I don’t see position players pitching as a problem, but I also didn’t see having to actually throw four balls for an intentional walk as a problem. Or having a reliever come in to pitch to just one batter. Or infielders going into a shift.
No doubt the powers that be will forbid position players from pitching. One more nail in the coffin of the days when baseball was colorful and fun to watch.
I vote not an actual problem. Especially since the Manfred Man rule means that extra-inning games are less likely to go so long that teams run out of pitchers.
Note that the photo accompanying the column is of Albert Pujols pitching, which I think mostly happened because everyone thought, hey, wouldn’t it be cool if Pujols got a chance to pitch before he retires?
I can’t for the life of me understand what the fuck this idiot is saying.
I have never in my entire life met a baseball fan who has a problem with a position player coming in to pitch a garbage inning. Literally not a single one.
Actually, everyone I know LIKES it. It’s fun.
It still doesn’t happen often enough for anyone to really care. How many times a year on average does a team have to do this? I looked it up; the Blue Jays used one position player as a pitcher all year. The Orioles used two. The Red Sox were on the high side, they used four. The Twins did this just twice (it was the same guy, Jermaine Palacios, both times.) This is not exactly a plague. Maybe it’s more than before but it’s still uncommon.
Taking away a manager’s strategic options is a bad idea unless you have a very good reason to do it, and as explained above, there is no reason to do it.
I think Rabbit Maranville and Bill Mazeroski are in the HOF based on their defense more than anything else. A long career as middle infield defensive specialist seems to impress the voters.
Well, clearly so, they sure aren’t there for their legendary offense. They are still weak choices, though. Certainly, other masters of the glove are NOT weak choices; Brooks Robinson and Ozzie Smith were very strong picks.
If you look at Rabbit Maranville’s career, he was drawing support as an MVP candidate as a 39-year-old .260 hitter for a seventh place team.
Maybe he was a weak choice, but he must have been impressing someone.
I assume it’s to sell some tickets, McCutchen returning to the Pirates.
I’ll give Maranville some credit for two things:
Having said that, much of the reason he was elected to the Hall of Fame is that he died unexpectedly a few months before the vote.
A salute to “Original Met” Frank Thomas, who has died at the age of 93.
Thomas was a fine power hitter and five-time MVP vote-getter on mostly awful Pirates teams in the 1950s (he was traded just as they were becoming good, two years before they won the 1960 World Series). He then spent most of his remaining years toiling for terrible teams including the Cubs, Mets (34 HRs, 94 RBIs in '62; he held the Mets single-season HR record for 14 years until it was broken by Dave Kingman), Astros and Expos. About the only break in this procession of awfulness was his utility role for the '64 Phillies who collapsed toward the end of the season.
And he never appeared in ads for alleged testosterone-boosting supplements.
Indeed; after 1990, he became “the other Frank Thomas.” RIP, Mr. Thomas.
On the other hand, he may have been a racist jerk.
Source: After Jackie: Players who followed Robinson to MLB also faced ongoing racism — Andscape
Thomas was a key figure in a classic Mets anecdote.*
*which also generated a band name.
When I was a kid, I used to confuse Frank Thomas and Frank Howard; to be fair, they were both power-hitting outfielders/first basemen, who played in the '60s, and had the same first name.
OTOH, I really should have been able to tell them apart, because I actually knew Frank Howard: in the '70s and early '80s, when I was in grade school and high school (and Howard was a coach with the Brewers), he was a member of the church my family attended, and I went to grade school with his daughter.
There really aren’t any other examples in baseball history I can think of of two guys with the same name who were both at least very good players who were not related (so I’m not counting the two Ken Griffeys.) There were two Bob Gibsons but the second one didn’t last very long.
If you want to stretch the definition of ‘very good’, there are the two Alex Gonzalez’s. Doubly confusing because both were active at the same time.
After spending more time than I should have on Baseball Reference, found two other possible name pairs.
There were two pitchers known by Dutch Leonard; of course neither’s given name was Dutch.
Hubert Benjamin pitched for the Red Sox and Tigers between 1913 and 1925, probably best known for having what I think is the lowest single season ERA after 1901 in 1914 of 0.96.
Emil John was a five time all-star pitching for a number of teams (mainly the Senators) in the 30s thru the 50s, career record of 191-181.
The other pair are the George Burnses, who overlapped:
George Joseph Burns the outfielder played mainly for the Giants between 1911 and 1925; was one of many light hitting outfielders of the dead ball era that walked a lot. Lead the league in walks five times.
George Henry Burns the first baseman, known as Tioga George, was a career .307 hitter who played for a number of AL teams between 1914 and 1929. In 1926 he had 64 doubles, which was the single season record until Earl Webb hit 64 five years later.
Those are the only two pairs of names I could find where both are on the top 1000 career WAR (27.6 and up). Frank Thomas the older is below that cutoff by a bit, but I still think the Frank Thomas’s are the best pair based on how good the younger was and that the older was fairly well known in his time.
There have been THREE Mike Stantons, one of whom is now called “Giancarlo.” Two were pretty good players - the slugger of course, and the relief pitcher mostly known for his time with Atlanta and the Yankees. Being a relief pitcher though he’s nowhere near the top thousand in WAR.
There have been two Roberto Hernandezes, but one was originally known by the much more impressive name of Fausto Carmona.
I was in a Strat-o-Matic Baseball league in the early '90s; at that time, there was a Gregg Olson (a reasonably good relief pitcher for the Orioles), and a Greg Olson (a barely-above-replacement-level catcher for the Braves). To alleviate any confusion over which one was being referred to, many of the league members would refer to the pitcher as “Gregg Olson – Not the Shitty One.”
The “bad” Greg Olson, though his overall career wasn’t exactly distinguished, was an All-Star in 1990.
I was reminded of that when I looked him up.
It’d be interested to put together an All-Star team of the worst All-Stars. The worst of all time has got to be Alfredo Griffin, who made the 1984 team because he had a ticket to the game (really) but there must be some others.
In 2006 I know Mark Redman made the All-Star team for the Royals in a year in which he was a replacement level player. He had an ERA of 5.71, though at the All Star break it was a breathtaking 5.29.