Hall of Fame Announcement day

I am proud to have been accepted as a member of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance. One of the perks (and requirements) of this membership is voting in the Alliance’s yearly Hall of Fame poll. This year the BBA has recommended Jeff Bagwell and Barry Larkin for inclusion into the Hall of Fame. My own ballot read as thus:

Jeff Bagwell
Barry Larkin
Mark McGwire
Tim Raines
Edgar Martinez
Larry Walker
Alan Trammell

I went back and forth on Walker and Trammell a bit but they compare well with the other candidates according to this graph from Fangraphs:

 

The BBWAA will announce the official Hall of Fame voting results today at 3pm.

Thursday Trade Tree – Dale Long

Today’s post was inspired by yesterday’s This Date in Pirates History post on Pirates Prospects. John Dreker goes into great detail on the Kluszewski/Fondy part of this tree, but I’ll stick with the more notable Pirate, Dale Long.

Long was a firstbaseman for the Pirates from 1955-1957, making the All-Star team in 1956. He set a major league record that season by hitting a home run in eight straight games. Don Mattingly tied that record in 1987 and Ken Griffey Jr. did it in 1993 but no other National League player has made it to more than seven games.

Four years later Long was on the 1960 Yankees team that lost to the Pirates in the World Series. He was 1 for 3 with a single in three pinch hitting appearances.

Tuesday Trade Tree – Casey McGehee

Last night the Pirates traded Jose Veras - who was a candidate to be non-tendered and released – for Casey McGehee.

There’s nothing but upside to this deal. McGehee hit .223/.280/.346 last year but the two seasons prior were .285/.337/.464 and .301/.360/.499 for his age 27 and 26 seasons.

Where does his true talent level lie? Casey’s batting average on balls in play (BABIP) the last three years was .330, .306, .249. The league average is usually in the neighborhood of .300, so the easy conclusion is that he was lucky in 2009, unlucky in 2011 and that his true ability is around his 2010 output.

Personally, I think that would be asking a bit much. If the Brewers believed he could still hit .280 consistently with 23 HR’s they wouldn’t have traded him for a relief pitcher who is prone to meltdowns. On the Pirates he’ll be Pedro Alvarez insurance and in the mix at first base. I’m not sure how he would fit in a platoon situation; after being slightly better against LHP in 2009 and much better against them in 2010 he was horrid against lefties in 2011.

The most likely scenario that I see (assuming Pedro doesn’t go in the tank): he hits .270/.330/.410 and forces the team to find him 300 PAs. That would make this a good trade.

Thursday Trade Tree – Matty Alou

RIP to Matty Alou, a two-time All Star and a member of one of the great baseball families.

 

Morton has hip labrum surgury, Opening Day in doubt.

Tim has the breaking news. Very curious when he injured it or if it was more of a wear and tear thing.

UPDATE 7:02p: Apparently the team discovered the injury before this past season but decided to wait to operate rather than losing all of 2011. Sports Illustrated’s Will Carroll seems optimistic on the procedure.

@injuryexpert Will Carroll

Charlie Morton’s surgery was the FAIL type that Brett Myers and others have had. Great return rate.

FAIL stands for Femoral-Acetabular Impingement of Labrum. You can read more about it here in the entry under David Aardsma.

Ex-Pirates in the 2011 Playoffs (plus programming note)

Here are the ex-Pirates whose teams made the postseason:

Rangers: Mike Gonzalez
Tigers: Don Kelly
Rays: None
Yankees: None

Diamondbacks: Lyle Overbay
Brewers: Nyjer Morgan
Cardinals: Octavio Dotel, Arthur Rhodes*
Phillies:  None

*Rhodes was officially a Pirate for two weeks but never played for the team.

The above list is just from my perusal of the rosters. If I missed someone let me know.

Upcoming: I hope you all enjoy the postseason and off season. Due to a change in work schedule and getting final wedding preparations in order, the blog is going on a temporary and non-binding hiatus. I’ve got one more trade tree mostly in the can and I’ll post that when I can but it won’t be tomorrow. You can still find me on twitter sometimes and if something really big happens I may pop back in. Thanks to all of you who have read my work up to this point. I hope to return sooner rather than later.

Cheers,
David