Inter-League Ball

I just watched the Giants beat the A’s on the Boob Tube; and, although I am in some ways a traditionalist, as a fan, I love inter-league baseball.

Some Sportswriters (who get paid to watch games every day all season long) complain that in a two market metro area like the San Francisc0 Bay Area where you get to see every team and every star in the game if you want to, inter-league play is only exciting when the two local teams play each other.  Well, it’s worth it, even if only for those Giants/A’s, Cubs/White Sox, Yankees/Mets, Dodgers/Angels and Astros/Rangers series.

Oh yeah, and there’s the Orioles/Nationals, Rays/Marlins, Twins/Brewers, ChiSox/Brewers, Reds/Indians, Royals/Cardinals, and Cardinals/ChiSox.  And as a fan I would also want to see the BoSox/Mets, Indians/Pirates, Twins/Cardinals, and the Phillies/Orioles.  The point is that there is an enormous number of regional inter-league match-ups that make the games exciting.  Then, of course, everyone everywhere wants to see the game if the Yankees, Red Sox or Dodgers are in town.

Interleague play is one of those things like night games, the all-star game, and baseball on TV, where you wonder why they didn’t adopt it sooner.  Purists be damned; professional sports are entertainment, and you give the fans what they want.  Fans like offense, so you give them offense.  Fans like night baseball, so you give them night baseball (except at Wrigley, which is it’s own special and now very limited exception.)

This is probably a pointless argument, as inter-league baseball is here to stay.  The fans have spoken loud and clear.

Some other thoughts on tonight’s game.  Giants’ sophmore Pablo Sandoval (he’s technically not a “rookie” since Pablo had 145 AB’s last year, which has traditionally been the cut-off for determining whether a player is or is not a rookie) is an amazing talent.  The Giants have taken to calling him “Kung Fu Panda” because of his athletism despite body measurements of 5″11″ and 246 lbs (at least) at age 22 (!?!).  A player like Sandoval absolutely needs a nick-name, and if “Kung Fu Panda” doesn’t stick, I propose “The Fat Cat”.

Andres Galarraga, who’s also from Venezuala, was “The Big Cat”, so I think “The Fat Cat” would be perfect for Sandoval.  However, I think that “Kung Fu Panda” is pretty good too and will abide by the majority’s decision.  I would also be willing to accept “El Gato Gordo.”

Pablo made two beautiful plays at 1B tonight, looking not at all like a guy who has played only 32 major league games at the position.

It will be interesting to see who the Giants play as the regular catcher once Benji Molina is gone and Buster Posey is ready.  I haven’t seen anyone weigh in yet on who is the better defensive catcher between Sandoval and Posey.  One thing’s for certain, Sandoval can play 1B and 3B well enough for a guy who looks like he will one day be a great hitter.

My preference would be that one of the two start no more than between 100-110 at the position and the other start no less than 50-60  at catcher.  It’s a tough position where injuries are a given.  If you have two players who can hit well enough to play at another defensive position when not catching, take advantage of it, and limit the number of games that either plays at catcher.

Another thing: the difference between “major league” players and “minor league” players is much smaller than the vast majority of people realize.  The only real difference between major league baseball and AAA baseball is that there are no Albert Pujols’, ARods or Johan Santanas at their peak in AAA ball.

The best five players on 80% of AAA team rosters are every bit as good as the worst 5 players on 80% of major league rosters.  The major difference is the major league players have some talent that the major league club needs: i.e., they bat or pitch left-handed; they play above-average defense, and the major league team needs a glove-man to back up their big hitting, weak-defending every day starter; they play a position where the major league team has a gaping hole, etc.

What made me think of this fact is Giants’ back up catcher Eli Whiteside, who came in late in the game at catcher during a double switch.  Whiteside was signed by the Giants last year after he was cut by the Twins organization after a brutal start at AAA Rochester.  The Giants needed another catcher at AAA Fresno, so they signed Whiteside.

He didn’t play all that well in Fresno in ‘08, hitting only .238 with a .617 OPS in 151 ABs.  However, he hit with some power at Fresno at the beginning of this year, and the Giants called him up when they needed a third catcher and presumably decided they wanted to take a look at someone other than Steve Holm, last year’s third string catcher.

Whiteside is currently hitting .263.  Granted, he’s only 5 for 19, but the point is that a little more than a year ago, Whiteside looked like his professional career was over, and now he’s playing in the major leagues.  This is only possible because the difference in play between AAA and the majors really isn’t that great.

One of the reasons I think that people believe there’s this big gulf between AAA and the majors is that once players reach the majors, they have much less time to prove themselves than they do at AAA.  If a player reaches AAA at a young age, he will get years to develop into a player too good to remain at AAA.  Meanwhile, in the majors, there are all the guys below in AA and AAA who look like they might be ready for a shot, so if a player gets a shot in the majors, he has to prove that he’s a major league player pretty quickly, or the team will try someone else.

Many 4-A players took 600 or 800 ABs before they really blossomed at AAA (see my recent article about Todd Linden).  Those guys simply aren’t going to get 600 or 800 major league at-bats to prove they belong.  They’ll be lucky to get a 150 ABs at the major league level.  Also, if they develop into major league players at age 27 or older, major league teams consider them too old for serious consideration unless they are the very best players in their AAA leagues.

For example, Dan Johnson, a player with substantial major league experience, was the best hitter in the International League last year.  The problem for him is that he is 29 this year and had essentially no chance of taking Carlos Pena’s major league job.  He had to go to Japan to play regularly in a “major league” in 2009.  This doesn’t mean, though, that he isn’t a better player (this year) than Travis Ishikawa, the Giants’ starting 1Bman so far this year.

Similarly, Jack Cust is now a major league star solely because only one team in baseball (the A’s) thought he was good enough to play regularly in the major leagues.  The A’s acquired Cust in May 2007 from the Padres organization for “a player to be named later or cash considerations” — in other words, for as cheaply as one team can obtain a AAA player from another.

Another example is recent Rule 5 drafted players like Johan Santana, Dan Uggla and Joakim Soria.  Their original teams didn’t value them enough to put them on their 40 man rosters, either because they were thought to be too far from the major leagues in their development or the team had players they liked better.  For these players, at least, they turned out to be ready.

Another big factor, is that the marginal players who have major league careers tend to have one skill that is so exceptionally good that they can be role players in the majors leagues.  The classic example is the mediocre left handed pitcher who can make a career out of his ability to get left handed hitters out.  In today’s game there are lefties who appear in 60 games a year but only pitch 35-40 innings, because their sole task is to come in to get one or two (or three out of four) left handed hitters out.  As long as they can get left-handed hitters out at an acceptable rate, they will have major league jobs.