The Curious Case of Mike Jacobs
Posted: April 17th, 2009 | Filed under: Baseball | 69 Comments »
I have no idea what direction this post is going to go because, frankly, I’m not entirely certain what I’m feeling. I think there’s a point in here somewhere. I can’t promise that I’ll find that point.
Begin with this: I think everyone here knows how I feel about Mike Jacobs. It’s fair to say that Jacobs not only has a few baseball traits that drive me mad, but he is that actual archetype of a player I cannot stand. He doesn’t walk or get on base. He’s utterly limited defensively. He doesn’t help you on the bases when he actually gets there. He’s next to worthless against lefties. He strikes out a lot. A lot. When the Kansas City Royals traded for him this off-season, well, that was my fourth-least favorite move by general manager Dayton Moore.*
*The first three were signing reliever Kyle Farnsworth.
It wasn’t that I thought the Royals gave up too much to get Jacobs — they traded away Leo Nunez, a nice but replaceable middle reliever. So no, it wasn’t that. What bugged me was that Jacobs seemed to me exactly the sort of player the Royals did not need and should not get: A no-walk first baseman who is a defensive liability and is getting paid a not-insubstantial $3.25 million. Nothing about that move made sense to me, nothing, not with Moore finally talking sense about improving the team’s on-base percentage, not with the the Royals already having a young left-handed-hitting first base prospect — Kila Ka’aihue — who had a massive minor league season and who DOES walk and DOES play better defense than Jacobs and DOES NOT cost more than league minimum.
So, no, I did not like the move to get Jacobs, and I still do not like the move to get Jacobs, and so on.
But here’s the kick in the head.
I think my new favorite player on the Kansas City Royals is Mike Jacobs.
* * *
I remember the first time I told Bill James that Duane Kuiper was my favorite player growing up. He was amused by this, and he immediate pulled out his new Baseball Abstract and looked in the index to find what he had said about Kuiper. He found my man listed in two places:
Page 555: In the Buddy Bell section (Buddy, another hero, ranked as the 19th best third baseman ever), Bill pointed out that Buddy was the worst-ever percentage base-stealer (55 for 134, an abysmal 41 percent). And Duane Kuiper was second-worst (52 for 123).
Page 690: Duane had a quote about Rico Carty (59th ranked left fielder) in Terry Pluto’s “Curse of Rocky Colavito.” The quote: “Rico always played with his wallet in his back pocket. He didn’t trust the valuables box in the dressing room. … besides, he never slid, so it wasn’t like something would happen.”
Bill seemed just a touch sheepish about my favorite all-time baseball player getting only two rather haphazard mentions in his book, but more than that he had trouble understanding why Duane Kuiper was my favorite player in the first place. Bill’s favorite players — like Amos Otis and Craig Biggio — always seemed so logical for him. Otis was the perfect Bill James player: Underrated, independent, brilliant at all parts of the game, unyielding, misunderstood. And Biggio was the perfect Bill James player: Underrated, brilliant at all parts of the game, beautiful to the discerning eye.
But Duane … I never held any illusions that Duane Kuiper was somehow unappreciated. He was probably appreciated fairly. I never argued that he was better that anyone thought. Even though I wanted to be just like him, I never thought he was as good as Joe Morgan or Willie Randolph or Frank White or Lou Whitaker … He was my favorite player because he was my favorite player. That’s all. It came from someplace deeper than logic. As the short kid with thick glasses growing up in Cleveland, I was not blinded to his weaknesses or my own. We both were doing the best that we could.
So if I had to guess at why I have this sudden and rather jolting admiration for Mike Jacobs, it probably has something to do with that, something emotional. It isn’t that Jacobs is somehow a better player than I thought he was: He was good all spring and he’s had a nice start to the season, but I suspect he’s just about the same as I expected, a free-swinger who will hit some mistakes out of the park, will punch up a .320 or so on-base percentage, will struggle defensively. My new feelings about Jacobs don’t have anything to do with the fact that he seems a good guy, though he does seem to be a good guy and other players on the team seem to like him a lot. My new feelings do not revolve around the fact that when you go to his name on the Internet, you come to a site featuring the lead guitarist from a band called “Evil Jake.” This isn’t even about one of my favorite baseball stories — Jacobs playing a central character — when the Florida Marlins decided to give out Jacobs’ T-shirts on Jewish Heritage Day only to find out that Jacobs isn’t Jewish.*
*The reason I love that story so much is that the Marlins immediately tried to talk their way out of it by saying, “Oh, no, those are two separate promotions.” Yeah. Sure they were. They just happened to decide to give away the T-shirt of a first-year Marlins player with a Jewish-sounding name on Jewish Heritage Day.
No. The reason I have come to like Jacobs and to root for him … well, I guess it started on what was supposed to be Opening Day in Chicago. The game was snowed-out, and so the Royals had a voluntary workout. Jacobs was there, and it was cold, it was windy, few players were outside. He went to home plate even though there was no pitcher. He dug into the batter’s box. He swung at an imaginary pitch. And he hit an imaginary home run. He ran around the bases with his arm in the air, like Tom Berenger in Major League. Now, as someone who loves baseball and Major League and the ridiculous, I can’t help but appreciate that.
And so, I started watching Jacobs a bit more closely. And suddenly, involuntarily, I found myself rooting for him. Like I said up top, I don’t know exactly why. But I think it’s because of this: There’s a certain thrill in watching a Mike Jacobs at-bat. He seems — and I have to say “seems” because I have never asked him about this — he seems to understand exactly what’s happening around him. There’s something in his body language, in the joy he seems to get out of baseball, in the way he holds his bat … he seems to be saying to the pitcher:
“You know, I know, everyone here knows that I have some holes in my swing. And you know, I know, everyone here knows where those holes are located. I’m not going to hit the good fastball up and in. I’m not going to hit the sharp breaking ball. I’ll probably chase a pitch when behind in the count — let’s face it, I can’t really help myself, those pitches really look good. So, yeah, let’s be perfectly honest here: If you throw good pitches, you’re probably going to strike me out. And if you’re left-handed, you don’t even need to throw especially good pitches, you’re probably going to get me.
“But …
“Actually, BUT — it’s a big BUT …
“But if you make a mistake, I’m going to freaking hit the ball 700 miles.”
Maybe this is all just made up in my mind. I don’t think so — I think this is really the Mike Jacobs attitude. And anyway, it doesn’t matter, that’s what I see. When Bruce Springsteen sings “The Wrestler,” I hear him sing “Have you ever seen a scarecrow in a field with nothing but dust and weeds?/If you’ve ever seen that scarecrow then you’ve seen me.” Those aren’t the precise lyrics, but I’ve decided that I don’t care, that’s what I hear. We have to be allowed to interpret the game; that’s what’s fun about being a fan.
And so, I have come to see every Mike Jacobs’ at-bat as a struggle against the odds. And I love it. I have started counting down batters to when he comes to the plate. I have come to really zone in when he steps in there; I like watching every part of his at-bats, even the strikeouts. I guess if I could explain it another way: I used to love, love, love a boxer named Earnie Shavers. My favorite non-Ali fighter. Hardest puncher I ever saw — he was a lot like the young Mike Tyson. Knocked out Ron Lyle in the first round. Knocked out Ken Norton in the first round. Knocked out Jimmy Ellis with one punch (Ellis had him in trouble seconds early … you can go to 1:06 if you just want to see the punch):
There was more. He knocked down Larry Holmes in their fight (though Holmes later knocked him out … that’s a big part of the Earnie story). He hit Muhammad Ali so hard that Ali said “it shook my kinfolk back in Africa.” Hit pounded Tiger Williams so savagely that Tiger actually collapsed to the ground 10 seconds after he took the final punch. I’ve often thought Earnie Shavers would be a great book because despite being perhaps the hardest puncher in the history of boxing, he was never champion. This is because he was not an especially great boxer. He could be hurt, he could be outboxed, he did not believe much in defense, he tired in the late rounds. And for a great puncher, he was not a great finisher, which sounds like a conflict, but they are really two separate things. Shavers could hurt you but that didn’t mean he could take you out.
Point is, I always thought Shavers went into the fight the way Jacobs got into an at-bat. He seemed to understand his limitations. And if you could avoid Earnie’s big right hand, if you could get up off the floor, if you could land big punches, if you could take the fight into the later rounds, you would beat him. But he wanted you to know that if you left yourself open, and he caught you, you might not get up.*
*My understanding is that after he finished boxing, Earnie moved to England and he became a minister, which would only make the book better. I’m not sure who is buying that book but … I’d like it.
There’s something about that struggle that speaks to me. Sure it’s fun to watch Albert Pujols hit and watch Johan Santana pitch, but I’m just not sure how close you can get to that sort of genius.
The weird thing is that my opinion about Mike Jacobs as a baseball player has not changed at all. As a baseball evaluator, I still see all his weaknesses outweighing his strengths. As a GM, I would not have traded for him. But as a baseball fan … I just enjoy the heck out of watching him step to the plate, kill or be killed. The other day, he faced Cleveland’s Jensen Lewis, and he took a high fastball for a ball, and then watched a 90-mph fastball go by that was right in his wheelhouse, I mean the perfect Mike Jacobs pitch — 90 mph, just above the knees, outside but caught too much of the plate. That’s the sort of pitch you only get once, and you could see Jacobs grimace for a second as if to say, “Man, that was it.”
Two pitches later, stunningly, Jensen Lewis threw that exact pitch again. This time it was 87 mph. And this time Jacobs did swing. He jumped out of his shoes to swing. And he hit it 700 miles to center field. It clanked off the railing out there, bounced behind a wall, an absolute mammoth shot. Will he do that enough to make himself a valuable player? Maybe not. But, yeah, it will be fun every time he does it.
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Circle me Bert!!!!!
There is something appealing about a “flawed” hero, as it were. As you suggest, Albert Pujols is a great, great player. And we all want our guys to come through in big spots. But in some ways, there is nothing terribly interesting about rooting for a guy like that, where you really have confidence every time up that he’s going to succeed (even though, statistically, he actually does so less often than he doesn’t – but even Babe Ruth and Ted Williams had that problem). It’s part of the reason why I love being a Cubs fan – as much as I want them to win a World Series, there’s something much more compelling about rooting for a team whose appearance in the postseason isn’t a foregone conclusion as, say, the Yankees’ and Braves’ were for so many years. It’s one of the reasons why I really have felt uncomfortable the last couple years – while the thought that a championship is within reach makes me really happy, I’m bothered by the handing of the division to the Cubs before the season has even started, not just because it seems overconfident for a franchise with the history the Cubs have, but because it risks rendering the regular season uninteresting. I want to be excited when the Cubs win, not relieved, just as I would want to be excited when my favorite player hits a home run, not just because it was great that he hit a home run but because I wasn’t sure that he would.
It’s like that part in the Howard Stern movie. To paraphrase:
Studies show that people who liked Howard would listen to him for 2 hours on average. Why? To see what he’d say next.
Then the study shows that the people who hated him would listen to him for 4 hours on average. Why? To see what he’d say next.
C’mon, Joe. You do too know who would buy that book.
When I was a kid, we had epic tetherball matches on the school playground, and all of us took on the persona of a heavyweight boxer. There were so many to choose from then: Ali, Frazier, Foreman, Norton. But someone always wanted to be Earnie Shavers because you knew that if you caught it right, that ball would spin around the pole until every last inch of rope was gone. Knockout!
Always a pleasure. Looking out my window onto my nice spring view, my mind wondered to the days when I thought as you think Jacobs must. Yea, I remember his thoughts well, those many years ago when the optimist looked forward to the snow melting, the cold a memory, and to the ball flying those 700 miles. Now, it just so nice to look out the window and visualize the ball going a mile.
Thanks for the moment; and always a pleasure.
Flawed heroes are okay, but when the fellow fails to move a runner, dig out a low throw at first in a crucial spot or not take that extra base when practically anyone else on the club would…Well, let’s just say that the $3+Million spent is a sad waste of coin.
Shavers trained in Warren, Oh and the Youngstown Vindicator newspaper was always reporting about Earnie. He teamed up with Don King from Cleveland when few people knew of King in the boxing world. I see where Earnie is now a minister in England and also a security guard. Nice combo….
Remember when you were a kid playing whiffle ball or whatever and you always had to pause the action to officially declare what player you were pretendinig to be? Then you’d have to approximate his batting stance, maybe even switch sides of the plate. George Brett was always the obvious choice in our neighborhood. But that got old. Pretty soon, I’d be pretending to be McRae (hat down, butt out) or Otis or or some non-Royal with a cool stance like Carew. But it was especially cool to come up with somebody more obscure like Chet Lemon or Bobby Grich or Sixto Lezcano. Sometimes I’d change identities six or seven times over the course of a game. Though, in the field, I always wanted to be Tony Fernandez after he came along.
Kurt Vonnegut once wrote what you are what you pretend to be, so be careful about what you pretend to be. Or something like that. I’m not sure if that’s true in this case, but whatever.
P.S. On the mound, I liked to be Luis Tiant. Or Al Hrabosky.
Posts like this are why I read this blog. Thanks, Joe.
Jacobs has played above what we thought he was so far. On defense he has been as advertised. He’s just plain bad. He makes Billy Butler look like a gold glover. The final thing that would get me to love him as a player, would be to shave the merkin off his chin.
Joe, we’ve seen a right-handed version of this player here before – and it resulted in a championship team. I speak of Steve Balboni, who was easily one of my favorites on that 1985 team despite the presence of great pitchers, the 2nd greatest 3rd baseman in the history of the game, and other very good players such as White and Wilson.
I think it’s always easier for the fan to identify with the obviously flawed, but equally obviously talented player, such as a Balboni or Jacobs, than it is to relate to a true superstar.
I don’t think the Earnie Shavers story would make a whole book, but it would a great extended magazine article. I seem to remember a publication that used to print that kind of piece regularly. Not sure what’s become of them. It was called “Something Illustrated”…..
As a Twins fan of the past decade, that player was Matthew LeCroy. One-tool: hitting Lefties. His second tool: emergency catcher (that’s what he came up as, but then in his one year as a non-Twin, Frank Robinson tried using him in a non-emergency situation, and had to pull him mid-inning).
Another amazing post. Thanks Joe!
Your next book should be about that Cavs owner you’ve talked about a few times (assuming you’re still unable to convince Stan Musial to let you write “The Man”).
I was thinking “this is Matty LeCroy” too. Plus LeCroy was an uber-affable country bumpkin which made him even easier to like.
I always got a kick out of Mark Bellhorn. The guy was not afraid of his own weaknesses. Obviously I can’t say for sure, but it almost seemed like he embraced them.
I like guys like that, guys who have clear weaknesses and clear strengths, and instead of sacificing strengths to cover up weaknesses, play both to the extreme.
As a kid my big hero was Joe Morgan*, and I used to flap my arm just like Joe did. He said it was in order to keep his shoulder and elbow high in order to get a good swing. When I was nine I didn’t quite get that, but I still flapped my arm. Didn’t help much. I was a rotten Little League player.
*Gotta say a few things for Joe. Yeah, he’s an awful announcer, but he was a great player, he’s a nice guy and behaves like a gentleman, he went back to college to get his degree, he obviously loves baseball, and he’s done a lot of community and charity work out there in his hometown Oakland. They even named a street after him.
Slightly off topic: I went to SM South in the early ’80s, and at that time the baseball coach was a guy named Mike Steigmeier who had pitched in the minors and blown out his arm. He had to teach something, so they assigned him to psychology, which was an elective joke class. I don’t remember him being a genius, and we didn’t learn anything, but he was a good guy with a sense of humor, and he occasionally told baseball stories in class. The guy he respected most was Jim Kaat, who had gone out of his way to help Steigmeier and other players, and who always acted like a classy professional.
As a Mets fan who watched Jacobs pound 11 homers after his September call up in 05 I will always have a soft spot for him. I think its better to appreciate him from afar though, because it’s really not good to have him on your team.
I think a guy like that I identified with the last few years was Oliver Perez. He was crazy, jumping over chalklines, screwing himself into the ground on wild swings, walking 6 guys in an inning occasionally. But when he was on and mowing guys down it was more enjoyable than watching any recent Met pitcher. Since the new contract though I’m finding his antics less endearing.
I would buy that book.
I don’t get your fascination with Springsteen or Kuiper, but with Shavers you had me at hello. Ernie Shavers was absolutely my favorite boxer when I was a kid and by a pretty wide margin. I watched every every one of his fights that I could. You summed it up perfectly. I knew he wasn’t the best fighter around, but you loved that possibility of a knockout from nowhere.
In the mid-80’s there was another fighter that I loved for pretty much the same reason. His name was Lonnie Smith (no relation to the ballplayer) and he saw a bit of success back in the day. He was the WBC light welterweight champ for a bit in 1985 and he had some titles and title shots as recently as 1997 as a welterweight.
What I loved about Smith was his left hook. It was the longest left hook I had ever seen. It came from the next zip code. His whole body was wide open as he swung from his heels. It beautiful. You knew there was no way that that punch would land, but he seemed to land it as often as he missed with it.
When he beat Billy Costello in Madison Square Garden in 1985 for the title he was knocked down by Costello in the 1st round. He got up and proceeded to decimate Costello with that hook for the rest of the fight. Knocked him down twice in the 2nd, once in the 5th and twice more in the 8th before the ref stopped it. It may have been from different combinations of punches, but my memory sees him swinging from the heels and connecting with that left hook over and over again. It made no sense, but it was a joy to watch.
And I admired Costello (who was a very good fighter having only lost to Smith and Alexis Arguello in his entire career) as he kept picking himself off the mat. Man, I haven’t thought about that fight or Lonnie Smith the fighter in a long, long time.
Thanks, Joe!
I’d like to hear more about how Amos Otis was “misunderstood.” By writers? Fans? Umpires?
I recently watched the final game of the 1980 World Series, and Otis complained to the home plate umpire about call after call after call. Pitches right down the middle at the knees- called strike- whine whine whine. He made me tired just watching him. end rant.
The other thing that I gleaned from the game- players today are SO much better hitters- it doesn’t even look like the same game.
I love reading your stuff, Joe!
Where’s the surprise post, Joe !!!
If you look at Jacobs individually then yes he’s not a pretty sight (including the bad facial hair). But looking at what he can do in the Royals lineup is a more valid question. As long as he has Coco, DDJ, Mike-A, getting on-base ahead of him, he will produce more runs for the Royals. Also Jose Guillen had 97 RBIs with basically no protection. I don’t know why some teams even pitched to him in the summer months last year. Also, this will allow Butler and Gordon to have less pressure.
I’m probably the biggest Kila fan, but you gotta think about the situation in SP. Without Jacobs you would of had Kila and Shealey with the assumption that Gload would of been traded. So your saying that they would of sent Shealey down after a huge Sept. in the Majors not AAA and Kila would of jumped him? I think not.
When I pitched in pick up games, there was no need to announce which pitcher I was. I was the king of the Gene Garber 180 degree turn.
Other favorites were the Brett Butler half swing, the Julio Franco pretzel swing, the Bo Jackson (or Strawberry) leg kick, and the Seitzer quasimoto jersey pull.
I would read an Earnie Shavers book if Joe wrote it. They don’t make boxers like him anymore. There were some really fun and colorful fighters back in those days.
Mike Jacobs could be a solid player on the right team, maybe in a platoon with a good fielding RH first baseman on a team that needs power. This year’s Royals probably aren’t that team, but you never know. His nickname needs to be “Evil Jake,” though, that’s great.
Speaking of Springsteen, his character the Magic Rat from Jungleland was based on Sully the Pilot, back when Sully was younger and played bass and hung around with Bruce in New Jersey. Sully even claims to have written “Factory” from Darkness on the Edge of Town, but he isn’t credited for it.
yeah i was having similar thoughts in Philly. why people seemed to get as much a kick out of watching pat burrell as they did chase utley so i wrote a story about it. i came up with ….
In the end, maybe Pat the Bat and Philly get along so well because they can relate. Having not won a championship since 1983,
Philadelphians understood in the years since how hard it was to actually win. It was fitting then that Burrell, with his extended slumps,was never one to make the game look easy.
Your comments on Duane Kuiper reminded me of one of my all-time favorite articles, Chuck Klosterman’s SPIN piece on the Ten Most Accurately Rated Artists in Rock History. Your hero may well be the most accurately rated baseball player in the history of the game. But who’s rounding out the Top 10?
A suggestion: Maybe Earnie could be part of your sports/religion book idea you mentioned in your recent post about Andre Thornton.
My favorite player was Harold Baines because the free tickets the White Sox gave out to my school in 1981 were in right field. He just happened to play until I was almost 30. There was a pretty good chance my favorite player was going to be Wayne Nordhagen.
Your article probably explains why I root for “the other guy”. Never the favorite (at least, rarely the favorite) but “the other guy”. So many times nobody ever remembers him, but I try to. I live in “the other guy’s” town. KC. And I like it. Probably explains a lot. I still hope the Royals and the chiefs will win. Probably won’t – given recent seasons – but I always think of them as “my team”. Because they always seem to be “the other guy”. So am I.
As someone whose favorite player while growing up was Mackey Sasser, I can’t get enough of Joe’s Kuiper fandom.
The difference between rooting for a guy like Jacobs and a guy like Pujols is very much like the difference between Spiderman and Superman. As a kid, Superman never interested me as a super hero because it was too freaking easy. He’s the strongest, fastest, most invulnerable guy in the world. He SHOULD get the bad guy, for God’s sake. What’s interesting about that?
Spiderman, on the other hand (or Captain America, Batman, Wolverine, if you prefer) had flaws and was usually fighting an uphill battle against a stronger bad guy, which made him much more compelling. Even though you knew he’d eventually prevail in the comic book, it was much more fun finding out how he’d overcome the odds against him.
Now, if I’m trying to save the world or win the World Series, I want Superman on my team. But if I want a good story, I’ll take Spiderman. And if Jacobs were to get bitten by a radioactive spider that would enable him to draw a walk once in a while, well that would be the best of both worlds.
Would love to get your thoughts on Dave Kingman, Joe.
Shavers must have found religion because he was clearly holding the back of Ellis’ head to set up that devastating punch. Guilt got him.
Posts like this remind me of the players of my youth who, for whatever reason, captured my imagination. Sure, Dale Murphy was fantastic to root for and a great role model, but I always had a soft spot for Claudell Washington and Bruce Benedict. Tom Seaver and Steve Carlton were dominant … but Mario Soto seemed to pitch lights-out every time I saw him. I loved Dr. J, but always admired Andrew Toney. John Stockton, Isaiah Thomas and Magic Johnson were the best point guards in the NBA … but I’d take Fat Lever every time. Thanks, Joe, for sparking the memories.
I just finished reading this post when Mike Jacobs hit a three-run home run. What Joe said. Exactly.
I think the best three minutes in all of sports is the 15th and final round of Ali-Shavers, Madison Square Garden, 1977. It’s on YouTube.
Shavers has to knock Ali out to win and he gets him on the ropes several times. But Ali hits Shavers with a short left with about a minute in a half left in the round and then really starts zeroing in on Shavers with about 30 seconds left, hitting him alternately with left and right hands.
The ring announcers and the Garden fans add to the action tremondously and really make the tape immortal.
When the ring announcer shouts the fighters are going at it “Toe to Toe….” in the last 10 seconds you’ll find yourself throwing punches in spite of yourself.
Ron Cey.
Favorite player as a kid. No idea why, but he was. Followed him fervently during that magical season of ‘77, cheered when he was named co-World Series MVP (with, uh, two other Dodgers).
Then, last year, Robert Wuhl introduced me to him and he talked with us for like, 15 minutes.
So here it was 30 years later, the Penguin was talking to me, I could ask him anything I wanted about his career … and I realized I scarcely REMEMBERED his career.
And that’s why I’m not a sportswriter.
Duane Kuiper’s most similar player on baseball-reference’s similarity scores is Emil Verban, a player from the ’40s who was immortalized by having a “society” of Cub fans named for him. There is something about the everyman.
What I liked about the Jacobs trade is that Jacobs provides the one thing — lefthanded power — that the Royals were worst at last year. On top of that, he was getting killed by the Marlins’ home stadium. So you get a player in his prime, well suited to the team’s needs, with a solid chance to improve.
Besides Jacobs, I really enjoy watching Coco Crisp this year. Anything into the gap is a possibility for a triple.
I’ll put in a vote in favor of the goatee, too. There’s something about baseball that goes well with outrageous facial hair.
Awesome! Thanks Joe.
Willie Mcgee
Joe,
What is Teahan’s OPS as and infielder vs. an outfielder?
Is it now at least somewhat plausible to assert that Teahan is a better hitter when he is in the infield? It’s time to give this man a place on this team. I know KC is in love with Gordon but can we not see what Teahan has done when his confidence in his defensive ability seeps into his confidence at the plate?
We have 10+ weeks to evaluate this theory. One game does not tell the story. One September does not tell the story. One monster spring training does not tell the story, or has it?
Statistically it is hard to understand why we are all starting to enjoy Jacobs, and as fans we are, but statistically shouldn’t we all start enjoying Teahan as an infielder/hitter?
Stop moving this guy all over the place and give him a home at third!
Good teams make these tough decisions. Division winners make these tough decisions.
Joe,
It is really embarrassing to admit my favorite player as a kid…
Chico Lind
I think it was the way they announced his name as he came up to bat. With a name like that as a kid, I just expected him to hit a homerun every time. I must not have been very observant because he really was one of the worst players on some bad Royals teams. It just shows sometimes it really doesn’t make sense who we choose, we chose them a hope they do well. Maybe why I’m a life long Royals fan.
Nate
John at #21:
If you were watching Willie Wilson, Frank White et al, swinging the bats against Tug McGraw et al from that WS, I could see how you would have the impression that today’s batters are much better hitters.
I am not that sure that is a good example of how hitters looked in 1980.
In the 70s, when A.O. was the Royals best player, lots of fans thought he wasn’t trying as hard as he could. I think that really wasn’t true. He was a little lot Carlos Beltran in that he made everything look so easy, it sometimes seemed he wasn’t really trying. He glided in the outfield rather than ran.
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I also like Jacobs. He reminds me of Steve Balboni.
Great post Joe!
You made me think of one of my favorite players from when I was a kid–Nick Esasky. I remember sitting through the strikeouts and the popups just waiting for a monstrous red-seat home run. It was a shame that vertigo ended his career early. I followed him after he left the Reds, hoping to see him against someone like Nolan Ryan on the off-chance that he might actually hit one 700ft.
Rob, Esasky is a great choice. As a Braves fan growing up, it seemed like he was 32-for-33 against Atlanta with 30 home runs. The one time they got him out was a ground-out that scored a run. He absolutely OWNED Atlanta and I always wondered what other teams in the National League were doing to get out someone who was so clearly a Hall of Famer every time I watched him play.
My favorite player since he came up has been Mark Teahen. I appreciate his hustle and his willingness to go wherever the team asks him. But boy oh boy, it IS fun to watch Mike Jacobs hit a home run.
Fun with small sample sizes:
Jacobs is currently on pace for 64 doubles, 48 home runs, 129 RBI’s, 48 BB’s and 162 K’s.
First, the typo: Hit pounded Tiger Williams (etc.) should probably be He instead of Hit.
Growing up Jewish in LA in the 60’s, it was inevitable that my baseball hero would be Sandy Koufax. And then, on roughly my 11th birthday, his career was over. I became a huge fan of Mike Piazza later on.
But if I had a favorite non-HOF player based on what I saw on the field, it would be Mickey Hatcher. In Hatcher’s first game in the majors (maybe it was just his first game I saw, but I recall his first game) they put on a hit and run. The second baseman broke to cover the bag. And in a move that the three guys I was with and I all recognized as exactly why I had an .800 OBP in our softball league, Hatcher swiveled to his right (in my mind he also moved his right foot back from the plate, but I doubt he had the time to do that softball move) so he was squared up as if the pitch was coming from the right fielder, and slapped a weak grounder right into the hole left by the second baseman, a six bouncer before it reached the outfield grass, runners on first and third.
Now in hindsight, the only way that works is if Hatcher was guessing breaking ball all the way. He’d have been way behind a fastball. But he got the curve ball, and went with it, and I thought, “what a smart play for a rookie.” So even though his career was mostly undistinguished (didn’t have enough power or walks to play corners effectively, didn’t have enough glove to play middle infield) he was smart, and has been the hitting coach for the Angels for a long time. And like Hatcher those Angels sure do like to hit and run and take the extra base. I just wish they’d walk more.
As for Mike Jacobs, learning to take walks and foul off pitches you can’t hit is something that older players do better than younger players. It may be that you need to see 10,000 heaters up and in before you finally learn how to just get a piece of them, and since you are going to see either wilder or slower pitchers until you reach the bigs, there is certainly room for Jacobs to improve. I don’t think he’s a case of poor strike zone judgment, in which case he’s probably never getting better. I think he has a huge swing with holes, and he can learn to cut it down midswing to cover those holes. So for your sake, Joe, I hope he improves.
[...] point of this is that I just read the latest post by Joe Posnanski, who incidentally has a new book coming out about my Big Red Machine. In today’s post, he [...]
For you it was Kuiper. For me it was another shortstop Granny Hamner in the days of PeeWee Reese and Phil Rizzuto. I once asked a collectibles dealer if he had any Granny Hamner cards. He dug around and found one and when I asked how much he wanted, he said it was free because no one had ever asked him for a Hamner card. Since then I bought a Rawlings Hamner model glove that sits next to the little Hutch model I used when I was a kid shortstop pretending I was him while growing up in northern Manitoba. In those days I had to wait a couple of weeks for The Sporting News to arrive via train from St. Louis so I could read about my favorite player. About a dozen years ago I was in Florida during spring training and went to a game at Al Lang Stadium in St. Pete. The next day I read in the St. Pete Times that Hamner and several other members of the Major League Alumni Association had been signing autographs that day. He’s probably the only player who could have got me to stand in line and ask for an autograph. At least the line likely would have been short.
It’s early, of course, but Joe’s pick of Greinke for Cy Young is looking really good.
No kidding, Spud. He was FILTHY tonight.
Isn’t wonderful to watch great pitching performances? I didn’t see Greinke tonight but watching some highlights on SportsCenter
(sorry, I have DISH so no MLB Network, yet…) tonight and seeing Lincecum bounce back and throw 8 shutout innings with 13 K’s just makes my day. How about the Buccos starting staff so far with Maholm, Duke & Snell? They may win 75-78 games! It’s a damn miracle…And, yes, it’s only April 17th so I know I need to hide my Pirate enthusiasm. BTW, I am calling them the Buccos more and more so as not to conjure up images of Somali teens wearing Pittsburgh black & gold while on patrol. That’s why I think we need to call those thieving bastards something other than “pirates.”
Dickie Thon.
You look smarter every day with this musing..!
“When the Kansas City Royals traded for him this off-season, well, that was my fourth-least favorite move by general manager Dayton Moore.*
*The first three were signing reliever Kyle Farnsworth.”
My thoughts exactly!! Especially about Farnsworth, what a waste!
Good choice #59, Thon ruled my childhood from about 5-6. After Thon it was Kevin Bass.
Great post. It reminds me of the Red Sox of my relative youth, and the feast or famine of Phil Plantier, Brian Daubach and Troy O’leary. I hated Daubach more when he hit homers more than when he struk out, because they represented why he stuck as long as he did as opposed to the myriad reasons he should have been a AAA lifer at best.
Hey Joe,
I’ve been paying attention to this Met/Marlin/Royal Mike Jacobs for almost as many years as I’ve been paying attention to Evil Jake’s Mike Jacobs. They are, in fact, one of few non-food/sport categories on my site: http://www.scoreboardgourmet.com/tfmj/
I enjoyed reading your post (though I must admit I saw it in SI first) but have to prepare to you be disappointed by your new favorite player. I’m not sure he can pull through for you.
Oh my lord, Mike Jacobs posted a response to the blog on his site!!!
http://www.mikejacobs.com/
BTW, we were very happy to see Farnsworth go (as much as he cried)
Joe – If you enjoy Mike Jacobs, you should definitely pay attention to Matt Stairs in Philadelphia. Every at bat, every pitch, whether it’s in a game or in batting practice, he tries to hit a home run. He broke up a no-hitter yesterday with his second pinch-hit HR of the season. And his quotes on his hitting approach are refreshing and hilarious:
“My whole career, even back in the early days, my approach was try to hit the ball out of the ballpark,” he said. “And it’s something I enjoyed doing. In batting practice, I try to hit every ball out of the ballpark. I’m not going to lie, it’s fun. I try to hit home runs and that’s it. I’m not going to hit a single and steal second base.” ~Stairs, on his HR off Jonathan Broxton in last year’s playoffs.
[...] Latest News And Top Stories added an interesting post on The Curious Case of Mike Jacobs » Joe PosnanskiHere’s a small excerpt Bookmark this on Delicious – Saved by mattbirt to baseball joe.posnanski mike.jacobs – More about this bookmark [...]
Russell Branyan is pretty much the same type of player. I always wondered how many HRs he’d have, if he got regular playing time. I bet he’d be at about 400 right now. Kinda sucks for him…Least with Jacobs, it seems we’ll find out…