Running 2015 MLB Regular-Season Thread

I missed some of last night's game. He had three hits.

I'm starting to doubt my powers.

 

This is interesting. Apparently, Desmond was terrible defensively early in the year last year, too.

Ian Desmond’s defense comes around - The Washington Post

 

Wow, that is pretty weird. Maybe Gee was right about spring training in Key West.

 

I think Desmond has had at least 7 errors in each of the past two or three Aprils.

 

It's hard to believe now that it took 8 years for an African-American to play for the Yankees:

April 13, 1955 was a good day for the Yankees. They kicked off their season by trouncing the Washington Senators 19-1 in the Bronx. Mickey Mantle had three hits, including a home run; Yogi Berra also homered; and Whitey Ford threw a complete game while allowing fewer hits (two) than he had himself (three, plus four RBIs). But New York's most significant player that day never got off the bench. Two days shy of eight years exactly after Jackie Robinson hurdled Major League Baseball’s color barrier, Elston Howard became the first African-American player to don Yankees pinstripes.

The delay by America's most popular and successful team to integrate had led to everything from editorials to picket lines, all of which had been ignored by New York's top brass. In his book, Baseball's Great Experiment, author Jules Tygiel quotes general manager George Weiss as saying, “The Yankees are not going to promote a Negro player to the Stadium simply in order to be able to say that they have such a player. We are not going to bow to pressure groups on this issue.”

To be fair, New York's roster didn't have many holes in those years, not when the team was winning six World Series titles from 1947-54. But there were certainly weak links that could have been bolstered had the Yankees not been so slow to embrace integration. Howard's debut made New York the 13th of the 16 major league franchises then in existence to employ an African-American player. Weiss had previously passed on opportunities to sign Ernie Banks and Willie Mays, among others, and comments from Yankees staffers suggested prejudice had factored into keeping the team's lineup all-white.

Elston Howard broke the Yankees' color-barrier in 1955 - MLB - SI.com

 

The crazy thing is that they had also scouted Willie Mays, but decided not to sign him.

They also, earlier on had offered Ted Williams something like $500 to sign. Williams wanted $1,000, the Yankees said no, and the Red Sox swooped in and signed him.


Imagine having an outfield of Mantle, Mays and Williams in the 50s?

 

The Red Sox didn't have a black player until 1959. The Yankees at least had the excuse of winning championships while they were still all-white.

 

In his early pro years, Desmond was one of those shortstops who would put up ridiculous error numbers while showing incredible range and playmaking ability.

His minor-league years: 30 Es in 55 games. 39 Es in 127 games. 37 Es in 128 games. 32 Es in 127 games. 23 Es in 96 games. And 28 Es in 97 games.

He's been erratic every step of the way.

 

That's interesting. Would all 3 have been as productive if that had happened? I've always wondered that about stacked baseball teams. Obviously in sports with a clock, you're limited by time on what a star-studded lineup could do. A mid-80s NBA team that featured MJ, Magic and Bird - at least one of those guys has to give up shots. Just not enough time or basketballs for them all to be who they actually were. Or even loaded NFL offenses face limits because of the way one play feeds so directly into the next, and the way a defense can conspire to take away the run or pass or otherwise limit their opponent's strength. The early 90s Cowboys had multiple future HOFs but didnt score on every possession. A holding call or a missed block or something compounds and limits everything that follows.

But in baseball... it's turn-based. No reason to think that a stacked lineup featuring Williams-Mays-Mantle would do anything but rewrite the idea of what an MLB offense could conceivably do. There's zero time constraint, and those guys will bat - no amount of good defense will ever keep their turn in the lineup from coming around again. They might've scored 7-8 runs per game.

 

Fielding-wise, you figure Williams is in left like he usually was, Mays would be in center, and Mantle in right to save his legs.

Hitting-wise, figure Williams hits third, and they would have to pitch to him, because Mantle would be behind him. Williams would get even more pitches to hit, and hit from .328 to .388 from 1954-58. He could have been a consistent .400 hitter with Mantle behind him.

Now figure Mantle hits fourth. While he tended to strike out more, he'd also get more pitches to hit, because he'd have Mays behind him. Then you have Mays at the fifth spot.

And lest anyone think Mays would be getting screwed by hitting fifth, he'd have Yogi hitting behind him.

Howard, meanwhile, could have been used as a super-utility player, giving the somewhat aging Williams days off, playing for Mantle when he was hurt, giving Yogi the rare day off.

It would have been unreal.

 

My college roommate freshman year (1967) was a Giants fan. And even though Cepeda was NL MVP for the Cardinals, he believed in the trade, saying that even in baseball three superstars were not necessarily better than two. He had to have watched a lot of failure to come to that conclusion.