The trading deadline has come and gone. John Rocker is still a Brave. And John Wetteland isn't.
There may be others who look at the Braves' bullpen and see just the chance of storm clouds. But the Braves themselves look at that bullpen and wonder why no one else can see the sunshine they see.
"We like our bullpen," says GM John Schuerholz. "We think Mike Remlinger is back to full health. And Kerry Ligtenberg is emerging and getting back to where he was two years ago. Scott Kamieniecki has been sensational for us. And now we've got Terry Mulholland back out there, who is very versatile and might be the most effective left-handed pitcher in baseball at stopping the running game.
"So we like this group. And the big X factor is John Rocker. If Rock can pitch like he did (in throwing nonstop strikes over a recent five-inning stretch) ... then we're fine."
And if the Rocker who spent the first half of the year resembling a semi-terrifying cross between Mitch Williams and Dennis Rodman returns?
"Believe me," Schuerholz says. "We talked ad nauseum before the deadline about this whole situation. And we're confident that if Rocker doesn't re-establish himself as the closer, we can match up with the people we have."
Well, the numbers show that maybe they can. Which team leads the major league in saves? The Braves. Which team leads the Rolaids bullpen point standings? The Braves. And this much-maligned group went into the weekend ranked third in the National League in bullpen ERA.
For weeks before the deadline, there were rumors of the Braves pursuing the likes of Wetteland, Bob Wickman and Roberto Hernandez. But in the end, they actually traded away one of their best arms -- the one attached to Luis Rivera -- for B.J. Surhoff.
"The reason is, we're confident John can come back, and that's obvious from our actions," Schuerholz says. "We felt it was more important to trade for another starting pitcher (in Andy Ashby) and for outfield offense (in Surhoff). We just thought our assets were best used in those areas."
Nevertheless, there are indications the Braves did in fact talk to the Indians about trading Rocker for Wickman or Steve Karsay. But Schuerholz wouldn't discuss those talks.
"No comment," he says. "We didn't trade anybody. Our team is what it is. So we love them all. Love is a many-splendored thing. Love is grand. Love is all we need. And all you need is love. So we'll tee it up with what we have -- and see what happens."
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List of the week
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More history for Ken Griffey Jr.: He just hit his 13th career grand slam, at age 30. Here, courtesy of the great David Vincent, is a handy-dandy ranking of the men with the most slams before age 31:
Lou Gehrig: 16
Eddie Murray: 14
Griffey: 13
Albert Belle: 12
Jimmie Foxx : 12
Ralph Kiner: 12
Manny Ramirez: 12
Gil Hodges: 10
Vern Stephens: 10
Rudy York: 10
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Bud Selig suggested this week that he was disturbed that the trading deadline has turned into just a big contract dump, from small markets to large. The commish thinks the answer might be to move the deadline back to its old date, of June 15, to make those dumps more expensive -- and, therefore, less prevalent.
But in fact, if he's been listening to the general managers out there, they want the deadline moved later, not earlier. They prefer Aug. 31, so there's just one deadline for making deals and finalizing postseason rosters. Plus, the contenders tend to separate themselves from the pretenders by then.
"I don't like the earlier date," Schuerholz says. "I think teams need more time to evaluate what they have. And with the later date, the clubs in contention have more time to plan around their injuries. If you move it back (to June) and a team has already made its plans, and then it suffers a serious injury to a key player, it's more difficult to find a quality replacement."
But Schuerholz and his peers can live with the current date, even though making waiver deals in August seems to get harder every year.
"It creates another benchmark date to generate fan interest and media attention," he says. "We (the GMs) have talked about this a lot. But I think the main reason it's never been changed is that it's not working too badly now."
When the Phillies allowed the Red Sox simply to claim Rico Brogna on waivers this week, it ended a long, testy period in which the two teams talked on two very different wave lengths about trading Brogna to Boston.
Red Sox GM Dan Duquette decided early on that no one else had significant interest in Brogna, so he deluged the Phillies with offers of players they didn't want (Mike Stanley, Jeff Frye, Bryce Florie) and contracts they didn't want to assume (use your imagination). The Cardinals did express mild interest. But when they were able to deal for Will Clark on deadline day, that killed that.
So rather than make a ridiculous trade, the Phillies decided to make no trade at all -- and just let the classy Brogna go to a team in the race, a team he'd rooted for all his life. The Red Sox got themselves a heck of a player for next to nothing, but suffice it to say the list of teams willing to do Duquette any favors down the road continues to dwindle.
How much did the Cardinals help themselves in the bullpen, by adding Mike Timlin from Baltimore and Jason Christiansen from Pittsburgh?
"Timlin, you can have," says one AL exec. "You can't count on him. And Christiansen is another one of those guys who, you like his arm but at some point, he's got to put some numbers on the board. It's time for that bullpen to put up or shut up now. They're deeper. But are they better? To me, both those guys were having terrible years."
One AL scout was intrigued by the trade of Jay Witasick from Kansas City to San Diego for Brian Meadows.
"One guy (Witasick) has a big arm and no feel," the scout said. "The other guy (Meadows) has good feel and no arm. They're a perfect match."
One NL scout's assessment of deadline day: "I like what some clubs didn't give up. Seattle didn't give up any pitching, and that's their strength. The White Sox didn't touch their young pitching or break up their team. And the Yankees basically decided they'd already made their big move with Neagle. That was the best move anyone made in the AL East."
While the Yankees hung onto Alfonso Soriano, there is continuing division among other clubs out there about whether or not he's a star waiting to happen.
"I'm really not sure he is," says an NL executive with an excellent track record for judging talent. "I see a guy who's an above-average runner. But I'm not sure he's a shortstop. I'm not even sure he's an infielder. And if he's a corner outfielder, is he going to hit 30 home runs? I don't see that. He has bat speed. But he also has holes. Don't get me wrong. I'd like to have him. I'm just not sure what he is."
Happy-camper quote of the week -- from Mike Mussina on all the Orioles' moves: "Obviously, we needed to trade some people. It just seemed like we were having a little too much fun doing it."
Useless information dept.
Four months into the season, the Cardinals still have used just five starting pitchers. If they can keep this up for two more months, they'll be only the second team since 1905 to make it through a season with that few starters. The other, according to the Elias Sports Bureau's Ken Hirdt: the '66 Dodgers -- with Sandy Koufax (41), Don Drysdale (40), Claude Osteen (38), Don Sutton (35) and Joe Moeller (8).
It's a New Year Dept.: The Mets made eight errors in three games in one stretch last week. They made seven errors all last September.
This week's Jekyll-Hyde Rockies stat: They've been shut out eight times on the road and, of course, no times at home. Elias reports that would be the largest home-road shutout differential for a team with no shutouts at home over a full season since the 1975 Braves were blanked nine times on the road, no times at the late, great Launching Pad.
You can't say Harold Baines doesn't know how to pack a suitcase. His trade to the White Sox last weekend marked the fifth time he has been traded in midseason -- most ever among hitters in the 2,000-hit club, according to Ken Hirdt. Baines passes Rickey Henderson, who has been traded three times and released this year, George Kell (traded four times) and Alvin Dark (traded three times).
Pedro Martinez went four years without giving up a home run leading off a game. Then last weekend, Terrence Long became the second guy to hit one off him just this year. The whole group of Pedro's leadoff trotters, courtesy of Elias' Rob Tracy is: Long and Shannon Stewart this year, Nelson Liriano in 1996, and Marquis Grissom, Eric Young and Bip Roberts in 1995.
Marlins pitcher Jesus Sanchez had two of the weirdest back-to-back starts of recent times last month. He gave up 14 hits in the first, then two hits in the next. The Elias Sports Bureau's Rob Tracy could find just three other pitchers since 1980 who gave up that many hits in one start, then two or fewer (in a start of five innings or more) in the next: Felipe Lira on Aug. 11-16, 1996 (14, then two), John Smiley on June 16-21, 1995 (14, then one) and Lynn McGlother on May 10, 1980 (14, then two).
But there were three more pitchers who gave up 12 more hits in one start than in their next -- including two no-hit pitchers, David Cone (12 to none last July) and Kevin Brown (also 12 to none in June 1997). Strange sport.
Will Clark may have hit a home run in his first start as a Cardinal. But he's no Big Mac. To find the Thrill's last 70 homers, you have to go all the way back to September 1995 -- a span of more than 500 games. You might recall the Mac Man once hit 70 in one season. Look it up.
Through Friday, Curt Schilling had as many wins since being traded away from Philadelphia as the Phillies did since that trade (two).
Randy Johnson took the NL lead in the most-pitches-in-a-start competition Sunday, with 145 against the Marlins. That was the most pitches by an NL starter since Pedro Astacio threw 153 on June 6, 1999. Other members of the 140-pitch club this year: Livan Hernandez (140, on May 30), Garrett Stephenson (141, on July 25), Sterling Hitchcock (141, on April 30) and the major-league leader, Kevin Appier (146, on July 3).
Ever heard of a team in first place going three weeks without a save? The Cardinals still don't have one since the All-Star break.
And the White Sox remained way up on the Indians, even though their starting pitchers had one win in their last 14 starts, through Friday.
And the Diamondbacks hang in there, even though (through Friday) they were five games under .500 (35-38) over their last 73 games.
Hideo Nomo now has gone 37 straight starts without winning back-to-back starts.
How good is Eric Milton already? The AL leaders in strikeout-walk ratio: Pedro Martinez, David Wells and Milton.
The last three Curt Schilling-Greg Maddux duels, dating back to April 1998, have been all-time classics. The two of them have pitched a combined 50 innings in those games -- and allowed four earned runs. (That's a combined 0.72 ERA, if you're not calculating along at home.) They threw 605 pitches -- 436 for strikes (72 percent). And the three games put together lasted only 6 hours, 20 minutes.
The Detroit Free Press' John Lowe reports that last weekend in Texas, Tigers leadoff man Damion Easley didn't exactly play the igniter for his team's back-to-back six-run first innings. In both of those six-run innings, Easley made two of the three outs. All the other hitters who batted combined made the other two.
The Twins' Chad Moeller
hit an inside-the-park homer last weekend before he hit his first career outside-the-park homer. If he's interested, the Sultan of Swat Stats, SABR'S David Vincent, reports that just five men since 1953 have hit more career inside-the-parkers than outside-the-parkers: Skip Pitlock (one inside, none outside), Butch Henry (ditto), Dax Jones (likewise), Marc Sagmoen (same) and the all-time champ in this category, Sonny Jackson (four inside, three outside in the '60s).
Vincent also reports that last weekend, Yankees rent-a-bat Glenallen Hill joined a tremendous list of men who have hit pinch-hit slams in each league: Jimmie Foxx (A's, Phillies), Roy Sievers (White Sox, Phillies), Kurt Bevacqua (A's, Padres), Hubie Brooks (Expos, Royals) and Joe Orsulak (Orioles, Mets).
And one more from Vincent: Last Friday, the Pirates hit a grand slam and two three-run homers in the same game for only the second time in franchise history. The other was May 31, 1959, when Bob Skinner hit a slam and a three-run bomb, and Smokey Burgess thumped the other three-run homer. This was just the 11th time this feat had been accomplished in the National League since 1900 -- but seven of them have occurred since 1991. And in one of them, on a memorable evening on Sept. 7, 1993, Mark Whiten hit all three of them (in his legendary four-homer, 12-RBI game).
Record alert of the week: Bernie Williams had 99 RBI through Friday. The record for RBI by a switch-hitter is only 130, by the odd couple of Mickey Mantle and Ken Caminiti.
Jerry Beach, Mets beat man for nysports.net, was at last weekend's ceremony honoring the 10 greatest moments in Mets history (on Casey Stengel's 110th birthday) and was struck by the irony of this convergence of circumstance: The top two moments were the '86 Mets winning the World Series, followed (mysteriously) by the '69 Mets winning the World Series. And amazingly, Jerry Koosman, the man who got the last out in the '69 Series, was traded to the Twins for a package that included Jesse Orosco, the man who got the last out of the '86 Series.
Minor leaguer dubious-achievement award of the week, courtesy of our friends at Howe Sportsdata: Frederick Keys first baseman Franky Figueroa just finished a streak in which he went 0 for 42, with 10 strikeouts. And at the end of all that, he was still second in the league in RBI (with 68).
Jayson Stark is a senior writer at ESPN.com. Rumblings and Grumblings will appear each Saturday. | |
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Stark: Week in Review
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