Sometime this next week, Seattle Mariners’ right fielder Ichiro Suzuki will break William Henry “Wee Willie” Keeler’s record for most consecutive seasons with 200 or more hits. Keeler registered eight consecutive seasons of 200-plus hits from 1894 through 1901 while playing for the Dan Brouthers-John McGraw Baltimore Orioles of the then 12-team National League and American Association. Barring an unexpected injury, Ichiro will eclipse Wee Willie’s record — one of the oldest and most legendary in the game — when he plays this week against the Belinskis in Anaheim. The Mariners, and all of baseball, are aware of the moment: the Mariners’ website features an Ichiro hit counter and the MLB Network (and undoubtedly, “Baseball Tonight”) will tune in to capture the famous moment. Ichiro’s streak began in the first year he was in the majors, in 2001, and comprises a run that includes seasons of 262, 242 and 238 hits.

Baltimore Orioles' stars: (standing) Wee Willie 'hit em where they aint" Keeler and John McGraw and (seated) outfielder Joe Kelley and shortstop Hugh Jennings

 

 

The Chicago Cubs got healthy in Washington, taking four games of a four game set, the last an embarrassing blowout with seeming ramifications for both the starting staff and the bullpen. Julian “Coo Coo” Tavarez was designated for assignment after the game and Logan Kensing was recalled from Syracuse. The Tavarez decision came several games too late; Tavarez had a habit of walking first batters and was particularly ineffective in his last three outings. The well-traveled Tavarez (eleven stops in 17 years) was optimistic about his chances of catching on with another club: “Tomorrow I’m going to be running and throwing balls, waiting for someone to give me a phone call. I’ll be back.” Maybe: but Tavarez, who has worn out his welcome, won’t be back in Washington. Logan Kensing, late of the Marlins, was recalled from Syracuse and will be given another chance with the big club.

It’s unlikely the Nats are finished shuffling. After a pre-All Star Game letter apologizing for their first half antics and the firing of Nats good guy Manny Acta, the Nationals and Jim Riggleman are in the midst of a mid-season slump that belies Riggleman’s promise that “We will turn it around.” It was hard to feel that during the Nats’ collapse on Sunday — the combination of a stadium half-filled with Cubs fans, an Alberto Gonzalez booted ball, the unraveling of Garrett Mock and ”Coo Coo’s” antics combined to send Nats’ fans home early. The stadium started emptying in the top of the 6th (it almost reminded me of Shea), leaving fans of the North Side Drama Queens to celebrate their victory. The Slugs are now rolling towards the Redbirds, whom they trail by two games. The Cubs head north to face the Phuzzies, while the Nats will square off against the Chokes, who are coming in from Atlanta — where they lost three of four.

Down On Half Street: It takes time to assess a trade, but Mike Rizzo’s acquisition of Nyjer Morgan and Sean Burnett is looking more and more like a steal. Morgan has gained the most attention, but Burnett (who should have been on the mound for “Coo Coo” on Sunday) has continued to impress. His ERA has dropped nearly half-a-point since his arrival in Washington. But Burnett has been used sparingly: logging less than nine innings in eight outings. During that same period, “Coo Coo” faced double the batters of Burnett, while his ERA rose by the same rate as Burnett’s fell. I don’t get it . . . MLB Network showed Ryan Langerhans in left field for the Mariners the other day. The former Chop and Nats’ outfielder’s BA has ping-ponged with the Blue and Teal. Meanwhile Mike Morse, the player Rizzo obtained for Langerhans, is hitting the hell out of the ball in Syracuse. Morse, a third round draft choice for the Pale Hose has been haunted by injuries and the Mariners seemingly ran out of patience with him. Morse has played short and third, but he’s now holding down second for the Chiefs. Morse is big, tough and hits the long ball and he has a good glove. He could be in Washington soon . . . 

Around the NL Least: Kingman over at The Real Dirty Mets Blog loves the Ryan Church for Jeff Francoeur trade and says he has not yet given up hope on the Mets’ season. Readers of CFG know we have no brief for Francoeur, but we would probably take the swap. Francoeur was smiling all the way through the Mets’ loss to the Chops on Sunday in Atlanta, while Church looks like the same old Ryan Church that once played for the Nats . . . Braves Baseball Blog, meanwhile, makes a plea to Atlanta’s front office: “Another bat would be all I want. With offense struggling [the Braves] are in dire need of a legitimate bat to give support to McClouth, Chipper and B-Can . . . I’m very optimistic that it will happen, but some players I wouldn’t mind getting would be Holliday, Teahan, Jeremy Hermida, and or Alex Rios. But I don’t want the team to be trading away any potential future studs just so they can win now . . . not worth it in my opinion . . . ” The newest addition to nleastchatter is Fish Guts. This’ll be the last time I agree with a Phish fan, but he’s right about the new stadium and plans to replace the Marlins’ uniforms: ”my dream is that they keep the home whites with pinstripes, as I think those are some of the classiest threads in all of baseball.” That’s true . . .

As tradition would have it, 1997 was a fairly typical year for the Chicago Cubs. The Also-Rans boasted a power-packed line-up of potential Hall of Famers (Ryne Sandberg and Sammy Sosa), a handful of on-base guys (Mark Grace and Shawon Dunston) and a few young faces with great potential — like starting pitcher Geremi Gonzalez and outfielder Doug Glanville. Which is why the season caught so many Cubs fans by surprise: the team started losing in late April and didn’t stop until September. Their final numbers reflected their futility: they were dead last in the NL with only 68 wins, which tied them with the even more hapless Phillies. If the arc of the Cubs’ ’97 season was ever downward, then the arc of Cubs manager Jim Riggleman was upwards — a reflection of his increased irritation and angry outbursts. By the end of September, the Chicago baseball press were following Riggleman around like a pack of hounds. He was “good copy” — questioning the team’s attitude and criticizing unnamed players for being “selfish.”

The 1997 season is emblamatic of Riggleman’s style: he’s not above criticizing players, speaking his mind, or making tough decisions. In the middle of the ’97 season, in an effort to provide some spark to the Cubs’ line-up (and to signal that no one was above being called out for not producing) he benched Ryne Sandberg, then defended his decision in public as lynch mobs formed on Michigan Avenue. Riggleman then confronted outfielder Sammy Sosa in the Cubs clubhouse, when the outfielder insisted on playing loud Latin music on his boombox, even after a Cubs loss. Sosa regularly ran through Riggleman’s signs and seemed so intent on hitting thirty homers that he remained unphased by the Cubs’ play. By July, the Cubs were two teams: a Latin team clustered around Sosa and an increasingly disaffected core of veterans who were tired of losing.

The betting for the ’98 season was that if it came to a choice between Sosa or Riggleman, the Cubs skipper would be gone. Which makes the ’98 season that much more of a surprise: not only did Riggleman stay on, he patched up relations with Sosa, united the Cubs’ clubhouse, and re-jiggered the Cubs line-up, batting Sosa ahead of on-base hitting machine Mark Grace. The result was a Cubs’ revival that surprised even the most die-hard Cubs fans, earning the team a spot in the National League playoffs. “I treat players the way I want to be treated,” Riggleman said in the middle of the season, an admission, perhaps, that his ’97 irritability was misplaced, but also a signal that his policy of discipline had not been forgotten. In ’98, Sammy Sosa began to take instruction, turned down his boombox and yielded to Riggleman’s signs. Riggleman even had a bounce in his step when he went to the mound. At one point, he admitted that team losses fed his irritability. ”It know it eats at me daily,” he said.

Riggleman’s reputation as an outspoken disciplinarian followed him to Seattle, where he took over as the Mariners’ interim-manager in 1998. It didn’t take him long to become the darling of the Seattle media, who learned that he was as good a copy for the Post-Intelligencer as he had once been for the Chicago Tribune. Coincidentally — or perhaps not — the kinds of divisions that had plagued him in Chicago were present in the Mariners’ clubhouse. When some of Seattle’s players (including some of the team’s more medicre pitchers) criticized Ichiro Suzuki, Riggleman (an Ichiro defender) lit into them. Why were players criticizing Ichiro? His answer was blunt to the point of being painful: “Pettiness, seventh-grade mentality, just pettiness of whatever jealousy, pointing fingers, deflecting responsibility, lack of accountability, just a lack of a character. These things happen when you’re losing; you’re not seeing that happen with winning teams now. But those winning teams go out and lose a couple games and you’ll see it.”

A tiger doesn’t change its stripes and Jim Riggleman will remain Jim Riggleman — he’s an outspoken disciplinarian with a good baseball mind, but he cultivates controversy and isn’t above leveling criticisms not only at players, but also at owners, scouts and general managers. If he is given a poor product he’ll say so, as he did in Seattle (“the deficiencies start at the top,” he said), where his off-the-cuff remarks made him fanatical supporters among Mariners’ fans, but few friends in the front office. Which is why Don Wakamatsu is now in Seattle and Jim Riggleman is in Washington. He will “tighten the ship,” impose discipline and shake things up. If being bad-tempered will make the Nats hit, field, pitch and run better, he’ll be a hero. But if that doesn’t work, don’t be surprised if “Gentleman Jim” trains his sights on Mike Rizzo and Stan Kasten. When he does, they’ll wish they were somewhere else — or they’ll wish he was.

MASN commentator Rob Dibble was even more outspoken than usual during the second half of Houston’s pasting of the Nats last night. “I think some of these guys are mailing it in,” he said during the seventh inning of Washington’s 9-4 embarrassment. “It’s pathetic,” he said at another point. Dibble’s comments are now the talk of the blogosphere, including a long article on his comments on D.C. Sports Blog — which reviewed color analyst Ray Knight’s post-game response to some of Dibble’s charges. At first, it seemed, Knight was unwilling to associate himself with Dib’s criticisms but, after hearing him out, issued his own blistering attack. “You know what I would do? I’d clean house,” Knight said. “When guys don’t make plays defensively I’d sit ‘em on the bench. I’d give a guy a chance to play. And I’m talking about for a week, I don’t care if you’re hitting .320, I don’t care what you’re doing, I’m tired of seeing it too. We’re just two former players that busted our butts, and we’re here working for a company that you expect a fine product.”

Neither Dibble nor Knight blamed Manny Acta or the team’s coaches for the team’s weakness. ”I know Manny Acta and I know these coaches are busting their butts to get the most out of these guys, but the players, they don’t expect that out of each other in that locker room,” Dibble said. “That’s what I’m saying. Somebody needs to point a finger in there and say, ‘Enough’s enough. You guys are on my team, you’ve got to go out there and back me up.’ John Lannan deserved better out of his bullpen, he deserves better defensively, and he definitely damn well deserves better offensively after what he’s done the last six outings on a bad ballclub . . . So for me to watch a guy like John Lannan, who I think has a huge heart, and he goes out there, he never mails it in, I think there’s a lot of guys who should apologize to him.”

In retrospect, while Dibble’s and Knight’s comments seemed aimed at the entire team, they came in the aftermath of a yet another particularly sloppy game by Washington shortstop Cristian Guzman, whose year long indifferent fielding continues to hurt Nats’ starters. This is the second time that Dibble has focused his attention on the Nats’ shortstop — the first being in Colorado when Guzman booted a ground ball that hit his ankle. Knight didn’t need any more clues: “I don’t know who exactly you’re feeling it about,” Knight said. “I’m feeling it about certain people. But Manny has to make that decisions, or [Mike] Rizzo. If you think that there’s a player out there not defining the position . . . Take shortstop. Balls are going up the middle, knocked down, erratic type play. It looks like, to me, Goozie’s mind is somewhere else. He’s the guy I’m most disappointed in.”

Dibble and Knight’s comments are significant. Both men are not only former highly regarded ballplayers, both feel a part of the Nationals’ organization. Dibble regularly refers to himself as a part of the Nats’ team (“we’ve just got to do better”) and Knight has gone out of his way to get to know players and coaches. Unlike former MASN analyst Don Sutton (who departed when a broadcasting slot came open elsewhere), neither are looking at their MASN work as a launching pad to stardom. More specifically, while the new “nasty boys” tandem of Dibble and Knight have said that “Manny has to make that decision, or Rizzo” — their comments are a direct challenge to the Nats’ front office: if you’re going to get rid of lazy players, you might want to start with ”Goozie.”

It’s not hard to figure out who might need Guzman. The ten year veteran has a sharp bat and has been in the thick of a pennant race before — with Minnesota in ’02, ’03 and ’04, years in which the Twinkies reached the off-season. Guzman seemed to feed off the Twins’ success, registering just 12, 11, and 12 errors respectively during that time. Teams in contention and shopping for a shortstop are likely to see Guzman’s glove work in Washington (where he’s accumulated twelve errors already) as a result of playing for a last place team. A team like the Seattle Mariners, for instance, might find Guzman’s bat a plus in any run-to-the-division title. While the Mariners’ claim they’re satisfied with Ronny Cedeno’s play up-the-middle, the former Cub is hitting just .149. Cedeno would do better with full time work: he only saw action while subbing for regular shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt, who was rehabbing a strained left hamstring.

Even if Cedeno stays in Seattle, Betancourt is available. After returning from his rehab, Betancourt was shifted to second (he had never played there before), before being put back on the bench — fueling rumors that he was headed out of town. A straight-up swap of dissatisfied shortstops might appeal to Seattle, whether the trade involved Cedeno or the 27-year old Betancourt. It is well-known that the Mariners’ have been discussing Betancourt with the Pirates, but given the Knight-Dibble rebellion, the Nats might think about getting into the mix. While Dibble thinks that Guzman should be benched in favor of Alberto Gonzalez, the young Venezuelan has not proven he’s a slick fielder, with six errors in 21 games this year. Either Cedeno or Betancourt would be a step up — even if the Nats had to fork over some extra dollars to swing the deal: Guzman is owed $8 million for 2010 while Betancourt (a better and younger player) is in the second year of a four year $13.75 million contract.

When I was a kid I spent an inordinate amount of time each Spring assessing the relative worth of each team and its players and making predictions for the coming summer. It was easier then: there were only eight teams in each league — and only one league really mattered. Even so, my predictions were uncannily the same, year after year. This team always finished first. Now that I’m older (and here, by the way, is what I look like) …

… anyway, now that I’m older I’m more mature in my picks. That is to say, no matter what, I always pick these guys last. Why? Because after I assess VORP values and OBPs, and walks per inning, I come down to the same thing: I hate ‘em. And I mean, I really hate em. But it’s a mature hate: if it weren’t for this showboat I’d probably think the Arizona Assholes (and so, they will always be) are just alright.

Which is to say (as I told me droogs last week when we had our first organizational meeting — er, well, as I forgot to tell them), we should all take some time to make our predictions and then (because it’s really fun) see how we do at the end of the year. But we’ve decided to add a wrinkle. This year in addition to me and me droogs making predictions, we’re going to add another wholly fictional picker (we’ll call him Ernie, after this guy) who will make predictions at random — from a hat. And we’ll see who’s better: the three of us brilliant analysts, or Joe Shit the Ragman.

So I’ll start with the junior circuit, because it’s the junior circuit: it’s not really baseball over there (they have the DH), one of its franchises is call the Texas Rangers (I mean, who really gives a damn) and it doesn’t have your Washington Nationals as one of its premier teams. Now, you can follow along at home and make your own predictions, and because we have a comment box here, you can write in to tell me just how full of beans I am. Oh, and in case you think there’s no accountability here, you should know that there’s a column beside each team that gives the reason “why” the prediction was made as is — ooooohhhhhh.

So, as a bow to Igor hisself, here’s my annual Rite of Spring, for the American League:

American League West

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American League Central

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American League East

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My sage comments?

This is pretty simple: the premier league in baseball is no more. After Boston, the Angels, Indians and Tigers, the rest of the league is either in a free-fall (like the White Sox) rebuilding (like the Royals), or still two pitchers away from contending (like Tampa Bay). The Mariners may squeeze into the top tier, but not by much — and they’re an injury (to this guy) from last place. That said, the Cleveland Indians are still the class of the league, if they can get over their PTSD from last year’s playoff collapse to the Red Sox. I just don’t see how anyone gets pass “C.C.” and Carmona — and then there’s Westbrook and a strong bullpen. I know, I know: Manny and Dave and Jacoby and that unbelievable line-up. Yeah, you’re right. You’re absolutely right. The Red Sox are a fricking hitting machine. But they’d better be, because their rotation is a mess. It’s Beckett and Dice-K and a prayer — and Beckett’s not healthy. And even with Dice-K it’s a prayer.

So, knowing this — why didn’t the Indians improve over the winter. Here’s my answer: they didn’t need to. If it weren’t for Vlad, the best player in the junior circuit might be Grady Sizemore, who could hit 40 home runs, easy. And Travis Hafner is no Jacoby Ellsbury: he’s better. A lot better. Hell, Travis hit 24 dingers last year and everyone was disappointed in his “off year.” Yeah? Trade him to the Nats. We’ll give ya Ryan Langerhans and a player to be named.

What about the Tigers? Well, what about them? Dontrelle can’t hit the strike zone, Ordonez has seen his best years, Bonderman is jittery, and Leland is a walk-with-the-bases-loaded away from a stroke. I love Polanco, the great untold story of the team, but he’s not a Jimmy Rollins and once you get past him and Granderson and a 280 pound (headed to about 340) very rich Miguel Cabrera you have a second place team. Even with Verlander. Hmmm. Still (granted) who wouldn’t want to have a second place team with the likes of these guys? As for the Yanks: these are not your Granddaddy’s Yanks, hell they’re not even your daddy’s Yanks. So that’s it: Vlad is the MVP, Gil Meche wins the Cy Young, and this time the Indians go to the Series — after sweeping the Red Sox.