The Front Row

• Reply
• Quote
• Rate Up Rate Down

BretHoovler1 said...

. However, when Choo is your best player you are probably not looking at a 75 win season.

• Reply
• Quote
• Rate Up Rate Down

Heater said...

Steve...you're not looking deep enough, imo. For instance, you brushed over a lot of HoFers in there...Napoleon Lajoie, a career .338 hitter and so popular that the team was renamed the Naps when he was player/manager.

On the subject of contemporary players, spending a portion of their time in one uniform is a part of the free agent world we live in. I would argue that Jim Thome, who spent 10 of his 20 years in the bigs on the Indians roster is a guy that is a career Indian. In fact, if you spend 50% or more of your career in one uni, then you're a career player there, for this roster, I think.

Joe Morgan only spent 8 of 22 years in a Reds uniform, but his best years were in Cincy and for logic's sake, he is a Red.

Albert Belle spent 8 of his 12 years in the majors in C-town.

Manny Ramirez is an interesting case though...8 years in Cleveland and 7 in Beantown. I'll give him C-town all-time credit. I would also throw in Shoeless Joe Jackson, who spent 5-1/2 years in Cleveland and the same amount in Chi-town. His better years were in Cleveland though. The Grey Eagle, Tris Speaker, is also an all-time, all-time and spent half his career as a Tribesman. Also, Cy Young is inducted in the HoF in a Boston uni, but over half o fhis career wins (267 out of 511) came in a Cleveland uniform. However, Gaylord Perry, even though he won a Cy Young Award in C-town, only spent 3-1/2 seasons in Cleveland and not a "career" Indian. As a sidenote, it's pretty amazing though that two of the premier current hurlers in C.C. Sabathia (157 wins and a CYA) and Cliff Lee (103 wins and a CYA) couldn't even sniff the pitching roster of the all-time Tribe team.

----

Taking it a little further, the Reds have 8 players listed at the official HoF site with the Reds as their primary team...Bench, Lombardi, McKechnie (manager), Morgan, Perez, Rixey, Robinson, Roush.

That's two catchers...one will have to be your DH. Add in Larkin and Rose.

C - Bench ("Bench"-mark for C position, HoF) 1B - Perez (27th all time in RBI, HoF) 2B - Morgan (33rd all time in Runs/13th in SBs, HoF) 3B - Rose (All-time hits leader, should be HoF) SS - Larkin (.295 BA, will be in the HoF) OF - Robinson (586 HR, HoF) OF - Roush (.323 BA, HoF) OF - George Foster? Ken Griffey? Dave Parker? Eric Davis? DH - Lombardi (.306 BA, HoF)

SP - Rixey (179 wins, HoF) SP - Gullett (109 wins) SP - Rijo (116 wins) SP - Soto (100 wins) SP - Derringer (223 wins)

RP - Danny Graves (182 saves, 54th all-time) RP - John Franco (424 saves, HoF...only spent 6 of 21 seasons with Reds)

Looking at just the starting line-up, it's pretty strong, but the third outfield position is not a "career" Red, as Steve's guidelines outlined earlier. John Franco as well is not a career Red, but relief pitchers are generally nomads, so I can make that exception (as I did with Jose Mesa and Doug Jones below...though they were much closer to the 50% level than Franco).

Juggle the Reds pitching roster around if you want...but you will not come close to matching the Indians 6 HoF pitchers. (No, you don't get to include Tom Seaver, he had less than 25% of his total wins while in southern Ohio.)

-------

Conversely, the HoF has 13 Hall of Famers with Cleveland as their primary team...Averill, Boudreau, Burkett, Coveleski, Doby, Feller, Flick, Joss, Lajoie, Lemon. Sewell, Speaker, Wynn.

I'd be willing to trot out this team and take my chances...

C Sandy Alomar (6 time All-Star, RoY, GG) 1B Jim Thome (589 HR, 17th in all-time OPS, future HoF) 2B Nap Lajoie (.338 BA, HoF) SS Lou Boudreau (.295 BA, led SS in Fld% 10 straight years, HoF) 3B Joe Sewell (.312 BA, HoF) CF Tris Speaker(.345 BA, HoF) RF Albert Belle (.295 BA, 5 Silver Sluggers in 12 years...would be HoF if not for injury/attitude) LF Earl Averill (.318 BA, HoF) DH Manny Ramirez (.312 BA, 555 HR, 9th all-time in OPS, future HoF?)

SP Bob Feller (HoF, Named greatest right-handed pitcher of first half of 20th Century) SP Addie Joss (HoF, 160 wins in 9 seasons, 1.89 ERA) SP Stan Coveleski (HoF, 215 wins, 2,89 ERA) SP Early Wynn (HoF, 300 wins) SP Cy Young (HoF, 511 wins, named some sort of award after him or something)

RP Doug Jones (303 saves, 20th all-time) RP Jose Mesa (321 saves, 13th all-time) RP Bob Lemon (HoF, 200+ wins)

My guess is that the CLEARLY superior pitching by the Indians would dominate the day and the weaker pitching by the Reds would let the Indians hitters put some crooked numbers up on the ol' scoreboard.

Best of 7 series: Cleveland 4 - Cincinnati 2

• Reply
• Quote
• Rate Up Rate Down

bones10 said...

After the first 6 games of the year, the one thing that has me cautiously optimistic for a 80 win season is the bullpen. The bullpen right now looks great. In the AL especially, if you have a top notch pen, that you don't wear out with starters who can't get into the 6th on a consistent basis, you will be competitive in most games. Even if you fall behind early, a good pen will give you a chance to get back in the game. The key will be continuing to score runs and staying healthy. The Tribe cannot have injuries to a few key players (Santana, Cabrera and Choo). We all know Hannahan is not going to keep this up at the plate, so we need Chisenhall to be ready by July at the latest. And I have been pleasantly surprised with Pronk. His bat speed is greatly improved from last year where he struggled to get the head through the zone and was constantly cheating. And then he looked foolish on breaking pitches. The single he hit to left in the game on Wednesday on a fastball away really gave me some confidence. Last year he would have been cheating on that pitched and rolled it over to 2nd. Now he was able to wait, and still have the bat speed to take the outside fastball to left, and still be prepared to stay back on the breaking ball. It was a great at bat. His shoulder might finally be getting healthy.