Bert Campaneris Once Turned On Power
ALSO: INJURED ACES COULD CONTEND FOR 2025 CY YOUNGS
Pregame Pepper
Did you know…
Wondering whatever happened to the 20-game winner? There have been only three since 2019 because complete games are quickly becoming extinct (just 28 last year) . . .
Happy birthday to Justin Verlander, the oldest active player, who turned 42 on Feb. 20 but has not lost hope of becoming the first 300-game winner since Randy Johnson in 2009 . . .
Verlander, now with the Giants, once pitched at least 200 innings for eight straight years and has led his league in innings pitched four times . . .
Pitchers averaged just 5.22 innings per start last year as managers became more and more reluctant to let them stay in to face the opposing lineup for the third time . . .
Adam Duvall and Anthony Rizzo remain unsigned because both demanded $3 million contracts despite miserable performances last year . . .
Coming next Friday: an “All-Star team” of free agents whose careers are in jeopardy mainly because no teams knuckled under to their financial demands.
Leading Off
A Campy Power Surge
By Paul Semendinger
Today, when a random player has an sudden power surge, a strange and unaccounted-for increase in home runs, some immediately wonder if that player has found a new legal (or illegal) supplement that all of a sudden made that player a power-hitter.
That often isn't the case, though. Sometimes a player simply has a career year, everything goes right, or other factors beyond the player's control helped him achieve a total unforeseen by anyone.
When fans think of players with unexpected jumps in homers, they often cite some of the following:
Brady Anderson (50 homers in 1996). His previous career high was 21. Over the previous three seasons before blasting 50 homers, Anderson averaged 14 homers each season.
Wade Boggs (24 home runs in 1987). His previous career high was 8. Over the previous three seasons before knocking out those 24 homers, Boggs averaged 7 homers each season.
Joe Mauer (28 homers in 2009). His previous career high was 13. Over the previous three seasons before blasting 28 homers, Mauer averaged 10 homers each season.
Davey Johnson (43 homers in 1973). His previous career high was 18. Over the previous three seasons before clubbing 43 homers, Johnson averaged 11 homers each season.
Jacoby Ellsbury (32 homers in 2011). His previous career high was 9. Over the previous three seasons, before crushing 32 homers, Ellsbury averaged 6 homers each season.
Baseball history is replete with examples such as these. In fact, even Roger Maris fits into this description...
Roger Maris (61 homers in 1961). His previous career high was 39. Over the previous three seasons before setting the all-time single season home run record, Maris averaged 28 homers each season.
One player, most people never think about when citing remarkable home run totals is Bert Campaneris.
When people think back at the career of Bert Campaneris, they often remember him as the shortstop on the great Oakland A's teams of the early 1970s. Campaneris was a smooth fielder who was also an adept base-stealer. Campy led the American League in stolen bases in 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1970, and 1972. During the Athletics’ great run, Campaneris was an All-Star each year from 1972 through 1975. He also earned Most Valuable Player votes in each of those seasons.
Known for once playing every position in a single major-league game, he performed the same feat in the minors.
Bert Campaneris is remembered for much, but of all the accomplishments he is remembered for, hitting home runs is certainly not one of them. Over his first five full major-league seasons, Campaneris hit a grand total of 20 home runs. His career season high to that point was 6.
And then, in 1970, Bert Campaneris hit 22 homers. In doing this, he more than doubled his total career output — in one season!
This power surge did not last. Campaneris never reached double figures in homers again. His next highest season total came in 1972 when he hit 8.
I was very interested in this singular season for Campaneris. I wondered if there was a reason for his prolific output of round-trippers. One answer that interested me was the fact that in 1970, Charlie Lau, who would one day be considered one of the greatest hitting coaches ever, served in that capacity for the A's that 1970 season. Should some of the credit go to Lau? Maybe.
The season before, 1969, when Campaneris hit only two home runs, the batting coach was Joe DiMaggio. The season after Campy's 22-homer season, 1971, when he hit only five home runs, the hitting coach was... no one.
According to Baseball-Reference, the A's did not have a hitting coach in 1971. In fact, Baseball-Reference doesn't list any player serving as a hitting coach for the Oakland A's after 1970 until 1983. It seems to this author that the idea of hitting instruction was handled by some or all of the coaches who also held other titles such as first base coach, third base coach or simply "coach" with no other specifics.
While it is possible, and maybe likely, that Charlie Lau played a role in Campaneris' big year with the long ball, what is also interesting is that Lau wasn't necessarily known as a coach who taught people to hit homers. Lau was a coach that taught batters how to be consistent hitters, not necessarily power threats. In fact, Lau's book on hitting is titled The Art of Hitting .300 (not How To Club Homers).
How did Campaneris find a sudden power surge? In the end, it could have just been one of those special seasons a ballplayer has.
Paul Semendinger, Ed.D. is the Vice President of the Elysian Fields Chapter of SABR and contributes to the IBWAA newsletter monthly. Paul has been published in three SABR books and authored several of his own, including Scattering the Ashes, The Least Among Them, Impossible is an Illusion, 365.2: Going The Distance, and From Compton to the Bronx (Roy White's autobiography). Paul's first (of three volumes) on the Battle of Gettysburg will be published by Sunbury Press in 2025. His next book on the Yankees will be published by Artemesia Publishing in February 2026. Paul frequently gives book talks, motivational speeches, and more.
Cleaning Up
Healthy Again, Tommy John Survivors Bid For 2025 Cys
By Dan Schlossberg
Suppose, just suppose, that Jacob deGrom and Sandy Alcantara follow their Tommy John surgeries with Cy Young Awards.
Don’t laugh: it wouldn’t be that much of a surprise.
Both are back at the top of their rotations and pitching well so far this spring.
Alcantara won the pitching trophy in 2022 even though his Miami Marlins went nowhere. A year later, with his elbow already barking, the hard-throwing right-hander went 7-12 and was never the same on the mound.
When deGrom won the award twice during his tenure with the New York Mets, the team did well too, remaining into contention all season.
That earned him a five-year, $185 million contract from the Texas Rangers, who hope they can finally receive a decent return on investment this season. The two-time National League All-Star has given the Rangers a grand total of nine innings, spread over two seasons, since signing.
At age 36, he’s a bit long in the tooth for a Cy Young Award contender but men like Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer were older than they won.
Scherzer, now with the Toronto Blue Jays, was 39 when he took the trophy for the third time. Verlander was the same age when he won his third three years ago.
There are plenty of candidates for the two league awards.
Blake Snell, starting his first season with the Los Angeles Dodgers, has won it twice — once in each league. Max Fried, who also changed teams via free agency, could bid for his first, with teammate Gerrit Cole — a former winner — a probable challenger.
Then there’s Corbin Burnes, the National League’s Cy Young winner with Milwaukee in 2023 but the unrewarded ace of the Baltimore Orioles in 2024. Now he’s back in the NL as the top dog in the Arizona Diamondbacks’ quintet.
In addition to Snell, the Dodgers could have potential Young recipients in Yoshinobu Yamamoto, rookie Roki Sasaki, and even Shohei Ohtani, the two-way star whose elbow brace prevented him from pitching last year.
Another pitcher returning from elbow brace surgery, Atlanta’s Spencer Strider, led the NL with 20 wins and 281 strikeouts in 2023, his last full season.
And don’t forget reigning NL Rookie of the Year Paul Skenes, who started the All-Star Game for the National League after earning a call-up to Pittsburgh in May.
Last year’s winners both won the Pitching Triple Crown and rate among the best of their profession. Tarik Skubal, ace of the Detroit Tigers, has youth on his side, while veteran Chris Sale of the Atlanta Braves has the edge on experience. In fact, he shares the record for most consecutive All-Star Game starts (3) with Lefty Gomez and Robin Roberts.
Also to be considered — at least as dark horses — are Clayton Kershaw, a three-time Cy Young recipient, who’s due back from shoulder and back woes in June, and Shane Bieber, erstwhile ace of the Cleveland Guardians and a Cy Young winner in 2020.
Other candidates include durable Phillies ace Zack Wheeler, up-and-coming Cubs ace Justin Steele, and Zac Gallen, Arizona’s ace before the team signed Burnes.
Baseball history is filled with pitchers who have won Cy Young and MVP honors in the same season but only one (Fernando Valenzuela) has won the pitching trophy and Rookie of the Year honors in the same season.
Timeless Trivia: Run, Rickey, Run
Not only did Rickey Henderson steal a record 1,406 bases but finished miles ahead of everyone else, with Lou Brock second at 938 — some 468 bases behind the leader . . .
The top active base-stealer, Starling Marte, has just 354 . . .
Henderson stole at least three bases in a game 71 times, including four in a game 19 times and five in a game once . . .
He also hit more leadoff home runs (81) than anyone else . . .
Henderson never had a 30/30 season, with his best power output 28 home runs in a single season.
Know Your Editors
HERE’S THE PITCH is published daily except Sundays and holidays. Benjamin Chase [gopherben@gmail.com] handles the Monday issue with Dan Freedman [dfreedman@lionsgate.com] editing Tuesday and Jeff Kallman [easyace1955@outlook.com] at the helm Wednesday and Thursday. Original editor Dan Schlossberg [ballauthor@gmail.com], does the weekend editions on Friday and Saturday. Former editor Elizabeth Muratore [nymfan97@gmail.com] is now co-director [with Benjamin Chase and Jonathan Becker] of the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America, which publishes this newsletter and the annual ACTA book of the same name. Readers are encouraged to contribute comments, articles, and letters to the editor. HtP reserves the right to edit for brevity, clarity, and good taste.