Getting Kuiper His At-Bat
Posted: March 11th, 2009 | Filed under: Baseball | 58 Comments »
You may or may not remember this, but I am actually in this Internet historical baseball league with a whole bunch of rather famous people like Curt Schilling, Bill James, Mike Vaccaro, Roy Firestone and the like. The reason I say you may or may not remember it is that I tend to forget it myself. I have been busy enough that I have done absolutely nothing for my team, not one thing. And once every, oh, two or three weeks, I will suddenly remember that I am in this league, and I will go look and see how my team is doing. This, much to my surprise, has been an excellent strategy.
My team is the all-time Cleveland Indians, naturally, and months ago — with help from brilliant readers — I came up with a 40-man roster of Indians greats to use. This turned out to be both easier and harder than expected — easier because I had so many great players to choose from, harder because the greatness of those players made it very difficult to pick out my personal favorite Indians.
I quickly came to realize the team that I would truly want to put on the field probably would not do very well against, say, the all-time Boston Red Sox or all-time Chicago White Sox or whatever:
1B: Andre Thornton
2B: Duane Kuiper
SS: Jerry Dybzinski*
3B: Buddy Bell
RF: Cory Snyder
CF: Rick Manning
LF: John Lowenstein
C: Ray Fosse
RHP: Bert Blyleven
LHP: Greg Swindell
CL: Doug Jones
*I always called him “The Dibber.” But I do not see that nickname on his Baseball Reference page. Surely, I was not the only person to call Jerry Dybzinski “The Dibber.” Then again …
So, I picked a real team with real stars, comforting my own fanhood by including Bert Blyleven, Doug Jones, Buddy Bell and, of course, Duane Kuiper. The rest of the team is made up of players who I grew up hearing about but did not know (Speaker, Feller, Shoeless Joe, Lajoie, Lemon, McDowell, etc). and more recent players who I knew but did not love as a child (Belle, MannyBManny, Sabathia, Thome, etc). My guys Kuiper and Buddy, of course, went right to the minor leagues, and a month into the season my Indians sucked, and I pretty much moved on from there.*
*One key memory: I clicked on the site and saw that Bob Feller was something like 3-7 with a 7.28 ERA. Something unbelievably abysmal like that. At first I was shocked and mortified and considered sending Bob Feller to the minor leagues (though, to be honest, I did not really know how to do that). Then I wondered, seriously wondered, what Bob would have done had he had known there was a baseball simulation that gave him a 7 ERA and inspired someone to send him to THE MINOR LEAGUES. Would he have tried to unplug the computer simulator, like the General in “War Games?” Would he have moved to a shack somewhere and gone all Unabomber on us? The possibilities were endless.
Anyway, then something rather remarkable happened. Well, not actually remarkable, but certainly pleasantly surprising: My Indians started playing great baseball. This shouldn’t be too surprising to me — hell, the all-time Indians are a good team — but I have always been so bad at any and every version of fantasy sports that I simply did not see it coming. From June 17 to July 19 the Tribe went 22-6. They swept a four-game series with the Orioles to finish out the month. They played the vaunted Yankees in a two-game set in Mid-August and won both of them the games — first with Addie Joss shutting down the Bombers (with my guy Dougie getting his 25th save!) and the next day with Joe Jackson cracking four hits, Jim Thome hitting a home run and Gaylord Perry going the distance. I had not done a single thing all year to the club. I was a genius!
Breaking one of my ten commandments of sports — third commandment: Nobody gives a rat about your fantasy team — here are a few of my Indians stars:
Nap Lajoie .335/.373/.471 with 86 runs scored.
Tris Speaker: .335/.410/.475 with 93 runs scored.
Shoeless Joe: .327/.383/.484 with 91 runs scored.
Albert Belle: .295/.339/.549 with 29 homers and 102 RBIs.
Jim Thome: .280/.404/.516 with 19 homers.
Doug Jones (!!): 2.81 ERA and 27 saves
Addie Joss: 13-11 with 3.74 ERA
Gaylord Perry: 11-2 with 4.39 ERA
Bob Feller: 14-9 with 5.28 ERA.
It was probably a wise move not to send Feller down. Not that I knew how to do it.
September is now beginning, and thanks to my genius decision to do absolutely nothing all year, I have a 15-game lead over the Chicago White Sox, who were expertly put together by Mike Vaccaro. I have the second-best record in baseball behind Bill James’ Red Sox. And more to the point, I am one game better than the Pittsburgh Pirates, run by Curt Schilling who just sent out an email saying he was coming after Bill James. Schilling is just looking past me. No respect, I tell ya.
Sure, there are some quirks in the overall system. For instance, the historical New York Yankees are in dead last place in their division — 14 games behind the Red Sox. This doesn’t seem entirely realistic since those Yankees have Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio (who is only hitting .245), Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada (who is KILLING the ball), Rickey Henderson (who is also killing the ball), Yogi Berra, Joe Gordon, on and on and on. Those Yankees are 62-59. They might want to fire a manager there. But … that’s really not my problem.
My good friend and Star partner Sam Mellinger has general managed the Royals into the ground — 49-72, second worst record in the league (behind Florida). Good friend Derrick Goold has his Arizona Diamondbacks/Colorado Rockies playing pretty good ball. J.C. Bradbury had the Boston Braves playing good ball. Jonah Keri’s doing a good job with Montreal.
Well, anyway, you can see all of that here yourself, if you are interested.
Here’s the big point, though. It’s September 1, so it’s time for September call-ups. And I’ve been torn. On the one hand, it’s very clear that my best strategy is to do absolutely nothing. it’s what I’m good at, and it has worked very effectively. On the other hand, and this is very important, I’ve got to get Duane Kuiper at least one at-bat. There is absolutely no point in even being in this league if I’m not going to get Duane (and Buddy too) his at-bat.
The only question is: When? I have a stinking 15-game lead, so the Indians are not going to blow that. And yet … they are the Indians. Even if they are only data representing the players who once played for the Indians … yeah, they are still the Indians. The could blow it.
Plus, I REALLY want to finish ahead of Schilling. If I tinker with this team and Schilling ends up passing me, I will not be happy.
These are the difficult choices a general manager must make every day or, you know, if he is a general manager of an imaginary Internet team and he loves Duane Kuiper. Yes, haven’t we all been there before?
* * *
A couple of quick points:
– You asked for it, you got it: A brilliant reader request has led to a “Random Post” click there on the sidebar. Look below the ‘Recent Posts,“ click where it says Click here. And voila … a random post from the past. If you want to try it out now, click here. Fun for the entire family.
– I have gotten two — count ‘em TWO — ferociously angry emails, and a couple not-angry-but-disappointed emails from people who did not appreciate at all me making that little joke about labrums — how to us sportswriters a labrum injury used to mean a shoulder and now, suddenly it means a hip and someone should make up their mind. The disappointed emails from brilliant readers wanted to inform me (and I assume, pass along the news) that labrums are just labrums, and like ligaments, there are labrums in different parts of the body. The ferociously angry emails wanted me to die. No kidding. I did not know that doctors (assuming they are doctors) took the labrum thing so personally. I was tempted to respond to one of the emails with something like this: ”Really? You’re REALLY this angry over this?“ But I did not. Doctors have knives. Or scalpels. Whatever.
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Whatever. Hilarious way to end it.
I love Out of the Park baseball, and I’m not surprised Joe Poz found a way to make his fake baseball league fun for the rest of us.
Are you sure one of those angry E-Mailers wasn’t Bob Feller??
I have checked out the site a couple times, trying to help Sam out. The Royals got royally screwed by the schedule makers, basically playing on the road for a month at the beginning of the season (was the Republican National Convention in KC). Their home record was decent, but their road record was killing them (not really surprising, their lineup is Beltran and Brett and not much else, at home, they can run, run, and run some more but they just get outmuscled in the smaller road ball parks).
Anyway, watch out for the A’s in the playoffs, if they make it as the WC. Their staff would be pretty killer in a short series (Grove, Bender, Plank and Waddell)
Maybe they were just having fun with you? Now that you mention it, I think it would be kind of fun to send you angry e-mails about the most seemingly inocuous things, just putting you on. “OH, GREAT, LIKE VEGAS DOESN’T CAUSE
I think the trouble with the Yankees is as follows:
The Yankees have been awesome forever, of course. They were awesome in the ’20s, and in the ’30s, and ’40s, and ’50s, and half of the ’60s, and half of the ’70s, and half of the ’90s, and the 2000s, and even in the “lean years” in the ’80s they won more games than anyone else. But the great Yankees teams are all built around incredible offense – they had very good pitching staffs, but mostly of the “deep with a lot of pretty good guys” variety. So when you put their pitching staff into an all-time context… well, let’s compare them to the Red Sox, say:
Sox: Pedro, Clemens, Grove, Young
Yankees: Ford, umm…
Who else pitches for them? They have a few bottom half/mistake-type Hall guys – Gomez, Hoyt, Pennock, Ruffing, Hunter. But there’s not a lot of top-shelf starting pitching outside of Ford, and I bet that’s why they’re not doing well.
Maybe they were just having fun with you? Now that you mention it, I think it would be kind of fun to send you angry e-mails about the most seemingly innocuous things, just to put you on. “OH, GREAT, LIKE VEGAS DOESN’T CAUSE ENOUGH LIGHT POLLUTION AS IT IS?!? NOW YOU’RE GOING TO RIDE A CAMEL?!? I BET THE ASPCA WOULD LOVE TO HEAR ABOUT THAT!!!” You seem so earnest, I can see you scratching your head over each one, worrying about having offended this wacko.
Try to get Brother Lo an at bat too, Joe.
Eric J. @ #6
Yes you are correct. Especially since the Red Sox with the 4 you mentioned (and Smokey Joe Wood) and the A’s, with Grove, Plank, Waddell, and Bender, are in their division (and have two of the 5 best records in the league). They are getting overwhelmed by the pitching of those two teams.
And, of course, that is an unfairly stacked division. The Red Sox have the 2nd best winning percentage of the original 8 AL teams, the A’s have the 2nd best success rate (in terms of pennants and WS championships, although I guess the RS may have recently caught up) and the Yankees have the best of both. So it is pretty apparent that they should be the 3 most stacked teams from the AL.
Same thing happened to me when I had a fantasy golf team. Whenever I picked the golfers, we were lucky to be in the middle of the pack, usually somewhere in the bottom third or lower (standings were like they were in a golf tournament: every player/team in the league, listed in order of performance).
Then I go on vacation for two weeks, and even forget to tweak the roster before I go (if one of your guys didn’t play that week, you got a big fat zero for him). First absent week (as I found out only after returning), we were in the top 10%; second week, we were in the top 20 overall. Pretty damn good, considering the league had about 2,000 players.
So much for MY expertise.
Bellweather,
I’d actually be willing to put money on both andgy doctor E-Mails coming from Mike Marshall.
I love OOTP baseball as well. I’m in a long-running league which is just a hoot. It’s not nearly as full of famous owners as Joe’s league, but we have a good time. Curious people can look at my website link above.
I wonder how Schilling felt when his version of Bonds got injured.
Erik J –
Weird, isn’t it? When I was growing up as a Yankees fan (no longer; George Steinbrenner cured me of that), I used to check out their all-time team leaders, how many Yankees were in the top 100 all-time, stuff like that.
And, of course, there would be lots of Yankees in any of the offensive categories. After all, this is the team of Ruth, Gehrig, Dimaggio, Mantle, etc. OTOH, there would be almost nobody in any of the pitching categories (Whitey Ford appears a few times, Jack Chesboro still holds the AL record for wins in a season).
I would wonder (and still do) — how could the Yankees be that good for that long, and not have any pitchers in the all-time leaders? Surely they would at least appear in the counting stats like wins, given how many wins the team had. Nope.
In fact, I still don’t get it. How in the world did they win so often with (relatively) average pitching? Not to mention the fact that Yankee Stadium is and has been a pichers’ park, especially before the 74-75 renovation.
Just seems weird to me.
I say bring Kuiper up, and when you have a 3 game lead over Schilling, play Duane! Then you at least get him a game & it can’t hurt your standings for the day. Then go back to the normal lineup if you want.
Although, what if Duane gets 1 AB and he happens to hit a HR? Are you ready to deal with that possibility? It would be a PR nightmare dude!
Just read the piece on Pujols—fantastic job. I can’t say enough great things about it, it’s just a wonderful piece of writing. Congrats on nailing it!
Letting Duane and Buddy play a game won’t kill you. Just put them back on the bench when you are done. Or release them, or something. But I might wait until the final days of the season to make sure you beat Schilling.
Have some faith Joe! Kuiper won’t let you down. I’d play him all month.
Dybzinski was always called “Dybber” when he was with the White Sox, which leads me to my all-time favorite summation of a bonehead play.
When Dybber committed his infamous baserunning gaffe in the seventh inning of Game 4 of the 1983 ALCS (the description at BB-Ref does not do the play justice, believe me), the sports columnist for the Chicago Reader dubbed it the DFC, for “Dybber’s F@ckhead Catastrophe.”
What, no mention of the first-place Blue Jays?
Ken Phelps is second in the league in homers? REALLY??? We’re talking Ruth, Gehrig, McGwire, Sosa, PHELPS?!? Crazy.
My Angels aren’t doing so well, which doesn’t surprise me, but their pitching has been abysmal. Nolan Ryan has been awful, with an ERA north of 5. And I think I know why. Ryan always walked a ton of guys. And that was during the ’70’s when the league OBP was at a relative low. Imagine how many guys he would walk when having to face Ted Williams, Lou Gehrig, late career Barry Bonds. He’d walk 8 guys a game. No wonder he has a 5-something ERA.
Anyway, despite the struggles, the Angels are only 3 games back of a playoff spot. Go Halo’s!
Totally off topic, and also probably years old, but on the off chance Joe hasn’t seen this Cracked article on The Most Laughably Misleading infomercials (as I hadn’t, until now), well, I just knew he’d want me to share.
Rock Chalk Jayhawk!
Also, I think my favorite part of the league site is where you can click on various teams’ minor leagues and see reports like, “Davey Johnson: possibly ready for the Major Leagues.” Possibly!
I once read that the Dibber was the true Mr. White Sox, because the DFC was pretty much life as a Sox fan. You’re on top of the world, running on a crisp autumn afternoon, a breeze flying through your mustache, chugging on into third, but a Mormon’s already there.
If I read Schilling’s Pirates stats correctly, he’s platooning Clemente??….Now I know some people aren’t extremely high on many of Roberto’s offensive stats in this day and age but when #21 hit he really didn’t seem to care where the ball was coming from or where its location was when he swung. And, to not have that ARM and GLOVE in the outfield every inning seems like a crime to me.
Is Schilling an old Pirates fan?
I love that Deacon Phillippe and Babe Adams are tearing it up and little Elroy Face is the ultimate save guy. Where’s Jack Chesbro?
The simulation curt schilling is 15-11 with a 4.50 ERA for the D-Rocks. If you were Curt, how would this make you feel? What if real Curt’s Pirates lost in the playoffs to simulation Curt’s D-Rocks? Does real Curt feel like he should have been on the Phillies team?
Inquiring minds want to know.
To Mark @26, there is a glitch in the system when one of the Pirates best pitchers is from the mid 80s, the mid 1880s, that is. Do we really believe that Ed Morris, one of those mid 1880s guys who won 40 to 50 games a year while pitching 550 innings a year, is the equivalent of a major league starter today?
They should have taken out the 19th century guys. The game is just not the same as it is now or even as it was after the turn of the 20th century.
No wonder the Royals are stinking. Where is Frank White, John Mayberry, & U L Washington. You have Willie Aikens instead of Mayberry? You kidding me? Offerman instead of White? Brett is taken out of the lineup for Gary Gaetti? I think Mellinger needs to do a little research on the GOOD Royals teams & not just the recent ones.
Sam replaced Mayberry with Aikens after Big John stunk it up early in the year. Offerman is playing because Frank White had an injury (in fact Mellinger stated that he was very upset about this even when I pointed out it would improve his offense quite a bit) I very much doubt that he (or the computer rather) is resting George Brett all that often.
The problem for the Royals is that the ratings ignored era when evaluating players, so a pitcher from the 19th century with insane stats could be perceived as better than Bret Saberhagen or Kevin Appier. What a big unfair advantage for the NL teams that have 19th century players.
Dah! I must know what the rest of the Ten Commandments of Sports are! #3 is so perfect. Other people’s fantasy teams are unbearably boring. The only time talking to people about fantasy teams is good is when both parties knowingly accept that the other person will not listen while they take turns talking about their own teams. Honestly, they might as well not even take turns and bore each other simultaneously. Bonus points for each occasion in which they properly time a, “uh-huh” or a “hah” to acknowledge a break in the other’s cadence.
The Roylies are 11-29 in 1 run games. Poor Sam. It’s like pressing rewind and watching everything crash and burn again. I couldn’t take it. This is why I limit my fantasy teams to 1 Royal per year. As you can imagine, this rule has almost never affected my draft strategy.
I’m guessing one of those angry emails came from Gregory House.
Gotta bring Kuiper up. He’ll be a beast and blast pass Curt.
Daniel — I’m actually running the Angels in that league (even though I’m a Red Sox fan), and Ryan has driven me nuts. I think your assessment of him is spot-on, and he’s giving up more hits than you’d think as well. Thanks goodness for Dean Chance.
My two main goals: 1) Make the playoffs. 2) Keep Lyman Bostock over .400.
Oh, and Joe, Wayne Cage would also like an at-bat. And Paul Dade is too shy to ask.
C’mon Joe, at least ONE ab for Ted Cox?
I knew that Ken Phelps for Grant Jackson trade would come back to bite us…
Bruce Drennan, who did color for the Indian’s TV broadcasts in the early ’80’s, called Jerry Dybszinski the Dibber. I think he was the only person to use that nickname for him, so only people who watched early ’80’s Indians TV broadcasts remember it.
Roy Firestone?
Joe, please tell me Colavito at least made your bench.
Mariano Rivera had a +6 ERA before being sent down!?
Check the computers, somebody…..
Oh. My. God.
Well, Joe, your calling me a “brilliant reader” has to be the apotheosis of _something_. I only wish I knew what.
I found the random-post button, used it, loved it, and then wondered if it had been there the whole time and I just had never seen it. So, here in the five boroughs, there’s still some question as to whether I’m that brilliant anyways.
Especially to hear Kate tell it.
Thanks, Joe!
You don’t want to mess with the labrum contingency. I’ve heard things.
Thanks for the tip on OOTP Baseball. I look forward to giving it a try. I am a long time player of on line historical fantasy baseball starting with an ESPN version of a STATS game that no longer exists and currently play at a site called Imagine Sports. Rumors are flying around that it is having financial problems and may not be around much longer.
“The Labrum Contingency” Starring – Jeff Goldblum …Put your shoulder to the wheel… Friday at a theater near you
does anyone know, roughly, how they decide who gets what past player in that league? i mean, by almost any measure, getting beltran on the all-time royals team is pretty much insane…anyone know?
I have nothing of value to add to this post other then I dispise Shilling and I don’t want his playing fantasy bb with you to influence your HOF vote. He isn’t a HOFer! I hate that some people think he is. His generation of starting pitchers (in some order) 1-5 Clemens, Maddux, Unit, Pedro, Glavine. 6. Moose. 7-8 (in some order) Brown and Smoltz 9. Schilling 10 Cone. Don’t do it Joe.
I see Joe’s Indians are outperforming their Pythagorean record by 6 wins. Luck? Nah, I say Joe is a great manager!
I think there was a lot less anger in the world when we didn’t have the Internet.
On the flipside, there was also a lot less porn…
Oh, and Joe? I really don’t care about your fantasy team, but the way you write about it does make me giggle.
Colavito is on the bench but he’s gotten all of 22 PA and he’s not done much with them getting 1 single and 3 walks for a formidable .053/.182/.053 line.
http://www.seamheads.com/league/html/players/player_1006.html
I’d let Kuiper start a game at second if you can do it. It’s karma. Does he make the playoff roster? Or throw out the first pitch before the fictional Game 1 in Cleveland?
I laughed at George “Mullet” Brett. That was funny.
Anyways, I noticed Bert Blyleven has the second best ERA on your entire team, and he’s only 6-5. That’s the sort of sordid run support preventing him from entering the Hall. It’s sad it’s being reflected in your league as well.
Labrum? I hardly even knowum.
Joe, admit it. The best part of covering this Big 12 Tournament is watching the Big East Tournament on TV at the hotel bar.
There has been some ugly basketball in this Tournament.
Mizzou grad here and even I have to admit that Mizzou looks like the kind of 3 seed that doesn’t make it through the first weekend. I’d love to be wrong.
Why don’t you play Kuiper when Bob Lemon pitches and DH for Kuiper? Or is there no DH?
You have Nap Lajoie and Tris Speaker 1 and 2 – you’re drought proof. How can you go on a losing streak?
Wait, Rickey Henderson is on the Yankees?!? That’s bogus, he should be on the A’s. He played far more seasons with Oakland and is far more associated with Oakland than with NY. Rickey should be on the A’s.
DiMaggio is only batting .245? He never batted that low in his life. His lowest was .290 in 1946, but that was his first season back after three years out of baseball due to WWII. Still, his OPS+ that season was 142.
Either your simulation is completely WACK, or DiMaggio is going to bat .800 the rest of the season.