Jose Altuve Hits Home Run In Contract Talks
PLUS: PICTURE THIS! HALL OF FAME LAUNCHES TRAVELING ROAD SHOW
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Pregame Pepper
Did you know…
The World Champion Texas Rangers say they’re not making any roster changes, apparently ruling out the return of postseason hero Jordan Montgomery . . .
The Washington Nationals also announced they’re finished tinkering with the roster, begging the question “Why?” . . .
Even after losing baseball’s best gate attraction in Shohei Ohtani, Arte Moreno has no plans to sell the Los Angeles Angels — but does plan to continue cutting payroll . . .
As the lame-duck Oakland Athletics negotiate to extend their expiring Oakland Alameda County Stadium lease, the Pioneer League’s new Oakland Ballers have found a home in a rehabilitated minor-league park called Raimondi Field . . .
The lame-duck Athletics rejected a request by the Ballers to play a game in the Oakland Alameda County Coliseum . . .
Teams with new stadia in the works: Rays, Royals, Athletics, and White Sox.
Leading Off
José Altuve’s Loyal Flush:
He gets his wish to be an Astro for life.
By Jeff Kallman
Do they still argue over whether players were more "loyal" before the free agency era than after it? If they do, do you have the stones to ask the sole legitimate followup question: Why don't you argue over whether teams were more "loyal" to their players at all, never mind before or after the Messersmith decision?
Time was when you saw this or that big free agency contract signing by one player with a team other than his incumbent, or the team that reared him in the first place (not always the same thing), and heard these or those writers or fans or both bellowing that loyalty went the way of the stagecoach.
But time also was that you didn't often see this or that actual trade of a player by a team greeted with similar bellowing. (Rumored trades, of course, were something else, as in ancient rumors of a Ted Williams-for-Joe DiMaggio trade; or, Yogi Berra-for-Stan Musial.) Actually, I can remember one particularly stirring such lament, written at the time by a future commissioner about a particular franchise icon:
The irony is that Tom Seaver had in abundance precisely the quality that M. Donald Grant thinks he values most—institutional loyalty, the capacity to be faithful to an idea as well as to individuals . . .
The day after Seaver was exiled to Cincinnati by way of Montreal, a sheet was hung from a railing at Shea bearing the following legend:
I WAS A
BELIEVER
BUT NOW WE'VE
LOST
SEAVER.
I construe that text, and particularly its telling rhyme, to mean that the author has lost faith in the Mets’ ability to understand a simple, crucial fact: that among all the men who play baseball there is, very occasionally, a man of such qualities of heart and mind and body that he transcends even the great and glorious game, and that such a man is to be cherished, not sold.
---A. Bartlett Giamatti, "Tom Seaver' Farewell," Harper's, September 1977.
What's compelled me to think about baseball loyalty? Two things.
Thing One: The irrepressible Deadspin produced a slide show displaying every major league franchise that can boast Hall of Famers who played for them alone. They were provoked to do so with January's Hall of Fame results and announcement, including two out of three new Hall of Famers to have played for one franchise alone their entire major league careers.
And those two—Todd Helton and Joe Mauer—did it by choice. Neither player stepped in the free agency pool into which they were entitled to step. Both extended with their original teams and stayed until retirement. (Both, too, were injury addled through their careers: Helton with knee, intestine, hip and chronic back issues, Mauer with concussion issues.
Thing Two: There's now another distinct possibility of a single-team player reaching Cooperstown in due course. José Altuve has signed a contract extension (a) believed to make him the richest second baseman ever in terms of guaranteed money (adding his new $125 million five-year extension to the $151 million/five years he signed in 2018); and (b) guaranteed to keep him in Houston for the rest of his playing career.
Which is where Altuve wanted to stay in the first place. Unlike his normally somewhat guarded style, Altuve was quite public about his desire to remain an Astro rather than test his free agency market after this coming season. He even made sure his uber-agent Scott Boras understood that, just the way Bryce Harper did when he negotiated to become a Phillie for the rest of his playing career.
Assuming Altuve’s health holds up and he experiences a kinder, gentler decline phase than normally experienced by second basemen who play such demanding field positions---one without catastrophic injuries, of course—he should finish building his Hall of Fame case by the time he retires after a nineteenth Astro season. Should.
The single-team Hall of Fame list Altuve would join in that case is not as extensive as you think. (It does include two Astros, the fabled Killer Bs: Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell.) The list includes such antiques as Luke (Old Aches and Pains) Appling, Earle Combs, Joe DiMaggio, Red Faber, Bob Feller, and Red Faber; and, more modern such entries as Helton, Mauer, Ernie Banks, Johnny Bench, Tony Gwynn, Chipper Jones, Sandy Koufax, Barry Larkin, Mariano Rivera, and Mike Schmidt.
There are 273 players in the Hall of Fame, and a mere 21 percent of them played for one team their entire major league careers. Among that group, 40 played all or mostly in the era when they had no choice about whether their teams kept them, traded them, sold them, or released them to be picked up by any other team willing to have them. Seventeen played all or mostly in the era since the Messersmith ruling ended players' days as mere property.
In other words, 70 percent of single-team Hall of Famers played all or mostly in the era when their owners could have traded or sold them at will. But 30 percent played all or mostly in the free agency era, either declining to play the open market, playing it but returning to their original teams freely, or extending with their original teams before hitting an open market. Thirty percent is more than you might expect if all you choose to hear is the yammering about "no loyalty today."
Today's owners aren't more loyal than the reserve-era owners were. For one thing, there happen to be more of them. For another, where's the "loyalty"---to their best players, to their fans---of teams whose administrations either couldn't or wouldn't put forth competitive teams to support their Hall of Famers in waiting? The classic reserve era example was probably Ernie Banks. The classic post-Messersmith era example is future Hall of Famer Mike Trout.
Pan-damn-ic Series or no, at least Clayton Kershaw (who's just liable to stay a Dodger for life, even if his career has only one or at most two more seasons to go before he retires) got to slip a World Series ring into his finger. And Altuve got to slip an untainted one onto his finger in 2022.*
Next year's Baseball Writers Association of America Hall of Fame ballot will include two first-time entrants who played entire careers with a single team: Félix Hernández (Mariners) and Dustin Pedroia (Red Sox). Neither one is liable to be elected to the Hall even if they might, maybe, linger on an additional ballot or three. They looked like they were on the Hall of Fame track early in their careers. But their cases were dissipated by injuries.
A few more years from now will come two more Hall ballot entries who spent their entire careers with single teams. A pair of catchers named Buster Posey (Giants) and Yadier Molina (Cardinals), who'll join the ballot a year apart. Posey has an all-around peak value Hall of Fame case. Molina, the number two catcher all time for defensive total zone runs (+163, two behind leader Iván Rodríguez), has a purely defensive Hall case.
They may or may not become first-ballot Hall of Famers. But they will add to the roll of single-teamers if and when they are elected. Add Altuve at minimum to the picture and it might just push up to 22 percent single-teamers in that Cooperstown gallery of immortals.
It would also add Altuve to the Hall of Fame's starting lineup of the littlest big men (as in, well enough under six feet tall), where he'd push Joe Morgan elsewhere in the lineup by an inch, literally:
C—Yogi Berra (5’7”)
1B—Jud Wilson (5’8”)
2B—José Altuve (5’6”)
3B—George Kell (5’9”)
SS—Phil Rizzuto (5’6”)
OF—Wee Willie Keeler (5’4”), Mel Ott (5’9”), Kirby Puckett(5’8”).
DH—Joe Morgan. (5’7”)
SP—Whitey Ford. (5’10”)
The Hall relief pitchers are a tall lot; they're all six feet or taller. Two little big men out of the bullpen fall short of the Hall of Fame by a large enough margin. Which is a shame.
Bobby Shantz (5'6") was an American League MVP (1952) as a starter but was relegated to relief at 33 following a few seasons of arm and shoulder injuries. Elroy Face (5'8") was converted to relief in the minors, where he developed his formidable forkball while watching one-time Yankee relief legend Joe Page try a comeback with the Pirates.
Shantz and Face would have graced the aformentioned company magnificently. Assuming he pulls himself over the finish line, Altuve will too.
* Stop snarling about Astrogate. It's well enough on record: no less than former Astro shortstop Carlos Correa, the oft-public face of defending their tainted 2017 World Series title, said Altuve was the one 2017-18 Astro who rejected the off-field-based electronically stolen signs—even bawling his teammates out back in the dugout, if the infamous trash can banging to send the illegally-purloined intelligence to the batter's box happened while he batted.
Jeff Kallman is an IBWAA Life Member who writes Throneberry Fields Forever. He has written for the Society for American Baseball Research, The Hardball Times, Sports-Central, and other publications. He has lived in Las Vegas since 2007, where he plays the guitar and writes music when not writing baseball. He remains a Met fan since the day they were born.
Cleaning Up
Hall of Fame’s Traveling Photography Exhibition Opens In Dubuque Today
By Dan Schlossberg
For those who subscribe to the theory that a picture is worth 1,000 words, the Baseball Hall of Fame has an answer.
It has created a traveling exhibition called Picturing America’s Pastime: a Snapshot of the Photograph Collection at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
Featuring 51 framed photographs from the Hall’s collection of nearly 250,000 images, the show starts today at the Dubuque Museum of Art in Dubuque, Iowa — a stone’s throw from the Field of Dreams movie site and ballpark.
The touring exhibition includes photos taken by Charles M. Conlon, Carl J. Horner, Arthur Rothstein, William C. Greene, and Brad Mangin, among others, and captures the game’s evolution from tiny early ballparks to enormous, multi-decked sports palaces bathed in lights and cameras.
Much of the work on display is shown in sepia or black-and-white.
Unknown photographers took a good portion of the images, especially those from the late 19th or early 20th centuries.
After June 16, the road show moves on to the Mulva Cultural Center in De Pere, WI (through Sept. 29), the Upcountry History Museum - Furman University in Greenville, SC (2025), and the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art in Laurel, MS (also 2025).
At least one Hall of Famer, former pitcher Randy Johnson, has become an accomplished baseball photographer. Some of his work is on display in Cooperstown.
The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum opened on June 12, 1939 as the definitive repository of the game’s treasures. It has been expanded several times since that date.
Induction ceremonies for the four-man Class of 2024 will be held on July 21.
Former AP sportswriter Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ covers the game for Here’s The Pitch, forbes.com, Memories & Dreams, Sports Collectors Digest, USA TODAY Sports Weekly, and other outlets. His Hank Aaron biography comes out just before the 50th anniversary of No. 715 in April. Book Dan to speak via ballauthor@gmail.com.
Timeless Trivia: Dollars And Sense
“Yeah, but I had a better year than he did.”
— Babe Ruth telling reporters why he was holding out for more money than President Hoover was making
Greed conquers all: since Bryce Harper signed his 13-year, $330,000,000 contract with the Phillies in 2019, seven players got bigger deals: Shohei Ohtani, Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, Aaron Judge, Manny Machado, Francisco Lindor, and Fernando Tatis, Jr. . . .
The only full-time pitcher among the Top 10 highest-paid players is Dodgers rookie Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who got a 12-year, $325 million pact without throwing a big-league pitch . . .
It was the most lucrative contract ever given a pitcher . . .
Reduced for deferrals, Ohtani’s $700,000,000 contract is actually worth $460,814,765 . . .
Gone are the days when future Hall of Famers Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax staged a double holdout that dragged into spring training before settling for $100,000 apiece.
Know Your Editors
HERE’S THE PITCH is published daily except Sundays and holidays. Benjamin Chase [gopherben@gmail.com] handles Monday and Tuesday editions, Elizabeth Muratore [nymfan97@gmail.com] does Wednesday and Thursday, and Dan Schlossberg [ballauthor@gmail.com] edits the weekend editions on Friday and Saturday. Readers are encouraged to contribute comments, articles, and letters to the editor. HTP reserves the right to edit for brevity, clarity, and good taste.