Does Jose Bautista piss you off?

[ls7plus]

Fast forward 30 years from the up to 1980 limitation--Does Jose Bautista, with his one and one-half year transformation from six years of being Mr. Mediocre (at best!) into Mantle/Mays/Williams, or Bonds/McGwire at their PED best piss anyone else off?

A pet peave of mine--I will not watch any Toronto Blue Jay games because of his bullshit.

Larry

[Robextend]

In all fairness Bautista was never really given a true shot to be an every day player. Also these days with random testing I would seriously doubt he is "on" anything. I personally think what he is doing is great for the game and he is definitely innocent until proven guilty. If you want to talk about Bonds, McGwire, Clemens, A-Rod...fine...but Bautista doesn't belong in that group.

[jb217676]

Originally Posted by ls7plus

Fast forward 30 years from the up to 1980 limitation--Does Jose Bautista, with his one and one-half year transformation from six years of being Mr. Mediocre (at best!) into Mantle/Mays/Williams, or Bonds/McGwire at their PED best piss anyone else off?

A pet peave of mine--I will not watch any Toronto Blue Jay games because of his bullshit.

Larry

Huh? Mr. Bautista changed his swing before going into last season, the main reason for his improved batting. He also swings extremely hard and doesn't hit many ground balls, it's all or nothing with him. I doubt he's on steroids, he's been the same size and build pretty much since he was a RC. The reason for the improved stats is mechanical, not chemical. When you see him in person, he's actually quite skinny.

Don't hate the player, hate your team for not picking him up when he was thrown away by the Pirates in 2008 for a player to be named later (Robinson Diaz?)

[D. Bergin]

Did George Foster piss you off between 1976-78, after 6-7 mediocre years in baseball?

It happens. Guys sometimes hit homers without being on the juice.

I'll be pissed off when I see some sort of evidence other then being successful at what one does.

[ls7plus]

Gee, I would have thought that most of us would have long since lost our sense of naivite about ten years ago, so these responses utterly shock me. Name one other player who laid down such a solid albeit purely mediocre base of talent (or decided lack of same ) for six years in a row, thoroughly establishing himself to be marginal major league quality at his very best, then all of a sudden blossoms at age 29-30 to apparently become one of the best players there's ever been, literally towering above Mt. Olympus. Better than Cabrera, better than Pujols, better than anybody else! And if you buy that achievement, I got some bridges to sell you C-H-E-A-P-P-P!!! (could use the cash to start my E107 set in style!).

Seriously, this never happens in nature, and I can save you considerable research time--its never happened before, and it never will in nature, because it is against nature, just as it was for Bonds to continue to dramatically improve year after year past the age of 35. Since this combination of non-productivity laid down consistently over a number of years followed immediately by immense productivity, with no transition in between simply doesn't exist in nature itself, it must, therefore, have been produced through other than natural causes. Supreme talent nearly always makes itself known at a very young age (check the minor league and early major league stats of Mantle, Mays, Williams, DiMaggio, Gehrig and even Griffey and Chipper Jones, if you don't believe me). Old Jose, with who knows what tricks are up his sleeve (or down his britches) is truly one of a kind.

Let's hope for the good of the game he stays that way!

Larry

Gee, D. Bergin, I would have though that you'd have known that George Foster was far from mediocre before hitting 52 homers in 1977, as he hit 29 homers and knocked in 121 runs while batting .306 in 1976, and hit 23 homers while hitting .300 in 1975. Hardly fits the model of Bautista's .235-.240 with 13 or 14 homers YEAR AFTER YEAR just before the big 54 homerun year, now does he? Seems a little more like just coming into his own over a number of years, with everyting just happening to go right that particular year (Foster followed up in 1978 with 40 homers, followed by 30 in 1979).

C'mon guys, bring on more supposedly similar matches to Bautista--I'd be happy to take them on! And don't worry Jeff, I would be surprised if you as a Blue Jays guy didn't attempt to defend the undefendable with an argument like that. San Fransiscans defended Bonds throughout too. Look where that got them. Plus, that explanation reminds me of Pudge Rodriguez here in Detroit, the year he lost 26 pounds and couldn't explain to reporters the diet he supposedly used to accomplish the weight loss. Unfortunately, with it went his power, never to be regained. C'mon, you guys are better than this!!! You don't have to cling to fantasy.

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by ls7plus

Gee, I would have thought that most of us would have long since lost our sense of naivite about ten years ago, so these repsonses utterly shock me. Name one other player who laid down such a solid albeit purely mediocre base of talent (or decided lack of same ) for six years in a row, thoroughly establishing himself to be marginal major league quality at his very best, then all of a sudden blossems at age 29-30 to apparently become one of the best players there's ever been. And if you buy that achievement, I got some bridges to sell you C-H-E-A-P-P-P!!! (could use the cash to start my E107 set in style!).

Seriously, this never happens in nature, and I can save you the research time--its never happened before, and it never will in nature, because it is against nature, same as it was for Bonds to continue to dramatically improve year after year past the age of 35. Alternatively, it is a combinaltion that simply doesn't exist in nature, and must, therefore, have been produced throughother than natural causes. Supreme talent nearly always makes itself known at a very young age (check the minor league stats of Mantle, Mays, Williams, DiMaggio and even Chipper Jones, if you don't believe me. Old Jose, with who knows what tricks are up his sleeve (or down his britches) is truly one of a kind.

Let's hope for the good of the game he stays that way!

Larry

I thought I already named a guy. Did you ignore it?

[ls7plus]

With regard to random testing, Rob, the game was always played in the Olympic track and field events as follows: (1) the chemists were ahead of the testers; (2) the testers caught up; (3) the chemists surged again ahead with the use of substances undetectable through current tests. That statement simply reflects a static view of life that most desiring to achieve at any cost do not at all subscribe to.

Larry

And no, D. Bergin, you most certainly did not name such a guy--see the second post above. Foster was anything but medicocre before his 50-homer season.

[ls7plus]

Matter of fact, I can think of one guy who fits the mold, sorta--Joe Hardy, the main character in Douglas Wallop's "The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennnant," brought to the stage and movies as "Damn Yankees!" Oops, Hardy was a work of fiction (kind of like Jose in a sense, huh?).

Can't anyone here mount even a credible argument in support of the above positions???

Larry

[fkw]

No He is one of my favorite players NOW

Hitting a Homerun is not hard to do... I was hitting 350'-440' aluminum bat HRs once every 20 swings, at 16 years old....... and I was drafted as a pitcher, not a hitter...

A HR is a solidly hit balls with some backspin. If youve ever hit one you know it the second you make contact, and why..... The HARD part is making the solid connection, reading the pitch out of the pitchers hand and not being fooled by the speed spin location and movement... none of that has anything to do with some shot or pill (PEDs), its pure talent and every single person that has played some upper level ball has gone through times where they just cant miss, everything they see is fat, easily read, and every swing they take they make square contact on the sweet spot (wood sweet spot 3-4", aluminum 8+")...... some HS players may only have a single batting practice where they are completely "on", some MLB players... it may last for 10-15 years...
Bautista is not a big guy, but you dont need to be big to hit a HR, just big enough to get some bat speed going, and making solid contact with some backspin.... simple

He is seeing the ball WELL, and Not Missing!! Period!


Dont hate!
If you have to Hate.......... Hate someone like Mantle for letting his career slip so bad after his 30th B-Day.... lack of hustle, period .... there is no way you can explain why the slowest player to ever play in the big leagues (Bengie Molina) averaged more doubles per 162 games played than Mantle... and dont give me the "he was injured" BS, if He could play Centerfield, He could run out a gapper or shot down the line and make it to 2B. (My M.M. rant for the week )

[HRBAKER]

It only pisses me off if I am a Pirates fan. But then again if I am a Pirates fan I am already plenty pissed off so I probably haven't noticed.

[novakjr]

Many factors play into Bautista's emergence as a beast.

1)he clearly wasn't ready to be in the big's, yet he got to be during all those years in Pittsburgh. There are many great late bloomers that languish in the minors until 28 or 29 only to have some monstrous years at the big league level.

2)Confidence is everything. Many players that are brought up too soon get discouraged to the point where they don't see reality, and the mentality of thinking they suck, becomes a trend. While many times, a change of team or simple encouragement from someone such as a new manager or hitting coach can give them a new confidence.

3)That same change in hitting coach will often lead to a change in a player's swing. Which is clearly working for Bautista in this case.

4)Sometimes simple placement in the batting order will lead to seeing better pitches. Which, duh! Lead to more home runs.

5)Sometimes a player just gets the lucky with what pitches he's getting. I'll use Brady Anderson as an example here, yes, I know he juiced, But you don't go from 16-50 on steroids alone. Luck plays a huge part in it..

6)as someone stated earlier, Bautista is an all or nothing type hitter. Once all the other factors play in, if a player starts connecting, pitchers will start walking him or pitching around him. Which will often lead to the only hittable pitches he sees being mistakes. And he's been seeing alot of mistakes lately. That's the main difference between a guy like Bautista or Dave Kingman(dude was a beast, especially in '79) and guys like Richie Sexson and Russel Branyan.

Aside from not having almost no luck earlier in his career, Bautista would be the modern equivalent of Dave Kingman. Kingman peaked at around 30, partially due to a change in coaching that more suited him, plus some luck.. A difference in pitching and managerial approaches in this era are the reason a player of this type CAN bat .350+ rather than, if lucky, .288 in the older eras, as in Kingman's best season. Back in those day, the pitching approach was more, challenge him, if he hit's one then, oh well. And that was pretty much the same approach most pitchers took to Sexson as well. This "throw crap pitches and hope not to f*** up" approach is somewhat of a newer thing...

[Robextend]

Rico Petrocelli (Never hit more than 18HR before 1968):
1968 406AB 12HR
1969 535AB 40HR

Davey Johnson (Never hit more than 18HR before 1972):
1972 376AB 5HR
1973 559AB 40HR

Jose Bautista
2009 336AB 13HR
2010 569AB 54HR

Please explain the difference...I am sure I can dig up more examples as well. The point is that these things DO happen. And if you want to accuse Bautista, go ahead and accuse Davey Johnson and Rico Petrocelli as well.

Thanks - Rob

[steve B]

Edited to add that some guys are duplicated because it took me a long time to get this post together while taking care of the baby.

Leaving out early career cup if coffee type seasons.

Cecil Fielder - 4 years of half seasons poor to ordinary batting average and 14 Hr his best year. One year in Japan? Comes back to hit 51 hr .277 Sliding but reasonably productive through 96

Dave Kingman - good but not amazing for 4 years in SF goes to the Mets and goes from a sub 30 Hr hitter (Although barely under one year) to 36 and 37hr
production like a yo-yo the rest of his career.

Darrell Evans - 1971-82 with typically 20 or fewer HR. one outlier season with 41 in 73 and a good but not great year with 25 in 74. Then 30 in 83, 40 in 85, and 34 in 87.

Frank Howard - 1960 -66 Mostly teens or low 20's in HR 31 in 62 and 28 in 63
(62 expansion year if you buy that stuff) Then 67-70 36,44,48,44 HR

Jack Clark - 77-86 Good but not great and inconsistent. usually 20+HR but no more than 27 and only 3 years in the upper 20's. Then 35 in 87, a crazy year for HR anyway, but upper 20's for the next 4 years

Ted Kluszewski- 48-52 only one year over 20HR and that only 25. 53-56 40,49,47,35 HR.


yes, most good hitters are good right away. But taking a few years to get going while unusual isn't unheard of.

Steve B

[Robextend]

Good examples Steve. Either way Bautista could fall into a category of 1-2 seasons of greatness and then fall back like a Davey Johnson, or can be like one of Steve's examples and be a consistent bigtime HR hitter after a few years of not being one.

The examples are out there....

A couple more:

Wally Post
1954 451AB 18HR
1955 601AB 40HR

Bob Cerv
1957 345AB 11HR
1958 515AB 38HR

[ls7plus]

I think virtually all of you have missed the point. We're talking about a player whose performance for SIX YEARS was barely good enough to stay in the major leagues, who then catapulted out of nowhere into THE 99th PERCENTILE of current hitters, and should his production continue at current levels, certainly above the 95th percentile of all time, at age 29! I repeat once more for clarity: IT DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY IN NATURE--IT NEVER HAS, AND IT NEVER WILL! None of your examples fit that mold at all. Joe Hardy is far closer, and it is not a coincidence that he was purely a fictitious character. Frank Howard doesn't even come close to a fit--He hit 23 homers as a rooke, batting .268 in 1960, 15 in a half season's worth of at bats in 1961, while hitting for a .296 average, 31 homers in 493 at bats in '62, once again hitting .296, 28 HR's in only 417 at bats in '63--he had but one down season similar to Bautista's six, which was 1964, when he hit but .226, although he still managed 24 HR's.

Dave Kingman beyond any question doesn't fit the Bautista mold either, with a string of homerun seasons starting when he was just 23 years old of 29, 24, 18, 36, 37, 26, 28, 48, 18 (in only half a season), 22 (in two-thirds of a season), 37, 13 (in half a season's worth of at bats, 248), 35, 30 and 35. Nope, no Jose Bautista there!

Wally Post? Oops, sorry once again. Post hit 18 homeruns in 1954, a season which he started when he was only 24 years old, and batted just 451 times, hitting what was most likely at least close to a league average of .255. From a solid base, he did indeed progress to 40 homers the next year with 33% more at bats, followed by a run of years in which he was obviously not entirely healthy and played less than full time, playing in only 143, 134, 110, 132, 111, 99 and 109 games, yet posting respectable homerun totals of 36, 20, 12, 22, 19, 20, and 17 (in only 285 at bats in 1962). Sorry, no Jose Bautista there, either considering the factor of six entirely marginal major league performance years, or ANY PERIOD WHATSOEVER WHERE HE WAS EVEN ARGUABLY THE BEST IN THE GAME. Not only no cigar there, but not even any lolipop!

Rico Petrocelli does indeed bear a superficial resemblance, but his years preceding his big 40 homerun year included years of 13 (in less than two-thirds of a season), 18, 17, and 12 (in only 406 at bats), with batting averages which superficially may SEEM to resemble Bautista's, but were actually cose to the league averages in the heart of the pitcher's era, with a much larger strike zone and five inch higher mound. Plus, a shortstop good for 15-20 homers, fields well (Petrocelli did), and hits for the league average would not be considered a mediocre player. Petrocelli's big year came in 1969, when they shrunk the strike zone and lowered the mound, a time when a lot of other hitters achieved their career best years, including the aforementioned Frank Howard, Willie McCovey, Harmon Killebrew, arguably Reggie Jackson, etc. And I don't think anyone would have seriously nominated him as being in the running even then for the title of best hitter in the game. We're also not talking a 70-homerun pace here, as Bautista has been on since last May. Maybe a lolipop here for Rico, but certainly no cigar!
More tonight, when I have more time.

Nice lively discussion. Hope you don't take it personally

Larry

[Robextend]

I would hope no one would take baseball talk personally.

But let's break it down:

2004 Only 88 ABs
2005 Only 28 ABs

How should both of those seasons even count for anything? So instead of the 6 years, it is really 4. There has been talk ad nauseam about how his swing had been dramatically changed. How about the fact he tore up the league the last month of 2009?

But also, how don't any of those examples mentioned above prove that these occurrences do happen?

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by ls7plus

And no, D. Bergin, you most certainly did not name such a guy--see the second post above. Foster was anything but medicocre before his 50-homer season.

I pretty clearly stated the years Foster broke out. What about the 6 years in baseball prior to that?

He had 1 halfway decent season from 69' to 75' prior to his breakout year in '76.

Maybe Bautista is guilty, I don't know, but I'm not going to throw a guy under the bus without any evidence other then "he's doing really well right now".

Ben Oglivie is another guy who didn't develop a power swing until he was around 30 or so.

[novakjr]

Originally Posted by ls7plus

I think virtually all of you have missed the point. We're talking about a player whose performance for SIX YEARS was barely good enough to stay in the major leagues, who then catapulted out of nowhere into THE 99th PERCENTILE of current hitters, and should his production continue at current levels, certainly above the 95th percentile of all time, at age 29! I repeat once more for clarity: IT DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY IN NATURE--IT NEVER HAS, AND IT NEVER WILL! None of your examples fit that mold at all. More tonight, when I have more time, but let me end with this for now: the homers hit by Bonds and McGwire are certainly entitled to just as much respect as those by Bautista, and everybody knows what they did not for, but to, the game.

Nice lively discussion. Hope you don't take it personally

Larry

Simple, he shouldn't have been in the majors for most of those years. Dude simply wasn't ready yet. The only reason he was up in the bigs is because the Pirates for the last 15-20 years or so have been fielding a minor league team.. I'm not trying to put down the Pirates or the city of Pittsburgh, but the facts are the facts. Even as an Clevelander, I've always liked the Pirates(not as much as the Indians though), and my father would take the family on a trip to Pittsburgh once a year when I was a kid to catch a Pirates game. Obviously I hate the Steelers. I do respect the hell out of them though...The Pirates, not so much, but I've always wanted to see them be a better team than they have been.

Jeromy Burnitz for on comes to mind as a late bloomer. He really didn't get much of a chance in the majors until he was 28 and showed some pretty good power once he was ready to be an everyday player.

Henry Rodriguez was another late bloomer. Didn't get much of a break into the majors until he was 28. Another solid power hitter in his prime.

Anyways, after looking around at a few other players. The closest I would compare Bautista up to this point in his career would probably be Kevin Mitchell. Mitchell put up some inconsistent averages and showed minimal to average power until he was 27 and then hit 47 home runs. Followed by 35, 27,9,19,30 and then pretty much fell completely off the map.

[novakjr]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

I pretty clearly stated the years Foster broke out. What about the 6 years in baseball prior to that?

He had 1 halfway decent season from 69' to 75' prior to his breakout year in '76.

Maybe Bautista is guilty, I don't know, but I'm not going to throw a guy under the bus without any evidence other then "he's doing really well right now".

Ben Oglivie is another guy who didn't develop a power swing until he was around 30 or so.

Sometimes you see a guy in the majors that is putting up average numbers and think that he's ready, but if you watch him closely, you just know he's not ready, he's not comfortable, he's not confident. Not to use for comparison to Bautista, but as an example of mindset. Michael Brantley(I know he didn't play much) from the Indians, prior to this year, he'd show some flashes of being good, but didn't look comfortable at the plate at all. He looked scared, in over his head, even more than was reflected in his stats. He looked that bad to me. Now, watching the Indians this year, he looks very confident, very disciplined, he appears to feel as though he belongs, he's ready. And it's showing in his stats...

You can tell when a player is at the plate and he's thinking "please don't strike out, or hit into a double play. If I f*** this up they're gonna send me down", and you can tell when a player is thinking "I'm getting on base, and I don't care how, but I'm doing it".. Right now Bautista is thinking "Go ahead and pitch around me, but if you F*** up, I'm gonna hit the snot out of it."

[Robextend]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

Maybe Bautista is guilty, I don't know, but I'm not going to throw a guy under the bus without any evidence other then "he's doing really well right now".

Agreed. It is certainly reasonable to have some skepticism for his accomplishments, but it is not reasonable to accuse without a sniff of evidence. The OP seemed to imply an accusation over skepticism.

[steve B]

I wouldn't call his performance over the first 4-6 years "barely good enough to stay in the major leagues" Average season? 9.83HR .238 average. Remove his first year when he played for 4 different teams and did pretty much nothing and 05 when he barely played at all, and those numbers would look slightly better for power, less for average 14.75 HR/year .229 average
Not counting 2010 and 2011 his 162 game average for HR is 16.66
A lot of guys have made a career of numbers like that. And a lot of guys have hung around for 10 years or so doing that or less while teams waited for them to live up to their potential.


I'll even go out on a limb with a guy who has been implicated, but not proven to have used. David Ortiz. 6 years in Minn trying to stay in the majors mostly because of management changes plus not being a guy the team had invested in all that heavily. While there they had him trying to be an opposite field slap hitter. Comes to Boston and gets told to swing away. Yes, like many his numbers for his best years are suspect, but some of the improvement has to be attributed to a difference in expectatons and hitting style.
Bautista has had a couple rough years very early in his career. 4 teams his first year! Kingman played for 4 teams in one year, but in the middle of his career. And Bautista has had one split season since. You'd have to be incredibly confident not to be affected by that.

SteveB

[ls7plus]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

I pretty clearly stated the years Foster broke out. What about the 6 years in baseball prior to that?

He had 1 halfway decent season from 69' to 75' prior to his breakout year in '76.

Maybe Bautista is guilty, I don't know, but I'm not going to throw a guy under the bus without any evidence other then "he's doing really well right now".

Ben Oglivie is another guy who didn't develop a power swing until he was around 30 or so.

I think you missed the whole point re Foster, Dave. His "breakout" which might be considered similar to Bautista's Babe Ruth imitation was his 52 homerun year, and the point was that he, unlike our little Jose, didn't go from zero to hero. Instead, my point was that Foster demonstrated substantial talent for two years before that (he was 26, by the way, when he had his first good season, 23 HR, 78 RBI, .300, followed it up with another the next year, 29 HR, 121 RBI, .306), then had a year where obviously everything went right (52 HR, 149 RBI, .320). Bautista did not even remotely demonstrate substantial talent over the course of any full year before the 2010 season, when he came out of nowhere to hit 54 homers. Do you know how many players hit 54 or more homers before the steroid era? The answer is Ruth, Hack Wilson, Foxx, Kiner, Mantle, Maris and Greenberg. Unless this old post-50 brain-faded fan missed one somehow, THAT'S JUST SEVEN PLAYERS. NONE, REPEAT NONE, OF THEM CAME OUT OF NOWHERE TO DO SO. Please don't even think Hack Wilson--he won four homerun titles in five years up to and including his 56 homer campaign, losing out only by one to Hornsby's 40 one year earlier. And Maris had previously hit 28 for the Indians/A's in 1958 during a season he started at only 23 years of age; was on pace for a truly star-level season that went off-track only due to injury for the A's in
1959, causing his average to plummet below the over .300 pace with power he had maintained before the injury (although he and that season did stay intact long enough for him to make the all-star team in '59); and would have hit over 40 homers in 1960 but for injury (rather than the 39 he did hit in only 136 games, winning the MVP with 112 RBI's and a .283 average).

Even Oglivie didn't come out of nowhere when he hit his 41 homers in 1980 (and that's a long way from the 60-70 full-season pace Jose has been on since last May). He hit 15 in only 305 at bats in 1976 (which would have given him 29, had he maintained the same pace and gotten the same number of at bats--592--he had in that 41 HR season); hit 21 homers in 450 at bats (equal to approximately 28, had he had the 592 AB's of his big season) in 1977; hit 18 homeruns in 469 at bats with a .303 average in 1978; and 29 HR's in 514 AB with a .282 average in 1979.

By the way, the reason why you guys are having trouble coming up with an anywhere near comparable match to the inconceivable progression Bautista has demonstrated over the course of the last year and 40 or so games is because THERE IS NONE! It is amusing to watch, however, and I do think it demonstrates something noble in all of your characters, in that you are willing to believe the best about somebody, when the evidence (given, it is circumstantial in nature) is to the contrary. I've been wrong in the past (heck, I loved McGwire from '92-2000, and believed he was legit), and it is a veritable certainty I will be wrong again, probably often. But there is something very disturbing to me in the record of this player, in that it has never been remotely duplicated during the years between 1920 (the first 50+ homer season) and 1990, by which time a whole lot of nonsense had begun to occur.

Larry

[ls7plus]

Originally Posted by steve B

I wouldn't call his performance over the first 4-6 years "barely good enough to stay in the major leagues" Average season? 9.83HR .238 average. Remove his first year when he played for 4 different teams and did pretty much nothing and 05 when he barely played at all, and those numbers would look slightly better for power, less for average 14.75 HR/year .229 average
Not counting 2010 and 2011 his 162 game average for HR is 16.66
A lot of guys have made a career of numbers like that. And a lot of guys have hung around for 10 years or so doing that or less while teams waited for them to live up to their potential...

SteveB

Guys like that, Steve, have names like Ron Swoboda. He was pretty much exactly like that for the rest of his career, after hitting something like 10 homers in his first 118 at bats as a rookie in 1965. Ron had 2581 career at bats, hit 73 homeruns (or about 14 to 15 per every 500 AB full season), and batted .242 lifetime. Swoboda lasted 9 years, and it was never a given he was going to make the team in any of them. That's why that kind of performance is called "marginal." Take a tour through the Baseball Encyclopedia or Bill James Major League Handbook, presented by Stats Inc., and you'll find that very few such outfielders last ten years.

I love your passion.

Larry

[ls7plus]

Originally Posted by novakjr

...
Anyways, after looking around at a few other players. The closest I would compare Bautista up to this point in his career would probably be Kevin Mitchell. Mitchell put up some inconsistent averages and showed minimal to average power until he was 27 and then hit 47 home runs. Followed by 35, 27,9,19,30 and then pretty much fell completely off the map.

Kevin Mitchell--big, out of context power year in 1989...1989...hmmm. Jose Canseco came up to stay in 1986, and stated in "Juiced" that he didn't believe he would even have made the majors if he hadn't already been taking steroids then. 1989...Kevin Mitchell...hmmm...

Larry

[ls7plus]

Originally Posted by Robextend

Rico Petrocelli (Never hit more than 18HR before 1968):
1968 406AB 12HR
1969 535AB 40HR

Davey Johnson (Never hit more than 18HR before 1972):
1972 376AB 5HR
1973 559AB 40HR

Jose Bautista
2009 336AB 13HR
2010 569AB 54HR

Please explain the difference...I am sure I can dig up more examples as well. The point is that these things DO happen. And if you want to accuse Bautista, go ahead and accuse Davey Johnson and Rico Petrocelli as well.

Thanks - Rob

OK, Rob, I will explain the difference between what Johnson did and what Bautista has done. Johnson, in contrast to Bautista, was quite a good second baseman for the Orioles, making three all-star teams for them in 1968 through 1970, and batted over .280 three years in a row from 1969 on, when the mound was lowered and the strike zone made much smaller. Now let's see: Did Jose Bautista ever make an all-star team before 2010? Did he ever hit .280 before then? And with regard to Johnson's big homerun surge in 1973--that was the year he was traded to Atlanta, when the Braves still played in Fulton County Stadium, rightfully nicknamed, "the Launching Pad." Bill James had this to say about that stadium's propensity for increasing homerun totals in the context of Hank Aaron:

"...As you can see by the home/road homerun totals, to a considerable
degree Aaron's late-in-life resurgence is a statistical illusion created by
moving from a very poor homerun park, County Stadium in Milwaukee, to a
very good homerun park, Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta. At his peak,
Aaron would have hit 50 homeruns, and probably more than once, had he
been playing in an average homerun park; playing his best years in Atlanta
(or Wrigley Field) he absolutely would have hit more than 60 homeruns in a
season..."

Davey hit 26 of his 43 at Fulton County Stadium in 1973. While he did hit 17 in more neutral parks on the road that year, doubling that to 34 as representing his real, non-park related power surge, is a far, far cry from Bautista's 54 homeruns in 2010, and, as we speak, Bautista's 16 homers in about a fourth of a season or less (given Bautista's games missed to injury this year) and .370 average in 2011. And I don't think anyone would be in danger of confusing even Johnson's '73 stats with Babe Ruth's.

Interesting comparison, though I don't see anything to accuse Johnson of, other than taking advantage of a very favorable homerun park (the Park Factor for Fulton was 115, meaning games played there produced 115% of the runs produced in a neutral park. The infamous Baker Bowl, said to have greatly inflated hall-of-famer Chuch Klein's stats, had a park factor of 113-117 when Klein was in his prime playing half his games there). My assumption would be that Johnson tried to get more loft on the ball after the trade, which, as someone who has played a great deal, I can tell you can be done simply by raising the hitter's back elbow. This puts more loop in the swing, resulting in more flyballs and less line drives. And, as noted in an earlier post, there's nothing to accuse Petrocelli of, other than taking advantage of the obvious difficulty pitchers had in adjusting when he had his big year in '69, the first year they lowered the mound and shrunk the strike zone (you didn't think Bob Gibson's 1.12 ERA the year before was all Bob Gibson, did you? He never had another season with an ERA under 2.18 after 1968, and more that were over 3.00 than under for the rest of his career).

One thing that is interesting to think about with regard to Bautista and Gibson is what the latter would have done to dear old Jose had he had the balls to hang so far out over the plate when Bob was pitching that the outside corner was in effect middle-in, as Bautista does now. This is one of the main reasons that this guy really pisses me off. As far as Bob Gibson was concerned, the outside corner of the plate belonged to him. My bet is that Gibson, who was not really a bad guy, just a fiercesome competitor, would have politely buzzed one in close to his chin first, as fair warning. Then, if dear little Jose had the cajones to hold his ground for the next pitch, he would have been sucking his meals through a straw for the next two months! Where are the Gibsons and Drysdales when you need them? You can probably tell that I REALLY don't like this guy!

Love your activity on this one.

Larry

[ls7plus]

Hi, Steve B. Did you know that Cecil Fielder hit 31 homeruns in just 506 at bats playing for Toronto over 4 seasons before his 51 homer season with the Tigers in 1990? Fielder's problem was getting playing time then, not any lack of demonstrated ability. A fellow named Fred McGriff held down the regular first sacker's job when Cecil was with Toronto, and Fred was pretty good. The old crime dog hit 20 homers in just 295 at bats with the Blue Jays in 1987; 34 in 1988, and 36 in 1989. I really don't think Cecil falls into the Bautista mold, or even comes close.

I will give you Darrell Evans as a sporadic homerun hitter, consistently hitting in double figures in homers, though only twice with 40 or more, and twice in the 30's. I hardly think that equates to mimicking Bonds on his best juiced days, however. And Ted Kluzewski (Big Klu) did indeed have a power surge, but was never a marginal player like Bautista prior thereto, as he had seasons of batting .309 four years before his first 40 homer season; 25 homers, 111 RBI and .307 three years before; 16 homeruns, 86 RBI, .320 one year before. He is like Bautista in the limited respect that his first really big year came at age 29, but that's all.

Jack Clark demonstrated pretty consistent power from the time he was in his second season, at 22 years of age, when he hit 25 homeruns and drove in 98 runs. His main problem was staying healthy, as he had only three seasons in which he played 150 games or more in his entire career. No, no Jose Bautista there either. Try as you might, you will find that the Bautista career progression is not one that occurs in nature. As I said earlier, there were only seven guys who had hit 54 homeruns or more prior to 1990, and none of them stumbled around looking like Ron Swoboda's twin brother for years and years before they achieved that status.

Larry

[Robextend]

Ok, so there are reasons and explanations for everyone else except Bautista...I got it now. I just want to make sure that this is an argument I had no chance at winning. Thanks.

[Robextend]

I guess none of these articles matter at all:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/03/sp...3bautista.html

http://www.dominicantoday.com/dr/for...Home-Run-Binge

http://www.aolnews.com/2010/08/24/al...ome-run-binge/

[steve B]

I agree about crowding the plate and what a pitcher should do about it. The rules we have now encourage offense by limiting how a pitcher can claim the plate. Hell, I've pitched guys way inside in softball if they were crowding the plate. Mostly because most of them can't hit an inside pitch- lots of grounders off the handle is a good thing. (Note- don't bother trying this against a guy who's played a lot of cricket the bat control for hitting bad pitches is incredible) Once they back off, it's all outside. Get e'm moving around in the box, and very few can hit at all.

Since it seems to be the Ruth comparison lets look at it from a ab/hr angle

Ruth is number 1 at ab/hr among the non-steroid crowd. 8.48 in 1920 and 3 other times under 10
The only others under 10 and not suspect are Thome, Mantle, Maris and Greenberg.
the entire rest of the 20 seasons under 10 are Sosa, McGwire, and Bonds.

Bautista last year was at 10.54 only good enough for 33rd. His previous seasons were all around 25 ab/hr This year he's only at around 20 ab/hr, hardly a Babe Ruth type number. The top 500 ends just a hair above 15.

At #37 there's Carlos Pena. from 01-05 his best hr/ab was around 14 in 05. His only other under 20 was a bit over 17 with most seasons around 20. Batting average .240's,.250s The less said about 06 the better. For the Red Sox he was horrible, and hardly played.
Then in 07 he hits 46hr .282 average - 10.65 ab/hr!
Followed by a return to ab/hr in the high teens the next few years

Babe Ruth had a season at 10.57 - 1930 36th
and one at 10.85 - 1929 46th

So there's your guy. Carlos Pena 6 years of below average to marginal performance followed by a Babe Ruth ish year.
Then followed by a few seasons of very good but not spectacular performance.

This is actually a lot of fun.

And if the Sox had ever signed Kingman Bonds enhanced 73 would be thought of as merely a nice try. A righty that hits almost exclusively gargantuan popups playing in Fenway! That would have been incredible.

Steve B


So there's

Originally Posted by ls7plus

Davey hit 26 of his 43 at Fulton County Stadium in 1973. While he did hit 17 in more neutral parks on the road that year, doubling that to 34 as representing his real, non-park related power surge Larry

So would 46 be Bautista's "real, non-park related" 162-game home run average for the last 1.25 seasons? Bautista has 41 homers in his last 95 home games compared to just 29 in his last 101 road games. His 162-game adjusted totals for the last 1.25 seasons are 70 homers, .295 at home; 46 homers, .263 on the road.

[ALR-bishop]

Steve---how do you spot those Cricket Guys ? .

I just got back from a trip that included India and Sri Lanka. Saw some cricket. I confess I don't understand the game well, but they are crazy about it over there

[steve B]

The cricket guy I pitched to is one of my wifes coworkers. From India, and while not a great cricketer I gather he played a lot.
I threw him a pitch that went wrong, ended up head high and way inside. I swear he hit it off his forehead. Line drive down the LF line for a double. And not a bailing out accident hit either. I figured I'd be safe pitching him high since cricket piches are low. High low inside outside, it really didn't matter where I pitched it. He hit it, and hit it fairly hard. A much tougher out than anyone I've pitched to, including the occasional guy who played college ball.

And yeah it's only low level softball. I've played modified pitch and slow pitch plus some pickup games with a very wide range of skills. The people that haven't played or don't play well, I try to make it as easy as possible, The people that actually have some athletic skill I try to make it harder.

Steve B

[ls7plus]

You know, you guys and your persistence may be beginning to pay off re my attitude towards him as a player. I do believe your posts on his behalf have been truly admirable. Maybe just a smidgeon of change for now!

I still wouldn't let him crowd the plate with his arms hanging out over it, though, and I don't think anyof the guys I played with in high school, summer leagues and even most recently over 30 fast-pitch hard ball league (while in my early to mid-forties) would either. He literally converts the outside corner to middle-in. Bring back the approach of the '60's pitchers to deal with that!

Best regards, and thanks to everyone who contributed to this discussion.

Larry

[Volod]

Larry, couldn't help but think of you as I watched Sports Center today recapping the Jays-Astros game, in which Bautista hit a couple of dingers. C'mon guy, he's just a late-blooming hitter. MLB history is full of them - there's no need to dredge up complex formulas to try to prove that he is somehow juiced. Occam's Razor. He's just pissing you off, like he is opposing pitchers. You're in Michigan, but what are you - a Yankees or Bosox fan?

[ls7plus]

Let's see, now, 18 homeruns in 136 at bats--approximately one every 7.5 trips to the plate; .353 batting average. Should he maintain the homerun pace, as a follow-up to the 54 homer year literally out of nowhere, he would hit around 72 in a full season's worth of AB's. Conclustion: Bautista's homers are clearly every bit as legitimate as those of Bonds, Sosa and McGwire! There's a part of me that still likes McGwire, although I remain conflicted. But frankly, the way I look at it, if you guys think Bautista is OK, then there's nothing, literally nothing at all, I should hold against Big Mac. Thanks for the help in the conflict resolution!


Sure he's a late bloomer--he went from being Ron Swoboda, career-wise, to being every bit as good as the three gentlemen mentioned in the first paragraph. It doesn't matter how many supposed similar cases you guys try to come up with. IT IS, BEYOND THE REALM OF ANY REASONABLE DISPUTE, ASSUMING HE CONTINUES AT ANYTHING RESEMBLING THIS PACE, AN UNASSAILABLE FACT THAT THERE ARE EXACTLY ZERO OTHER SIMILAR EXAMPLES.

But I tire of the discussion, as there really seems to be virtually nothing to discuss. I just think we all went down the very same path in 1998-2001 or so, and we can all take off our blinders now. With the way pitching has evolved today, with so many pitchers having a repetoire that includes a four-seam fastball with peak velocity, that comes in straight, or even with a hop; two-seam fastball that sinks; change-up which moves the opposite way as a curve;
slider and/or curve, hitting has become significantly more difficult, rendering it even less likely such a phenomenon could even conceivably occur naturally.

Thanks for all of your inputs,

Larry

[steve B]

Very fast fastballs that don't move? I'd always heard those were the pitches that major league hitters hit particularly well.....

Overall batting hasn't become harder. The overall league average has changed little since 1900! There are lows and highs, but the lows are in the .240's and the highs in the .270's with .260's being typical.
National league 1921-1930 was the peak, being mostly over .280, 1930 the league average was over .300 - DARN GUYS IN THE 20'S MUSTA BEEN ON SOMETHING! - (probably booze and a diffferent attitude twoards batting brought on by Ruth)

We maybe have a right to suspect anyone hitting at a rate better than 10ab/hr. Very few batters have done it for a full season, fewer still that are assumed to be clean. (Ruth and Thome) We should really revisit this maybe at the AS break, and again near the end of the season. My prediction? Either a season around 47HR with an injury or a major slump late in the year, or positive test sometime after the AS break. (Or after the season if he's in the HR derby)

Some interesting stuff here http://www.baseball-almanac.com/recbooks/rb_hr3.shtml

Still a lot of guys that supposedly weren't on anything who hit a ton of HR in a month. Rudy york had 18 in August of 37 Mantle had 16 in May of 56. Both months were probably in the low 7ab/hr range.

Steve B

[majordanby]

baseball reference have the following players listed as "similar" to bautista up to age 29

Mack Jones (946)
Dan Pasqua (945)
Gorman Thomas (943)
Jimmie Hall (938)
Willie Kirkland (938)
Gary Roenicke (936)
Eric Hinske (935)
Jay Buhner (932)
Jonny Gomes (932)
Don Lock (932)

[collectbaseball]

Bautista is clearly a beast of epic proportion, but I think it is a little naive to assume that he will "keep up this pace" for some very significant amount of time. You can't just extrapolate his numbers and say he's on pace to hit however many hundreds of home runs over the next three years. Lyle Overbay was on pace for like 170 RBI at some point in the 2004 season. If you really think numbers project like that, I'd like to formally extend an invitation to my fantasy league. Tons of random people go on very hot streaks for half-seasons and seasons. His is bit longer, but it's hard to believe that he will keep it up forever. (That's not to say he will decline significantly, but that I think it would basically be impossible for any human being to keep up his pace).

I've got a few more late bloomers for you to consider: what about someone like Dante Bichette, who didn't have anything really resembling a "good" year until his sixth year in the majors at age 29, and went on to hit 40 homers and bat .340 at age 31? (Granted, that was in Colorado during the steroid era). Gorman Thomas played four miserable years then came back and was a much better hitter (beginning at age 27). Hank Sauer didn't do a whole lot in the minors until he was 29, had a ridiculous year at age 30 in AAA ball, and then came up to the bigs and walloped the ball as a 31 year old.

While it's okay to be skeptical (I think that would've served some of those May 21st doomsdayers well), I think Bautista's probably for real.