OH-OH-OH...OHTANI: BASEBALL CHASES ITS OWN TALE

WITH the ongoing kerfuffle over Shohei Ohtani's interpreter and his strange hold on the smiling but inscrutable unicorn, baseball enters 2024 with an unexpected shadow over it--as if it needed more of them. 

There are so many possible mini-scenarios in the sudden upwelling of the gambling scandal that has put a crimp into Opening Day that it beggars the mind to keep up with them all. The sequence of events seems to best support the idea that the Dodgers recognized or were tipped off about a bad actor in Ippei Mizuhara, confronted the situation (in a clubhouse meeting that seems like a Harold Pinter play on steroids...), and were unable to contain the interpreter from jumping the gun and telling a version of the story that would soften the blow against both Ohtani and himself...at which point, it became clear that there was no choice but to throw the interpreter under the bus.

Those details may eventually surface in enough clarity for us to understand them, but there is a more far-reaching theme related to baseball that is far more significant. What is that theme? It's the perpetuation of baseball-the-business smokescreening itself through an ongoing manipulation of the game's essential innocence. 

What was working for baseball in the past three seasons was the specter of a "great innocent other" in the form of Ohtani, whose two-way skills have proven to be unprecedented. More than any other sport, baseball is obsessed with "otherness" in whatever form it might manifest itself. In a purportedly post-racial age with a strong tinge of backlash emanating from trouble spots all over the world, baseball-the-business can leverage itself into a stable world-wide marketing situation with a foreign mega-superstar like Ohtani, whose grinning inaccessibility permits the masses to identify with him from a multiplicity of angles--none of them complete (and, most likely, most of them inaccurate).

WHICH is why we can see the desperate wheels in motion as they've been revved up in the wake of this bombshell incident. The effort to whitewash Ohtani is in full swing, because salvaging some semblance of that perceived "innocent otherness" is of paramount importance to baseball-the-business and for the folks supporting it/supported by it: they know that there is a point where too much tarnish on the golden goose will turn him into a disposable tin god.

And that point is flashing at us, and the game, right now. Perpetuating that illusion is paramount, along with the Dodgers gaining some form of control over what might well be an actual gambling problem on the part of Ohtani, something that evolved during his days in Orange County, one of baseball's most star-crossed locations where little ever seems to go right.

CONTRAST this again with Trevor Bauer, whose situation we covered earlier in the month. There are no practical limits for "otherness" in how it creates and perpetuates mystique (which sells tickets and merchandise and media rights), but there is a Draconian limit on "extremity," which is one of the reasons why Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire have been so heavily scapegoated. Too much extremity, whether in excess of achievement or behavior, will result in the individuals being shunned, cast out, "disappeared."

Bauer's extremity also happens to push so strongly against baseball-the-business' desire to cast its spell of "innocence" over the public that they have become autocratically adamant about denying him a chance to redeem himself. For Bonds and McGwire, baseball will mete out a punishment that will allow them into the Hall of Fame only after they are both dead, so that while they will eventually be "redeemed," they will not be granted that benefit in a way that they can personally enjoy. 

For Bauer, the punishment is at its most Puritan in nature (befitting a nation that has a frighteningly large segment of its populace attempting to make The Handmaid's Tale into a living, fire-and-brimstone-breathing reality): he will simply be erased from view by whatever means necessary. (That began, but will not end, with Internet entities such as Reddit banning any and all discussion of him, in clear violation of First Amendment rights.)

Bauer continues to demonstrate that he can be a useful pitcher for a major league team whenever he can actually find an opportunity to pitch in North America, but the same impulse underlying the American spirit that caused them to slaughter the indigenous population will almost certainly make sure that there will never be another statistical line in his record from a team in organized baseball operating on North American soil.

AND all that will occur as baseball-the-business salvages its over-investment in its unicorn of otherness, who will from now on carry some level of dark undercurrent that the powers-that-be are working mightily even as these words are being typed to make unutterable. Here's hoping that Ohtani's dedication to baseball (which is unquestionable) will see him through to a successful weathering of this dark moment--and far beyond it, so that he will wind up with a career of sufficient achievement to warrant the devil's bargain that is in the process of being made. 

For if he should crash and burn after this, it would be among the greatest catastrophes that baseball-the-game and baseball-the-business could possibly experience. For the more one chases one's own tale, the more dependent one becomes on it remaining a credible version of "the truth"--and thus the pressure on Ohtani to win over public opinion through another 4-5 seasons of unique brilliance is, in fact, greater than it's ever been before. Stay tuned...

SHAMELESS SHAMS, PART 69B: WILL ANYONE SIGN TREVOR BAUER?

SOMEWHERE in the unwritten rules of baseball there is a floating clause that has wrapped itself around the pineal gland of stuffed shirts and hypocrites who populate virtually all echelons of the game/business--from the executives who run it, to the sportswriters who cover it, and even to the players' union. It reads as follows: "Thou shall not have rough sex with predatory women even if their charges against you are false."

Trevor Bauer is assuredly not the first baseball player to have had rough sex: he's just the one that was reckless enough to not properly screen the offers he was receiving, with what (naturally enough) proved to be spectacularly catastrophic circumstances.

The powers that be are so concerned about maintain a squeaky-clean image that they piled on Bauer even after there were no charges filed against him, only lawsuits. Such behavior was to be expected from Rob Manfred, of course, because there is no decision or event horizon in baseball over which he can't find a way to take the most expedient yet somehow self-contradictory overreaction while simultaneously coddling miscreant owners like John Fisher (the man who should be barred from baseball for two lifetimes). 

(Manfred would fit right in on the Supreme Court, where he would demonstrate that his "balls and strikes calling" would be at least as inept as that of the Chief Justice and his phalanx of feckless Federalist Society fraudsters--at least one of whom, by the way, is accused of sexual crimes significantly more serious than the accusations made--but never proved--against Bauer.)

BUT, yes, let's get back to Bauer--talking about many of those in positions of decision-making power in this country is dispiriting at best...

Bauer was suspended for two years (324 games), which was reduced by an independent (read: at least semi-rational) arbitrator, was released in early 2023, and did the most logical (rational!) thing he could do under the circumstances--he went to play in Japan, where, after a rough start, he rounded into form and pitched well in 24 starts (11-4, 2.59 ERA). 

He has come back to the USA, admitted he made reckless choices in his life, and owned up to his abrasive personality. Of late he's expressed willingness to pitch for the major league minimum in order to demonstrate some additional contrition for creating a cause celèbre in an area that baseball (and a sizable portion of folk in America's schizoid, Puritanical but sex-on-the-brain culture) just can't handle. 

All of that has, naturally enough, left him effectively blackballed. Meanwhile, players with actual domestic violence charges and prior suspensions (Domingo German, to name just one) are allowed back into the game. 

IT is, of course, a shameless sham being perpetrated by a group of baseball insiders--including the players' union, which should be at least noting that they are following this situation carefully and will intervene on Bauer's behalf if he is barred from the game without any such official announcement (one that, of course, would instantly produce litigation that MLB would lose). 

Just as the Hall of Fame decided to cynically change its rules to hasten the blackballing of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, so the hypocrites in charge of "baseball policy decisions" are cynically following the strategies of a certain would-be dictator and hope to run out the clock on Trevor Bauer, figuring that if they play dodgeball with him long enough, he'll just be "aged out" of the rest of his career. 

As noted--a shameless sham.

SO are there any franchises among the thirty major league monopolists who might defy their already lame-duck Commissioner? Pitching injuries seem to be increasing due to factors involving newly-fashioned pitches and mechanics that create greater stress and higher risk of arm damage: given that, every team should be interested in acquired an additional healthy arm. (Except the Dodgers, of course, who've made it clear that Bauer is persona non grata to them. ) 

Some teams, of course, might decide that they have sufficient quality that they don't need to pursue Bauer. But that doesn't describe every team in MLB: so we can identify the teams that should want to investigate all possible sources of top-level talent (and Bauer meets that definition)...they are either ones with the most serious incursions of injury or those with a demonstrable shortage of quality.

Let's look at just who might fall into those categories.

Teams with injury issues above and beyond the norm--in the AL East: Tampa Bay, New York; in the AL Central: Minnesota; in the AL West: Houston; in the NL East: New York; in the NL Central: St. Louis; in the NL West: San Diego.

Teams with a dearth of top-level talent--in the AL East: Boston; in AL Central: Chicago, Kansas City; in the AL West: Oakland; in the NL East: Miami; in the NL Central: Cincinnati, Pittsburgh (who just signed Domingo German...); in the NL West: Colorado.

ADD that up and there are fifteen (15) teams who should be willing to give Trevor Bauer a chance to pitch for them in 2024.

That's half of baseball...

Of course, most of these franchises are sheep-like when it comes to such "cultural" matters, and are terminally unwilling to rock the boat. That removes most of your "flyover country" teams, all but the ones with serious pitching problems, so let's leave in the White Sox and the Rockies as teams that might realistically decide that they have nothing to lose by bringing Bauer in to shore up shaky rotations. 

We should also leave in the New York teams, with the Mets being more likely to do so because they have a shoot-from-the-hip owner in Steve Cohen. But the Yankees have a hole in the top of their rotation, and there's a media world there that would love to have such a story to cover--particularly if Bauer were to fail (for whatever reason). We can't be sure that this would sway the more staid incarnation of the Steinbrenner ownership dynasty--but one more injury to a starting pitcher might tip the balance.

Tampa Bay is a franchise that often bucks established edicts, though most of those seem to be analytical and not sociological in nature; still, their need for extra rotation arms might permit them to consider giving Bauer a look-see. Miami is likewise a place where lurid behavior is more conspicuously on display than in other metropolitan areas of the country, and they too might buck the "circle the moralistic wagons" policy if only to create/entice additional local interest from the "friskier" portion of their fan base. 

As for fan bases, Oakland's is perfect for a Bauer landing place--but the meretricious meta-collusion between Manfred and Fisher makes that a total non-starter. And San Diego is probably off the table as well, for more prosaic inter-franchise reasons: this is probably the decisive year for A.J. Preller's pursuit of the playoffs, which needs to pay off in a post-season berth or else his goose is most likely parboiled--which means he can't afford to take a quixotic gamble on a controversial player whose failure might be seen as one of the reasons the team fell short.

What about the Red Sox, you say? There's a first-year GM (Craig Breslow) there, who is already proceeding with excessive caution. So even though they could use Bauer, it won't happen unless owner John Henry gets a wild hair in that NSFW location. 

SO--that leaves the two New York clubs, the Rockies (who could justifiably note that they always need pitching), the White Sox (Jerry Reinsdorf might be persuaded to toss Manfred a middle-finger move of this type...), the Rays and the Fish, and, finally, the Astros (likewise with an owner ready to poke Manfred in the eye and a team with serious pitching injuries). 

Those are the seven teams that, in our estimation, should be willing to take a flyer on Bauer, despite the unspoken blackball situation that is clearly in place at the moment.

Come on, you clowns, someone give Bauer a chance to either redeem himself or go down in flames if he either can't cut it in terms of changing his persona or being able to pitch well enough to warrant a slot in MLB. For f*ck's sake, where is Bill Veeck when you really need him?

As we always say at this point: stay tuned...

CIRCLING THE ROUND NUMBERS/1: A VARIANT FOR "IMMACULATE GRID"?

WE'RE not sure this will really work, but let's give it a try anyway...

Many of you are familiar with Forman et soeur's Immaculate Grid, a game of baseball memory that's been doing a good job of keeping a certain class of deadbeat occupado and off the streets for nearly a year now.  

We were just noodling around one evening with the IG model and looking for something that might make for an intriguing variant to it. And then it struck us: baseball records, as a stack of raw numbers, are quite often attached to "round numbers"--you know, data that ends with one, two, or three zeroes at the end of it:

For example--3000 hits, 500 HRs, 100 RBI, and so on.

So we thought a game where the round numbers dictated the answers might make for an intriguing new twist on the Immaculate Grid. 

BUT before we work through some of the ways the game might actually be structured, it's probably a good idea to display a chart that will help you visualize the data:

So we are looking at lifetime home runs using round number "anchors"--200, 300, 400...all the way up to 700. Te idea is to fill in the player who has the closest possible number to the round number "anchor." For homers, these names represent the best answers.

BUT it's likely that few folks will know all of the closest possible numbers off the top of their head. (The idea here is not to look up the answers before playing, but to use your memory of the category to come up with the best possible answer "off the top of your head."

We've also shown the exact matches--players whose careers actually ended on a round number of homers--in the column shaded in green at the right.

The game is scored by the lowest possible difference in between the chosen player on either side of the round number. So we total this up and we have a differential of 17 at the 700 homer level, followed by a differential of 23 at six hundred; then 11 (4+7) at the 500 level. Things get tighter at four hundred, which has a differential of just three. And of course 300 and 200 actually have exact matches, so they don't add anything more to the best possible differential.

Adding those differentials up, you get 17+23+11+3=54 as the best possible score. (As you can see, the lower the score, the better!) 

STILL with us on this? The interface would allow you to enter a name, and it could even give you three names to choose from (without revealing the actual homer total of anyone until you pick one of them). 

After you've made your choices for all the round number "anchors," the game would sum up your differential and compare it to the best possible score. 

JUST to get the idea across more strongly, let's take a look at another such chart--this one is for lifetime doubles:

For this variation, you've got a situation where the top round number anchor has no corresponding player on the the "plus" side. There are several ways that this could be handled in the scoring, but one way would be to penalize the total score by adding 50 points to the score whenever you provide an "answer" where none exists. 

Let's figure out the best possible score here, to help you get the hang of it. Best differential at 800 is 8 (Tris Speaker's mind-bending total of 792 lifetime doubles). Then you have 24+14=38 at 700. Things get tighter starting at six hundred (the cumulative differential is just 5). And from 500 down to 300 you have an exact match possibility, so the "best possible" differential for doubles is: 8+38+5=51.

SO there you have it. There can be a lot of variations for the scoring mechanism: for example, the round number anchor could be 25, 50, 75--thus, 225, 325, 425, 525, etc. for this category. There should be enough different counting stats available for use to keep the game fresh. 

The actual data points are intrinsically interesting even if they have no actual analytical value. (Which, of course, is also the case for IG--these are just meant for mind-twisting as we await the end of the world™.) We're going to compile charts like the ones above for a range of lifetime stats, and display more of them as the 2024 baseball season progresses. Stay tuned...

RUBICON FOR THE RELIQUARY

THE transition for the Baseball Reliquary since the death of Terry Cannon in 2020 has been slow and arduous: its charismatic yet oddly inscrutable creator literally was the glue for an anti-organization that continually challenged and celebrated the double-edged world of baseball. Cannon was the conduit and catalyst that took an impish art project and built it into a viable (if still somewhat unlikely) alternative to the increasingly bloated, bathetic Hall of Fame.

How do you put such an anti-organization into some kind of institutional framework without destroying its unique aura? Terry Cannon attracted several sidekicks and many admirers, particularly after his invention of the Shrine of the Eternals, which we've championed here on numerous occasions as "Cooperstown for the rest of us." 

But none of those folk--from Cannon's long-time collaborators on art and history programs to the now-in-charge team of Joe Price and Terry's devoted wife Mary--have shown the type of creative resolve that is needed to establish the Reliquary in what is now a changed world. 

One key sidekick--Albert Kilchesty--has sadly pushed himself out of contention to maintain the aura that Cannon embodied. The original collaboration of "Terry and Buddy," combining the surreal with dead-earnest cultural anthropology, was essential to the multivalent strands of the Reliquary's endeavors. 

We characterized their partnership (in an allusion uttered during our keynote speech in 2009, reproduced here for those who love tiny type...) as two boys with the magical power to let go of their balloons at the beach while strolling the shore, confident in the knowledge that somehow they would reach up and magically retrieve them without a second thought. 

How on earth can you institutionalize something that operates in such gleeful defiance of natural law?

Such could only exist in such a form so long as the original creator was alive to embody it. We mean no offense to Joe Price when we say that his attempt to channel Terry during the Reliquary's 2023 Shrine of the Eternals event was a well-intentioned but ill-advised failure. While the "art project" aspect of the Reliquary still appears to be on solid ground, the loss of momentum with the Shrine of the Eternals points to a "Rubicon moment" for the ongoing viability and sustainability of Cannon's vision.

IN fact, there were some cracks in the Shrine of the Eternals concept that Terry had not addressed in the years immediately prior to his tragic bout with cancer. Cannon and Kilchesty began with an inspired combination of inductees that ran the gamut from the historically overlooked to the downright zany; from the culturally relevant "in the now" to the great players who'd been shunned (or banned) by Cooperstown. But for more than a decade, the Shrine drifted away from that last category of inductee--in particular those individuals from the dawn of the game who were in danger of being completely forgotten. 

The three years of lost balloting have also taken a heavy toll. For the Shrine to return to full force, and to address some of the areas that had even escaped Terry's  attention, an intervention into the original design of the Shrine is desperately needed to jump-start a renewed awareness of its potency as a viable alternative to Cooperstown. 

David Nemec

Here are the actions that we propose in order to do that:

--First, create a special class of "Eternal" that involves those who embody the Reliquary's commitment to pioneering research. (Given that the Reliquary is now formally aligned with Whittier College and is umbrellaed into an arrangement with its Institute of Baseball Studies, this makes eminent sense.) 

We suggested this in our 2020 post after Terry's passing, proposing that Cannon, pioneering nineteenth-century historian David Nemec, and pre-eminent baseball lexicographer Paul Dickson be enshrined as this special class of "Eternal." 

Paul Dickson

(These men are true giants in the field, eminently deserving of such special recognition. And, of course, Terry is an "eternal" for having invented the Shrine of the Eternals...)

From this point forward, the Reliquary can reserve the right to induct additional "special Eternals" based on its own discretion--but limited to the area of enhancing baseball knowledge. 

--Second, address the paucity of nineteenth-century representation in the Shrine by announcing a set of special elections to add three players and/or relevant historical personages from that era per year for the next three-to-five years. 

A list of qualified candidates is already in hand within the second volume of  David Nemec's magisterial Major League Baseball Profiles 1871-1900 (second volume), where he lists twenty individuals who are clearly deserving of a slot in Cooperstown. 

The Reliquary can get the jump on the Hall of Fame by enshrining individuals such as Jim Creighton (baseball's tragic first superstar), Bob Caruthers (the greatest of the two-way players in the nineteenth century), and Doc Adams (the pioneer of the game who, among other elemental acts, set the distances between the bases).**

--Third, revamp its 2024 ballot with an additional brace of names featuring players who are currently shunned by Cooperstown. In its early, somewhat rowdier days (possibly egged on by the fiery side of Buddy Kilchesty), the Reliquary saw fit to admit Joe Jackson and Pete Rose into the Shrine, in part to forgive, but also to stir up some dust with institutional puffery. 

For 2024, then, the names of several shunned all-time greats--Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens--should be added to the candidate list with the announcement that for the next three election cycles, a total of five Eternals will be inducted per year, which in 2027 will bring the total back to what it would have been save for the issues that ground things to a halt in 2021-23 and prevented the usual yearly elections. 

To leaven this idea from being seen as a present-day gimmick, we recommend that a slate of "shunned second basemen"--Bobby Grich, Lou Whitaker, Jeff Kent, Larry Doyle--also be added to the ballot to remind the Reliquary's voting population that they can make their voices heard in ways that are both tangible and relevant  with respect to the ongoing myopia of the Hall of Fame.

ALL of these actions will add a dynamism to the Shrine that has been lacking for some time--and it will make the yearly ceremony into something that truly balances substance with showmanship. 

That latter quality is difficult to produce on demand, of course, because there are only a handful of people who can balance all of the tonalities between surreal silliness to serious critical/cultural reverence/relevance the way that Terry Cannon did for a quarter-century. 

By adding more specific categories to the candidate selection process, and providing a faster path for neglected areas of baseball history, the current Baseball Reliquary brain trust can create a "safety in numbers" scenario that will ensure a more robust and more varied combination of content at its annual events--which will provide added visibility.

FOR it is the Shrine of the Eternals that is the best way for the Baseball Reliquary to capture the imaginations of those seeking a more freewheeling, more joyous, less pompous and less institutional celebration of baseball. These tweaks and augmentations are urgently needed to reinvigorate the Shrine as that "place of grace" for baseball lovers who want an expanded consciousness of the game's beauty and significance. 

It is, of course, far from certain that these proposed ideas will get incorporated into the planning for the Reliquary's 2024 event. But there is an urgency at this moment in time to create a more dynamic path forward, one that can create a strong, flexible institutional structure for an anti-organization that was juggled masterfully by a man no longer here to show us how to let go of a balloon, run down the seashore of imagination, and reach up to bring that fleeting, flittering, capricious object back into his as if by magic. 

We need that magic to survive, even if we have to make Terry's trick more just a bit more prosaic. The time to take the bold steps to make that happen is now: we cross our fingers. Stay tuned...

---

**The full list of David Nemec's "Twenty for the Hall of Fame" as presented in Major League Baseball Profiles 1871-1900 is as follows: Doc Adams, Ross Barnes, Charlie Bennett, Pete Browning, Bob Caruthers, Jim Creighton, Bill Dahlen, Bob Ferguson, Jack Glasscock, Ed McKean, A.G. Mills, Tony Mullane, Fred Pfeffer, Hardy Richardson, Jimmy Ryan, Jack Stivetts, Harry Stovey, George Van Haltren, Gus Weyhing, and Deacon White. The nine underlined names would be our choices for the nineteenth-century "Eternals" who would augment the current roster of inductees. 

HOME RUNS (WHAT ELSE?)/4: THE -29/30+ DIVIDE & THE 31 IN THE "DOUBLE 200 CLUB"...

WE operate under strange handicaps, with a computer that has ceased to permit certain characters to appear on the page as we t*pe (get the idea?). The problem will be rectified with a new machine later in 2024, but for now we just avoid using words with a certain letter that has been aggravatingl* disappeared from us (and *ou thought *ou had problems!)...

But it's clear that nothing, not even this, will stop us--we might even go back and fix the first graf after the fact (something we've done a number of times with previous posts, but it gets a bit tedious)...

ALL that said, we can't wait to drop this data and charts here, so bear with us--for what's coming down the pike in this edition is unusual even for BBB. What are we babbling about? It's more homer stuff, of course--we are working through our cognitive dissonance regarding them, though we will insist toujours that we need more triples and that the 190-foot rule is the best method for making that happen--but that's enough forepla*...

This edition of Home Runs (What Else?) features the age breakdown that never quite gets the full-on treatment it deserves. (We wanted to use "s*stematic, but, *ou know...) 

We will divide home run production just as the Romans divided Gaul--into two parts: those taters struck when hitters are in their twenties, and those "big flies" (God, we love pluralism!) that arrive when the batter is in his thirties. For ease of use here, we're following the formulation in the title, which is -29/30+. 

SO let's get the first big chart out here and get down to cases:

That's right, we've created two lists of age-oriented "200+ HR" hitters. These should look similar to the ones created for the 300+ lifetime HR lists seen in our recent series--except, of course, we've divided them into our "-29/30+" formulation.

IT's instructive to put these up in tandem, so that we can see how each segment differs. Despite the fact that hitters often have fewer seasons to work with during their twenties, there are more members of the "200+ HR club" in the -29 group (98) than in the 30+ group (82). 

But before we get deep into the nuances of these large-membered clubs, let's take a quick look at the upper echelons that we find here--what's the breakdown of 300+ HRs via these age groups? There are 15 hitters who've hit 300+ HRs in their twenties, and there are 17 hitters who've hit 300+ HRs in their thirties. And there are just two hitters who managed to hit 300+ HRs in each age range: Hank Aaron (age -29, 342; age 30+, 413) and Albert Pujols (age -29, 366; age 30+, 337).

--aka "Jackie Coogan's bluff"...

Jimmie Foxx was the age -29 leader for quite a long time, but A-Rod and Junior surpassed him. Likewise, Babe Ruth was the age 30+ leader for a similar stretch, until a fellow named Bonds went into orbit once the new millennium arrived and blew him out of the water. Baseball's favorite pariah hit 503 HRs during the age 30+ phase of his career--a fact that should inspire infinite awe, but will all too often be cited as prime facie evidence of "cheating." (Who knew that of all the centuries in all the gin joints in all the freakin' world, the 21st would take all of the meanness in the previous several and double down on it in a manner that would make Uncle Fester proud?) 

Soon we'll take a focused look at the 31 hitters who hit 200+ HRs in each age range, but next we will look at some distribution charts that can provide some additional context for the 180 members of the "200+ HR in an age range" club.

Let's start with a scatter chart that shows us the 98 hitters in the -29 range, plotted via the intersection of their HR totals in the age range and their overall performance during same (which we measure with OPS+). Remember when looking at this chart that there is more variation in the career lengths of the hitters in the -29 range: some folks start at age 19, others at age 24 (and then there's Babe Ruth, starting as a pitcher in Deadball Era, with four seasons where his HR totals are suppressed due to limited plate appearances)--that explains how the data here is not quite so linear.

And Ruth is one of the three data points on the scatter chart that we've singled out with different coloration from the rest--which one is he? That's right, the one in red at the far right. His HR total in the -29 range was kept under 300 due to the reasons noted above, but his OPS+ (218) was off the charts during this time frame (1914-24). The other data point in red belongs to A-Rod, the all-time leader in -29 range HRs (426).

So who's the fellow over toward the left middle shown in pale green? That's our old pal Andruw Jones, the man that the post-neo-sabes are bound & determined to push into the Hall of Fame. Jones started at age 19, so he got what is close to the maximum possible number of PAs in the -29 age range (he ranks sixth behind Mel Ott, A-Rod, Junior, Al Kaline, and Mantle). He did hit a nice number of HRs in the time frame (his 342 is tied for seventh with Ott and Hank Aaron), but look at his OPS+: it's just 115, a performance level several galaxies apart from the other two hitters with the same -29 HR totals (Ott's OPS+ through age 29 was 157, Aaron's was 158). Jones hit 92 HRs after the age of 30--the lowest total for a member of the -29 age range with 300+ HRs--and hit just .214 during that time...a Hall of Fame impostor if there ever was one (but remember that we live in an age of cults).

NOW let's look at related measure--HR per 162 games--and scatter that against OPS+. What kind of results will that give us (as compared to the raw HR totals)? The results are shown in the chart at right, which looks a good bit more linear than the first one. Note that this one provides population averages for the measures here: HR/162 rates for the 98 -29 age range is just over 34 (as shown in the green horizontal line...), and the aggregate OPS+ for these hitters is 145 (as shown in the green vertical line). 

But we can see that Babe Ruth is still an outlier thanks to that insane OPS+ (218, to be exact) with a much better HR/162 rate once we've adjusted for his total PA over the 1914-24 time frame. And we can see A-Rod in the upper center of the chart, with a homer rate a little better than Ruth's, but with an OPS+ that's just about identical with the average for the hitter population captured here. And move back down and further to the left to find Andruw Jones again: he's far off the average OPS+, in a cluster of hitters whose main offensive skill was hitting homers. Even at that, his homer rate is just about average amongst the hitters here. Just to be tiresome, we'll repeat what we said above: Hall of Fame impostor (don't care how good his glove was--and his glove has been overrated).

OK, we are all glad that we got that out of our s*stem (oops, there's that glitch again... that missing "real question" that Brock Hanke used to tweak me about!). But there's one last special data point highlighted on this chart--it can be seen at the top of the chart near the vertical green line. That's the hitter with the highest HR/162 rate of all the folk in the -29 age range. Who is that? Is it going to be a surprise to discover that this hitters's name is going to subject to the same computer glitch we've been working so hard to avoid as we tap out this text? Of course not! But see what we mean when we list the name: it's R*an Howard. That's right: R*an Howard, who came up at age 24 and had a monster five seasons of taterdom, averaging just under 49 HRs per 162 games. (That homer rate took a significant nosedive once Howard reached 30, however: from that point on it was just 31 per 162 games--and his OPS+ plummeted as well: down to just 107.)

So let's move on to the 30+ range and some of the controversial people who populate it--Bonds, Mark McGwire, Samm* Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro...the folks who've had the doors to Cooperstown slammed in their faces.

As should be clear, this chart does have more of a linear flow going for it, as the upward drift to the right kinda sorta takes those anomalies named Bonds (topmost data point in red) and Ruth (next topmost data point in red) and McGwire (the third data point in red, with his somewhat truncated HR total due to injuries: if we could plop into the "375 HR, 175 OPS+" intersection point on the chart, he would be just about dead linear with the overall spread trend in the chart). Even with the linear feel in the chart, it's still mind-blowing to see where Bonds and Ruth reside on this chart--if we'd been told in 1999 that someone would break Ruth's 30+ age range home run record (430), we'd have recommended that the person doing so get a visit from the men in white coats...and for Bonds to have done so without so much as breaking a sweat--our minds should still be reeling.

But we have some other colored markers to explain. The gold marker belongs to Aaron (413 HRs in the 30+ age range, and a 153 OPS+). The light green marker belongs to Palmeiro, who sits in third place for age 30+ HRs (414, one more than Aaron), but with a lesser OPS (133). Of course, his Cooperstown snub is also absurd, but consider the times we live in. The marker in "amarillo" (we'll do whatever we can to avoid the asterisk!) captures two hitters whose 30+ careers have never been compared as far as we can tell, but whose numbers here indicate just how tremendous their achievements were in adjacent decades. These two are Willie Stargell and Mike Schmidt, who in the 1970s and 1980s respectivel* (oh, sh*t!) compiled identical 153 OPS+. Stargell hit 310 homers in the 30+ range; Schmidt hit 313. Both of them, of course, are enshrined in Cooperstown. (Palmeiro, with 100 more HRs during his thirties than either of them and a higher HR/162 rate, is somehow little better than dog meat: go figure.)

AND now for the HR/162--OPS+ scatter chart for the "oldsters" (we should all be so old, eh?). As might be expected, this chart is the most linear of them all (and thanks to the mirror, mirror on the wall). It just reminds us that rate stats are much more useful that counting stats--but who's counting, and whose opinion counts? 

What will blow minds (and perhaps even some of the lower chakras...) is the rate stat residing at the top of this chart. It belongs to the greatest home run hitter in baseball histor*. (It figures that we'd get an asterisk right here, doesn't it?) That man is...Mark McGwire. In his 30+ age period, Big Mac averaged 61 homers per 162 games, which blows all of the other sluggers clear out of the water and deposits them into a ring of adjoining palm trees, where even these men of might can be heard whimpering like puppies. In case folks are wondering, that's Ruth ahead of Bonds in the rate stats over near the 200 OPS+ line. Right there with 'em, however, is Samm* Sosa (damned if it isn't still the real question, Hanke!), not close to those two as an overall offensive force but just as potent at hitting the long ball. 

The other two fellas who are somewhat separated from the oldster slugger "school of fish" that we see on the chart are: Lou Gehrig (at the intersection of 40 and 175) and Ted Williams (higher OPS+, lower HR rate). That might not be all that surprising, n'est-ce pas?

SO let's wrap things up with the 31 members of the "Double 200 Club"--the hitters who hit 200+ HRs in each age range (-29, 30+). Note that since we are friendlier than most folks think we are (statistical studies corroborating this fact are available for a not-so-small fee...), we are listing these folk in alphabetical order--but using their first names. That's friendlier than would have been expected, right?

Hitters with their names in black are in the Hall of Fame; hitters with their names in red are not, and aren't going to be for some time to come; hitters with their names in green aren't in so far, but will be soon.

We highlighted some numbers here--OPS+ and homers--but we will leave to the reader to discern whatever patterns might emerge from that. We will note that, in terms of OPS+, these sluggers are almost 50-50 in terms of having a better one earlier (-29 seasons) than later (30+ seasons). 

And we will note that of all the lists we've compiled in all the gin joints in all the "mobius strip" narratives we've concocted over the decades, this one is just about as close to a slam-dunk, unanimous recommendation for the Hall of Fame we've seen thus far (aside from the actual Hall of Fame list, of course: just wanted to clear that up!). But for the appearances of Dave Kingman and Paul Konerko on this list, however, all of the other names are folk deserving of enshrinement. (Some might quibble about Adrian Beltré, but we wouldn't: a solid long career--and a bump-up in the 30+ range--at a position where HOFers remain scarce: he's a keeper in our book. We're less convinced about Carlos Beltran, but the cult will bring him in over the line...)

So fhat's 29 of 31--not too shabb* (but not as shabb* as our freaking ke*board!!!). So far 21 of the 29 are in--two more will make it, which leaves six "qualified pariahs" barred at the door. For f*ck's sake, let's figure out how to fix that, OK?

HOME RUNS (WHAT ELSE?)/3: 300+ LIFETIME HRs & THE GAME'S MENTAL PHASE SHIFT...

SWAMPED with non-baseball matters of late, but here's a quick look at another HR-related issue ahead of a much more elaborate post coming tomorrow...

--Just a single chart (at right) showing the accumulation of careers with 300+ HRs over time. 

This might be the best explanation for how viewpoints about homers have changed in the past six decades. Baseball fans who were born after 1970 might not understand how rare 300+ HR careers were prior to that time--but recall that it took half a century from the origins of professional baseball for a player to hit 30 HRs in a season!

The chart begins in 1935 with the retirement of the first hitter with 300+ lifetime homers (you might have head of him...) and moves upward and rightward until we reach 2020. 

In 1935, there were three hitters with 300+ homers in their career (Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Jimmie Foxx). By 1970, there were 27 hitters who'd made the "300 club." Fifteen years later, that total had nearly doubled to exactly 50. 

But, as the shaded area displays, that was just the tip of the iceberg with respect to the profusion of 300+ lifetime homer careers. In the twenty-five year that followed (1985 to 2010) a total of 79 more hitters were added to the 300+ HR list. The offensive explosion that began in 1993 and continued relatively unabated until 2009 jump-started this process. 

AND it became second nature to most baseball fans for this to happen. Over this time, the sense of rarity that originally was part of the fans' mental baseline with respect to 300+ HR careers was slowly but decisively obliterated. By the late 1990s, when analysts jousted over the qualifications of Dick Allen for admission to the Hall of Fame, some folks were already downplaying his home run total (351). No one at the time bothered to go back in time to explain that when Allen retired in 1977, he was only the 38th hitter to reach 300+ lifetime HRs. Fifty hitters had joined the 300+ lifetime honor list in the twenty years since... 

...and twenty-five years later (in the present day) that total is now 159 (as noted in a prior post). That's nearly double what the number was after the 2000 season. 

There is just no way that anyone with even the slightest involvement or interest in baseball is going to be able to understand how rare the occurrence was for so long. The mental phase shift is vast, it is complete, and it has changed the game in ways that cannot be overturned. We have to look elsewhere to discover things about home runs that are not compromised by the change in the game that has perturbed the way we look at things now. Stay tuned...