The Futility Infielder
A Baseball Journal by Jay Jaffe I'm a baseball fan living in New York City. In between long tirades about the New York Yankees and the national pastime in general, I'm a graphic designer.Thursday, June 21, 2007
Sammy Sosa, 600, and the Hall of Fame [BP Unfiltered]
Last night, Sammy Sosa hit his 600th home run, becoming just the fifth player in baseball history to do so. Ironically, he hit it against the Chicago Cubs, the team for whom he walloped 545 of those homers, including 243 over a four-year span. While that barrage arguably made him the game's most popular player at the time, it has since raised numerous eyebrows as BALCO and other steroid scandals have come to light. Most famously, Sports Illustrated's Rick Reilly smugly challenged Sosa to pee in a cup to prove his innocence; when Sosa refused, Reilly wrote a have-you-stopped-beating-your-wife column about it. Sosa, for his part, made a lackluster showing at the 2005 Congressional Steroid Circus, and many other writers treated his 2006 quasi-retirement as a de facto admission of guilt, working steroids into their narrative of his departure.JAWS table and more after the jump.
For all of the innuendo surrounding Sosa, there's no smoking gun, and far less circumstantial evidence surrounding him than his two other contemporaries who crossed the 61-homer Maris threshold, Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds (corked bats, on the other hand...). Earlier this year, reports surfaced via a leak that the dubious Mitchell Investigation had called for Sosa's medical records; Mitchell refused comment as to any justification for doing so. In most quarters, that's called a smear.
But enough about steroids for the moment. Multiple readers have asked me about Sosa's JAWS case, so here goes. Coming into the year (working with January 2007 set again), Sosa had 103.1 career WARP3 and a seven-year peak total of 64.3, good for 83.7 JAWS. The average Hall of Fame rightfielder (including freshly-elected Tony Gwynn) scores 119.8/65.5/92.7, leaving Sosa significantly short on the career front, a consequence of him ceasing productivity after his Age 35 season. ESPN's front page trumpets his 30-homer/131-RBI pace, but 12 homers into his comeback, Sosa's hitting just .242/.297/.458, good for 0.7 WARP1, and a projection of 2.3 WARP3. In other words, he's not helping his cause beyond padding his career totals and distracting the focus away from the Rangers' myriad other problems.
Labels: JAWS, steroids, Unfiltered
Archives
June 2001 July 2001 August 2001 September 2001 October 2001 November 2001 December 2001 January 2002 February 2002 March 2002 April 2002 May 2002 June 2002 July 2002 August 2002 September 2002 October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 December 2003 January 2004 February 2004 March 2004 April 2004 May 2004 June 2004 July 2004 August 2004 September 2004 October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 December 2007 January 2008 February 2008 March 2008 April 2008 May 2008 June 2008 July 2008 August 2008 September 2008 October 2008 November 2008 December 2008 January 2009 February 2009 March 2009 April 2009 May 2009 June 2009 July 2009 August 2009 September 2009 October 2009 November 2009 December 2009 January 2010 February 2010 March 2010 April 2010 May 2010
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]