Sunday, September 09, 2001
Baseball Insider
Look closer at rookie class
By Chris Haft
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Though St. Louis' Albert Pujols and Seattle's Ichiro Suzuki are virtual locks to win the Rookie of the Year awards in their respective leagues, observers shouldn't be blinded to other worthy first-year players who have shown considerable promise.
For example, Reds fans know all about Adam Dunn. Here are some more:
• C.C. Sabathia, Cleveland. The enormous (6-foot-7, 260 lbs.) 21-year-old has kept the Indians afloat in the American League Central. Without slamming Ichiro (“He has been great for Seattle and great for baseball”), Cleveland general manager John Hart implied that Sabathia would be a more deserving Rookie of the Year choice.
“I don't think they meant the Rookie of the Year to be a 30-year-old guy who has 10 or 12 years experience,” Hart told the Cleveland Plain Dealer, referring to the 27-year-old Suzuki's Japanese tenure. “When you think of a rookie, you think of C.C. He's raw. He's green. He came out of nowhere to make the club in spring training. That's the classic rookie story.”
As a left-handed starting pitcher with an overwhelming record (15-4, 4.36 ERA), Sabathia might prove to be more valuable than Suzuki over the long haul, given the shortage of quality pitching.
“I would be interested to see what would happen if they were both free agents,” Hart said. “I wonder who would get (attention from) the most teams. I think it would be our guy.”
• Mark Buehrle, Chicago White Sox. Entering Saturday, who was the AL's only starting pitcher qualifying for the ERA title with an ERA under 3.00? Roger Clemens? Tim Hudson? Mike Mussina? No, it was Buehrle, another young (22), skilled (13-7, 2.99) lefty. Pedro Martinez has a 2.49 ERA but lacks enough innings to rank among the leaders.
With 42 walks in 189 2/3 innings, Buehrle's more precise than powerful. He proved this to the Reds in an interleague game June 13, when he allowed five hits and one earned run while walking none in eight innings.
“Every time he goes out on the mound, he continues to amaze me,” White Sox manager Jerry Manuel told Chicago reporters.
Though Buehrle's not technically a rookie, he could become the second pitcher to lead his league in ERA in his first full season since Detroit's Mark Fidrych posted a 2.34 figure in 1976. Buehrle also would be the youngest left-hander to lead the league since Oakland's Vida Blue had a 1.82 ERA in 1971 at age 21.
• Juan Uribe, Colorado. In August, Uribe's first full month in the major leagues, he accumulated better statistics than Neifi Perez, his esteemed predecessor as the Rockies shortstop, ever did.
In parts of five seasons with the Rockies before he went to Kansas City in a July three-way deal, Perez's one-month highs included a .326 average (June 2000), 20 RBI (July 1999), a .350 on-base percentage (June and August 2000) and a .467 slugging percentage (August 2000).
Uribe's August featured a .340 average, 23 RBI, a .358 on-base percentage and a .544 slugging percentage.
“It's hard for us as players not to get too excited, but ... this guy is unbelievable,” Rockies left-hander Denny Neagle told the Denver Post. “For Juan to step in and do what he's done says a lot about the future this guy has. And never mind those stats. Defensively ... I haven't seen a better arm than Uribe's.”
NO FEAR OF FAILURE: With four starts left, San Diego's Bobby Jones (8-17) has an excellent — if such a word applies — chance at losing 20 games.
Nobody has suffered that fate since Oakland's Brian Kingman was 8-20 in 1980. Since Jones must face offensively robust Colorado twice, along with contenders Arizona and San Francisco, he could be destined to match Kingman.
But Jones has no intention of asking San Diego manager Bruce Bochy to yank him from the rotation and spare him any indignity.
“I'd rather be known as a guy who took the ball than as a guy who shied away from 20 losses,” Jones told the San Diego Union-Tribune. “I'll be out there. I would never back down. I will never quit. I'm aware there's a possibility I could get 20 losses. But I can't let it affect me.”
QUICK PITCHES: San Francisco's Rich Aurilia paid the Reds' Barry Larkin a nice compliment. Chicago's Ernie Banks (1955, '57-60) and Larkin (1996) were the only NL shortstops to exceed 30 home runs until Aurilia joined them this week. “It's nice to be included in company like that,” Aurilia told Giants beat writers. “One guy (Banks) is a Hall of Famer and the other (Larkin) has a pretty good chance to be in the Hall of Fame. By no means am I a Hall of Famer.”
• The Oakland A's, typically a classy organization, lived up to that reputation when Baltimore legend Cal Ripken Jr. made his final visit. The A's distributed replicas of Ripken's rookie card to fans and installed commemorative bases Monday and gave out cards honoring his consecutive-games streak Tuesday. The city of Oakland then declared Wednesday “Cal Ripken Day” and dedicated an inner-city diamond in his honor.
• Though Kevin Brown has overcome the torn flexor muscle in his right elbow enough to rejoin the Los Angeles Dodgers' starting rotation, pitching coach Jim Colborn warned that the ace right-hander still isn't fully effective. “It's a possibility that he's still throwing in a way that he's subconsciously protecting his elbow,” Colborn told reporters.
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Baseball Insider
