On Shortstop Anchors In Baseball

Craig Calcaterra on HardballTalk tries to remember Derek Jeter's predecessors in light of a Mike Vaccaro's New York Post article today about how the precense of Derek Jeter may have cost the Yankees on Cuban free agent Adeiny Hechevarria (Jason @ IIATMS has some more thoughts on the matter). Calcaterra concludes: "There are new prospects every year. Anchors at shortstop are pretty damn rare." I decided to check in on how rare "anchors" really are, and found out that, especially in the past twenty years, they're pretty damn rare.

Gone are the days where guys like Cal Ripken, Jr., Alan Trammell or Dave Concepcion manned shortstop for one team for so many years. I plugged into Baseball-Reference's Play Index any player who played 80% of their games at shortstop from 1989-2009 and played in at least 1200 games (which is basically 8 seasons). There were only 18 players who fit that criteria. Here are the results below sorted by Franchises Played For:

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Presumed Guilty: The "Sad" Stories of Baseball Players Today

Alex Rodriguez has been convicted by a jury of his public. It doesn't matter if he's innocent or guilty, because, well, he's guilty. This Dr. Galea gave him human growth hormone and that's that. Jose Reyes, too--and hey, doesn't this freak injury prove he was on something? Did you see how big Nomar Garciaparra was at one point and all those injuries he had at the end of his career? Guilty! Proof? You actually want proof? Why would you need that? Hang them all in the public square next to the court of public opinion.

Too healthy? He's on steroids! Too hurt? Steroids! Consistently high production? Steroids! A jump in production? Steroids! A decline in production? Withdrawal form steroids! If you're a baseball player in 2010, you're guilty before you've even given a comment, and if you dare answer "no comment", you're definitely guilty.

The truth is, though, I don't feel bad for the players at all. Let's say that Derek Jeter is cleaner than clean and he never even thought about doing steroids or HGH or any other PED--he's had plenty of chances to step up and say "hey, I'm clean, let's make sure things get changed" and has passed up on those opportunities. I know he's part of a union and a team and has benefited by playing alongside juicers (can we call them Juiceheads or is that only reserved for the Jersey Shore?), but the dude has more clout in baseball than Bud Selig, Joe Torre and Ted Williams frozen head combined. If there is currently an "Ambassador of Baseball" playing in the Major Leagues, I think that Jeter has to be it. And yet he stayed quiet too.

I'm not blaming Jeter or any of the quiet players, though, for everyone else's mistakes (though Mariano Rivera could step forward and say something, too). They don't deserve that much scorn for other people's misdeeds. A-Rod has lied and lied again. So when something doesn't pass the "sniff test", you can understand that writers get suspicious.

That doesn't mean that the writers can have open season to shout accusations from the rooftop, or even from their newspapers like they're Émile Zola or Woodward and Bernstein. The writers (yes, some of us are bloggers, but many of those people we expect more from reside in the "Mainstream Media") decided that they were wrong to not tell the public about steroids in baseball in 1998, so in 2010 they decided that they'll tell the public about everyone they expect of doing something wrong. Journalistic integrity? Craig Calcaterra of HardballTalk thinks not:

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Nomar Retires in Red Sox Garb

From The Boston Herald (H/T Jamie):

Nomar signed a one-day minor league contract to retire as part of the Red Sox, to join ESPN as a Baseball analyst.

As a Sox Fan, I'm happy to see one of the players who helped build the foundation for the team's success in the past decade retire as a Red Sox (Sock?) even if he left Boston on shaky terms.


(Image from ESPN)

Nomar And The Holy Trinity of Personalities

Last week I was reading The Wall Street Journal's very interesting full-page article titled "Whatever Happened to Nomar?"

A decade ago, the talk was all about the "Holy Trinity of Shortstops": Nomar Garciappara, Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter. Miguel Tejada would soon join that group, but the talk was all about those top three. Who would you want to have on your team? Derek Jeter, the leader of the Yankees who was cool in the clutch and would have 4 World Series rings in his first 5 seasons? Alex Rodriguez, who looked like he was well on his way to being one of the all-time greats as well as challening for the home run crown? Or Nomar Garciappara, "the 1997 American League Rookie of the Year, a six-time All-Star once considered the best right-handed hitter since Joe DiMaggio".

Well in 2001, A-Rod signed a 10-year, $252 million contract with the Texas Rangers and Derek Jeter signed a10-year, $189 million contract with the New York Yankees. In 2003, the Red Sox offered Garciappara a four-year, $60 million extension. He turned it down seeing the money that his fellow peers had received and confident he could make more on the open market. He got injured in 2004, was traded away, the Red Sox got his championship, and Nomar never got the contract he was looking for. He played one more year for the Cubs, then three with the Dodgers and is now a spare part for the Athletics who may or may not be on the move today (maybe to the Phillies?)

But one thing that struck me about this article was describing Garciappara's personality as an introvert:

Ex-teammates Mr. Lewis and Mike Benjamin went so far as to use the word "introverted" when describing Mr. Garciaparra, though each wrapped it in a compliment. "He did his own thing," said Mr. Benjamin. "He didn't try to put on this image that wasn't him." Mr. Lewis described being impressed by the shortstop's "intellect" and "humbleness." Mo Vaughn, Boston's first baseman for Mr. Garciaparra's first three years with the team, says the introvert description is accurate, "but there's nothing wrong with that. I sometimes wish I could have shut up and just gone about doing my job, like he did."

Well, don't we say the same thing about A-rod as a Yankees as Mo Vaughn said about himself? In some ways the Holy Trinity of Shortstops had three distinct personalities as well: Nomar, the introvert who just went about doing his job and didn't try to project an image that wasn't him (except maybe this Sports Illustrated cover I copied on the right) who was married to soccer star, Mia Hamm; Derek Jeter, the consummate bachelor who always says the right things and does the right things and wins championships; and, A-Rod, the man stuck in the middle of the two, the introvert who has tried to change his image and be so many other people, the man who was married with a family but wanted to go out and be Derek Jeter, dating Madonna and now Kate Hudson, still without the championships or the happiness.

But as The Wall Street Journal article suggest, Nomar has seemed to find his happiness in Oakland this year. Derek Jeter, after two down season, is having one of the best seasons of his career and somewhat of a renaissance. And after the whole steroids mess for A-Rod, he vowed to go about doing his job this season and not be a distraction, he's kept to his word and seems to be his most comfortable (physical ailments aside) since he joined the Yankees.

I'm not saying it will happen, but imagine if the Yankees went out and got Nomar today as another veteran bat to throw on the bench for the playoffs. And imagine if the Yankees went on to win the World Series with all of the Holy Trinity on the team. Three shortstops, three great players, three very different personalities.