a good piece on the problems with replacement value statistics, and I think he’s spot on. Sad to say, but a new stat such as WAR is less accurate than some old stats, such as ERA. And I do recognize the failure in ERA, but unfortunately too many sabermetric fans simply accept WAR without seeing it’s substantial warts.
Thing is, it’s everyone gets measured to the same standard. Derivative stats, to my mind, are a bit too arbitrary in their assumptions, but when it comes to comparing one player to another most of them are useful.
The New Kid on Knoblauch… one of the greatest trades of the past 20 years!!!!
Why does no one remember that David Ortiz used HGH? Because he’s such a great guy?
He didn’t used steroids. He is going to get back to us when he finds out how his name got on that list.
The ’04 red sox were Manny and Ortiz and both were fabrications of steroids (especially fat papi). How many times did Ortiz beat us? They haven’t won a real champioship since 1918. We should all chant “1918″ when the Sox are in town just like we used to.
I guess the 2000 Yankees don’t count either. Neither do the 2009 Yankees since they had A-Rod and Pettitte playing major roles.
I think Ortiz deserves more crap for basically getting away with his denial that he ever did ‘roids, but it doesn’t mean those championships aren’t legit. Though it was funny to see Boston fans go from “we did it the right way, unlike those dirty Yankees” to “whatever, everyone did steroids, it’s okay!!!”
Maybe ’96, ’98, ’99 and 2000 were tainted with steroid use. But not nearly to the same extent that the ’04 Red Sox were. Manny and Ortiz were 75% percent of that team. Two juggernauts that were impossible to get through in the lineup without getting hurt. We already had 22 championships before steriods were invented. They were up against the curse of the Bambino and hadn’t won since 1918. Pisses me off cuz Ortiz (David Velasquez) is a total fraud.
How about we stop speculating how much certain championship teams are tainted? We have no idea how many people were using or how vital users were to certain teams.
Winstrol got FDA approval in 1962. These things have been around for a while, and I bet they have been around in baseball for a lot longer than people think.
Steroids have been around for a long time and definitely has been around for many of those 22 championships. The idea of a 100 percent “pure” athlete is a pipe dream. People have been taking whatever they can get their hands on to get better for hundreds of years.
Every title for at least 30 years was tainted if you want to use that definition.
shut up, uggo!
r00d
I don’t think that any team between the 96 Yankees and 09 Yankees can really be counted by that metric, because steroids were so damn ubiquitous. It’s not like the players who didn’t use steroids were somehow blessed to win. Of course the steroid-ed teams beat everyone! We would have won in 2004 if we had just gotten Jeter pumped.
Devil fans must want to cry after this season…
Wow, Jim Callis said that Jesus would be #1 in the Royals system.
Pretty good but I’m not surprised. They (BA) had Hosmer as the royals #1. Not surprising the Jesus is a better prospect than him.
When your team’s prospect is a legit top 5 guy like the teh Jesus, he’d be a #1 on most teams
Now that Strasburg, Stanton and Heyward are all up a lot of analysts say Montero is the best prospect in MLB. That’s awesome.
But then again there’s Demonic Brown and Mike Trout…
Not a shock. Here’s another way of looking at the question. In what system would Jesus NOT be the number-one prospect heading into 2011?
Callis says Yankees have a top 6 farm.
https://twitter.com/jimcallisBA
I’d say number three behind KC and Texas.
and Rays?
Who would be above them? Royals Texas Rays are the locks. Jays? I honestly have no idea who the other 2 are but it cant be the Red Sox
I can’t believe how good the Oakland A’s starting rotation will be in 2011, or was in 2010. Question is, what rotation would you rather have?
The Yankees:
CC Sabathia
AJ Burnett
Phil Hughes
Ivan Nova
Sergio Mitre
or the A’s?:
Trevor Cahill
Brett Anderson
Dallas Braden
Gio Gonzalez
Rich Harden
One really has to take a strong look at the A’s numbers, and I’m sure most people here would prefer the Yankees rotation. But I wanted to see.
Imagine what that rotation could do with the Yankees’ lineup.
Imagine our lineup with a rotation of:
CC
Anderson
Hughes
Cahill
Gonzales
That would make us WS favorites I think.
Futurama is not funny, I don’t know why it is still on the air.
I agree, the mystery continues.
I love Futurama. Haven’t seen any of the new episodes but the only cartoon I like better is South Park.
I think there is a 99.9% chance Pettitte is back. I’m convinced what’s happening right now is a negotiating tactic.
Yet, I could be wrong. What do most here think?
I think he’s yet to decide, the longer this takes, the more inclined I am to believe he’ll consider a return. The closer he get to pitchers and catchers the more he’s gonna realize what he’s missing. Although word around is that he’s leaning towards retirement, I think theres more of a chance he’ll return until he actually declares something.
If I had to put money on it today, I would say that he is going to retire. Even all during last season, especially when he was working through all his injuries, I just got the feeling that was it for him. I really hope I am wrong though.
As for your question, I don’t get the impression he is telling everyone he is leaning toward retirement as a negotiating tactic even if he does end up deciding to come back. But I too could be wrong, ha. I think if he decides to come back, he will tell the Yanks, and then they will start to negotiate a deal. I doubt the Yanks are going to negotiate with him before he states his desire to keep playing.
Money doesn’t seem to be an issue at this point. The Yankees always have plenty of it (more now than ever, I suppose). Pettitte should get a “usual” $10 mil + incentives deal, which all of us would favor in a heartbeat. I think we all realize that Pettitte isn’t going to give us a full season of starts at this point, but it is not unreasonable to think that he will give us better than league average innings when he is on the mound. More than anything, and for selfish reasons, I want to see him back because the last time I saw him pitch at the stadium was at the Tampa game where he left with injury. I don’t want that to be my last time seeing him pitch live. But alas, this is my selfish reason.
Was at that game too. Uggh, I remember running over to the Audi Club right away and listening to the broadcast to get some updates. Didn’t sounds too bad then, but Sterling was wrong. (not surprised) That said, I remember Arod and someone else hit bombs to left field toward the end of that game. The Audi club gives you a real cool look at those shots.
Three issues:
One, why should Pettitte consider coming back for what would be what you termed a “‘usual’ below-market deal of $10 million + incentives”? The base is less than they paid him last year, and he only once prior had a deal based heavily on incentives, and that was coming off his 2008 season when he should have been rested down the stretch, but he instead shouldered the load for a staff that was in disrepair.
Second, I’m not sure we realize at all that Pettitte can’t deliver a full season of starts. What’s the evidence for that belief? He’s been very durable, and his groin injury last year is not a general indicator of age, or something that has been a chronic problem for him. Groins can get pulled at 18, 28 and 38. Prior to 2010, Pettitte delivered 33, 35, 34, 33 and 32 starts from 2005-2009. I wouldn’t expect Pettitte to lead the league in starts as he did in 2006 and 2007, or to throw 220+ innings, but he is certainly capable and likely to deliver 31 starts and 190 innings. That builds in rest time and reduced innings from his peak, recognizing he is older, but still means he’s giving a solid season of work.
Third, it is reasonable to think he will deliver more than league-average innings. Even with his lost time last year, he delivered approximately ten million in value, for those of you who believe in “replacement value” statistics and associated value. He delivered 2.3 fWAR last year, and was well on track for a 3.5-4.0 WAR season, which is right where he is every year, delivering fWARs of 3.5, 4.5, 4.4 and 3.6 the prior four seasons.
Based on the value of a win (and not even including the additional innings and value he delivers in the post season), Pettitte has been underpaid by the Yankees. Worse (for him), since he’s going on one-year contracts, limiting the financial exposure of the Yankees, he should be demanding (and getting) above-market contracts for his services.
Can you imagine if Pettitte tomorrow announced he was open to offers from all teams in MLB, letting them know all he wanted was a one-year contract? How much do you think he’d get, especially on a market pretty much devoid of quality pitching. A heck of a lot more than $10 million. He’s a lefty with an excellent track record, pitches well in the post season, and is coming off a quality year. All offers for a single-year contract would be north of $15 million.
That leads me back to my original question. I think Pettitte has decided to come back and he and his agent have now started negotiating by not giving any specific answer, letting the process drag out, increasing Pettitte’s value to the Yankees. Randy Levine and Hal Steinbrenner have already said they want and need him back. I think Pettitte’s strategy, if that’s what it is, is working.
I think Pettitte scores a contract somewhere around $17 million. I doubt he’s forgotten how the Yankees forced him to take the incentive deal for 2009. He’s undermined his own negotiating position in the past. I think he knows market forces are now on his side and he’s going to get every last penney he can this time around.
As said, I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am.