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Yes, absolutely.

How the Indians were built: Trades, more trades and one special draft


By Zack Meisel 1h ago
There’s no precise formula for building a big-league roster. Every approach involves some degree of risk, some standard of financial undertaking and some level of patience.

The goal for every front office is the same: assemble the most talented roster possible. But each team differs in how it attacks that aim, based on variables such as philosophy, organizational strengths and payroll restrictions.

The Indians have acquired more than half of the players on their 40-man roster via trade. Unsurprisingly, they haven’t relied too heavily on the free-agent market.

The draft has played an integral part in how the Indians construct their roster, with the 2016 class serving as the shining example. The 2014 draft is also responsible for 10 percent of the Indians’ 40-man unit.

Player development is instrumental in all of this, as it allows teams to build through the draft and the international market — two cost-efficient means of creating a sustainable system — all while boosting players’ trade value for those general managers who wield an itchy trigger finger.

40-man roster breakdowns (Trade, Homegrown FA, Waiver)
Rays
26
12
2
0
Athletics
25
11
3
1
Indians
21
16
3
0
Yankees
17
17
6
0
Astros
13
21
5
0
Twins
11
17
8
2
For reference, consider a couple of rebuilding teams, the Tigers and Orioles.

Tigers: 24 homegrown, 10 trade, four free agents, one waiver claim, one Rule 5 pick

Orioles: 14 homegrown, 10 trade, four free agents, nine waiver claims, two Rule 5 picks

Let’s examine how the Indians assembled their 40-man roster, a collection of trades, draft picks and signings spanning the past 12 years.

Wheeling and dealing: The 21 trades
Carlos Carrasco

He was on his last chance in 2014, relegated to the bullpen and out of minor-league options, but a change in mentality and delivery resulted in Carrasco finally blossoming into a reliable cog in the rotation and into one of the most consistent pitchers in the league. At long last, the Indians could boast about a sufficient return in the 2009 Cliff Lee deal.

Carlos Santana

He and the Indians would prefer to pretend as though his 2018 season in Philadelphia never happened — clubhouse TV screen shards and all — so instead of citing the three-team trade with Tampa and Seattle that returned him to Cleveland, we’ll cite the deal from 12 years ago, in which the Indians shipped Casey Blake to the Dodgers for Santana and pitcher Jon Meloan. Blake spent the twilight of his career with Los Angeles. Santana ranks eighth on the Indians’ all-time home run list (and sits only 35 home runs from passing Albert Belle for second place).

Mike Clevinger

In one of the great heists in Indians history, the front office converted the final 21 innings of Vinnie Pestano’s career into a long-haired skateboard enthusiast who was still rounding into form after Tommy John surgery and needed a mechanical overhaul. Two years after the trade, Clevinger broke into the big leagues. A few years after that, he has developed into a front-line starting pitcher.

Brad Hand

When Andrew Miller and Cody Allen were searching for health and consistency in 2018, the Indians swung a trade for another late-innings reliever, which cost them their top prospect at the time, catcher Francisco Mejia. Miller and Allen departed via free agency after that season, leaving Hand as the bullpen’s last line of defense.

Adam Cimber

Cimber joined Hand in the Mejia trade, giving the Indians a right-handed reliever with a submarine-style delivery in which he hops around behind the mound like he’s using an uncontrollable pogo stick, points his front foot toward center field and drags his knuckles through the dirt as he releases the baseball toward the plate.

Oscar Mercado

On July 31, 2018, the Indians traded for Leonys Martín. Oh, and they also traded two minor leaguers for another minor leaguer. But yeah, Martín was supposed to help solve their outfield woes … until he wound up in the hospital battling a life-threatening bacterial infection. As for Mercado, he hit everything in sight in spring training in 2019 and eventually played his way onto the major-league roster, taking over the center-field duties — from Martín.

Jordan Luplow

A month after the 2018 season ended, the Indians dealt Erik Gonzalez and a couple of minor leaguers to Pittsburgh for Luplow and Max Moroff. While Moroff’s tenure in Cleveland was short-lived, Luplow figures to stick around for years as, at the very least, a destroyer of southpaws.

Franmil Reyes

A big piece in the return for Trevor Bauer — no, really, the guy is 6-foot-5 with giant sequoias for legs — Reyes is under team control through 2024. In his first full season in the majors last year, he socked 37 home runs.

Logan Allen

A top-100 prospect entering the 2019 season, Allen made his major-league debut last year, spending time with the Padres and the Indians (after he was included in the Bauer trade). He said this spring he feels he’s already “10 times” the pitcher he was last year.

Scott Moss

Another part of the Bauer trade, Moss relocated with Yasiel Puig from the Reds’ organization, where he was excelling at Double A. If there’s baseball in 2020, he could factor into the Indians’ pitching plans.

James Hoyt

The Indians have been eagerly awaiting his contributions for a couple of years now since they acquired him from the Astros for a minor leaguer. Hoyt should have a chance to carve out a key bullpen role after he traveled a long, strange, winding road that included stops at a sailboat company and in independent ball, where he played for Jose Canseco.

Daniel Johnson

The Nationals included their 2017 Minor League Player of the Year in the Yan Gomes trade a year later. Johnson figures to force his way into the Indians’ outfield plans at some point this year or next.

Jefry Rodriguez

One-third of the return for Gomes, Rodriguez never pitched until he was 18 and stumbled upon a tryout with the Nationals. The Indians like his potential, especially after he cleaned up his delivery last season, but it remains to be seen whether his future resides in the rotation or the bullpen.

Jake Bauers

One of the tentacles of the three-team trade the Indians’ brass finalized as they boarded a Wi-Fi-less flight back to Cleveland from the 2018 Winter Meetings involved Bauers and Yandy Díaz swapping franchises. Bauers endured a rough first season in Cleveland.

Nick Wittgren

In an unheralded swap in February 2019, the Indians scooped up Wittgren from Miami for minor leaguer Jordan Milbrath. Wittgren subsequently became the Indians’ steadiest reliever last season.

Phil Maton

The Indians and Padres like to work together, and here’s another example. Last summer, Cleveland sent international bonus slot money to San Diego and received Maton in return.

Christian Arroyo

Once a top-100 prospect and the centerpiece in a trade for Evan Longoria, Arroyo has dealt with injuries the past few years. The Rays deemed him expendable last summer and traded him to Cleveland in part to clear 40-man roster space. The infielder was vying for an Opening Day roster spot when spring training was halted.

Hunter Wood

In late July, the Indians acquired Wood and Arroyo from the Rays for minor-league outfielder Ruben Cardenas and some international bonus slot money. Wood and Arroyo were out of options and occupying 40-man roster spots.

Sandy León

The Indians and Red Sox essentially swapped backup catchers over the winter, as Cleveland traded for León and non-tendered Plawecki, who then latched on with Boston. The Indians preferred Leon’s defensive ability.

Delino DeShields

A second-generation major leaguer, DeShields can chase down any fly ball hit to his ZIP code. It’s his bat that had Indians fans scratching their heads when studying the return for Corey Kluber in December.

Emmanuel Clase

His stock suffered a hit last week when he received an 80-game suspension for testing positive for an anabolic steroid. That all but removes him from the 2020 picture, if there is some sort of season. Clase throws hard and he’s only 22, but he has plenty to prove to the team that coveted him enough to cough up Corey Kluber for him.


Francisco Lindor (Ron Schwane / Getty Images)
With the ___ pick: The 13 draft choices
Roberto Pérez

Pérez was the 1,011th player chosen in the 2008 draft, the penultimate pick in the 33rd round. Eleven years later, in his first season as the primary catcher, he smacked 24 home runs and claimed a Gold Glove Award.

Francisco Lindor

The Indians narrowed their choices to Lindor and Javy Baez, a couple of high school infielders, for the No. 8 pick in 2011, but they were more confident in Lindor’s defense at shortstop. The Cubs opted for Baez with the next pick. Both players bloomed into All-Star talents.

Tyler Naquin

The Naquin selection in 2012 launched a run of first-round outfielders, as the Indians followed with Clint Frazier in ’13, Bradley Zimmer in ’14 and Will Benson in ’16. Naquin has all but recovered from his September knee surgery; he just needs some game repetitions.

Adam Plutko

Years before he pitched in the same big-league rotation as Bauer, Plutko was rotation-mates with Bauer (and Gerrit Cole) at UCLA. The Indians snagged him in the 11th round in 2013, and he made his major-league debut three years later.

Bradley Zimmer

The Indians’ first-round pick in 2014, Zimmer secured the center-field job in 2017 before falling victim to the omnipresent injury bug, which has swarmed him ever since. He has showcased his speed and defensive prowess, but the Indians are still waiting for him to prove his bat belongs in the big leagues.

Bobby Bradley

In the months after he was drafted in the third round in 2014, Bradley wreaked havoc upon pitchers in rookie ball as he captured the triple crown. Bradley made his major-league debut in June, with his mom, sister and aunt sitting behind home plate, laughing, smiling, crying and sharing stories, including one about the time former Indians outfielder Matt Lawton predicted Bradley would be a big leaguer.

“You’re talking about the kid out in center field with a hat full of grass, throwing it up in the air and doing somersaults?” his mom, Deloris, said. “That little boy?”

“Yeah,” Lawton replied. “That little boy.”

Sam Hentges

A fourth-round selection in 2014, Hentges encountered his first road bump in 2019 (5.11 ERA), but that didn’t prevent Indians special advisor Tim Belcher from heaping praise upon him. The left-hander turned some heads this spring with his upper-90s fastball.

Greg Allen

The Indians grabbed Allen in the sixth round of the 2014 draft out of San Diego State, where he played for Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn. Allen has played a part-time outfield role the past three seasons.

Triston McKenzie

The 42nd overall pick in the 2015 draft, the lanky right-hander was the club’s top prospect the past few years — and a consensus top-50 prospect — before injuries wiped out his 2019 season. He spent the spring in big-league camp, but now, his long wait for game action persists.

Aaron Civale

The 2016 draft class was responsible for three-fifths of the Indians’ late-2019 rotation, and Civale was the first of the three starters selected, as Northeast area scout Mike Kanen plucked him from Northeastern University for the organization’s third-round selection.

Shane Bieber

His command aided his ascent through the Indians’ system, and now he can reach the mid-90s with his fastball and he has added a changeup to his envied arsenal. That’s how he blossomed from No. 5 starter to No. 4 finisher in the AL Cy Young race in the span of six months in 2019. Not bad for a college walk-on who became the Indians’ fourth-round pick in 2016.

Zach Plesac

The Indians grabbed Plesac in the 12th round in 2016, as he was recovering from Tommy John surgery. The Ball State product started last season at Double-A Akron and eventually made 21 starts for the Tribe.

James Karinchak

The Indians selected Karinchak, who has some Wild Thing blood flowing through his veins, in the ninth round in 2017 out of Bryant University in Rhode Island. He struck out 74 batters in 30 innings in the minors last year, which seems impossible. If he can command his upper-90s fastball and heaven-to-hell curveball, he could flourish as the bullpen’s future.


José Ramírez (Adam Hunger / USA Today)
Going global: The 3 international signings
José Ramírez

In 2009, for $50,000 — pocket change on the international market — the Indians signed a diminutive 17-year-old shortstop with a well-established strut. They never anticipated he would evolve into an MVP finalist, a franchise cornerstone and one of the most imposing hitters in the league. But as assistant GM Carter Hawkins once said: “That’s the beauty of it all.”

Yu Chang

A native of Taiwan, the infielder made his big-league debut in June, six years after he signed with the Indians.

Jean Carlos Mejia

The Indians signed Mejia out of the Dominican Republic in 2013. He reached High-A Lynchburg last year and spent spring training in big-league camp.

One thing to note: Twelve of the Indians’ top 30 prospects, per MLB Pipeline, were international signees, so this group could expand in the near future.

Will they actually play for the Indians? The 3 free-agent additions
César Hernández

Hernández was intended to be a one-year stopgap at second base until top prospect Nolan Jones is ready to take over at third, with Ramírez eventually shifting to second. If there’s no minor-league season, will Jones be ready next year? If there’s no major-league season, will Hernández ever don an Indians uniform in a regular-season game?

Domingo Santana

With Reyes destined to receive time in the outfield, the Indians had some designated hitter at-bats available, so they signed Santana in mid-February to a one-year deal that guaranteed him $1.5 million. Will he ever actually play a game for the Indians, or will he serve as an answer to a future trivia question about the ghosts of the 2020 season past?

Oliver Pérez

He was wasting away in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre like an overqualified paper salesman when he and the Yankees severed ties and he joined the reliever-desperate Indians in June 2018. He made his major-league debut 16 years earlier, when Charlie Manuel was Indians manager. Though his hair has grayed, he has proved reliable the past two years.

(Top photo: Frank Jansky / Getty Images)

We'll see how the Mercado and Luplow deals work out years from now when very young very promising OF Jhon Torres and Pitcher Tahnaj Thomas may develop into quality major leaguers, or flops.

What I thought was a neat picture, and snippet from an article during the Spanish Flu epidemic.

https://twitter.com/mrcfb/status/1257835680157351938

https://twitter.com/GoBigRedCast/status ... 3895010305

Rosenthal: Latest details on baseball’s plan to return


By Ken Rosenthal May 9, 2020 269
Nothing is official. Major League Baseball will discuss its plans for the 2020 season in a conference call with owners on Monday. If the owners give their approval, the league will present its proposal to the players’ union on Tuesday.

As previously reported, even a formal plan would be subject to change; the details are pending ownership and union approval, and the unpredictability of the COVID-19 pandemic might force the league to adjust locales and schedules before the season begins and after it is in progress.

Any plan also would require sign-off from medical experts and confidence that testing for the virus would be sufficiently available. But here is a rough outline of some of what the league would like to do, according to four people with knowledge of the league’s intentions:

• A regular season beginning in early July and consisting of approximately 80 games. The number might not be exactly 80 — 78 and 82 are also possibilities.

The schedule would be regionalized: Teams would face opponents only from their own division and the same geographic division in the opposite league. An NL East club, for example, would face teams only from the NL East and AL East.

A 78-game schedule might look like this: Four three-game series against each division opponent and two three-game series against each non-division opponent.

• Teams would open in as many home parks as possible, with even New York — the major-league city hardest hit by the coronavirus — potentially in play by early July.

Toronto also might open by then, though nonessential travel between the U.S. and Canada is restricted through at least May 21 and all travelers to Canada are subject to a mandatory 14-day quarantine.

Teams unable to open in their cities temporarily would relocate, either to their spring training sites or major-league parks in other parts of the country. The same would apply to spring training 2.0 if the league decides to use mostly home parks as opposed to returning to Florida and Arizona.

Not all clubs agree they should train in their home parks, believing spring locales offer a less densely populated, more controlled environment.

• Expanded playoffs similar to the idea first reported by the New York Post in February, with an increase from five to seven teams in each league.

Under this plan, the team with the best record in each league would receive a bye in the wild-card round and advance to the Division Series. The two other division winners and wild card with the best record would face the bottom three wild cards in a best-of-three wild-card round.

• Because games, at least initially, will be played without fans, the players would be asked to accept a further reduction in pay, most likely by agreeing to a set percentage of revenues for this season only.

The idea behind such a plan, from the league’s perspective, would be to protect the players and owners against the economic uncertainty created by the virus.

The players agreed in March to prorate their salaries in a shortened season. Those salaries cover the regular season only, while postseason shares are based upon gate receipts. If the players agreed to a set percentage of revenue, they also would share any additional national TV money generated during the postseason.

Without the players making such a concession, league officials say they will spend more on player salaries than they would earn in revenue for every incremental regular-season game played without fans. The union believes the opposite to be true and that postseason TV and other revenue will further enhance the league’s financial position.

The salary issue remains a source of friction. If the owners say it is not economically feasible to play games without fans, the union almost certainly would ask to see financial proof. The teams do not provide the players with full access to their books.

A number of other considerations, financial and otherwise, will enter the discussions between players and owners. An expanded roster of as many as 45 to 50 players is expected. The parties also would need to determine medical protocols — for instance, how they would react if a player becomes infected with the virus.

The final details are to be determined. But a preferred blueprint is in place.

Law: How the five-round draft hurts players — and pro baseball as a whole


By Keith Law May 9, 2020 94
MLB’s decision to cut this year’s draft to five rounds, reported yesterday by Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich, comes after one offer to the union for a longer draft, which several sources told me would have been 12 rounds, with severely curtailed bonuses after Round 5 and limited ability to sign undrafted players. MLB chose not to come back to the table with a second proposal, as its agreement with the union in March allowed it to unilaterally impose a five-round draft with other restrictions.

With the current financial situation and uncertainty of when, or if, we will see baseball this year, as well as the likelihood that we’ll see little to no minor-league baseball this summer, some reduction in the draft made sense from a player development standpoint, and it saves MLB teams some cash in the short term. But this decision to essentially draft and sign as few players as possible could have significant long-term consequences for players and teams alike, most of them not good.

The most obvious impact is that we’ll see a lot of good players who had some major-league potential go undrafted this year. Paul Goldschmidt (Round 8) and Jacob deGrom (Round 9) were drafted after the fifth round out of four-year colleges; at the time, they were not seen as good enough prospects to go in the top 150 picks, even though history has shown they were among the very best players in their respective draft classes.

In a five-round draft, college juniors like Goldschmidt and deGrom would have been undrafted and left to choose whether to sign as free agents for a relative pittance ($20,000 this year), go back to school to come back out as seniors/fourth-year juniors (and potentially get $5,000 or less if they didn’t improve their standing) or go play independent ball and hope to boost their value (which might not be an option in 2020 if independent leagues can’t play). All of those options are worse than what such players would have gotten in a normal draft, and we risk losing players entirely. Perhaps instead of perennial MVP candidate Paul Goldschmidt, we’d have Paul Goldschmidt, CPA.

There’s a big ripple effect from players who expected to sign going back to school or going to college from high school. Division I schools have only 11.7 scholarships per team, and coaches plan to distribute those under the assumption that some juniors will not return for their senior years and that some of their top recruits will never reach campus. Some members of both groups will now be at school, fighting for the same playing time and the same limited scholarships, which will squeeze some players out of lineups, out of scholarships or off rosters entirely.

This could be a boon for junior college baseball, at least where such schools still have the resources to operate teams next spring, as they could welcome any top high school prospects who aren’t drafted and offer them the chance to play for one year and re-enter the draft in 2021 (or even two years, re-entering the draft in 2021 and 2022). Playing time wouldn’t be an issue, and these schools cost far less than most four-year colleges. MLB teams’ scouts would have a field day as well, since junior colleges don’t have Trackman or similar systems in place and the performance stats we get from those levels include widely varying degrees of competition.

Of course, this just amounts to kicking the can down the road. The next three draft classes will collect the spillover from this year, as some high school prospects will go to four-year colleges and stay until 2023, while others will go to two-year schools and some college juniors or draft-eligible sophomores will come back out in 2021 or 2022. That’s all good for MLB teams, who’ll have stronger draft classes next year and beyond and thus will have more potential leverage to try to negotiate discounted bonuses with picks, especially beyond the top of the first round. But it’s bad for players, who might be fighting for playing time in school and then turning around and competing with a larger-than-expected pool of players in the draft.

Any change to the draft or college scholarship availability will disproportionately hit players from disadvantaged backgrounds, reducing their choices, their opportunities to play and their potential return if and when they are drafted. It’s great to talk about increasing diversity in youth baseball and to try to get more young players of color into the sport. You have to back that up with real money, however, and this appears to work against those goals — if you’re cutting bonuses and opportunities, your talent pool will consist only of players who can afford to make little to no money while they play. Players who need incomes, or who might have been able to use a six-figure signing bonus to get by while they played in the minors, might end up leaving the sport for other careers.

The argument from MLB and its teams is that saving several hundred thousand dollars in bonus outlays this year will help them avoid furloughing current employees, with revenues likely to be diminished or nonexistent. That may be true, and nobody wants to see anyone lose their jobs even temporarily, but it’s just transferring that wealth from one underpaid group to another. MLB owners will still reap the long-term benefits from having prospects in their organizations, but now their acquisition costs will be lower.

There’s also the specter of teams punting picks completely, as all selections in the first three rounds will still be “protected,” meaning that if you don’t sign the player you take with such a pick, you get a compensatory pick in the same spot in 2021. So if some team decides it doesn’t want to pay full slot for anyone in the first round when it hasn’t had a normal evaluation cycle, it could take any player it wants and offer 40 percent of the pick’s slot value. If the player declines, the team could walk away and take the extra pick in 2021, hoping that we have a normal spring season and that next year’s draft class is stronger because of all of the players who don’t sign this year. MLB teams are largely owned by billionaires, or people close to that status, and they are the ultimate beneficiaries of such savings, as well as of the added revenues that will be generated by the players they sign at discounts. And the union had already agreed to let teams defer large portions of this year’s signing bonuses into future years, which should have cleared cash flow to help keep team employees on the payroll.

There is one good argument against a longer draft this year, which is that any players MLB teams sign will have no place to play this summer or maybe even this fall. There’s talk of an extended instructional league, but that’s just speculation. I’ve heard proposals of a larger or longer Arizona Fall League, but Arizona is lagging in its response to COVID-19, ranking in the bottom five in tests conducted per capita, with cases spiking as the state rushes to reopen businesses. Many players will get back on the field sooner if they go to or stay in college, whether it’s some sort of fall ball — could MLB hold a January draft, like it did 40 years ago, for players who slipped through this year’s June draft? — or a regular spring season in 2021. Pro ball likely won’t have any opportunities for these players until next March at the soonest.

On the whole, however, this plan helps MLB owners more than anybody else and risks us losing talented players to something other than baseball. It takes money away from some of the players who do sign, even before we consider the risk that some teams will lowball high picks and spend less than their total bonus pools. It creates potential logjams of players at four-year colleges and reduces players’ leverage in future drafts. The savings are marginal and matter in the short term — just until revenues return when games resume — more than the long term. It’s a disappointing outcome given the potential options for a longer draft that would distribute more money to players, even if the payments were deferred to next year.

(Photo of Rob Manfred: Steven Senne, File / Associated Press)

Rosenthal: Inside MLB’s reduced amateur draft and the money fight still to come


By Ken Rosenthal May 8, 2020 161
Domestic amateurs often are a bargaining chip for Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association, so why should this time have been any different?

A bigger negotiation is expected next week, a negotiation in which the league is almost certain to ask major leaguers to accept further salary reductions by citing the need, at least initially, to play without paying customers because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The decision by the league to reduce this year’s amateur draft from its customary 40 rounds to five has the look of a warning shot — or, to put it in gentler terms, a clear statement by the owners that they believe their financial position is bleaker than the union and many fans probably think.

In the meantime, a sport that loves to promote its “Play Ball” program for youth will draft 150 players instead of the usual 1,200 and limit the bonuses for passed-over players to $20,000 plus the cost of a potential college scholarship. In the words of agent Scott Boras, “We probably should have bought a billboard that said, ‘Go play other sports after Little League. Goodbye.’”

Baseball will survive, but farm systems will be thinner, compromising organizational depth once minor-league baseball resumes, probably next year. The league does not expect to permanently lose talented young players who would have turned professional this year; high school players will go to college, and college juniors can return to school and enter next year’s draft, which will be at least 20 rounds. But forgive all the baseball people who consider the message both deflating and self-defeating.

The league argues, not unreasonably, that these are extraordinary times. A $10.7 billion industry is shut down. Commissioner Rob Manfred and the rest of the league’s senior staff accepted 35 percent pay reductions. Most teams have yet to guarantee their employees will be paid beyond May 31, and some already have implemented furloughs and pay cuts.

The draft represents another potential area of savings. Some teams believe money set aside for amateurs who are at best years away from the majors should go toward saving the jobs of existing employees. The counterargument: The draft is the most cost-efficient way of finding talent, and the minimal savings will not justify the potential sacrifice to the game’s future.

The league initially considered not holding a draft at all, then combining the classes of 2020 and ’21 next year. The March agreement between the owners and players established a minimum of five rounds and kept signing bonus values the same for 2020 as they were in 2019. Those bonuses, however, will be heavily deferred. Teams will pay drafted players a maximum of $100,000 this year, with 50 percent of the remainder coming on July 1, 2021 and the other 50 percent on July 1, 2022.

The union does not technically represent amateurs; the draft is collectively bargained because draft-pick compensation is attached to free agency. Agreeing to adjusted rules in March helped the union secure concessions for major leaguers on service time and a $170 million guarantee even if the season is canceled (money that otherwise will be used as an advance if play begins). The league followed with a proposal for a 10-round draft that would have reduced signing bonus values by half in rounds 6-10. The union said no.

Going from half-bonuses to full bonuses in rounds 6-10 would have cost each club a maximum of roughly $500,000, or less than the average salary of a major leaguer. Even at the full price of approximately $1 million per team, Boras says, “If you get one major leaguer out of those five players, you more than make up for the cost.”

The union likely would have accepted similar restrictions for the 2020 payouts as it did in rounds 1-5. But by refusing to accept the league’s offer – or negotiate off it – the union effectively denied 150 players the opportunity to be drafted and turned down a potential $15 million in bonuses for those players. The picks in rounds 6-10 would have been under no obligation to sign; they could have declined if they did not like the bonuses they were offered.

Many who represent major leaguers, though, believed they had reason to push back, particularly when they already had made concessions in the draft. They did not want to set the precedent of altering the March deal, knowing the league will likely seek a similar opening next week and ask for additional sacrifices. They also anticipated that the league might simply accede to the wishes of club officials who wanted a draft of longer than five rounds.

But, no, the league was not going to budge, either. So now, both sides must deal with the consequences of their negotiating postures. It is impossible to know whether players who have worked their whole lives for this moment now might pursue another athletic path or find their baseball career permanently altered in other ways. Perhaps the number of players affected will be negligible, as the league seems to believe.

Still, for all the front-office emphasis on efficiency, the draft often produces unexpected outcomes, with teams over- and under-valuing players every year. The list of players who became stars after getting picked in the sixth round or later is not insignificant, and many others from those rounds are major-league contributors as well. According to Sportradar, of the 1,410 players who played at least one major-league game in 2019, 1,046 entered the league through the draft and 483 of those — 46 percent — were taken in the sixth round or later.

One thing seems certain: Few quality players will sign for $20,000. They’ll prefer to remain amateurs and enter a later draft or pursue another career option. A high-revenue team conceivably might stock up on such players — 50 would cost $1 million — but to what end? Teams also might be unlikely to skirt the rules with under-the-table payments or other illegal inducements to undrafted players. If those players are willing to sign for such a small amount, they probably were not worth the risk of getting caught breaking the rules.

Again, it’s the message that is confusing — or disturbing, depending upon your perspective. The owners promote MLB as the highest level of baseball, yet they are willing to dramatically cut back on the draft, if only for one year, when they already are losing top athletes to other sports.

Reducing the draft to five rounds makes one thing clear: The owners will spend only what they believe is necessary, even if it means playing hardball with the union.

With the national economy reeling, it would behoove both sides to quietly partner for the betterment of their sport. But the bigger fight, the one over major-league salaries, is on deck.

What a mess. Not only are people dying but Baseball is also.

COVID-19 antibody study of MLB employees finds .7 percent have had the virus


By Molly Knight May 10, 2020 95
The Stanford study that tested 5,603 MLB employees for the presence of COVID-19 antibodies found just 60 positive cases, the lead researcher said on Sunday. After adjusting for potential testing error, the researchers reported a positive rate of 0.7 percent.

The majority of those who tested positive were asymptomatic or had mild symptoms, said lead researcher Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University.

“I was expecting a larger number of people to test positive,” Bhattacharya said. “These numbers indicate these numbers haven’t spread very far. But at the same time, we have had a zero percent mortality rate.”

This study represents the largest COVID-19 antibody test conducted in the United States to date.

The antibody test did not look for active infection of COVID-19, but for the blood protein the body produces to fight the disease, which remains in the body after recovery from the virus. The number of positive cases indicates that .7 percent of those tested had already had the COVID-19 virus, whether they knew it or not.

Twenty-seven teams participated in the study, which included not only Major League Baseball players but ushers, ticket takers and hot dog vendors of all ages, races and genders. According to Bhattacharya, this study is also one of the first to include people living in dozens of cities across the country in its subject group. Anaheim had the highest infection rate, followed by the two New York teams — though Bhattacharya stressed that all of these teams recorded rates lower than the counties they play in. The subjects in the study were 60 percent male and 40 percent female; 80 percent were white. While the study did include stadium staff, Bhattacharya says the respondents skewed toward a higher socioeconomic demographic than the general U.S. population.

The purpose of COVID-19 antibody studies is to test how far into the infection we really are, said Bhattacharya. According to Johns Hopkins University, 1.3 million Americans have tested positive for active infection of the coronavirus. The United States has a population of about 330 million. But because many people who are infected are asymptomatic or experience mild symptoms, scientists and epidemiologists have estimated the true percentage of Americans who have had the virus is much higher, with a range of two to five percent of the population. Testing shortages in the United States have also led to an undercount.

In March, Bhattacharya co-authored a Wall Street Journal op-ed that hypothesized that “projections of the (Covid-19) death toll could plausibly be orders of magnitude too high.”

More than 78,000 Americans have died of the coronavirus in three months. Experts have said that knowing the true death rate will be key to understanding when it is safe to re-open parts of the economy that have been shut down to help stop the spread of the disease, but it has thus far been difficult for epidemiologists to track.

Finding large numbers of Americans who were never tested for active infection but who later tested positive for the presence of COVID-19 antibodies would mean that the percentage of Americans who had the coronavirus was higher than previously thought and the death rate for the disease is lower than reported.

Once a person has had the novel COVID-19 virus they are thought to be immune to catching it again, but more research on the disease is still needed to determine if re-infection from a later mutation of the virus is possible.

Drawing conclusions from antibody tests can be controversial. The test kit used in this study is not FDA approved.

A spokesman for Major League Baseball said before this study was conducted that the league would not use it to determine if and when to re-start play this season. A spokesman for the MLB Players Association said participation in the study was voluntary and anonymous. Any MLB employee who signed up to participate received an at-home finger-prick test kit that told them whether they tested positive for the COVID-19 antibody in about 10 minutes. Employees then photographed their used test and emailed it to their team’s medical staff, who then de-identified the photos and sent them along to Bhattacharya’s team.

The Major League Baseball season was supposed to begin on March 26. There is currently no timetable for its return, though the league is reportedly considering a plan to begin play in July.

What if...
... it didn’t rain?

Zack Meisel and Jason Lloyd
1h ago
3
Rajai Davis’ home run ball disappeared into a sea of fans on the home run porch. Mike Clevinger busted out of the bullpen bathroom, where he had been sequestered in the late innings in a desperate plea for good fortune. Lonnie Chisenhall’s legs morphed into unstable jelly. Dan Otero leaped onto the bullpen fence “like a spider monkey.” Mike Chernoff nearly fell out of the front office suite. Danny Salazar blacked out.

In improbable fashion, with Davis’ hands choked up as far as his lumber would allow and Aroldis Chapman pumping 100-mph fastball after 100-mph fastball in his direction, the Indians had tied the Cubs in the eighth inning of Game 7 of the 2016 World Series.

They had trailed all night, a short-handed roster sputtering to the finish line in the battle between the two franchises saddled with the league’s longest championship droughts. But once Davis’ home run cleared the 19-foot-high wall in left field, the Indians had life.

And then the skies opened. And the Cubs united on a soggy infield to celebrate their first title in 108 years.

There are plenty of What-Ifs to ponder involving Cleveland sports teams, and the infamous, 17-minute delay serves as the basis for today’s debate.

What if it never rained?

Jason: I have no scientific proof of this, of course, but I absolutely believe the Indians win the World Series if it doesn’t rain. The Cubs were stunned. This was a haunted franchise. The Billy Goat, the black cat, Bartman. And now the Rajai.

Davis’ home run was so unexpected, so unlikely. It was a thunderbolt in the sky. It shook Progressive Field. It shook the Cubs. Remember when the Indians were three outs from a World Series championship in 1997? Where was the rain then? Not in Miami. The Indians didn’t get a moment to compose themselves. The Cubs did. We know how both series ended.

Without the rain delay, Jason Heyward can’t gather his Cubs teammates in the weight room behind the visitor’s dugout. Without the rain delay, there is no speech to settle nerves and calm fears of another historic Cubs collapse.

Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo called it the best rain delay of all time. Heyward sensed the defeat setting into his teammates and called the players-only meeting.

“We’re the best team in baseball, and we’re the best team in baseball for a reason,” Heyward said, according to Tom Verducci’s book “The Cubs Way.” “Now we’re going to show it. We play like the score is nothing-nothing. We’ve got to stay positive and fight for your brothers. Stick together and we’re going to win this game.”’

Soon, other players began speaking up. Confidence had been restored, nerves had been settled. And then it stopped raining.

Zack: Meanwhile, the Indians gleefully galloped back to their clubhouse… only to see a room filled with World Series champions decals and plastic sheets intended to prevent champagne from soaking the contents of each locker.

The Cubs’ clubhouse had been prepped much earlier in the evening, since they held the lead until Davis’ dramatics. But once the Indians climbed back into the game, the league had to plan ahead for a potential walk-off win. So when the Indians retreated to their clubhouse to wait out Mother Nature, the gravity of the moment sunk in.

But to designate the rain delay as the primary culprit for the Indians’ shortcoming is to ignore Bryan Shaw’s pitching or Ben Zobrist’s hitting or Michael Martinez’s presence at the plate with the game hanging in the balance. Any analytics buff would remind you that both teams entered extra innings with a 50 percent win expectancy.

After all, Terry Francona said he didn’t think the delay “was as meaningful as everybody else did” and added that Shaw was “the one we worry about the least, because he stays loose really well and things don’t affect him.” Shaw said he stayed loose, used a heat pack and said “I don’t think it really affected me very much.”

Jason: Francona is old school. He’s never going to use the weather as an excuse for his guys, and that’s commendable. And while I understand with the stakes, the umpires wanted to make the game as fair as possible for both sides, but the timing of the delay was … curious. It wasn’t really raining that hard when the game was delayed. Could they have squeezed in another half-inning before the heavier rain arrived? Does Kyle Schwarber lead off with a double if he doesn’t have 17 minutes to compose himself?

Navigating through Schwarber, Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo and Zobrist was never going to be easy in the 10th inning, delay or not, but Shaw dodged trouble when he came on in the ninth with a runner at third and one out and got out of the inning without allowing the run to score. After the Indians were set down in order in the bottom of the ninth, crew chief John Hirschbeck called for the tarp.

“We’ve been talking for the last couple innings,” Hirschbeck told our Ken Rosenthal on the television broadcast when the delay began. “… This (storm), we thought it might miss us, but at the last second when the inning was getting ready to start, he said ‘It’s going to hit us.” And in this situation, we don’t want to take any chances. We don’t want to have them play now in the seventh game of the World Series in extra innings, tie score, in conditions that aren’t right. So just to keep the field perfect, we’ll cover it and wait this out.”

When the players were pulled off the field, Shaw lingered near the dugout, throwing into a net to stay loose and looking to the sky, wondering where the rain was. I texted him last week to see if he wanted to talk about that night. He never responded.

Zack: He’s the “Pariah of Cleveland,” remember? I wouldn’t want to re-live that night if I were him.

And, hey, Roberto Pérez agreed with you: “Shaw was sitting there for 20 minutes and he went back out there. I think it took the momentum away.”

But momentum had nothing to do with Albert Almora tagging up on Anthony Rizzo’s warning-track scare or Zobrist punching Shaw’s cutter past a diving José Ramírez.

The following spring, Shaw told me: “It was a good pitch, down and away. It was off the plate. It wasn’t a strike. It was right where I wanted to throw it. He stuck the bat out and got a little hit down the line. If José’s playing a foot closer to the line, he fields it, steps on third and throws it.”

He’s not wrong. But that isn’t going to remove the pit from Indians fans’ stomachs.

There certainly was a seismic swing of emotion once Zobrist’s hit zipped by Ramírez. There’s no better evidence of it than the sight of Anthony Rizzo, standing on third base with his hands on his helmet, saying, “Oh my God,” as the scoreboard operator placed the go-ahead tally in the Cubs’ run column.

After Zobrist’s double, Shaw intentionally walked Addison Russell. Then, Miguel Montero slapped an RBI single through a gaping hole at shortstop. What if Francisco Lindor hadn’t shifted toward second base? What if Ramírez hadn’t been playing so far from third base?

A Game 7 in November between the franchises with the league’s longest title droughts boiled down to a few inches in extra innings after midnight. Was the rain delay *a* factor? Sure. But the trophy isn’t handed to the team with the most impassioned rallying cry.

What if Shaw only surrendered one of those hits, and Davis’ RBI single in the bottom of the 10th knotted the score at 7-7? What if literally anyone but Martinez (no offense, Michael) would have stepped up to the plate with two outs in the bottom of the 10th?

If altering any of those scenarios, precipitation- or performance-related, Davis might have a statue instead of a footnote.

Jason: Wait a minute, why was Clevinger locked in a bathroom?

Zack: Baseball players aren’t superstitious. They’re extremely stitious.

Throughout Game 7, the Indians’ relievers ordered Clevinger — a rookie at the time — to the bullpen bathroom to try to change the team’s fortunes. When Davis approached the plate in the eighth, Clevinger, unprompted, scurried in there and shut the door. The rule was, he had to remain in the bathroom until the Indians made an out at the plate. But Clevinger heard everyone scream when Davis tied the game, so he raced back to the bullpen bench, where his teammates yelled at him to return to the bathroom.

Jason: Poor fella. And poor Michael Martinez. Tough way to go out.

Look, I’ll never be able to prove the Indians would’ve won. But I know this much: I know the delay helped the Cubs way more than it helped the Indians. So many Cubs folks, from executives like Jed Hoyer and Theo Epstein to players like Heyward, Rizzo and David Ross have talked over the years about how the game was moving fast for them at that point. Their heads were down. The stadium was spinning. They needed a 20-second timeout and a good cutman to dress the wounds. They got both at the exact right time.

Does Schwarber single to start the 10th without the delay? We’ll never know. But now I have a new “What if?” Is this Clevinger’s fault for running out after Rajai’s home run?

What if Clevinger never left the bathroom?

Late-round talent: Players who would have been missed in a five-round draft


By Rustin Dodd and Andy McCullough 3h ago 20
When Major League Baseball decided to thin its amateur draft this June from 40 rounds to five, stakeholders throughout the industry were despondent. Agent Scott Boras was blunt in describing the deleterious effects of the maneuver.

“We probably should have bought a billboard that said, ‘Go play other sports after Little League. Goodbye’” Boras told The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal.

In the years before the COVID-19 pandemic, a pool of 1,200 players would get selected. This June, only 150 will hear their names called. Bonuses for undrafted players who decide to sign will be capped at $20,000, plus the cost of a college scholarship. The talent pool will very likely grow thinner.

The draft has changed since it was first implemented in 1965. The advent of hard-slotting and the sophistication of the amateur scouting apparatus has made it tougher for players to slip through the cracks. How much talent will baseball miss out on this June? It is too soon to know. Many college players will simply be forced to accept $20,000 bonuses or return to school — and college sports face uncertainties as well.

We decided to chart the most valuable players chosen in each of the 35 rounds that MLB will go without this time around. Baseball has gotten rid of the rounds that produced Marcus Semien (sixth), Paul Goldschmidt (eighth), Jacob deGrom (ninth), Ramón Laureano (16th), Adam Eaton (19th) and plenty of other big-leaguers.

Sixth round
Best pick
Sal Bando, Kansas City Athletics, 1965, 61.5 WAR

Bando, the reigning Most Outstanding Player of the College World Series with Arizona State, went in the sixth round of baseball’s inaugural amateur draft. He was part of an Athletics haul that included his college teammate Rick Monday, who went first overall, and Gene Tenace. Bando anchored the A’s infield during their three-year championship reign after moving to Oakland and made four All-Star teams.

Honorable mention
Tim Hudson, Oakland Athletics, 1997, 57.9 WAR
Jamie Moyer, Chicago Cubs, 1984, 49.8 WAR
Devon White, California Angels, 1981, 47.3 WAR
Ben Zobrist, Houston Astros, 2004, 44.6 WAR

Best pick in the 2010s
Marcus Semien, Chicago White Sox, 2011, 21.8 WAR

Seventh round
Best pick
Wade Boggs, Boston Red Sox, 1976, 91.4 WAR

A standout at Plant High in Tampa, Fla., Boggs dropped to the seventh round before scout George Digby’s lobbying prompted the Red Sox to take him. He signed for a reported $7,500 and became one of the best pure hitters of the 1980s. He won five batting titles, played in 12 All-Star Games, won a World Series with the Yankees in 1996, then reached 3,000 hits with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, cementing his case as a Hall of Fame player.

Honorable mention
Willie Randolph, Pittsburgh Pirates, 1972, 65.9 WAR
Jim Edmonds, California Angeles, 1988, 60.4 WAR
Dallas Keuchel, Houston Astros, 2009, 19.8 WAR

Best pick in the 2010s
Blake Treinen, Oakland Athletics, 2011, 8.2 WAR

Eighth round
Best pick
Paul Goldschmidt, Arizona Diamondbacks, 2009, 43.1 WAR

Arizona spent $95,000 to sign Goldschmidt after his junior year at Texas State, where he had won player of the year honors in the Southland Conference two years in a row. First basemen are often difficult to project as prospects; they must hit and hit and hit to bring back value. Goldschmidt did just that. He reached the majors in 2011. He has never left.

Honorable mention
Brad Radke, Minnesota Twins, 1991, 45.4 WAR
Charlie Hough, Los Angeles Dodgers, 1966, 38.4 WAR
Eric Davis, Cincinnati Reds, 1980, 36.1 WAR
Tim Wakefield, Pittsburgh Pirates, 1988, 34.4 WAR
Derek Lowe, Seattle Mariners, 1991, 34.3 WAR

Best pick in the 2010s
Kyle Hendricks, Texas Rangers, 2011, 19.4 WAR

Ninth round
Best pick
Fred McGriff, New York Yankees, 1981, 52.6 WAR

A late bloomer at Jefferson High in Tampa, McGriff commanded attention while competing against Doc Gooden in high school. He was set to play baseball at Georgia before being drafted by the Yankees in the ninth round and signing for $20,000. He was traded to the Blue Jays in 1982, became one of the best power hitters in the American League, headed to the Padres in a blockbuster deal and eventually won a World Series with the Braves, finishing his career with five All-Star appearances and 493 career homers.

Honorable mention
Goose Gossage, Chicago White Sox, 1970, 41.1 WAR
Jesse Barfield, Toronto Blue Jays, 1977, 39.4 WAR
Jacob deGrom, New York Mets, 2010, 35.5 WAR

Best pick in the 2010s
Jacob deGrom

10th round
Best pick
Howie Kendrick, Anaheim Angels, 2002, 34.9 WAR

Kendrick cleared a sizable barrier for entry to reach professional baseball. He struggled to find offers to play in college and landed at a junior college south of Jacksonville, Fla. He was discovered by Tom Kotchman, the scouting father of Casey, who appreciated Kendrick’s ability to hit. In the minors, Kendrick was shaped into a credible defender by Angels staffers. He has become the definition of a professional hitter — and, most recently, a World Series hero.

Honorable mention
Brady Anderson, Boston Red Sox, 1985, 35.0 WAR
Marlon Byrd, Philadelphia Phillies, 1999, 25.8 WAR
Mike Sweeney, Kansas City Royals, 1991, 24.8 WAR

Best pick in the 2010s
Emilio Pagan, Seattle Mariners, 2013, 3.2 WAR

11th round
Best pick
Trevor Hoffman, Cincinnati Reds, 1989, 28.0 WAR

The Montreal Expos found a Hall of Fame outfielder in the 11th round, selecting Andre Dawson in 1975. But that pales in comparison with the unexpected gem the Reds unearthed in 1989, selecting a Hall of Fame closer who was then a college shortstop from Arizona. Hoffman converted to a pitcher and was selected by the Marlins in the expansion draft before being traded to San Diego. Seven All-Star appearances and 601 saves later, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2018.

Honorable mention
Andre Dawson, Montreal Expos, 1975, 64.8 WAR
Chili Davis, San Francisco Giants, 1977, 38.3 WAR

Best pick in the 2010s
Joc Pederson, Los Angeles Dodgers, 2010, 10.9 WAR

12th round
Best pick
Nolan Ryan, New York Mets, 1965, 81.3 WAR

The way the story goes, Ryan was a Texas schoolboy legend at Alvin High, a little more than 30 miles south of Houston. He inspired fear in opposing batters with both his velocity and wildness. But his stock plummeted when he performed poorly in front of scouts because his coach had subjected the team to brutal conditioning drills the day before. So he was still there for the Mets after 11 rounds in the first-ever draft. He also reached the majors a year after he signed.

Honorable mention
Bill North, Chicago Cubs, 1969, 26.8 WAR
Johnny Ray, Houston Astros, 1979, 24.2 WAR
Bobby Higginson, Detroit Tigers, 1992, 23.1 WAR

Best pick in the 2010s
Robbie Ray, Washington Nationals, 2010, 8.8 WAR

13th round
Best pick
Albert Pujols, St. Louis Cardinals, 1999, 100.8 WAR

It defies reason that Pujols was available in the 13th round, yet after he graduated from Fort Osage High in Independence, Mo., and spending a year at nearby Maple Woods Community College, scouts had questions about Pujols’ future position and his speed. Neither would stop Pujols was becoming one of the best right-handed hitters of any era. Entering 2020, Pujols has 656 career homers and 3,202 hits. In his first 10 seasons, he posted a 172 OPS+.

Honorable mention
Jim Thome, Cleveland Indians, 1989, 72.9 WAR
Jack Clark, San Francisco Giants, 1973, 53.1 WAR
Steve Finley, Baltimore Orioles, 1987, 44.2 WAR
Matt Carpenter, St. Louis Cardinals, 2009, 28.3 WAR

Best pick in the 2010s
A.J. Griffin, Oakland Athletics, 2010, 5.8 WAR

14th round
Best pick
Dave Parker, Pittsburgh Pirates, 1970, 40.1 WAR

Parker starred in three sports at Courter Tech High in Cincinnati. He caught for the baseball team, but his primary interest was being a tailback on the gridiron. A knee injury short-circuited his football dreams — and wiped out his senior baseball season. The Pirates still decided to take a flier on him. He ditched his catcher’s gear, moved into the outfield and soon became a star.

Honorable mention
Dexter Fowler, Colorado Rockies, 2004, 19.8 WAR
Jamey Carroll, Montreal Expos, 1996, 17.0 WAR
Bruce Kison, Pittsburgh Pirates, 1968, 15.1 WAR

Best pick in the 2010s
Mike Yastrzemski, Baltimore Orioles, 2013, 2.8 WAR

15th round
Best pick
Jose Canseco, Oakland A’s, 1982, 42.4 WAR

Before he was one of American culture’s great philosophers, Canseco was baseball’s first 40-40 man in 1988. One component of the Bash Brothers, he helped the A’s to three consecutive World Series appearances and one title in 1988. He later appeared on “The Simpsons,” authored books and pondered the meaning of life on social media.

Honorable mention
Jake Peavy, San Diego Padres, 1999, 39.2 WAR

Best pick in the 2010s
Jerad Eickhoff, Texas Rangers, 2011, 5.8 WAR

16th round
Best pick
Buddy Bell, Cleveland Indians, 1969, 66.3 WAR

Indians general manager Gabe Paul was an executive in Cincinnati during the years Gus Bell manned the outfield for Cincinnati. So he got to see the early years of Buddy, Gus’ son, as the boy tailed his father around the big leagues. The Bells are a big-league dynasty. Two of Buddy’s kids, David and Mike, also reached the majors.

Honorable mention
James Shields, Tampa Bay Devil Rays, 2000, 31.0 WAR
Dave Stewart, Los Angeles Dodgers, 1975, 26.5 WAR
Oscar Gamble, Chicago Cubs, 1968, 22.9 WAR
Tommy Pham, St. Louis Cardinals, 2006, 14.7 WAR

Best pick in the 2010s
Ramon Laureano, Houston Astros, 2014, 5.9 WAR

17th round
Best pick
Kenny Lofton, Houston Astros, 1988, 68.3 WAR

One of two men to appear in a Final Four and World Series, Lofton spent most of his college years playing basketball at Arizona before a foray into baseball caught the attention of scouts. The Astros took a chance in the 17th round in 1988, allowing him to finish his basketball eligibility before dedicating himself to baseball full time. A catalyst for the Indians’ revival in the 1990s, Lofton finished his career with a .372 on-base percentage, 622 stolen bases and six All-Star appearances.

Honorable mention
Orel Hershiser, Los Angeles Dodgers, 1979, 56.0 WAR
Ian Kinsler, Texas Rangers, 2003, 55.2 WAR
Brian Giles, Cleveland Indians, 1989, 51.1 WAR
Lorenzo Cain, Milwaukee Brewers, 2004, 36.1 WAR

Best pick in the 2010s
Paul Fry, Seattle Mariners, 2013, 0.3 WAR

18th round
Best pick
Mike Cameron, Chicago White Sox, 1991, 46.7 WAR

Cameron dealt with a pair of unusual impediments to a baseball career: His grandmother and his struggles in chemistry class. When he flunked the course in high school in southwestern Georgia, his grandmother banned him from playing baseball as a junior. He flashed enough promise the next year to lure the White Sox into picking him. From there, Cameron blossomed into one of the most underrated players of his generation.

Honorable mention
Lyle Overbay, Arizona Diamondbacks, 1999, 16.3 WAR
Kirk Rueter, Montreal Expos, 1991, 16.3 WAR
Eric Show, San Diego Padres, 1978, 15.6 WAR

Best pick in the 2010s
Matt Duffy, San Francisco Giants, 2012, 7.8 WAR

19th round
Best pick
Don Mattingly, New York Yankees, 1979, 42.4 WAR

Mattingly lasted until the 19th round of the 1979 draft because many teams believed he intended to honor his commitment to Indiana State. But when the Yankees picked him in the 19th round, he decided it was time to play pro ball. He won an AL batting title in 1984, hit .352 in 1986 and appeared in six All-Star Games before retiring in 1995.

Honorable mention
Bret Saberhagen, Kansas City Royals, 1982, 58.8 WAR
Placido Polanco, St. Louis Cardinals, 1994, 41.9 WAR

Best pick in the 2010s
Adam Eaton, Arizona Diamondbacks, 2010, 19.3 WAR

20th round
Best pick
Ryne Sandberg, Philadelphia Phillies, 1978, 68.0 WAR

Raise a glass to the 20th round. Sandberg stands atop a stacked class of contenders. His stock dropped as a high school senior in Spokane, Wash., because most teams figured he would play football in college. He got recruited to play quarterback at Nebraska and Oklahoma. The scouting department of the Phillies, led by Dallas Green, paid him early-round money to turn down those offers and embark on his Hall of Fame career on the diamond.

Honorable mention
Jeff Kent, Toronto Blue Jays, 1989, 55.4 WAR
Gene Tenace, Kansas City Athletics, 1965, 46.8 WAR
Jose Bautista, Pittsburgh Pirates, 2000, 36.7 WAR
Mike Lowell, New York Yankees, 1995, 24.9 WAR
J.D. Martinez, Houston Astros, 2009, 24.2 WAR

Best pick in the 2010s
Dan Winkler, Colorado Rockies, 2011, 0.8 WAR

21st round
Best pick
Eddie Guardado, Minnesota Twins, 1990, 13.2 WAR

Drafted out of San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton, Calif., Everyday Eddie made two All-Star appearances during a 17-year career, recording more than 40 saves with the Twins in 2002 and 2003. He led the league in appearances with 83 in 1996. He helped the Twins break through after years of losing.

Honorable mention
Nick Punto, Philadelphia Phillies, 1998, 15.4 WAR
Dave Dravecky, Pittsburgh Pirates, 1978, 13.8 WAR

Best pick in the 2010s
Matt Strahm, Kansas City Royals, 2012, 3.9 WAR

22nd round
Best pick
John Smoltz, Detroit Tigers, 1985, 69.0 WAR

Smoltz grew up a Tigers fan in Lansing, Mich. He had accepted a scholarship to pitch at Michigan State when his hometown team chose him in the draft. The Tigers offered him enough to turn pro. It was an exceptional move by Detroit’s front office. Trading Smoltz to Atlanta for Doyle Alexander two years later proved to be a less prescient decision.

Honorable mention
Andy Pettite, New York Yankees, 1990, 60.2 WAR
Jason Bay, Montreal Expos, 2000, 24.7 WAR
Jeff Fassero, St. Louis Cardinals, 1984, 23.7 WAR

Best pick in the 2010s
Luke Voit, St. Louis Cardinals, 2013, 3.0 WAR

23rd round
Best pick
Roy Oswalt, Houston Astros, 1996, 50.1 WAR

A native of Weir, Miss., the diminutive Oswalt was overlooked because of his height and spent two years at Holmes Community College in Goodman, Miss. The Astros used a 23rd round pick and $500,000 to persuade Oswalt to bypass an offer to pitch at Mississippi State. By his retirement after the 2013 season, he had appeared in three All-Star Games, was voted NLCS MVP in 2005 and led the NL in ERA in 2006.

Honorable mention
Brett Butler, Atlanta Braves, 1979, 49.7 WAR
Ted Lilly, Los Angeles Dodgers, 1996, 27.1 WAR

Best pick in the 2010s
Cody Allen, Cleveland Indians, 2011, 8.4 WAR

24th round
Best pick
Jorge Posada, New York Yankees, 1990, 42.7 WAR

Posada was slightly less valuable than Mark Grace, but he gets the nod for his pivotal place behind the plate on four championship teams. As a boy in Puerto Rico, he wanted to be a shortstop. He was a slight middle infielder whom the Yankees tracked down via the draft-and-follow system. Selected in June 1990, Posada officially signed 11 months later, after playing another second at a junior college in Alabama. He learned how to catch a season later at Class-A Greensboro. The Yankees had decided their farm system already featured a pretty good shortstop.

Honorable mention
Mark Grace, Chicago Cubs, 1985, 46.4 WAR
Rich Aurilia, Texas Rangers, 1992, 18.2 WAR
Richie Sexson, Cleveland Indians, 1993, 18.0 WAR

Best pick in the 2010s
Erik Goeddel, New York Mets, 2011, 1.3 WAR

25th round
Best pick
Paul Splittorff, Kansas City Royals, 1968, 22.9 WAR

Splittorff, a crafty lefty, was selected out of Morningside College in Iowa in 1968, one year before the expansion Royals started playing. He was the professorial heart of a club that dueled with the New York Yankees for most of the late ’70s. He finished his career with a 3.81 ERA and 166 wins; he also went 2-0 with a 2.84 ERA in five starts ALCS appearances against the Yankees from 1976 to 1978.

Honorable mention
Mike Hargrove, Texas Rangers, 1972, 30.4 WAR
Tanner Roark, Texas Rangers, 2008, 19.1 WAR
Darren Daulton, Philadelphia Phillies, 1980, 23.0 WAR

Best pick in the 2010s
Chris Devenski, Chicago White Sox, 2011, 4.8 WAR

26th round
Best pick
Dusty Baker, Atlanta Braves, 1967, 37.0 WAR

Baker decided to sign with the Braves out of high school, despite having offers to play college ball. The decision did not go over well at home. Baker signed without telling his father, Johnnie B. Baker. The elder Baker sued the Braves and got the judge to withhold half of Dusty’s bonus until he turned 21. Father and son eventually reconciled, and Dusty went on to have a marvelous career as a player and manager.

Honorable mention
Bob Forsch, St. Louis Cardinals, 1968, 24.6 WAR
Corey Koskie, Minnesota Twins, 1994, 24.6 WAR
Rick Reed, Pittsburgh Pirates, 1986, 21.0 WAR

Best pick in the 2010s
Zach Davies, Baltimore Orioles, 2011, 8.1 WAR

27th round
Best pick
Martín Maldonado, Anaheim Angels, 2004, 6.5 WAR

A sterling defensive catcher and receiver, Maldonado won a Gold Glove in 2017 and has often been in demand for contending teams looking for a stabilizing force heading into the postseason. He entered 2020 with the Astros, having hit 63 career homers since his debut in 2011.

Honorable mentions
Brendan Donnelly, Chicago White Sox, 1992, 7.6 WAR
Mark Lemke, Atlanta Braves, 1983, 6.1 WAR

Best pick in the 2010s
Alex Claudio, Texas Rangers, 2010, 6.0 WAR

28th round
Best pick
Woody Williams, Toronto Blue Jays, 1988, 30.2 WAR

A two-way player at the University of Houston, Williams signed for $1,000. He didn’t have much leverage as a senior. Toronto brought him up as a reliever but stretched him back out into starting. Williams became a crafty, reliable performer for the Blue Jays, Padres and Cardinals during the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Honorable mention
Sergio Romo, San Francisco Giants, 2005, 10.4 WAR
Dave Roberts, Detroit Tigers, 1994, 9.1 WAR

Best pick in the 2010s
Kyle Garlick, Los Angeles Dodgers, 2015, 0.2 WAR

29th round
Best pick
Ken Griffey, Cincinnati Reds, 1969, 34.5 WAR

Back in 1969, the draft was not the sophisticated process it is today. The Reds, for instance, could obtain Griffey, a prep football standout, in the 29th round. Needing the money, the elder Griffey passed on college football scholarships offers and became a key member of the Big Red Machine. He played until 1991, when he finished his career as a teammate of his son.

Honorable mentions
John Denny, St. Louis Cardinals, 1970, 32.2 WAR
Kyle Lohse, Chicago Cubs, 1996, 18.9 WAR
Adam LaRoche, Atlanta Braves, 2000, 14.2 WAR

Best pick in the 2010s
Jakob Junis, Kansas City Royals, 2011, 4.2 WAR

30th round
Best pick
Darryl Kile, Houston Astros, 1987, 20.2 WAR

Kile developed a curveball and raised his fastball velocity into the low 90s while pitching at Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. He was set to transfer to Pepperdine when the Astros intervened. Houston offered a $100,000 bonus for Kile to forgo Division I baseball. He spent 12 years in the majors before his death from a heart attack in the summer of 2002.

Honorable mention
Damion Easley, California Angels, 1988, 20.5 WAR
Doc Medich, New York Yankees, 1970, 19.6 WAR
Eric Gagne, Chicago White Sox, 1994, 11.7 WAR

Best pick in the 2010s
John Brebbia, New York Yankees, 2011, 2.5 WAR

31st round
Best pick
Kevin Kiermaier, Tampa Bay Rays, 2010, 25.7 WAR

The man nicknamed Pronk (Travis Hafner) was an offensive force for Cleveland for a stretch in the mid-2000s, but Kiermaier has turned into one of the best defensive outfielders in baseball across the past five seasons. A native of Fort Wayne, Ind., Kiermaier was a top football recruit but opted to play baseball at the junior college level. The Rays drafted him in the 31st round in 2010. Kiermaier won his third Gold Glove Award in 2019.

Honorable mentions
Travis Hafner, Texas Rangers, 1996, 24.8 WAR
Jay Howell, Cincinnati Reds, 1976, 15.0 WAR

Best pick in the 2010s
Kiermaier

32nd round
Best pick
Kevin Pillar, Toronto Blue Jays, 2011, 15.3 WAR

Alex Anthopoulos was the general manager of the Blue Jays when Pillar was chosen out of Division II Cal State Dominguez Hills. When Pillar reached the majors in 2013, after only 311 games in the minors, Anthopoulos did not crow about his foresight. He admitted the team messed up. “We got him wrong, just because if he has a chance to get to the big leagues, you don’t wait for the 30th round to select him,” he said.

Honorable mention
Robb Nen, Texas Rangers, 1987, 15.0 WAR

Best pick in the 2010s
Pillar

33rd round
Best pick
Jason Frasor, Detroit Tigers, 1999, 9.5 WAR

Frasor played college baseball at Southern Illinois before being drafted by the Tigers in 1999 and growing into a dependable major-league reliever. Across 12 seasons, Frasor made 679 appearances and logged a 3.49 ERA. He won a World Series ring in 2015 with Kansas City.

Honorable mention
Walt Terrell, Texas Rangers, 1980, 10.7 WAR
Tyler Flowers, Atlanta Braves, 2005, 7.7 WAR
Roberto Perez, Cleveland Indians, 2008, 7.4 WAR
Nyjer Morgan, Pittsburgh Pirates, 2002, 6.8 WAR

Best pick in the 2010s
Mike Hauschild, Houston Astros, 2012, -0.2 WAR

34th round
Best pick
Seth Lugo, New York Mets, 2011, 7.2 WAR

The Mets shelled out $20,000 to sign Lugo. That’s a decent sum this late in the draft, and it was enough to keep Lugo from returning to Centenary College, a small school in Shreveport, La. Lugo climbed to the majors in 2016, and during the past two seasons he has established himself as the Mets’ most reliable reliever.

Honorable mention
Dan Wheeler, Tampa Bay Devil Rays, 1996, 7.8 WAR

Best pick in the 2010s
Lugo

35th round
Best pick
Steve Cooke, Pittsburgh Pirates, 1989, 4.3 WAR

Not every late round has a Mike Piazza. Cooke was drafted out of a junior college, debuted in 1992 and posted a 3.89 ERA while making 32 starts in 1993. He made 32 starts again in 1997 before his career faded.

Honorable mention
Steve Hovley, California Angels, 1966, 1.7 WAR

Best pick in the 2010s
Danny Barnes, Toronto Blue Jays, 2010, 1.1 WAR

36th round
Best pick
Raul Ibañez, Seattle Mariners, 1992, 20.9 WAR

The career of Ibañez is a testament to perseverance. He was never considered a prized prospect, not in high school, not in junior college, not in the minors. He didn’t become a big-league regular until he was 29. He made his lone All-Star team at 37. Along the way, he earned the respect of countless teammates and forged a path that could lead him back to the dugout as a big-league manager.

Honorable mention
Junior Spivey, Arizona Diamondbacks, 1996, 8.2 WAR

Best pick in the 2010s
Kyle McGrath, San Diego Padres, 2014, 0.4 WAR

37th round
Best pick
Bake McBride, St. Louis Cardinals, 1970, 22.7 WAR

A multisport star at Westminster College in Missouri, McBride pitched in college (and was officially drafted as a pitcher) but later made his mark as an outfielder. He was voted NL Rookie of the Year in 1974, appeared in the All-Star Game in 1976 and won a World Series with the Phillies in 1980.

Honorable mention
Chris Peters, Pittsburgh Pirates, 1993, 3.1 WAR

Best pick in the 2010s
Ryne Harper, Atlanta Braves, 2011, 0.6 WAR

38th round
Best pick
Mark Buehrle, Chicago White Sox, 1998, 59.1 WAR

Buehrle benefited from the days before hard-slotting put a cap on how teams might spend in the late rounds. He went undefeated his freshman year at Jefferson College, a junior college in Missouri. That enticed the White Sox to take a look at him. Haggling over a bonus, Buehrle negotiated his way into a $185,000 windfall. For the White Sox, it was money well spent. Buehrle became a fixture on the South Side for 12 seasons.

Honorable mention
Scot Shields, Anaheim Angels, 1997, 12.1 WAR
Rajai Davis, Pittsburgh Pirates, 2001, 11.9 WAR

Best pick in the 2010s
Caleb Ferguson, Los Angeles Dodgers, 2014, 0.1 WAR

39th round
Best pick
Kenny Rogers, Texas Rangers, 1982, 50.4 WAR

Rogers attended Plant High in Tampa — the same school that produced Wade Boggs — and signed for $1,000 after being selected in the 39th round in 1982. He made four All-Star Games, won a World Series with the Yankees (and Boggs) in 1996 and threw the 14th perfect game in major-league history with the Rangers in 1994.

Honorable mention
Vance Law, Pittsburgh Pirates, 1978, 10.7 WAR
Brad Miller, Texas Rangers, 2008, 7.0 WAR

Best pick in the 2010s
Jared Walsh, Los Angeles Angels, 2015, -0.1 WAR

40th round
Best pick
Brandon Kintzler, San Diego Padres, 2004, 6.2 WAR

Talented players occasionally dropped this late in the draft, weighed down by concerns about whether they would sign or remain amateurs. Kintzler decided to stay in school when the Yankees picked him in the 40th round of 2003. A year later, when San Diego chose him in the same round, he signed. Kintzler bounced out of the Padres organization and into independent ball before making it to the majors in 2010.

Honorable mention
Ray Lamb, Los Angeles Dodgers, 1966, 4.2 WAR

Best pick in the 2010s
Daniel Zamora, Pittsburgh Pirates, 2015, 0.3 WAR

(Photo of Buehrle: Brian Kersey / Getty Images)

Snubbed: The Hall of Fame case for Buddy Bell


By Levi Weaver 6h ago 18
The Hall of Fame election process is one of the highest honors we members of the BBWAA can claim. You don’t even get to vote until you’ve been a member for 10 years, so while I’m already studying up on the careers of Zack Grienke, Justin Verlander and other potential class-of-2028 names for my first official vote, I recognize that I’m still the new kid on the block. As such, I want to measure my words carefully. “My fellow writers got this wrong” is too blunt and presumes too much. Hmm.

“My fellow writers, with all due respect, got this wrong.”

There. That’s how I’ll broach the matter of Buddy Bell’s undeserved snub from Cooperstown.

Let’s start with a quick overview of Bell’s career, beginning where most Hall of Fame discussions do: his traditional offensive numbers.

Batting Average: .279
On-Base Percentage: .341
Slugging: .406
OPS: .747
Hits: 2,514
Home runs: 205

Here’s where the problem starts, actually. Most Hall of Fame discussions start here, and in Bell’s case (he received just eight votes in his one year on the ballot in 1995), it appears they also ended here. In an era that just preceded the popularity of advanced statistics and analytics, you can see where voters might have seen quite enough after a first glance. By the standards of the day, those were not quite Hall of Fame numbers.

Before we attempt to knock down the wall, let’s go ahead and build it to its full height: Bell’s career overlapped with a lot of great third basemen — Mike Schmidt, Wade Boggs, George Brett, Paul Molitor and (oh yeah) Brooks Robinson come to mind — so those comparisons couldn’t help his case. Then there was the fact that his best years were spent with the 1979-84 Texas Rangers, a squad that never really even sniffed the postseason. It’s not impossible for legends to be forged in April through September, but the process happens faster in October and Bell never played a single postseason game in his 18-year career.

Alright, we’ve established why he’s not in the Hall.

Now let me tell you why he should be.



There’s a cheap way to make the Hall of Fame case for just about anyone: point to a single Hall of Famer and then suggest that someone else should be in because they earned more WAR over their career. That’s silly, of course; you can’t go putting Scott Fletcher (32.0 bWAR) in the Hall of Fame just because Freddie Lindstrom (27.5 bWAR) somehow made it in. But what about someone who ranks ahead of more Hall of Famers than he trails? Okay, that’s worth a conversation.

The number 131 is of note here. That’s not only the number of players in MLB history with more career bWAR than Buddy Bell, but it’s also the number of Hall of Famers with less bWAR than Bell. Of the 131 ahead of him, 104 are in the Hall, leaving 27 who aren’t (yet) in. Seven of those (Albert Pujols, Mike Trout, Justin Verlander, Zack Greinke, Miguel Cabrera, Robinson Canó and Clayton Kershaw) are still active. Another three (Álex Rodríguez, Adrián Beltré and Carlos Beltrán) are not yet eligible and one (Pete Rose) is banned. That leaves just 16 players ahead of Bell in the “could have been elected but haven’t been elected” boat. Here they are:

WAR leaders, not in HOF
Barry Bonds
162.8
Eligible
22
7.40
Roger Clemens
139.2
Eligible
24
5.80
Curt Schilling
79.5
Eligible
20
3.98
Jim McCormick
76.2
Expired
10
7.62
Bill Dahlen
75.3
Expired
21
3.59
Lou Whitaker
75.1
Expired
19
3.95
Rafael Palmeiro
71.9
Expired
20
3.60
Bobby Grich
71.1
Expired
17
4.18
Scott Rolen
70.1
Eligible
17
4.12
Rick Reuschel
69.5
Expired
19
3.66
Manny Ramirez
69.3
Eligible
19
3.65
Kenny Lofton
68.4
Expired
17
4.02
Graig Nettles
68
Expired
22
3.09
Kevin Brown
67.8
Expired
19
3.57
Dwight Evans
67.1
Expired
20
3.36
Tony Mullane
66.7
Expired
13
5.13
Buddy Bell
66.3
Expired
18
3.68
I separate these 16 into three categories:

The first is full of controversy. Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Rafael Palmeiro, Manny Ramirez (PED allegations), Curt Schilling (hate speech) and Bill Dahlen (per his bio at SABR.org, it sounds like he was just a real jerk as a manager, earning the nickname “Bad Bill”) have been denied not because of a lack of statistics, but because off-the-field behavior led voters to decide that these players did not meet the standards of “integrity, sportsmanship, character” outlined in the voting rules.

Jim McCormick and Tony Mullane constitute a category unto themselves, having earned their statistics in a sport that didn’t really look like the one played in modern times since the mound wasn’t moved back from 50 feet to 60 feet, six inches, until after their careers had ended. And, again leaning on SABR.org, we learn that McCormick “…was prohibited from throwing overhand for half his career.” Perhaps that shouldn’t be enough to keep those two out — they played the game that was available to them — but that’s where they are for now.

That leaves us with just eight remaining non-Hall-of-Famers in the history of the game with more Wins Above Replacement than Buddy Bell: Lou Whitaker, Bobby Grich, Rick Reuschel, Kenny Lofton, Graig Nettles, Kevin Brown and Dwight Evans. According to Jay Jaffe’s JAWS system, only one of them (Grich) finished with a higher JAWS rating than the average of every Hall of Famer at his position. But so what? So did guys like Tony Gwynn, Dave Winfield and Vladimir Guerrero.

Those three examples weren’t given as an accident — Gwynn, Winfield and Guerrero are three of the 27 right fielders currently in the Hall of Fame, compared to just 15 third basemen. The only position less represented in the Hall? Relief pitchers, with eight. To compare apples to under-represented apples, I compared Bell to the average career numbers of those 15 third basemen, with one slight change: I inserted Adrián Beltré (who will undoubtedly be a first-ballot shoo-in at the Winter Meetings in 2023) in place of John McGraw, who played third base but was elected to the Hall as a manager.

Then, just for kicks, I took the average numbers of the 16 non-Hall-of-Fame third basemen who ranked just below Bell in WAR. Here’s what his numbers look like squished in the middle of those two averages.



As expected, Bell doesn’t make an inarguable case with his bat, though his 2,514 hits are more than the average Hall of Fame third baseman. But one category, in particular, stands out. Look at dWAR (Defensive Wins Above Replacement), where his 23.8 mark trails only Brooks Robinson and Adrián Beltre. Should defense be enough to get you into the Hall of Fame? Not if you hit .199, but at .279/.341/.406 with 2,500 hits? It should count for something. It should count for a lot, actually.

Jay Jaffe is the inventor of the JAWS system, and in his book “The Cooperstown Casebook: Who’s in the Baseball Hall of Fame, Who Should Be In, and Who Should Pack Their Plaques” he describes Bell thusly:

“He’s very close to the standards on all three fronts, but the foundation of his case rests on defense, and the line for third basemen to get into Cooperstown starts in Oneonta, so don’t wait up.”

He makes a good point that I alluded to a bit earlier: There should be more third basemen in the Hall of Fame. You can’t, in good faith, measure the offensive numbers of a guy playing the hot corner every day relative to the guy whose position mostly just asks him to catch a fly ball once in a while and throw the ball hard (catchers already get this sort of consideration, as do — to a lesser extent — shortstops and center fielders). In fact, voters have rewarded big offensive numbers by third basemen who didn’t man their position well: Edgar Martinez aside, Chipper Jones and Paul Molitor were actually below-average defenders, by this metric.

Again, you shouldn’t make the Hall on defense alone, but if you’re a solid hitter for the better part of two decades, and also won, ohh, say, six Gold Gloves in a row, there’s a value in that which shouldn’t be ignored.

Of note: if we’re making the case for Buddy Bell, we first have to make the case for Scott Rolen, who outpaces Bell in… well, let me just expand that spreadsheet by one column…



Perhaps the line doesn’t extend all the way to Oneonta, but Bell definitely has a good view of Rolen’s No. 27 jersey in the queue. Still, I had to know if I was — pun unintentional, but acknowledged — way off base in suggesting that Bell should be in. I sent Jaffe a DM on Twitter and asked his thoughts.

“When you consider that third basemen are underrepresented in the Hall, I think without apology that there’s room for Rolen, (Graig) Nettles, (Ken) Boyer, Bell and Dick Allen,” he replied.

If the inventor of the JAWS system says he should be in, that’s good enough for me. Now I just have to wait until I’m on a veteran’s committee someday.

Photo by Owen Shaw/Getty Images

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Levi Weaver is a staff writer for The Athletic covering the Texas

The night Corey Kluber treated Bob Feller’s widow to an 18K masterpiece


By Zack Meisel May 13, 2020 15
The Bob Feller exhibit in the Terrace Club at Progressive Field features the glove he wore when he authored the only Opening Day no-hitter in major-league history. There’s one of his bats, which Babe Ruth borrowed in 1948 to lean on as he addressed the crowd one afternoon in his final appearance at Yankee Stadium. There are headlines and photos from old newspaper articles, and his jacket, hat and goggles from his four-year tour in the Navy.

On May 13, 2015, Anne Feller, Bob’s widow, cut a red ribbon to unveil the shrine, full of keepsakes that had been relocated from the defunct Bob Feller Museum in Van Meter, Iowa. The Indians added a couple of collectibles to the Feller display later that night, because with Anne in attendance, Corey Kluber matched Feller’s franchise record with 18 strikeouts in one of the signature pitching performances in team history.

“Whether it’s ironic or some other adjective to describe it,” Kluber told me this week, “there’s definitely some symbolism or symmetry there.”

Let’s revisit that chilly, historic evening at Progressive Field.

What to remember about Kluber
1. He captured the American League Cy Young Award the previous year, but his lack of a track record left many wondering whether he would develop into a frequent contender for the honor. After all, a longtime scout in the press box that night suggested early in the game that Kluber just didn’t look the same as he had in 2014.

Kluber did take the hill that night with a 5.04 ERA in seven starts (and, thanks to a mere 12 runs of offensive support, an 0-5 record). His first three starts were masterful; his next four were shaky.

Opponents had posted a .290/.342/.415 slash line against him, nothing for Kluber to boast about. But he did limit hitters to 11 walks and four home runs in those 44 2/3 innings, and he piled up 46 strikeouts. Opponents recorded a .373 BABIP (batting average on balls in play), which indicates Kluber was the victim of some poor fortune. Was he due for some regression to work in his favor?

(Answer: Yes. His two starts after this particular gem: 17 innings, two runs, one walk, 19 strikeouts.)

2. When Kluber traveled to New York to retrieve his hardware after the 2014 season, he dragged along his favorite catcher. Yan Gomes caught 32 of Kluber’s 34 starts in 2014. (George Kottaras caught one. Remember him?)

Gomes, however, suffered a knee injury in mid-April that sidelined him for six weeks, so Roberto Pérez filled in as Kluber’s batterymate.

3. Warmup sessions in the bullpen can tip off some pitchers as to how they might fare on the mound that night. That isn’t the case for Kluber. He said there isn’t much correlation between his pregame results and his in-game effectiveness. So, no, when he emerged from the dugout for the top of the first inning, he had no idea he would carry a no-hitter into the seventh inning and register a career-high strikeout total. Those facts didn’t sink in until he reached the later innings.

“I don’t take too much stock in how I feel warming up, good or bad,” he said. “There are games where I’ve felt I had good stuff and then it tends to go out and hold true. But there are also plenty of instances of warming up in the bullpen and I’ve felt like things were really good and then you get in the game and whether it’s the extra adrenaline or whatever it is, it doesn’t go as well.”

What to remember about the Indians
The Indians sputtered into their series against St. Louis. They hadn’t won consecutive games (or a series in general) since their season-opening trip to Houston. A week earlier, Mike Aviles’ daughter had been diagnosed with leukemia. Not only did winning seem difficult; it also felt trivial. They dropped the first tilt against the Cardinals to fall to 11-20.

Cleveland was a month shy of watching Francisco Lindor’s debut. Instead, the Indians had Brandon Moss batting fourth (he did have three hits in this game), David Murphy fifth and Michael Bourn seventh. José Ramírez and his once-punchless bat — which had produced a .184 average and a .479 OPS — started at shortstop and hit ninth.

Later that summer, the Indians would ship out every veteran on the roster, from Murphy and Moss to Marc Rzepczynski. They saddled the Braves with the cumbersome salaries belonging to Bourn and Nick Swisher, inheriting Chris Johnson’s contract and propensity to tangle with spiders.

Somehow, they rebounded in the second half to finish the season with an 81-80 record.

What to remember about the Cardinals
The Cardinals, meanwhile, had amassed a 23-9 mark en route to a 100-win season. They were built on pitching, as they eventually recorded a league-best 2.94 team ERA. None of their five starting pitchers posted an ERA higher than 3.38.

Former Indians shortstop Jhonny Peralta batted fourth in Mike Matheny’s lineup. He earned his third and final All-Star nod that year. Mark Reynolds batted eighth and served as the designated hitter that night. Two years earlier, as the Indians’ first baseman, he arrived at mid-May with an OPS pushing 1.000. He lightheartedly warned reporters that he would eventually fall into a slumber at the plate and everyone would call for his dismissal. He was right.

From May 13 through Aug. 4, when the Indians ultimately severed ties with him, Reynolds hit .174 with a .510 OPS.

Kolten Wong (.311 average, .833 OPS), Matt Carpenter (.325 average, .989 OPS) and Matt Holliday (.346 average, .961 OPS) topped Matheny’s order. At least, until Kluber plunked Holliday with his 10th pitch. The left fielder exited the game prior to his second plate appearance.



What to remember about the game
1. Kluber: “I think it was pretty deep into the game before I necessarily had a grasp of — whether it was striking out a lot of guys or not allowing a hit yet — things like that.”

The Indians scored twice in the first inning against John Lackey on RBI singles by Moss and Murphy. Kluber said he was more focused on protecting that advantage than on inflating his strikeout total.

Kluber's strikeouts breakdown
1
Top 1, 0 out
Kolten Wong
94.6 mph FB
swinging
2
Top 1, 2 out
Jhonny Peralta
84.7 mph CU
swinging, blocked
3
Top 2, 0 out
Jason Heyward
88.8 mph SL
swinging
4
Top 3, 0 out
Mark Reynolds
84.5 mph CU
swinging
5
Top 3, 1 out
Peter Bourjos
94.5 mph FB
called
6
Top 3, 2 out
Kolten Wong
84.3 mph CU
called
7
Top 4, 0 out
Matt Carpenter
94.1 mph SI
swinging
8
Top 4, 1 out
Pete Kozma
95.2 mph FF
swinging
9
Top 4, 2 out
Jhonny Peralta
84.6 mph CU
swinging, blocked
10
Top 5, 1 out
Yadier Molina
93.8 mph SI
swinging
11
Top 5, 2 out
Matt Adams
84.4 mph CU
called
12
Top 6, 0 out
Mark Reynolds
94.5 mph FB
called
13
Top 6, 1 out
Peter Bourjos
91.2 mph SL
swinging
14
Top 7, 0 out
Matt Carpenter
93.2 mph SI
swinging
15
Top 7, 1 out
Pete Kozma
95.0 mph FB
swinging
16
Top 7, 2 out
Jason Heyward
90.4 mph SL
swinging
17
Top 8, 0 out
Yadier Molina
82.5 mph CU
called
18
Top 8, 2 out
Mark Reynolds
95.1 mph FB
swinging
2. Terry Francona didn’t stick around to watch Kluber’s masterpiece. The Indians’ manager was ejected in the fourth inning after Lackey struck Jason Kipnis in the back with a fastball, which prompted home-plate umpire Mike Everitt to issue a warning to both sides. Francona felt the plunking was intentional, retribution for Holliday’s early exit.

Francona retreated to his office, but the TV was delayed. He kept hearing the crowd’s applause before the action unfolded on his screen. So, he relocated to the weight room, where he could listen to the live radio call.

3. Kluber carried a no-hitter into the seventh inning. With two outs, Peralta smacked a single to center past a diving Ramírez. Kluber recovered to strike out Jason Heyward, his third punchout of the inning.

“As it got going, I became more aware,” Kluber said. “I don’t think it was very early on that I was paying much attention to it.”

4. Kluber’s pitch count reached 113 after eight innings. He had allowed only two base runners: the Holliday hit-by-pitch and the Peralta single. But bench coach Brad Mills, after a conference with pitching coach Mickey Callaway, summoned Cody Allen to pitch the ninth. Francona agreed with the decision, fearing the scenario in which Kluber ran into trouble in the ninth and his pitch count crept toward an uncomfortable figure.

• Kluber matched the franchise record for strikeouts in a nine-inning game, which Feller set Oct. 2, 1938. Luis Tiant holds the overall team record, with 19 strikeouts during a 10-inning shutout July 3, 1968.

• His 18 strikeouts were the most by a big-league pitcher since Ben Sheets in 2004 and the most by an American League pitcher since Roger Clemens in 1998.

• It marked his 15th career double-digit strikeout game. (His previous high total for a game was 14.) He has now logged 46 outings with at least 10 strikeouts.

• Kluber became the fifth pitcher in baseball history — along with Tiant, Clemens, Kerry Wood and Randy Johnson — to tally 18 or more strikeouts in a game without issuing a walk. Max Scherzer joined the club in 2016.

• Kluber joined Johnson as the only pitchers to total 18 strikeouts in less than nine innings. On Sept. 27, 1992, Johnson tossed 160 pitches in eight frames against the Rangers. He walked four and surrendered two runs.

As far as regular-season outings go, it’s the best Kluber has offered.

“I would probably rank playoff starts ahead of that, just because of the circumstances and what’s on the line,” Kluber said. “The first couple of (playoff) starts in 2016, the first couple of starts of the World Series, I’d probably put those ahead of that. They meant more than the middle of May. But as far as the end of the day, just looking at a box score, there’s not (a better start) that I can think of.”

Kluber had no idea Anne Feller was in attendance until team staffers told him after the game. So, the Feller display opened that day. And that night, Kluber donated one of the 18 strikeout balls and loaned his uniform to the exhibit.

(Photo: Frank Jansk

Buddy Bell in the Hall of Fame? Sure let Buddy in. And then there's room for other not too bad third basemen Toby Harrah and Casey Blake and Graig Nettles and maybe Max Alvis.

Batting Average: .279
On-Base Percentage: .341
Slugging: .406
OPS: .747
Hits: 2,514 so he hung around for a long time and had a bunch of hits So what?
Home runs: 205

Nettles 329/421/750
Harrah 365/395/760
OK, so Alvis doesn't meet even that level of pretty good: 302/390/692