SB Nation - Rafael Palmeiro

The Year the Orioles Outspent the Yankees

Roarfrom34 — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 20:16:51 -0000

More photos » by ROBERTO BOREA - ASSOCIATED PRESS

The Hot Stove season is likely to be a fairly tepid affair for the Orioles this year. Rather than comb the current class of free-agents and potential trade targets I revisited the team's moves headed into the 1998 season, when the the O's became the first team in baseball to post a $70 million payroll.

Take a minute and let that sink in: the O's were baseball's biggest spenders just a little more than a decade ago. In fact, Baltimore holds the distinction of being the last team to outspend the New York Yankees, who have had baseball's highest payroll every year since 1999.

Unfortunately, the end result for the Birds in '98 was a 79-83 record, the first of an active 12-season losing streak.

Mo' money, mo' problems? Try mo' money, mo' intrigue.

Big bats, frontline pitchers, aging veterans - the O's chased them all back then.

[To be fair, much of the team's '98 payroll went to players who led the team to back-to-back ALCS appearances in 1996 and 1997, including Robert Alomar ($6.3 million), Brady Anderson ($6.2 million), Mike Mussina ($6.5 million), Rafael Palmeiro ($6.5 million), and Cal ($6.3 million).]

Here's a rundown on some of the Birds' 1997/1998 Hot Stove maneuverings:

-Fresh off a league-leading 45 saves in 1997, closer Randy Myers spurned the Orioles' two year, $11 million offer in November to sign with Toronto for three years, $18 million.

-Myers recorded 28 saves in 41 games for the Blue Jays, who let him go in August when the Padres claimed Myers off waivers and inherited the remainder of his contract. Myers did not pitch again after the 1998 season.

-The Orioles chased future first-ballot Hall of Famer Paul Molitor, who ultimately signed with the Twins for $4.25 million in early December.

O's fans bummed about losing out on Molitor received good news days later when Brady Anderson signed a five-year, $31 million extension with the team

Here's what the Washington Post had to say on Dec. 8, 1997:

"The Orioles will be one of baseball's highest-spending teams next year. In the past eight months, though, Angelos has gotten the club's three cornerstone players -- third baseman Cal Ripken, pitcher Mike Mussina and Anderson -- to sign contracts below their free agent market values. Anderson, 33, agreed to receive $ 1.5 million of his $ 6.25 million salary in each of the first four years of his new deal as deferred compensation without interest."

"I thought the whole thing was cool," Anderson said. "I was surprised how concerned the fans were. They seemed to care a lot more than I thought they would. That's one of the reasons I got out of Baltimore. I thought I was getting ready to sign for whatever the Orioles were offering."

-On Dec. 12, the Orioles signed free-agent pitcher Doug Drabek to a $1.8 million, one-year contract that included $600,000 in performance incentives.

Drabek won 12 games for the White Sox in 1997. He went 6-11 with a 7.29 ERA in Baltimore.

-On Dec. 13, the team inked free-agent outfielder Joe Carter to a $3.3 million one-year deal. According to the New York Times the move "added another sizable bat to their lineup."

Carter hit 11 home runs in 85 games before being traded to San Francisco for Darrin Blood.

-Ozzie Guillen and Norm Charlton signed minor-league deals with the Birds in January.

Said Guillen: "I picked the Baltimore Orioles because I think they have the best chance to win." Both players finished the '98 season in Atlanta.

-In January, the Orioles also re-signed pitcher Scott Kamieniecki, who went 10-6 with a 4.01 ERA in '97, for two years, $6.2 million. Kamieniecki won four games in those two years.

-The intrigue continued into the spring when the O's retained the services of free-agent-to-be Scott Erickson by signing him to a five-year, $32 million extension in May.

When it was all said and done, the Orioles produced a payroll that was larger then ($70.4 million in 1998) than it is now ($67.1 million in 2009). The record-setting '98 figure would rank in the lower two-thirds among teams today. It's essentially what the Royals ($70.5 million) are spending these days.

"Manager Of The Year" -- Not For Whom To Vote, But How?

Nico — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 18:36:37 -0000

There are two things we could do today that we won't do -- three if you include doing the dishes -- and they are to debate whether managers are important, i.e., impactful enough to be worth analyzing, and to debate who should win the coveted "The votes for these awards are always made by the wrong people for the wrong reasons" award for 2009.

If you find yourself venturing into either of these two conversations, then you have to do the dishes and make it a trifecta. Today we're going to look at the "how" -- if intelligent people voted intelligently (sorry, Rafael Palmeiro: NO GOLD GLOVE FOR YOU!), what would form the basis for assessing the Manager of the Year?

The dilemma, conundrum if you will (dilemma if you won't), starts with the fact that managing involves several distinct aspects, most of which are not subject to much concrete or tangible assessment. One is "leadership," another "getting the most out of the team you have," a third "tactical decisions." Managers also communicate with players and the media, convey expectations and enforce limits on and off the field, oversee a group of coaches who serve as important instructors and mentors, and occasionally help the team balance baseball with real life distractions such as sudden tragedy, ill-timed drug suspension, or Milton Bradley.

So in 2009, the Angels were projected to win around 86-88 games, endured a shocking tragedy 3 days into the season, had 1/2 their rotation on the DL for two months, and won 97 games. The Dodgers lost Manny Ramirez for 1/3 of a season but didn't miss a beat. Those two teams also had a heck of a lot more talent than the Giants or Rangers could muster as competition.

The Rockies went from terrible to terrific right as Clint Hurdle became Jim Tracy. Correlation is not causation, and yet the contrast is also stunning.

Ron Gardenhire's Twins seemed to overachieve, winning a weak but not putrid AL Central with a rotation anchored by Carl Pavano, Brian Duensing, Nick Blackburn, and occasionally something called a "Manship," while Francisco Liriano flopped, Glen Perkins and Kevin Slowey were sloweyed down by injury, and then Morneau went down for the stretch drive while even more troublingly, Nick Punto and Brendan Harris didn't.

So how would you take all the teams, with all their given talent and lack thereof and all the unexpected bumps along the way, look at 30 managers and all that goes into being the captain of a ship with a supporting cast roughly as diverse as the crew on The Love Boat, and pick out your Managers of the Year? A job where what you get out of a team is often mistaken for what you put into it?

{credit: The New Yorker Magazine}

Evan Longoria and The 500 Home Run Club

Tommy Rancel — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:45:16 -0000

More photos » by Chris O'Meara - AP

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As 2010 projections start to be released, we will take a look at some of the more important ones from time to time. Projections are what they are, but they are still fun to look at. All in all, I would say the ZiPs projections are a bit more realistic than the Bill James projections because ZiPs tends to be a bit conservative. Aside from the single season projections, you may have noticed that the ZiPs projections include an extrapolated career projection; most namely the projection of Evan Longoria.

In case you missed it, according to ZiPs, Longoria will finish his career with a line of .263/.349/.501 and 526 home runs in 2535 career games. Remember that we take the yearly projections with a grain of salt, so this roughly ~16 year projection should be taken even more lightly. Nonetheless, there isn't much going and it's nice to dream of Longoria hitting that 526^th home run as a member of the Rays.

Currently, there are 25 members of the 500 home run club with more to be added over the next decade. By the time Longoria is projected to be approaching such a milestone the membership could be close to double.

Here is the list as it stands today...

	HR	AB
Barry Bonds	762	9847
Hank Aaron	755	12364
Babe Ruth	714	8398
Willie Mays	660	10881
Ken Griffey Jr.	630	9703
Sammy Sosa	609	8813
Frank Robinson	586	10006
Mark McGwire	583	6187
Alex Rodriguez	583	8304
Harmon Killebrew	573	8147
Rafael Palmeiro	569	10472
Jim Thome	564	7706
Reggie Jackson	563	9864
Mike Schmidt	548	8352
Manny Ramirez	546	7962
Mickey Mantle	536	8102
Jimmie Foxx	534	8134
Ted Williams	521	7706
Willie McCovey	521	8197
Frank Thomas	521	8199
Eddie Matthews	512	8537
Ernie Banks	512	9421
Mel Ott	511	9456
Gary Sheffield	509	9217
Eddie Murray	504	11336

Obviously, longevity is a must. Even Mark McGwire, who has the least about of at-bats of any member, needed over 6,100 at-bats. McGwire by far has the best HR/AB ratio hitting a "dinger' nearly every 10.6 at-bats or a full AB better than second place Babe Ruth, who averaged a home run every 11.7 at-bats. Longoria is no where near that kind of pace, but he is still ahead of six players in the club

	HR Per AB
Mark McGwire	10.61235
Babe Ruth	11.7619
Barry Bonds	12.92257
Jim Thome	13.66312
Harmon Killebrew	14.21815
Alex Rodriguez	14.24357
Sammy Sosa	14.47126
Manny Ramirez	14.58242
Ted Williams	14.79079
Mickey Mantle	15.11567
Jimmie Foxx	15.23221
Mike Schmidt	15.24088
Ken Griffey Jr	15.40159
Willie McCovey	15.73321
Frank Thomas	15.73704
Hank Aaron	16.37616
Willie Mays	16.48636
Eddie Matthews	16.67383
Frank Robinson	17.07509
Evan Longoria	17.2
Reggie Jackson	17.52043
Gary Sheffield	18.10806
Ernie Banks	18.40039
Rafael Palmeiro	18.40422
Mel Ott	18.50489
Eddie Murray	22.49206

A few other things to note...

In 2008, Longo's HR/AB was 16.59, but dropped to 17.6 in 2009. Injuries seem to have slowed him down at bit last year, but a 17.2 average is pretty good in its own right.
Right now Longoria's rate is closest to Frank Robinson. It took Robinson nearly 8,500 at-bats to get to 500. If Longoria stays on his current pace of 17.2, it would take 8,600 to get to 500. That means Longo would need to keep his same HR rate and amass 600 at-bats each year for the next 14+ seasons.
Aside from the 526 homers, the projection has Longoria hitting 628 doubles. Only Hank Aaron (624) and Barry Bonds (601) have hit 500+ home runs and 600+ doubles.
Longoria currently hits a double every 13.76 ABs. That pace is better than any member of the 500 home run club with Ted Williams' 14.76 coming as second best.
The last statistic I looked at was walks. Longoria ranks in the bottom third in terms of walk rates amongst the list, but at age 24 he has plenty of time to practice his patience at the plate.

Odds are Longoria won't play long enough to actually hit 500 home runs, and the odds are even longer that if he does it will be as a member of the Rays. He would need to play for another 14 or 15 years at a high level and avoid a major injury. While the quest for 500 may fall short, the fact that we have a player so talented that 500 home runs doesn't seem that crazy is pretty good.

Dodgers add Jim Thome to collection of ex-Indians

Jay — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 08:56:47 -0000

More photos » by Mark Duncan - AP

Thome won't have Jeremy Sowers to kick around anymore. (From May 12 in Cleveland.)

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The Dodgers acquired Jim Thome at the postseason trade deadline last night, having already added the round mound of the infield, Ronnie Belliard, earlier in the day. Of course the Dodgers already had longtime Indians Manny Ramirez and Casey Blake on their roster. Thome and Ramirez played eight seasons together on the Indians, winning five straight division titles from 1995 through 1999. Blake and Belliard had a somewhat less celebrated run as Indians teammates from 2004 through 2006.

The trade represents a white flag for the White Sox, and no doubt it will draw comparisons to the infamous 1997 "white flag trade." The White Sox assumed an enormous risk when they claimed OF Alex Rios on waivers, accepting a fairly massive contractual burden in the process. They had already absorbed a huge cost on blood and treasure in acquiring weak-elbowed NL ace Jake Peavy ten days earlier. Chicago has won only six games in the three weeks since acquiring Rios, however, and they've now lost eight of their last nine games to fall under .500 and into third place, six games behind division leader Detroit, 2.5 behind Minnesota.

Even more remarkable, the White Sox are getting nothing for Thome. He's owed $2.4 million in salary for the rest of the season, and the Dodgers will pay some but not all of that. The White Sox receive back only minor league SS-2B Justin Fuller, who turned 26 a month ago and has yet to reach even the Double-A level. Fuller is not a prospect, not even in the sense that Josh Rodriguez is a prospect. He's Niuman Romero, an organizational soldier. August 2009 will be remembered by White Sox fans for decades to come as a franchise-shaping crash and burn.

The Dodgers say Thome will be used in a bench role and will not displace 1B starter James Loney. The role-change likely will cost him a few home runs in his climb into the Top 10 all-time home run list. With 564, Thome currently is 12th all-time, five behind #11 Rafael Palmeiro and nine behind #10 Harmon Killibrew. He is the Indians' all-time leader with 334 home runs, and he finishes his stint in Chicago with 134. He spent nearly four seasons with the White Sox after being traded by the Phillies following the emergence of Ryan Howard in 2005. Thome hasn't played even one inning at first base in more than two years, and he's played only four games in the field since June 2005.

The Dodgers are prohibitive favorites to make the postseason this year, which will make this only the second time Thome has appeared in the playoffs since his last Indians division winner in 2001. He returned to the postseason last year with the White Sox but managed only one single, one double and one walk in 17 PA.

68-64, Game Notes

Jeff — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 08:05:45 -0000

More photos » by Ted S. Warren - AP

Photographic evidence of the world's most effective heckle.

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I am certainly no stranger to writer's block. Sometimes I'll be watching a game and the inspiration for a bunch of material will strike either during the action or the instant I open the editorial window to write a recap, but more often than not, after the end of a game, I'll sit here and wonder "now what in the hell am I going to say about that?" So I'll sit, and I'll stand, and I'll walk around, and I'll eat fruit, and I'll pantomime a pitching motion, and I'll do whatever I can think of for minutes or hours until I either come up with something or surrender. It's a common chore, and one for which I have yet to find a consistent and reliable remedy.

One occasionally effective trick, I've found, is to put myself in the place of the reader. If I were a member, rather than an author, what would I want to read about after a game? I rooted for a lousy hockey team last season, but still checked a handful of blogs on a regular basis. Why did I do that? What were they providing that I liked?

What kept me going back to those places, I think, were three things: (1) summaries of the performances of the best players, (2) summaries of the performances of the most promising players, and (3) summaries of how well the team played as a whole. Those topics allowed me to stay connected to the current season while considering what the team could look like down the road, and how good it could be. With that in mind, then, and with nothing more creative striking my fancy, I offer you the following, in hopes that you guys want the same sort of stuff as fans as I do:

Best players: Felix Hernandez, Erik Bedard, Russell Branyan, Ichiro, Adrian Beltre, David Aardsma, and Ken Griffey Jr. were either inactive or unavailable. Franklin Gutierrez and Jose Lopez went 0-7 with zero line drives.

Most promising players: Dustin Ackley disappeared after BP. Luke French gave up seven runs, Michael Saunders had a pinch-hit strikeout, and Bill Hall dropped to 8-35.

Team performance: The Mariners ran into a far superior opponent and lost by ten.

Okay so sometimes that approach to blogging doesn't work.

It's a bit of a shame that some of French's worst results came on a night during which he posted some of his best peripherals. He went up against one of the best offenses in baseball, an offense whose lineup featured exactly one hitter - one really good hitter - swinging lefty. Aside from the fact that he was pitching in Safeco, this was among the worst matchups for French imaginable. And if you just look at his most immediate numbers, he did pretty well. Better than two-thirds of his pitches were strikes. He missed eight bats. He controlled his changeup. He didn't walk a guy. If all you knew about his start today were those four simple facts, you'd think he pitched a solid game and got through six innings.

Instead he went five and allowed seven runs, because he threw a bad slider to Vladimir Guerrero and because Juan Rivera reached out and yanked a 2-0 change that didn't seem as hittable as Rivera made it look. It's the most runs French has allowed in a Major League game, and due to both his efforts and a depleted Mariner lineup, this one was pretty much done by the top of the third.

I don't think less of French after tonight. Truth be told, if anything, I might even think more of him. If you can manage to pry yourself away from the R column on the scoreboard, you'll see that he just about made the most of a hazardous situation. But as evidenced by the home runs and the zero swinging strikes on 53 fastballs, even decent French is a very limited pitcher, and for that reason I'm going to caution against reading too much into this. While I think it's reasonable to put a positive spin on what the box score says was a miserable outing, nothing about him is special.

Here's a fun fact for you:

Jarrod Washburn over six starts as a Tiger: 6.81 RA, 1.4 K/(BB+HBP)
Luke French over six starts as a Mariner: 6.82 RA, 1.5 K/(BB+HBP)

French is really taking this younger-Jarrod-Washburn thing to heart. The only thing he's missing is the jeopardizing of a team's shot at the playoffs.

In the early innings, Dave was going on about how Vladimir Guerrero might be the biggest Mariner killer of all time. My first instinct was to disregard his statement, having borne the brunt of the Rafael Palmeiro experience, but then I decided to check Baseball-Reference, and you can imagine my surprise when I came across the following two splits:

Palmeiro vs. Seattle: .922 OPS, 17.6 PA/HR
Vlad vs. Seattle: 1.092 OPS, 15.7 PA/HR

And that, of course, doesn't include Vlad's two homers today, which pushed his OPS well north of the 1.100 mark. You might recognize 1.100 as roughly the OPS Barry Bonds put up as a Giant. Over 411 career plate appearances against Seattle, Vladimir Guerrero has hit like Barry Bonds, and though these sorts of statistics don't really mean anything when you consider that our current pitching staff looks nothing like it did in 2004 and players don't randomly dominate other teams for no reason, it's still unthinkably impressive when you reflect on it. Vladimir Guerrero hasn't killed us. Vladimir Guerrero hitting like Vladimir Guerrero would've killed us. Vladimir Guerrero hitting like Jimmie Foxx in the titanium alloy stadium from Triple Play 99 has bound our limbs with bailing wire and dropped us in a bathtub of acid.

Years from now, a generation of Mariner fans will tell the tale of the Campillo/Vlad showdown not with shame, but with reverence.

MLB Is Being Mean To Jose Canseco

Tom Dakers — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:46:45 -0000

I just had to comment on this story in the Globe and Mail by Ronald Blum. Lets look at some of it:

Jose Canseco plans to file a class-action lawsuit against Major League Baseball and the players’ association, saying he’s been ostracized for going public with tales of steroids use in the sport.

Interesting idea, I'm not the local lawyer but I'd have to guess he doesn't have much of a case.

Canseco said Wednesday that he has discussed the suit with lawyers and intends to enlist Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro to join in the suit.

I'm not either of those two but I think if I were I'd be far more likely to want to sue Jose for continuing to bring my name up in stories about steroids.

Canseco said the basis of the suit would be "lost wages — in some cases, defamation of character."

Shouldn't that be definition of character? I think the man has shown us more about his character that we ever really wanted to know.

"Because I used steroids and I came out with a book, I was kicked out of the game, but I have not been inducted into the Hall of Fame," Canseco said in a telephone interview.

"A lot of these players have not been inducted into the Hall of Fame: Mark McGwire and so forth. They’re losing salaries, because obviously when you’re inducted into the Hall of Fame, you get asked to do certain, you know, appearances and shows and so forth, which incorporates income.

I guess I missed the part where baseball guarantees you a place in the Hall after your career is over. Why is he so broke anyway? Didn't he make millions playing and didn't he make some money off those books.

"Not even that, baseball blackballs you from their family, meaning you can’t have a future proper reference from them, a job, no managerial jobs, no coaching jobs, nothing.

Raise your hand if you figured Jose Canseco would get a manager job in the major leagues. Yeah I didn't either.

Whether a judge would think Canseco has a case remains to be seen.

I'm not a judge, nor do I play one on TV but I think I can guess that a judge would just throw it out quickly.

"Always, one individual has to make that stand, which is me," Canseco said. "And then I’ll obviously speak to other players and other individuals, see how far they want to go."

How far they want to go? Likely as far from you as posible, Jose.

"I don’t see why people just don’t get it. I don’t understand the ignorance," he said. "Listen: It was allowed by Major League Baseball. It was endorsed by Major League Baseball.

It was endorsed by MLB? Now there is something I'd like to see proved in court.

"Like I’ve said all along, in my era 80 per cent of the players were using steroids and why would Sammy Sosa be excluded from that?" Canseco said. "I think people are going to be amazed how, you know, extensive that list is that Major League Baseball is holding back right now and who are on it."

If 104 names were on that list of players that tested positive, how do you go from that to 80% of players were using? And no I don't think people are going to be 'amazed' to see who is on the list. I think most people are pretty much over being amazed to hear someone was using. No one was amazed or even surprised when Sosa's name came out. I think we are all numbed to the whole thing by now.

I do wish that Canseco would have taken better care of the millions he made as a player, because then he could have disappeared into the obscurity he richly deserves.

Members of the 500 Home Run Club Not In The Hall Of Fame

Jeff Zimmerman (TucsonRoyal) — Fri, 15 May 2009 17:50:11 -0000

More photos » by Rob Carr - AP

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With Gary Sheffield just joining the 500 home run club as its 25th member and Jim Thome about to tie Mike Schmidt for 13th on the all-time list, I thought I would take a look at the group of ten players who have hit 500 home runs and aren't in the Hall of Fame.

To define the average Hall of Fame position player, I used JBrew's research based on Sean Smith's historical WAR. According to the data, the median WAR of the Hall of Famers since 1955 is 70.6.

First, here are the ten current members of the 500 HR club ranked according to their career WAR through 2008:

Name	Total WAR	Top 3 Seaons	Best 3 Year Period	Home Runs	HR Rank All Time
Bonds, Barry	173.9	37.3	35.4	762	1
Rodriguez, Alex	96.5	30.7	24.6	554	12
Griffey, Ken	83.1	28.5	26.3	614	5
Thomas, Frank	78.7	23.0	22.5	521	18
Palmeiro, Rafael	70.5	20.5	17.6	569	10
Thome, Jim	67.4	21.4	20.1	547	14
Ramirez, Manny	65.3	19.6	17.7	533	17
Sheffield, Gary	64.5	20.6	16.9	500	25
McGwire, Mark	63.7	20.8	15.0	583	8
Sosa, Sammy	58.5	23.4	22.0	609	6

What really sticks out here is that McGwire and Sosa are in the top ten in home runs, but are the last two in total WAR. The other glaring issue is that seven out of ten of these players (all except Griffey, Thomas and Thome) have been linked to PEDs in one form or another. I really want to see how the HOF votes for some of these players. McGwire was the first to test the voting waters and while results haven't been good, he has the second lowest lifetime WAR of the club. It's tough to tell how much of the lack of McGwire love is linked to his usage of PEDs and how much is because he wasn't that good of a player. The real test will be when Bonds is eligible and how the voters react to his candidacy.

Beside just total WAR, I believe a player should be measured on what they did during the prime of their careers. The following chart has the ten players' total WAR along with their best three seasons and their best consecutive three seasons:

The only numbers that really stick out to me on that graph are from Sosa where he had a few really good years and not much beyond that. Sammy's top three seasons (23.4 WAR) accounted for 40% of his total WAR, while Frank Thomas' top three seasons (23.0 WAR) accounted for only 29% of his total WAR.

I originally graphed all ten players and the average HOF numbers together in one graph, but it was way too confusing. So instead I grouped the players by career WAR, with the best three in the first graph, followed by the middle three, and then the bottom four. The average HoFamer line is included for context.

Out of these players, the only one I bet would bet making the HOF on the first try is Griffey, while it seems like Thomas and Thome should eventually make it in. The other seven all have the PED headlines hanging over them, so whether they make it or not likely has more to do with how the HOF voters deal with PEDs than their actual productivity levels.

The Old Folks Home: First Base This Decade

SC — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 10:33:39 -0000

First base often times is a place where you can "hide" a guy that can hit but doesn't have much athleticism. There are exceptions; Mark Teixeira and Albert Pujols are both outstanding first basemen in every way, as is Colorado's Todd Helton. There have been many athletic guys positioned at first for various reasons. Steve Garvey threw like my grandma, for instance.

This decade, the Orioles have had all sorts of problems. The losing started in 1998, but it has truly cemented itself in the 2000s. A couple losing years happen to any franchise, even the great ones. But the Orioles not only haven't had a winning season this decade, they haven't come close.

One of the issues has been first base. Traditionally you get a guy that can rake over there. The Orioles have instead chosen to fill the position with old fogies, has-beens and PR disasters.

Will Clark is one of my favorite players, but when the Orioles signed him after the 1998 season to replace Rafael Palmeiro, we didn't get the guy who'd been such a phenomenal and tremendously overlooked hitter. We got a broken down shell of the guy Will Clark used to be in San Francisco and Texas.

When healthy, "The Thrill" still hit -- he batted .303/.395./.482 in 1999 (294 plate appearances) and .301/.413/.473 in 2000 (310 plate appearances) before he got sent to St. Louis to fill in for the injured Mark McGwire. Clark destroyed NL pitching for the Cards and helped them get to the playoffs. He then retired gracefully.

Clark was entering his age 35 season when the Orioles signed him. He had been healthy in 1998, but prior to that the red flags were everywhere. We all knew he wasn't the guy he was in his early Giants days, but we didn't even get the guy that played in Texas:

Year	Team	Games Played	WARP3
1994	Texas	110	5.0
1995	Texas	123	3.8
1996	Texas	117	2.6
1997	Texas	110	3.3
1998	Texas	149	3.0
1999	Baltimore	77	2.1
2000	Baltimore	79	2.5

Note of course that 1994 (114 games) and 1995 (144 games) were strike-shortened seasons. He was healthy in those seasons, but since they were short 38 or 21 games, it is what it is. '94 particularly might have been a different story with the extra games.

When Clark got traded, the team handed over the first base job to Chris Richard, who did not come over from the Cardinals in the Clark trade, which netted us Jose Leon on July 31, 2000. Richard actually was acquired on July 29, 2000 with Mike Nussbeck in exchange for Mike Timlin. We really did all we could to help St. Louis out in 2000.

Richard had a power surge in his end-of-season audition, slugging .563 with 13 homers in 199 at-bats. He was the Opening Day DH in 2001 and struggled to stay in the lineup. A couple years later he had been traded to Colorado for Jack Cust, whose glove needs glue in it to be playable and never got a fair shake with the O's. Shortly after that he was out of the league.

Who was the Opening Day first baseman for the 2001 O's? David Segui, of course, the 34-year old ex-Oriole we signed to a four-year deal.

The Segui deal is one of the overlooked bonehead moves of the decade. After the Clark health fiasco and the Albert Belle mess, the Orioles picked up Segui for about $7 million per season. Segui had played in 140+ games exactly three times in 11 years, while bouncing through eight organizations (Orioles, Mets, Expos, Mariners, Blue Jays, Rangers and Indians).

Yeah, he could hit some. But he was also 34 years old with a spotty history.

To the shock of literally nobody, Segui played in 82, 26, 67 and 18 games in his second run in Charm City. He was paid $27,762,895 for this service.

With Segui a non-entity and Richard a bust, Jeff Conine was the regular first baseman from 2001-03. Conine was barely passable as an everyday first baseman, and that wasn't his fault. After all, that was supposed to be Mr. Reliable, David Segui. He was pretty good in 2001, banged up and not very effective in 2002, and traded in 2003.

In '02, Jay Gibbons got to play some first base, and he broke out with a 28-homer season. We might give Gibby some guff now, but he was a genuinely nice Rule 5 pickup by the Orioles. He did more than you can expect of any Rule 5 guy, really. Gibbons was bad in the outfield and actually worse at first base, so he never stuck. He was another guy who got hurt a lot, anyway.

In true Oriole fashion, the team refused to learn from the Clark and Segui mistakes and signed 39-year old Rafael Palmeiro to play first base in 2004, part of the influx of new offensive talent with Miguel Tejada and Javy Lopez. This was a crummy idea from day one that got worse as Palmeiro embarrassed himself, the organization, and baseball in general in 2005. Here's why it was a bad idea from day one, though. Let's say Palmeiro really broke out in 1991 as an offensive star:

Year	Team	OPS+	HR
1991	Texas	155	26
1992	Texas	123	22
1993	Texas	150	37
1994	Baltimore	136	23
1995	Baltimore	145	39
1996	Baltimore	132	39
1997	Baltimore	113	38
1998	Baltimore	144	43
1999	Texas	159	47
2000	Texas	137	39
2001	Texas	141	47
2002	Texas	146	43
2003	Texas	117	38

The Orioles made the mistake of assuming that the home run totals meant that Palmeiro wasn't declining as he sauntered merrily toward 40. They were very, very wrong, and his final two seasons in Baltimore hashed that out: 108 OPS+ both years, with home run totals of 23 and 18, and the 23 took a bit of a late-season surge. Let's not even really go into THE GIANT STEROIDS ISSUE.

When Palmeiro was quietly released and all but taken out back and shot as far as the Orioles are concerned, what did they do next?

Of course! They signed 34-year old Kevin Millar! Now I love Kevbo, I really do. I'll always remember him fondly because unlike the other old farts we're talking about here, he went out and played his best. He didn't get hurt, he didn't drag everyone's name through the mud. He just played. He was a leader on and off the field and I enjoyed him.

But calling him successful in Baltimore is a stretch. He OPS+'d 111, 106 and 87. That's not "happenin'" as a first baseman.

Now he's gone. He should be, and he is. They made the right call. And with no one in line -- not one single viable first base prospect in the system, after all these years -- the job goes to Aubrey Huff, who turned 32 in December.

The good news is that they didn't go out and sign Huff. They did that a couple years ago when it didn't make any sense. The fact that Huff had a remarkably good 2008 at the plate does not retroactively make his signing in the 2006-07 offseason a better one. It didn't make sense and was the product of a front office that didn't know what the hell they were doing and were making last gasp attempts at a "competitive" team by luring Huff and Jay Payton, who were both veterans on the decline.

Huff was great last year. He's unlikely to repeat. What's more bothersome is the fact that there STILL is not a viable first base prospect in the system. Brandon Snyder's glove is terrible and he's got a lot of hitting to do to make up ground. Billy Rowell was thought to likely be a first baseman and he's been brutal so far in the minors. Both have time. Both are young. I agree with that. And sure, maybe Nolan Reimold could play first base and that fixes everything, but he's been an outfielder his entire career and has had injury troubles of his own.

This is a position that has been neglected. Third base has the same problem, but thankfully Melvin Mora has been able to reliably man the hot corner for the last five years.

First base is the Oriole position of Steady Eddie, Boog and Gentleman Jim, the first big-time Oriole bopper. Between the reigns of Powell and Murray there was Lee May, who was sort of like if you took this decade of Oriole first baseman and boiled it down into one guy. But this has gone on a lot longer, and there ain't no Eddie Murray on his way here.

To be fair, the team did try their best to sign Mark Teixeira this offseason. And this whole first base black hole is one of the reasons that it did make sense. There is nobody that's going to be ready to take control of first base in the foreseeable future. Huff might be fine, but given his age, he's a stop-gap. What happens when his contract's up? Who then? Carlos Delgado?

It's an area that needs to be addressed in the coming drafts, or they might have to look around for a blocked first base guy in someone else's system. Clearly, free agency has not been kind to the Orioles as far as first basemen go.

Camden Chat turns four today

SC — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 15:20:05 -0000

On March 11, 2005, Camden Chat was born. There were no readers.

It was a magical time. Sosa and Palmeiro were getting subpoenas, Kurt Ainsworth was contemplating retirement, I was all excited about Chris Stynes, and John Maine was getting cut from camp.

We've been through some fine times. The Daniel Cabrera Contest. The Arsonists Steve. The emergence and trade of Erik Bedard. The greatest series of games in site history (sadly): Game One, Game Two, Game Three.

We gathered to watch Josh Hamilton go buck wild on the Home Run Derby. In 2005, we had four All-Stars. Last year we sent a mediocre closer. We've seen the great start of 2005 and the collapses of, um, every season.

Three managers, a bundle of front office moves and repositionings, a new TV network, a new TV PBP guy (our beloved Gary Thorne), and Jim Palmer ruining the AFLAC trivia question 90% of the time, turning it into Stump Jim Palmer. Melvin Mora's goofy fielding and flair for the dramatic at the plate. Brian Roberts' two haiku dongs against the Yankees. (#1, #2)

We've seen the future of rock n' roll, and its name is ~~Bruce Springsteen~~ Matt Wieters. Kevin Millar blew through town like a goofball tornado. Aubrey Huff put new life into his career, and won us over in the process. Corey Patterson is who we thought he was.

And we ride. (Ride!)

It's been a pleasure being here, and I would be a fool if I were to go without thanking Z, Stacey, duck and 2632 for all their help along the way, plus all the regulars (if you think I don't mean you, I do) that have helped make this still fun for me after four largely miserable seasons.

Here's to 2009 and beyond.