Baseball Digits

Have you heard of Ryan Zimmerman? (why not?)

Did you know he played amatuer ball with David Wright?

Is he going to be a superstar? (dang right!)

I’m on the Zimmerman bandwagon, and plan on riding it to the end. Hall of Fame? Of course no one can make that bold of a statement right now, but dude has serious skills. To start with the less important thing (at least for the non-baseball junkie), he can field extremely well for a sophomore major leaguer, which is actually a big deal for 3b where good defense is a great asset to have.

Next… oh yeah, he can hit. He did have the makings of a nasty sophomore jinx in the works through the entire 1st half, but he has raised his average from basically below .250 through July 4 to right at .270 now. His OPS is finally flirting with .800, which is getting to the point of being very nice.

The downside for the year is the drop in walks while K’s have really stayed similar. He’s actually got a good eye at the plate, so I am expecting (ok, hoping) that as he moves to years 3 and 4 in the majors he swaps the BB and K numbers at least closer to even. I do believe he will drop the K’s to the 80 range, while upping his BB’s to closer to 80.

I expect that the move to a baseball stadium versus the cavern they are in now will bump his homers to the mid 30’s. Which will in turn result in pitchers having to be more careful — and thus walking him more. Obviously this is all speculation on my part, but he looks to be one of the good guys in the game. Also… comparing him to his school days teammate David Wright… his average is obviously lower, but powerwise he is comparable even playing in RFK. Moving to a real baseball stadium looks likely to push him past Wright in power terms. Oh, he’s also a couple years younger than Wright — he turns 23 in just about a month.

Justin Verlander

102IP, 90K, 39BB, 80H, a no-hitter in which he threw over 100mph in the 9th inning.

If you have not heard of Justin, I would guess you are not a baseball fan. He is a nasty pitcher when he is on. His fastball have good movement and his curveball is outright unfair for a hitter to face. Of course when he is off… he is off with the best of them (5IP, 4H, 5BB, 6ER against the Twins last time out). you can expect ups and downs from any pitcher in the majors, and especially a youngster (24 years old) in his second full season.

Anyone have his 2005 Topps Chrome Refractor Rookie Autograph Card (#242 ) laying around? I don’t!

Tim Lincecum (pronounced Lin-seekum)

Although I am a huge fan of Lincecum’s, I can understand why all but the true baseball fans may not have heard of him. Nicknamed “franchise” by his Giant teammates, Tim looks to be destined to be a star in the majors. He is only a year out of college.

66IP, 74K, 29BB, 52H (with the bulk of those BB coming in a 4 game stretch where it looked like he was trying to spot his pitches to hard)

I got on the Lincecum bandwagon last year, and am feeling might good about him right now. Except for a concern I have that he could blow out his arm, he sure looks like the real deal. I watched a game in mid-May where he matched up with Roy Oswalt that was absolutely phenomenal. The kind of game that makes you enjoy watching baseball on TV. I can say this one thing about him… when he is on… he is way on, and hitters look silly against him! If you have not seen him pitch yet, be sure to check him out as soon as you can.

There is no doubt in my mind that Sammy Sosa deserves to be in the All Star game next week. Do you really think that Michael Young deserves to go more than Sammy this year? And of course, you will want to argue that he is a roid taker and should not be there. But lets take a look at a few items of interest.

1. He has never tested positive for steroids. It does not matter that only a few people out there believe he was clean.

2. Barry is going. He too has never tested positive for steroid (or HGH for that matter). But similarly to Sammy, he too has never tested positive for roids.

3. He is putting up decent numbers this year. Ranked in the top 10 in homers.

4. Barry against Sammy in the homerun derby would make for great TV. Let’s listen to the announcers try to keep from bringing up steroids during that broadcast despite everyone and their mother looking at the two of them and thinking that’s what it is all about.

5. Gwynn and Ripken both got curtain calls for the All Star game when they were obviously past their prime, and put up mediocre numbers at best. (Ok… they were class acts, but in many ways Sammy is a class act too).

Despite being a little sarcastic in my comments here, I do believe that Sammy deserves to be in the All Star game more than several guys who are in. But if you want to reference a player who was really snubbed, one need look no further than Gary Sheffield. Some might not think he is a class act (I do think he is), but he is an All Star through and through.

I’ve been passively working on a 1961 Topps baseball card set for close to 15 years. By passively I mean, I have close to 400 cards in the set (mostly commons) that I pull out and look to add to about once a year. I have only been buying cards that I see as close to NrMt — sharp corners, sharp pictures (not always easy), decent centering, and obviously no creases. Of course I have lowered my standards on occasion, but by and large I have been looking for great cards so that when the set is done I will be able to claim it as one of the nicest complete sets available.

Why 1961? I honestly have no idea why I started with that year. I guess it is because I came across a lot of commons, 40 or so, sometime in the 80’s and just stuck them in a box. Then in the mid 90’s I pulled out all of my boxes of cards to see about liquidating them. I stumbled on the lot of 1961 Topps, and decided to work on a set… kind of the impossible dream given the number of really good star cards in that year, and the highly priced high number series. At the time money was tighter than now (and my wife did not always recognize the importance of baseball to me — curious given that when we met I was playing baseball in college), so buying anything more than commons was hard to justify given that I was looking for cards in super shape.

I pulled the set out again about a month ago, and am ready to go on another spurt of card buying — maybe a couple high numbers or another run of commons. Or, maybe now is the time to start on some star cards. I’d love to get the Clemente (a personal favorite of mine), or maybe a Hank Aaron.

I know it will be no less than another 15 years before I complete the set, buying in spurts once a year. But it really is fun to work on something that really was once unattainable to me.

I’ve been meaning to brain dump on this dude for a while. In 1987 when he was rookie with the Cubs, I was hording his rookie cards like crazy. I saw him as someone with real potential. Most saw him as a singles/doubles hitter, but I looked at his college stats compared to his teammate that all thought was so great… Will Clark. For the first several years of his career my baseball card buddies thought I was crazy. But I stuck by him. Then he started cranking up the homers with that beautiful swing of his (hate him if you want, but roids can not create such a swing). Good eye! Sweet swing! What was there not to like.

Then a few years he got in front of congress, pointed at them, and said that he had never done steroids. I was pumped. Finally someone with the gonads to sit there and say he had not done them, while those other heros sat there and babbled about the past and moving forward (what crap). Again… I was pumped. Look at Raffy, that’s not a steroid body. His feats were accomplished by pure skill and hard work.

Dammit.

Then he gets busted for testing positive. He claims that he was given a vitamin shot that must have been tainted. Damn I wanted to believe him, and was not about to bitch at him for ratting out a teammate. I mean, you work hard for your entire career and have it thrown away by seomthing like this… if you were innocent, you’d rat out anyone. I kept waiting for the test to be reviewed and the decision reversed.

Dammit.

Over 3000 hits, fast approaching 600 HR, and it’s all gone. All down the tubes.

Dammit.