Hall of Fame Predictions ... AL Edition

Editor's note: Yes, l I have gotten used to writing long blog items ... but this one's ridiculous. It was going to be Hall of Fame predictions for every team in baseball, but I got through the American League and it was already close to 6,000 words. So let's just stop there. We'll work on the National League later. (UPDATED AT 9:25 to include a couple more players who were overlooked).

The very first article I ever got paid to write was a Baseball Hall of Fame predictions essay -- it was my career launcher. I wrote that article was for a baseball card magazine called "Beckett Monthly," which I understand is still going strong. It was just starting up then, which might explain why they printed my article. One day --when my unrealistic "hey, maybe I could become a successful accountant" phase finally passed -- I sent Beckett Monthly an article about current players and their Hall of Fame chances. I'm not sure why I thought they would print it: I seem to recall the magazine had put some sort of ad in the front that said something like, "How would you like to write about baseball for Beckett Monthly?" This was 1986, I think -- I was 19 years old and believed advertisements. I wrote the article and sent it in ... and it was accepted.

I got paid 3 cents per word.

I recently went back and found that article and found that although I was young and inexperienced and had no real qualifications and only the vaguest knowledge about baseball, I got a solid 4 percent of my predictions correct. Doesn't matter though ... receiving that check (which I recall being for $31.62) is probably the favorite moment of my career. Even when I first saw Soul in bookstores, I don't think that I felt quite that exhilaration.

(The only thrill that ever came close happened a few months after my Beckett breakthrough when, without invitation, I sent The Sporting News an article I had written on UNC Charlotte basketball guard Byron Dinkins. I have absolutely no idea why I thought The Sporting News would have any interest in an article from me about Byron Dinkins ... but about five weeks later my friend Robert called and screamed into the phone, "You're in THE SPORTING NEWS!" And there it was -- my entire article printed in the magazine I'd been reading all my life. I was so excited I raced to the store and bought up every copy they had (three, as I recall) and it wasn't until I got home and had read it and reread it about 20 times that it occurred to me that someone there at The Sporting News might want to actually pay me for writing that. Trouble was, I didn't really have any idea how I could get them to do that. I never had a great sense for business -- as this free and unadvertised blog proves conclusively).

ANYWAY, this is only to point out that I have a long and cherished history when it comes to Hall of Fame prediction essays. Today, we're going team-by-team, and I've broken up the Hall of Fame candidates into categories:

-- Sure thing: Player who would be elected into the Hall even if his career ended tomorrow.
-- Interesting: Player who is in the Hall of Fame picture.
-- Surprising: Player whose Hall of Fame credentials are probably better than you think.
-- Worth a mention: Player who is not going to the Hall of Fame, but I have some sort of thought about them anyway.

Two more quick points:
1. I'm going to leave out the steroid stuff for now. I don't know, in the end, what role steroids will play in the voting a few years from now. I do know we have been hammered with steroid talk again and again, and I don't think we are any closer to real answers or real consensus. So, for this blog, we're talking baseball only.
2. We all draw arbitrary lines when it comes to the Hall of Fame. It's easy to forget that every player mentioned in a serious Hall of Fame discussion was at least a good player. Most of them accomplished truly great things. Just today, I got a passionate email about Roger Maris and how sickening it is that the writers have not put him in the Hall of Fame. That amazes me -- not that people think Maris belongs in the Hall of Fame (I think you could make a convincing argument), but that someone could be so passionate about Maris' Hall of Fame case so many years after he died.

In any case, I'm not writing my opinions here. Well that's not right -- of course I AM writing my opinion, but strictly my opinion about whether or not a player WILL GO into the Hall of Fame. I'm not discussing here whether or not I will vote for Omar Vizquel. In this blog, I'm only trying to predict whether or not Vizquel will get the necessary 75 percent to get elected.

Oh, one last thing. I'm avoiding players who are younger than 30, and I'm avoiding players who are not at least halfway to where they need to be. I have already received several emails about guys like Paul Konerko and Richie Sexson, and I had them on my original list. But those guys have a LOT of work left to do (especially Sexson, who suddenly looks like he couldn't hit a ball off a tee).


Here we go, team by team.

Boston Red Sox

Sure thing: Manny Ramirez. I suppose that if Ramirez really quit tomorrow, he'd be a borderline case. I think he would get in. He already has 478 home runs. His career OPS is 10th all-time. He's one of the 10 best right-handed hitters in baseball history, I think. In fact, I will throw together a very quick list:

10 greatest right-handed hitters (compiled in 47 seconds):

1. Willie Mays
2. Jimmie Foxx
3. Hank Aaron
4. Rogers Hornsby
5. Joe DiMaggio
6. Hank Greenberg
7. Manny Ramirez
8. Alex Rodriguez
9. Frank Thomas
10. Honus Wagner

I'm sure the list would look very different if I actually stopped to think about it; but I'm sure MannyBeingManny would be on it. Anyway, I think even with his MBM crazy-man act and his disinterested defense, he'd get elected to the Hall of Fame even if he retired tomorrow. And, of course, he won't retire tomorrow. He's doesn't turn 35 until the end of the month. He's got more homers than Bonds or McGwire at this age. He's a lock for 500 homers and probably 600.

Sure thing: Curt Schilling. His Hall of Fame case has been covered here already -- and there are people who disagree with me -- but I think the combination of 211 wins, 3,000 strikeouts and possibly the best postseason resume in baseball history already means he will (sooner or later) get the Hall call. He says he will retire at the end of this season; another brilliant postseason could be a clincher for him.

Interesting: David Ortiz. He is a little bit behind because he did not have his first big year until he was 27. Because of that, his overall numbers are not all that special yet. But he's now had four huge years, he looks like he's having another big one this year. And Papi also looks like he has a swing that could hold up for a long time.

New York Yankees

Sure thing: Derek Jeter. I actually heard some people arguing whether or not Jeter will be a Hall of Famer by the time his career ends. Ridiculous argument. He's already there. Dead lock. First ballot. You've got a gold-glove winning shortstop with a .318 batting average. He's already top 10 among shortstops in hits, runs, batting average, on-base average and (remarkably) home runs. Add to that his reputation as a winner, his awards, his postseason performance, his popularity, his black book of ex-girlfriends -- he's a dead lock, I'm telling you.

The bigger question for me is how many hits Jeter will finish with. By the end of this season, he figures to be ahead of Pete Rose's pace. I don't know how much longer he can (or will) play at this level, but he should have 2,350 hits by the end of the season. If he played until 40, he certainly could have something like 3,600 hits -- that would be him about fourth all-time with Stan Musial.

Sure thing: Alex Rodriguez. He's still so young (31) that people talk about how amazing his numbers WILL BE at the end of his career. That's true. But look how amazing his numbers are already. He has already hit 479 home runs. That's ridiculous. By the end of this season, he will probably be SEVENTY FIVE HOME RUNS ahead of Hank Aaron's pace. ... Anyway, he should have 500 homers by August, he's a two-time MVP, a Gold Glove shortstop, a four-time home run champ, on and on. He's in the Hall of Fame right now.

Sure thing: Mariano Rivera. He won't be the all-time saves leader. And you never know for sure how the voters will view a reliever. But Rivera is in the Hall for sure ... and not because of the New York factor. No, there are two other major factors:

1. He has an astonishing 2.35 career ERA.

Lowest career ERAs the last 50 years (min. 500 ip)
1. Billy Wagner, 2.34 ERA
2. Mariano Rivera: 2.35 ERA
3. Hoyt Wilhelm*: 2.38 ERA
4. Tom Henke: 2.67 ERA
5. Dave Smith: 2.67 ERA
6. Sandy Koufax*: 2.70 ERA
7. Tim Burke: 2.72 ERA
8. Trevor Hoffman: 2.73 ERA
9. Whitey Ford*: 2.75 ERA
10. Bob Locker: 2.76 ERA
(tie) Dan Quisenberry: 2.76 ERA

-- Mo's postseason numbers look like this: 8-1, 34 saves. 0.80 ERA.

Sure thing: Roger Clemens. OK, so let's see: The Yankees will pay him $28 million (and don't forget those extra 22 dollars -- that's two movie tickets in some cities). He won't show up until late May or early June. He will be allowed go home during road trips. OK. So, at this point other than intense Yankees fans (who would root for Mussolini if he wore pinstripes and had a curveball), is there ANYONE IN AMERICA who will be rooting for Clemens. I say no. Of course, maybe that's what Clemens wants. Maybe he feeds off of that negative energy.

You could make a strong argument for Clemens being the best pitcher in the history of baseball ... you really could. Since the Deadball era, only Pedro and Lefty Grove among starters have a better career ERA+ than Clemens. But Clemens has 140 more wins and 1500 more strikeouts than Pedro. He also has about 50 more wins and more than 2,000 more strikeouts than Grove.

Runs save against average
1. Cy Young, 813
2. Roger Clemens, 724
3. Kid Nichols, 678
4. Lefty Grove, 668
5. Walter Johnson, 643

Clemens also has the seven Cy Young Awards, the MVP award, the six ERA titles and on and on. You have to respect the astounding brilliance of the man -- he's walking baseball history. But seriously, wouldn't it just be awesome this year if he went like 1-8 with a 5.93 ERA? I'm not saying it's going to happen -- even at 44 you get the sense Clemens could scare most hitters out -- but if it somehow did happen, I believe Roger Clemens would hear the loudest boos in American sports history. And I think that would be beautiful.

Interesting: Andy Pettitte. He's a finesse lefty who seems capable to me of pitching effectively for another five years at least. So if you could add 75 victories (15 per year), that was give him about 260 in his career. I'm not sure that gets him in, but it certainly puts him in the picture. He will have an amazing winning percentage, he should have 2600 or so strikeouts -- I think he's a Hall of Fame candidate, especially if he can put together one huge Cy Young type year.

Interesting: Mike Mussina. Maybe I'm underestimating Moose ... if he can put together another good season or two, he's definitely on the Hall of Fame cusp. Is that the right word: Cusp? He has 241 victories and 2,600 strikeouts, so could certainly still get his numbers up there in Hall of Fame territory. His number one comp right now is Hall of Famer Juan Marichal. ... But for some reason, I just think he will fall short. He's never won 20, never come particularly close to winner a Cy Young Award (he did finish second in 1999, but Pedro got all 28 votes that year) and despite the dazzling winning percentage and six Gold Gloves, I just don't think most writers view him as a Hall of Famer. We'll see, I guess.

Interesting: Jason Giambi. I don't think he will get in ... but, he's 36 and he is 145 homers shy of 500 -- I'd say he has an outside shot of getting there. And if he gets to 500 homers ... OK, I know I said that we're not talking steroids here, but I'll break the rule for one moment:

Obviously steroid stain is a big factor when it comes to 500-homer guys -- that used to be an automatic Hall of Fame entry-point. Only Mark McGwire is not in with 500-plus homers. Well, I've been thinking a lot about this lately. And I'm slowly coming around on the idea that Mac will get into the Hall someday.

Look: There was/is such an emotional feeling about steroids now. For some reason (and people have been trying -- I think without great success -- to explain why), steroid use in baseball touches something deep and angry inside some people. There is no real consistency to those feelings, though. Much of this has been pointed out, but it's worth going over again: It seems clear that we don't get nearly as worked up about steroid use in pro football, even though it's pretty obvious that steroids are much more prevalent in pro football. We don't get nearly as worked up about scuffed baseballs, corked bats, stolen signs, Greenies, spitballs or any other form of baseball cheating. We don't even get as worked up about PITCHERS using steroids ... but I think it's even odder than that. I don't think people get worked up about light hitters (let's say, good defensive middle infielders who can't hit) who used PEDs to strengthen up just so they can have Major League careers.

No, pretty much all of our ire is directed toward the roided-up home run hitters.

In other words, our thoughts about steroids are pretty illogical (I'm speaking generally here -- many people are equally opposed to steroid use in all cases). I know my own feelings about it are illogical. There's a hysteria surrounding PEDs right now.

Well, over a number of years hysteria dampens, anger subsides, and everyone looks back with clearer head. More and more I think that when that happens, the steroid suspects will be elected to the Hall of Fame. Sure, some people will disagree with it -- some will violently disagree, in fact, and talk about it being the end of morality in baseball (as if there ever WAS morality in baseball) -- but I think the majority will simply see that the people running baseball did not adjust quickly enough to new technology, many players took advantage, the game had an offensive spike (that most people happily enjoyed) and then corrections were made.

I don't know that this will happen, of course, it's just my prediction. I definitely could be wrong. Hall of Fame voters may be angry about steroids forever.

Interesting: Jorge Posada. A bad first-edition omission on this blog. His numbers are very similar to Carlton Fisk's at his age -- and he's Top 10 all-time among catchers in on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS (obviously) and runs created per game. He seems to still be going strong though he will turn 36 at the end of the year ... I think he might still have some work left to do. But he's definitely in the picture.

Interesting: Bobby Abreu. I was trying very hard NOT to mention him because quite frankly there is absolutely nothing interesting to me about Bobby Abreu. I guess he's in the discussion even though he has been awful this year, and even though his power numbers have dwindled to almost nothing. He was absolutely fabulous and probably the game's most underrated player from 1998-2005 -- he hit .308 and averaged 23 homers, 100 runs, 100 walks and about 90 RBIs over those years. Then everybody realized he was the game's most underrated player, and they started talking him up, and the Yankees got him, and I don't know -- it seems like he became significantly less underrated. His power seems gone, he's walking a lot less, he does not seem particularly popular in New York. But that might all be a phase.

One intriguing thing: None of his Baseball Reference comps through 32 are in the Hall of Fame. They are: Bernie Williams, Reggie Smith, Will Clark, Fred Lynn, Garret Anderson, Bobby Bonilla, Bobby Murcer, John Olerud, Raul Mondesi and Magglio Ordonez.

Surprising: Johnny Damon. I actually forgot to put him in my original version of this -- fortunately I was reminded by Rany Jazayerli. Sometime last year, I was having lunch with Bill James and he said, "You know, Johnny Damon's going to get 3,000 hits." Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather or, if you prefer, with a Johnny Damon throw from the outfield. But it's absolutely true. Damon has about 2,000 hits now and he's 33 all season. He has almost eight full seasons until he's 40 -- 125 hits per year and he's got 3,000 hits. He even has an outside shot at scoring 2,000 runs. As Rany puts it, "Maybe he won't make the hall ... but he has a much, much better chance than anyone realizes."

Baltimore Orioles

Interesting: Miguel Tejada. It's funny, I've been watching Miguel Tejada play for years -- I've watched him with Oakland, with Baltimore, I saw him in the Dominican -- and I really have no idea how good a defensive shortstop he is. He always looks pretty good to me. His defensive numbers have been solid and, he has one of the best shortstop arms I've ever seen. And yet, I would say the general image is that Tejada is a lousy defensive shortstop -- maybe because he makes a lot of errors, but also perhaps because he's such a terrific power hitter. This is the opposite of my "Bad hitters must be good fielders" theory.

Look at the Top 5 home run hitters among shortstops:

1. Cal Ripken
2. A-Rod
3. Ernie Banks
4. Miguel Tejada
5. Vern Stephens

I would say that Ripken was underrated as a fielder -- even if he did win two Gold Gloves, I still hear scouts say he had no range -- and eventually he moved to third. A-Rod moved to third too. Banks moved to first and was never viewed as good defensive shortstop. Stephens was a lot like Tejada -- great arm, decent defensive range numbers, lots of errors, poor defensive reputation.

Anyway, Tejada is not yet 31 (next week), has an MVP award, a consecutive game streak and is a 500-homer candidate. He's looking good.

Toronto Blue Jays

Sure thing: Frank Thomas. He's limping to the finish line. At the end of the 2000 season, Thomas had a .321 career average, a .440 on-base percentage, 344 homers (he was only 32) and he was making his case as one of the five-best right-handed hitters ever. Since then, his career average has dropped 18 points, he's been injured a lot, he's said some goofy things, he's become a full-time, leave-your-glove-at-home DH. I still think he's a Hall of Famer but it's definitely closer now.

Surprising: Troy Glaus. Maybe I just don't spend much time thinking about Troy Glaus. But by the end of the year, he should have close to 300 home runs -- and he will only be 31. That's pretty amazing for a third baseman who strikes out an awful lot and has had more than his share of injury problems. He has definitely slowed defensively, though, and it will be interesting to see when he takes the across-the-infield route to first base.

Tampa Bay Devil Rays

None. I'm only dealing with players 30 and over here (with the Albert Pujols exception), but I do think it's worth mentioning that if Carl Crawford stays healthy, he will be one of those guys who in five years will have the kind of eye-popping numbers that will wow people. He should have about 1,000 hits and more than 250 stolen bases by the end of this season, and he doesn't turn 26 until August.

Detroit Tigers

Sure thing: Ivan Rodriguez. Is Pudge the greatest catcher ever? Like with Clemens, I think there's an argument to be made. He has more hits than any other catcher, and by the end of the year he should have more runs scored. He is a .300 lifetime hitter, he won an MVP award, he's a 12-time Gold Glove winner (most ever) and he's still just 35. I'll rank them like this for now:

Best catchers ever:
1. Josh Gibson
2. Johnny Bench
3. Pudge Rodriguez
4. Yogi Berra
5. Roy Campanella

Interesting: Gary Sheffield. I actually think Sheffield should be a sure thing right now, but if Sheffield's career ended tomorrow, he might fall short. ... During one game last year, I decided to take a look at Sheffield's stats, and the thing that blew me away was the strikeouts -- the guy doesn't strike out. I guess I had assumed because of the wild way he waves the bat and the intense way he swings that I expected him to be a 125-strikeout-a-year guy. He's never even come CLOSE to striking out 100 times. He has 300 more walks than strikeouts in his career.

Fewest strikeouts last 25 years (minimum 1000 walks)
1. Mark Grace: 642
2. Brian Giles: 707
3. Wade Boggs: 745
4. Tim Raines: 963
5. Gary Sheffield: 992

Cleveland Indians:

Worth a mention: Roberto Hernandez. No, he's not going to the Hall of Fame (though he does have more than 300 saves -- a very nice career). But I will say this: Nobody I've ever been around handled failure better than Roberto. Whenever he blew a save (and he blew a few in KC), he was there to be found at his locker, beer by his feet, and he would say (with feeling): "I lost this game. It's on me. I let my teammates down, and all I can do now is go out tomorrow and lift them up." It was so simple and so honest, and it made me wonder why more players aren't that way. You know, I've sometimes thought about becoming a media consultant for professional sports teams, and the first thing I would tell players is this: Just take the blame. Even if you don't really believe it's your fault. Just take it. Media members will give you the benefit of the doubt. Fans will admire your honesty (as long as you don't keep blowing game after game). The other option is to do what Chris George once did -- he gave up 10 runs against St. Louis and said afterward that he thought he threw good pitches and that he would have been successful against a different team. I would recommend against saying that.

By the way, I've never really considered being a media consultant -- though I'll bet I could make a lot of money.

Chicago White Sox

Interesting: Jim Thome. The first time I saw Jim Thome play, he was a skinny third baseman -- and (for two games) the worst defensive third baseman I've ever seen ... Thome is one of the all-time great guys, by the way. And he's already pretty close to Hall of Fame ready. He should have 500 homers by the end of the year. We're certainly going to find out over time what 500 homers mean to the voters because there will be a run of 500-homer guys soon (there was a run of 300-game winners in the late 1980s and early 1990s -- they all made it eventually). Thome, if he can get healthy, might have 600 homers in him.

Worth a mention: Darin Erstad. What the heck got into him in 2000? Aside from that year, he never hit .300. He never hit 20 homers. He never scored 100 runs, and never drove in more than 82. He never stole 25 bases, and he routinely struck out 100 times a year.

That one crazy year, he hit .355, 28 homers, 100 RBIs, 121 runs scored, 28 stolen bases.

Players in baseball history to hit better than .350 with 20+ homers, 20+ stolen bases, 100 RBIs and 100 runs scored:
1. Babe Herman, 1929
2. Larry Walker, 1997
3. Darrin Erstad, 2000
4. No, that's it.

You watch Erstad now and sadly you wonder if he will ever get another hit. I've never seen such an old 33-year-old player.

Minnesota Twins

Interesting: Johan Santana. He's too young to discuss seriously as a Hall of Fame candidate, but you do have to wonder when the Koufax factor kicks in -- that is, how dominant do you have to be as a pitcher over a four-year span to be a Hall of Famer? ... Koufax over his four great years was 97-27 with a 1.86 ERA. Those four years alone got Koufax into the Hall of Fame and inpsire many to call him the greatest pitcher ever. ... Santana over his last three years is 55-19 with a 2.75 ERA. That doesn't seem nearly as good as Koufax -- but in context it is closer than you would think.

Average Koufax year his during streak:
24-7, 1.87 ERA, 298 IP, 206 H, 65 walks, 307 Ks, 175 ERA+.

That's awesome, amazing, and at first glance it will look much better than Santana's three-year run so far. But look close.

Average Santana year during his streak:
18-6, 2.75 ERA, 231 IP, 174 H, 49 walks, 249 Ks, 160 ERA+.

OK? Now, obviously Koufax won many more games and struck out many more people and a had significantly lower ERA and higher ERA-plus. But ...

Strikeouts per nine:
Santana: 9.7
Koufax: 9.3

Strikeouts to walks:
Santana: 5.1 to 1.
Koufax: 4.7 to 1.

Runs saved against average (per year):
Santana: 46
Koufax: 43

Walks+hits per nine innings.
Koufax: 8.2
Santana: 8.7

I still think Koufax was better, but it's fairly close. It's fun to think about how good Santana would have been on a big mound at Dodger Stadium from 1963-66.

Interesting: Joe Nathan. Right now, I don't think the Hall of Fame voters know exactly what to do with relief pitchers. Dennis Eckersley skated right in, and Rollie Fingers went in with relative ease as well. Bruce Sutter had to wait quite a while, but he got in. Goose Gossage, who was (I believe) better than any of them is not in yet. Lee Smith, who was the all-time saves leader by A LOT until Trevor Hoffman came along, has received pretty lukewarm support. I don't think anybody knows what to expect when John Franco becomes eligible. ... Anyway, Nathan has been an utterly dominant reliever for five years now, even if people generally haven't noticed.

Surprising: Luis Castillo. I completely overlooked Castillo in the first run through -- THAT'S how surprising he is. He's 31 pretty much all season, and by the end he should have close to 1,600 hits. He a three-time Gold Glove winner, a two-time stolen base champ, and even though he has lost quite a bit of his speed he still has a good solid .300-hitting stroke. There's no telling if he can stay healthy or how he will adapt to his aging body. But I was surprised: He's a Hall of Fame factor.

Kansas City Royals

Sure thing: Billy Butler. OK, I'm kidding. Really. But I do want to ask this question: Why do the Royals go out of their way to try and screw up their own prospects? There has to be a reason for this. Three weeks ago, the Royals called up Butler, their top hitting prospect, even though EVERYBODY knew he wasn't ready to play the field. The idea had been all along to let Butler learn and develop in Class AAA most or all of this season. Then suddenly they called him up. It was very odd. The reason, supposedly, was because they thought Butler could kick start the offense.

Butler's first game he cracks two hits, two days later he has another two hits, and then a three-hit game against Justin Verlander. Hey, looking good! Then it occurs to manager Buddy Bell that the kid really can't play the field (apparently, Buddy had missed those scouting reports) so he makes Butler a DH. The kid goes 0-for-5 and doesn't start the next game. The Royals already have a DH, you know, in Mike Sweeney, so Butler plays sporadically the next week or so and then doesn't play at all -- he sits four of his last five games. He doesn't even play against lefty Joe Kennedy -- doesn't even pinch-hit. And then the Royals send him down to Omaha, having hit .243 after 37 at-bats and proven without a doubt that he cannot play the outfield in the big leagues.

Buddy then tells our guy Bob Dutton that it was a good experience for Butler.

Hey, you have to be tough to a Major League Baseball player. You have to overcome adversity. And Butler seems like a tough enough character to me and very confident and I suspect this will only be a blip for him. But why as a Royals team would you make it harder for your No. 1 prospect to succeed?

Worth a mention: Reggie Sanders. He's no Hall of Famer, but you probably know Reggie is one of only six players who have hit 300 homers and stolen 300 bases (Mays, both Barry and Bobby Bonds, Andre Dawson, Steve Finley and Reggie). I've wondered what kind of numbers Reggie would have put up had he been precisely the same player, but durable. I give him 155 games per season. Coming into this season he would have had:

.267 average, 1,349 runs, 2181 hits, 402 homers, 402 stolen bases, 1,292 RBIs.

That might not have been Hall of Fame worthy, but it certainly would have been interesting.

Los Angeles Angels

Interesting: Vladimir Guerrero. He's almost there already. You know who Guerrero's top 3 Baseball Reference comps are through the age of 31? Willie Mays. Duke Snider. Frank Robinson. Not bad. ... Guerrero is famously known for being a free swinger but like Sheffield he almost never strikes out. ... Is Vlady the best everyday player ever to come out of the Dominican Republic? Maybe.

Top Dominican players in runs created per game (does not include players who were born in the Dominican but drafted out of American schools, like Albert Pujols or Manny Ramirez):

1. Vlady Guerrero, 8.02
2. David Ortiz, 7.47
3. Pedro Guerrero, 6.47
4. Sammy Sosa, 6.44
5. Alfonso Soriano, 6.05

Surprising: Garret Anderson. He's sort of been poking along the last three or four years -- .280ish, 15-18 homers, 150 or so hits. But look it up: He's not 35 yet, and he has more than 2,100 hits. I don't know how much longer he has, but I believe 3,000 hits is a dead-solid Hall of Fame lock, and he has a shot.

Seattle Mariners

Interesting: Ichiro Suzuki. I wonder how much credit the Hall of Fame voters will give him for his time in Japan. I don't think he will need any extra credit -- he's a .330 lifetime hitter, a Gold Glove outfielder, an MVP, he has two batting crowns, he's picking of 200-plus hits every single year. He will be 33 at the end of the year, and he will probably have close to 1,600 hits and 300 stolen bases. I think he will put up very respectable Hall of Fame numbers even though he didn't play his first season in America until he was 27. But you have to give him SOME Japan credit, right? You have tack on his .353 average in Japan, his seven Gold Gloves there, his three MVPs. He might already be a lock.

Oakland A's

Sure thing: Mike Piazza. How bad a defensive catcher was Mike Piazza? A friend of mine who scouted the big leagues when Piazza was young swears he was not that bad. He says Piazza could never throw, but he was good on pop-ups and bunts, he blocked the plate, he smothered pitches in the dirt, he called a good game, etc. I dunno. He had an awful lot of passed balls. ... Anyway, his 1997 season is almost certainly the greatest offensive season ever for a catcher. He hit .362 with 40 homers and 124 RBIs. He became the only full-time catcher to get 200 hits in a season (Joe Torre got 203 hits in 1970, but he only caught 90 games). And Piazza did it at Dodger Stadium, which was just a brutal hitters' park.

Special mention: Jason Kendall. Through the years, he has been a fine, if odd, player. He was a catcher with speed. He's seventh all-time in getting hit by pitches. And while he was never exactly a power-hitter, one day about three years ago he simply stopped hitting homers. He has hit exactly one homer in his last 1,500 at-bats. ... The reason I mention him here is not for his Hall of Fame case -- though he does have a shot at 2000-plus hits, which is tremendous for a catcher. No, it's to point out that right now (with Angel Berroa safely on the bench) Kendall has to be the worst everyday player in the American League. It's horrifying to watch. He's hitting .188. Runners have stolen something like 26 straight bases on him. He ALREADY has six passed balls. He has two extra base hits all year. It's sad to see.

Texas Rangers

Sure thing: Sammy Sosa. He's going to hit his 600th homer any day now, and suddenly he looks like he might have a few more bombs left in that (uncorked?) bat. ... What is the greatest season NOT to win an MVP award? Here are my Top 8:

1. Babe Ruth, 1927
Stats: .356, 60, 164
Comment: Lost to teammate Gehrig who, actually DID create more runs that year with his .373, 47, 175 season.

2. Babe Ruth, 1924
Stats: .378, 46, 121.
Comment: Lost to Walter Johnson, who did not have one of his better years (23-7, 2.72 ERA).

3. Ted Williams, 1941
Stats: .406, 37, 120
Comment: You will want to read all about it in Mike Vaccaro's new book which is cleverly called 1941.

4. Todd Helton, 2000.
Stats: .372, 42, 147.
Comment: On the one hand, Helton has been given the great gift of playing at Coors Field, where he can put up obscene numbers. On the other hand, nobody gives him any credit for it. He lost out to Jeff Kent despite beating out Kent in virtually every single counting category (Kent did have a higher OPS+ -- I think he was a better choice that year than Helton, though almost certainly not as good a choice as teammate Bonds).

5. Mark McGwire, 1998
Stats: .299, 70, 147.
Comment: Lost, of course, to Sosa.

6. Sammy Sosa, 2001
Stats: .328, 64 160
Comment: This was Sosa's best year ... but it also happened to be Barry's 73 homer season.

7. Lou Gehrig, 1934
Stats: .363, 49, 165
Comment: I realize they couldn't give it to Gehrig every year -- and the Yankees did not win it this year -- but he finished FIFTH behind among others Schoolboy Rowe (24-8, 3.45 ERA) and winner Mickey Cochrane (.320, 2, 76).

8. Carlos Delgado, 2000
Stats: .344, 41, 137
Comment: There were some amazing offensive seasons in 2000 -- Delgado actually finished fourth in the MVP balloting behind Giambi, Thomas and A-Rod. All four had amazing seasons, but Delgado had the highest OPS of the four. Then again, Manny Ramirez (.351, 38, 122) had a higher OPS than any of them.

Worth a mention: Kenny Lofton. He's going to fall short, I believe, but it has been one heck of a Hall of Fame run for Lofton. His career looked flat over about five years ago, but he kept going and became quite a good player in his late 30s. He's has 2,300 hits, almost 1,500 runs scored, he's a four-time Gold Glove center fielder, a five-time stolen base champ and a good on-base man -- one of the better leadoff hitters in the last 50 years. He's not going to go to the Hall of Fame ... but he wouldn't be the worst player in there by a long shot.

Worth a mention: Eric Gagne. He hade a Koufax-like three years as a reliever -- he averaged 51 saves over those three years, he struck out 13.3 batters per nine innings and his ERA was 1.79. I guess everyone concedes he will never be that pitcher again, and that's sad. I don't think anyone else has been quite that dominant over three seasons.

It's not the size of the market ...

One of the more archaic things about being a newspaper columnist in this era of the Internet, 24-hour news channels and wall-to-wall sports talk radio is this crazy little thing called "the early column." We still deliver newspapers to your door (well, maybe not YOUR door) using pretty much the same methods we used in 1895 (well, we use slightly better trucks), so our deadlines for "first editions" -- the papers that go out to the outlying areas -- tend to be obscenely early. Those deadlines often hit before the games even begin and almost always hit before games end. This can, as you might imagine, have a negative effect on the quality of those early columns.

Most sports columnist will file that early column and do something called a "write thru" for later editions -- that is, they will update the early column or, more likely, write a whole new one. Sports columnists are, without question, embarrassed by their early columns. I can remember that, for a while, the editors at the Star used to put my early column on the Internet, and I felt pretty much the way I imagine a famous actress feels when someone publishes grainy nude photographs they had posed for when times were tight.

That's not to say all early columns are complete wastes. One of my favorite moments as a journalist involved an early column. I think I've written this story already, but what the heck, I'll tell it again. We were at the World Series -- this was 1997 -- and one of the great untold moments at the World Series happens before the game when hundreds of journalists are out on the field doing what we call "trawling for an early." It's really quite an amazing American moment -- all of these trained journalists from many of the largest newspapers in our country walk from one dugout to the other and try to overhead something (anything) that might spark an idea (any idea) for a column they hope nobody ever reads.

A typical conversation on the field might go like this:

Reporter 1: "What are you writing early?"
Reporter 2: "Don't know yet. How about Kenny Rogers?"
Reporter 1: "Did him yesterday. Were you there for Pujols' interview?"
Reporter 2: "I was too far back. I couldn't hear what he said."
Reporter 1: "I heard that he took extra BP before the game."
Reporter 2: "Really?"
Reporter 1: "I don't know. I just heard someone talking about it."
Reporter 2: "I could write that. Who did you hear that from?"
Reporter 3: "Hey guys, what are you writing early?"
Reporter 1: "Weren't you the one who said Pujols took extra BP?"
Reporter 3: "No, I heard he almost got stung by a bee."
Reporter 2: "That works for me."

I was out on the field looking for an early column, and I had nothing. Absolutely nothing. Less-than-usual nothing. It was that Cleveland-Florida World Series, so nobody in my readership cared. The Marlins had a not-so-great-to-deal-with clubhouse (Sheffield, Bonilla, Kevin Brown) and the Indians had a not-so-great clubhouse (MannyBeingManny was on that team, though to be fair that '97 team did not have locker room terrors Albert Belle or Kenny Lofton). The weather was abysmal in Cleveland. Those games, you might recall, last longer than the J-Lo's career.

Anyway, I was walking around, and I was looking for anything at all -- I'm not going to be able to convey my general state of panic. I have this nightmare occasionally that it's two minutes to deadline, and I look at my computer screen and there's nothing on there, nothing, not a single word, and that's pretty much how it felt. Only then, I heard a voice.

"Joe! Come here, man."

Athletes rarely call you over by name, especially before a World Series. Especially athletes you don't know. I looked over, and it was Bip Roberts. He had played with the Royals earlier that year. As I recall, I had not written about Roberts during that time, and I'm not sure I had ever spoken with him beyond a brief hello. I still have no idea how he knew my name. But I soon found out -- the Bipper had something to say to all of Kansas City. He felt like the Royals organization had mistreated him. More to the point, he felt quite strongly that the people running Kansas City baseball were idiots. This may not seem like a particularly big or interesting story to you -- "minor player says last-place Royals don't know what they're doing: Film at 11" -- but as an early column on a World Series day, it was pretty much the equivalent to having the Pentagon Papers leaked to you.

I wrote the column. The next day, a couple of Royals called me to refute what Bip Roberts had said. So that was another early. Then he responded. Bip Roberts was the gift that kept on giving. Like that Geek Squad kid who fixed my computer with an era, Bip Roberts is in my will.

ANYWAY, during last year's World Series, I was typically stumped for an early (yes, we're still doing those earlies) and there was no Bip Roberts to save the day. So, I decided to come up with a chart that breaks down small and big baseball markets. Obviously, small and big market baseball talk has been hot in Kansas City going back, oh, about 55 years. It has been going on for so long, in fact, that frankly I think most people in KC are sick of even talking about small-market baseball. It's like that Mark Twain line about how everybody complains about the weather but nobody does anything about it. At some point, most people here realized that the game isn't going to change -- not fundamentally -- and it's really no fun complaining about how unfair it is for the Royals to try and compete against teams that can and do spend a lot more money.

(By the way, I think about 78 percent of the time you hear someone quote Mark Twain, it will be something he never said. Same thing for Abraham Lincoln, Satchel Paige and Yogi Berra. In fact if you ever come up with some semi-witty or wise saying, you are best off just attributing it to one of them and then everyone will be impressed. As Yogi Berra said: "I didn't say half the things I said." Or maybe that was Satchel Paige).

But one thing that does annoy people in Kansas City is when much larger cities start playing the "hey, we're a small market too" card. It's a bit like those politicians who pretend they grew up poor because their Daddy once lost a few bucks in the stock market and that meant giving up the country club membership for a year.

Do you remember that for a while, Philadelphia was singing the small-market blues? Philadelphia! We are talking about the fourth-largest city in America (well, fifth-largest according to the 2006 estimates). I realize that when people are talking about market size in baseball, they are really referring to revenue, and so teams that had lousy stadiums or a long-standing tradition of losing or owners that were plain cheap all claimed to be in small markets. It was always insane to see Kansas City -- a legitimately small market -- paired up with Houston, Detroit, Toronto and even the Mecca of small markets, Oakland.

This is not to say those cities don't have their own troubles -- of course they do. Oakland has a crummy stadium and is the third largest city in its own Metro area. But the Bay Area is an absolutely enormous market -- the Metro area is huge, the television market is huge, there are many, many Fortune 500 companies there. Bad baseball market, maybe. Small market, no.

So, I came up with a chart that ranks the markets 1-30. I realize, of course, that I have absolutely no statistical background to do this. Like I say, it was for an early column. I did it very simply: I took the most recent Nielsen rankings for television, Arbitron rankings for radio and metro populations. I ranked each city 1-30 in each of those (I could not find Nielsen or Arbitron rankings for Toronto so I simply used its enormous Metro area) and then I came up with an overall ranking that encompassed three. I'm sure there's an easier, more effective way to do this -- I'm sure it has been done better -- but the list I came up with definitely surprised me.

And since the only people who saw it live around Manhattan, Kan., I will include it here.

The Filthy Rich Markets

1. New York Yankees
Current record: 17-19
Last five years: Five division titles, one World Series appearance.
Comment: This one's obvious -- New York is top market in all three categories. ... I must say I still don't know how you can spend $200 million on a baseball team and have to start Chase Wright and Jeff Karstens.

2. New York Mets
Current record: 23-13
Last five years: One division title, two 90-loss seasons, three managers.
Comment: One of the problems of this survey is that it's difficult to separate teams that are in the same city. I suppose I could divide their numbers in half, but that probably wouldn't get it done. The Mets are clearly No. 2 in New York and they play in an awful stadium -- the second-worst in baseball (until Washington gets rid of RFK). But it's still New York. The Mets were a major underachiever until the last couple of years.

3. Los Angeles Dodgers
Current record: 23-15
Last five years: One division title, one wild-card appearance.
Comment: I'm not sure that it's common knowledge, but the Dodgers have led the National League in attendance each of the last three years and are leading again. Since coming West, the Dodgers have led the league in attendance 26 times -- though there was a stretch from 1992-2003 when they never led the league and once finished as low as seventh.

4. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
Current record: 21-17
Last five years: Three division titles, one World Series championship
Comment: When the Angels were struggling, there were people who had the gall to include them among small markets -- hiding behind some sort of "Well, it's not REALLY Los Angeles." Whatever. The Angels still draw from the second-largest metro in America. ... I had this thought: "Will Vladimir Guerrero go to the Hall of Fame?" I know he's been a great, great player, but sometimes when you look at a player's statistics you are surprised by how little they have built up. Mike Mussina, for instance, always surprises me. I always figure he must have 3,000 strikeouts and is approaching 300 victories -- he's been a very good pitcher for a long, long time. He doesn't -- he has about 2,500 Ks and 240 wins.

Anyway, Guerrero is the opposite. He's even better than you remember. He will be 31 all season, and he already has 347 homers. He's a .325 lifetime hitter. His top three comps through age 30 are Willie Mays, Duke Snider and Frank Robinson. ... I was thinking that if he can play at a high level for another 10 years -- 35 to 40 homers per year level -- he may actually have a shot to break Aaron's/Bonds' home run record. I think for my next entry I might do the "If his career ended tomorrow, he would be a Hall of Famer" blog item -- and I'm thinking now Guerrero might be on it already.

5. Chicago Cubs
Current record: 17-18
Last five years: One division title, lots of angst.
Comment: Baseball's great underachiever -- and you almost wonder how the fans would handle it if the Cubs ever STOPPED being that. One of my best friends is a Cubs fan, and he complains all the time. But I think he likes complaining. ... It's one of my favorite obscure bits of trivia the Cubs team began the 20th Century as the "Chicago Orphans."

The Deluxe Apartment In The Sky Markets

6. Chicago White Sox
Current record: 18-16
Last five years: One World Series championship, one attack on a first-base coach.
Comment: Not much to say here except, WOW, this year's White Sox team cannot hit at all. I mean at all. I realize Jim Thome is hurt (and Scott Podsednik too, I guess), but I just watched three days of Royals-White Sox baseball, and it was like watching two teams try to bludgeon each other with wiffle ball bats.

7. Philadelphia Phillies
Current record: 17-20
Last five years: Sheer and utter mediocrity.
Comment: How about the last four years -- 85 wins, 88 wins, 86 wins and 86 wins. One thing I've seen through the years is that's it's very painful as a fan when your team is NOT QUITE good enough. It has been that way for the Chiefs in Kansas City, and it was that way for my Browns in Cleveland in the 1980s. So the question is: Is it more painful to be a Phillies fan, with those almost-but-not-quite seasons or a Royals fan with all the 100-loss seasons. ... I say Royals fan. And it's not that close. Actually, it was a stupid comparison.

8. Texas Rangers
Current record: 15-22
Last five years: No playoff appearances; haven't won the division since 1999.
Comment: I seem to recall the Rangers singing the small-market blues for a little while too. Please. Dallas has the fifth largest Metro area in America, and enormous media market numbers. I counted 11 Fortune 500 companies too. They could have afforded A-Rod.

9. San Francisco Giants
Current record: 19-18
Last five years: Two division titles, one World Series appearance, lots of Barry.
Comment: Yes, by now I was wondering where Boston was too. We're not there yet. ... It looks like in a couple of weeks I'm going to go on the Barry chase. And if you think trying to come up with a World Series early is tough, whew, imagine coming up with a Barry early every day. I mean, what HASN'T been said?

I will admit, though, feeling a certain unexpected feeling about Barry as we come closer to the record. Yes, I firmly believe he cheated with steroids. I firmly believe he knowingly and deliberately cheated. I firmly believe he knew exactly what he was doing -- he was actually pretty late to the steroids party -- and I don't buy it as an excuse that baseball didn't test back then. That's lame. To me that's like saying that cheating on a test is OK because the teacher was too clueless to catch you. It's wrong. Period. And everybody knew it.

BUT ... Barry's the greatest player I ever saw. Bar none. Not even close. As a young man, he was the greatest combination of power, speed and defense I ever saw. As an old man, he was probably the most feared slugger the game has ever known -- I think more feared than Ruth. I love baseball, of course, and it has been one of the great joys of my baseball life watching Barry Bonds play. I don't like that he cheated -- frankly, I preferred watching the svelte, power/speed Barry over the big-headed Barry who mashed balls over and over into the Bay. The steroid and human growth hormone stuff will sully his legacy and reputation, no doubt about it, and that's right. Like I say, he knew what he was doing. But I feel like, as Barry closes in on the record, that it should be celebrated. He should be celebrated. The game has never seen anyone like him. ... Maybe the feeling will pass.

And, by the way, I don't think there's any doubt that the Commissioner should be there when he breaks the record. It's his game. It's the most hallowed record in his game. And it happened on his watch. I've read those who say it would be hypocritical for Bud to be there. I think it would be hypocritical for him NOT to be there.

10. Oakland Athletics
Current record: 19-17
Last five years: Three division titles and created lots of Moneyball angst in the game.
Comment: OK, it's probably silly to have the A's this high ... we all know the A's deal with all of the small-market blues (no money, cheap ownership, can't sign own players, etc). But this is where the numbers puts Oakland (in large part because of the size and power of the overall Bay area). Anyway, it might be good for people to see Oakland up here with the big dogs; it can be very easy to forget with all the money stuff and the lousy stadium and the cheap owners that the Bay area is a massive market with a lot of power brokers.

The comfortably well-off markets

11. Houston Astros
Current record: 18-19
Last five years: Two playoff appearances, one World Series, lots of George Bush appearances.
Comment: It always amazes me -- always -- just how big Houston is. Houston is the seventh largest metropolitan area in America. Houston has 20 -- TWENTY -- Fortune 500 companies. Houston has bigger Arbitron numbers than Boston, Philadelphia and Miami. Houston also has a relatively new stadium and an owner who also owns 18 million shares of Wal-Mart stock and is one of the 400 richest people in America. If you EVER hear someone calling Houston a small-market again, smack them with a cowboy hat or something.

12. Toronto Blue Jays
Current record: 15-22
Last five years: Zilcho.
Comment: Not exactly sure where to put the Blue Jays because of the Canadian money situation and also because the city is obviously not listed in the American Aribtron and Nielsen numbers. But Toronto does have more than 5 million people in the metro area, and so this seems like a pretty good place to put the Jays. ... I have to say that at some point, this J.P. Ricciardi experiment has to end, right? The guy has reinvented himself like 10 times since he became GM in 2001. He's a Moneyball guy! He's a scout! He's a Scrooge! He's a money-spending wild man! He's a guy who rips teams that outbid him! All the way, his teams don't change much -- they just keep on keeping on keeping being mediocre.

13. Washington
Current record: 12-25
Last two years: The Nationals were a .500 team their first year.
Comment: So, which team is worse? The Nationals? The Royals? I chatted with a couple of people in and around the game, and the consensus is that the Nationals are much worse. The Royals have some young players -- DeJesus, Teahen, Gordon, Butler, Shealy (maybe), Hochevar -- who may have bright futures. The Nationals? Not so much. Zimmerman, maybe. And then ... Ryan Church? Also, there is a lot more respect around the game all of a sudden for Gil Meche has a potential No. 1 or No. 2 starter. The Nationals need a lot of out Shaun Hill. By the way, both teams are bad. As one friend says: "Distinctions at this level are a waste of time."

14. Boston
Current record: 25-11
Last five years: Three playoff appearances, one World Series championship, one $100 million Japanese pitcher, lots of famous fans.
Comment: FINALLY, the Red Sox appear. Of course this number is low because it does not take into account the Red Sox fever throughout New England. But dealing strictly with Boston: It has the 14th largest metro area in baseball and ranks 15th in Arbitrons, 8th in televisions. Everyone always throws Boston into the big market discussions, but the truth is that while it's a big revenue team with an amazing reach, the market itself is not there with the New Yorks, LAs and Chicagos.

15. Atlanta
Current record: 24-13
Last five years: Four division titles.
Comment: Has anyone been able to really describe Bobby Cox’s genius. I mean, here is the most successful coach/manager in all of sports. He was nothing special his first run with the Braves (though he did move Dale Murphy to center), but then he went to Toronto where the Blue Jays were horrendous. In two years he had them playing terrific baseball, and in his fourth year they won 99 games.

He went back to Atlanta as a GM, did nothing in that role, made himself manager (enter John Schuerholz) and in Cox's first full year, the Braves win 94 games and go to the World Series. In Cox's second year they go BACK to the World Series. The Braves win 14 straight division titles. They reach five World Series and win one. Now, they're back in first place. And really, does anyone think Bobby Cox is all that smart? All that great a motivator? All that brilliant a strategist? Have there been any "Bobby Cox's 10 Ways to Make Your Company a Winner" books that you have for every other genius coach like Bill Belichick, Pat Riley, Rick Pitino and so on? Maybe that could be my next book.

The upwardly mobile markets

16. Detroit Tigers
Current record: 23-13
Last five years: Lots of obscenely bad baseball and then, suddenly, a World Series.
Comment: Detroit was definitely one of the big markets acting poor while the losses piled up. Detroit has a bigger metro area than Boston or the Bay Area. Now that the Tigers are good again, everyone remembers. ... What would be the distinctive quality of Detroit sports fans? Everyone knows that Philadelphia fans booed Santa, and New York fans are famously loud, and invented the Bronx cheer, and Boston fans talk like the Kennedys and have great fan sites, and Cleveland fans brave intense cold and bark at football players, and New Orleans fans wear bags over their heads, and Los Angeles fans show up late for games, and St. Louis fans take great pride in being the best fans in all of baseball (or so I'm told), and Chicago fans self-loathe (and think Ditka can beat God in golf), and Cincinnati fans appreciate hustlers and enjoy their fireworks on Labor Day instead of the fourth of July (don't ask). But what about Detroit fans? I guess they are most famous for turning over cars after championships, but I don't think that's all that fair. I think Detroit fans are pretty savvy and sarcastic, but I'm not sure they have a fully formed rep. I should ask Ernie Harwell.

17. Florida Marlins
Current record: 16-21
Last five years: One World Series championship.
Comment: Now, make no mistake -- I'm not discussing the viability of any of these markets. These rankings are based entirely on numbers: People, radios, television. But it is true that when you hear people discuss the Florida Marlins, they make it sound like the Miami area is slightly smaller than Henderson, NC. We are talking about the sixth-largest metro area here. I don't know if Major League Baseball can or will ever work here, but when you talk about the things that matter -- money, passion, people, multi-cultural feel, etc. -- this still seems like an amazing market if anyone can ever figure out how to tap in.

18. Seattle Mariners
Current record: 17-16
Last five years: Bubkes. Last won the Division in 2001 -- won 116 games that year.
Comment: Seattle has had an amazing run, first as a tiny market that couldn't compete, then as a massive market that was expected to dominate baseball and finally (after A-Rod, Griffey and Unit had to go) as a small market again. Perceptions, perceptions. Meanwhile, the market stayed exactly the same, right about 18th in baseball.

19. Arizona Diamondbacks
Current record: 20-19
Last five years: One playoff appearance. Won the World Series in 2001.
Comment: Every time I go to Phoenix -- and I go at least once a year for spring training -- there are 29 new shopping malls on my ride from the airport to the hotel. Exactly 29 new shopping malls every time -- even if I've only been away for two weeks. It's amazing. ... I have a lot of friends who either live in Phoenix or would like to, and I always ask them the same question: How do you survive 120 degree heat. I guess we all have our own fears and our own weather dislikes -- it wouldn't faze me to live in a place where it snows 20 feet every year or whatever. I guess that's because I grew up in Cleveland. I'm not saying I'm moving to Saskatchewan or whatever; I'm saying that doesn't bewilder me. But 120 degree heat does. They always say the same thing: It's not so bad. And it's a dry heat. Whatever.

20. Minnesota Twins
Current record: 18-19
Last five years: Four playoff appearances.
Comment: OK, yeah, this one shocked me. Doesn't everyone consider Minnesota one of the two or three smallest markets out there? Nope, Minnesota ranks 19th in the Nielsens, 19th in the Arbitrons and 19th in metro area (they're 20th overall because of Toronto). Plus, Minnesota is a haven for companies -- there are as many Fortune 500 companies in Greater Minneapolis as Philadelphia. But you add one cheap owner, one crummy dome and a few losses and suddenly there's talk about contraction. Crazy.

The small markets

21. Tampa Bay Devil Rays
Current record: 15-22
Last five years: Nothing good to talk about here.
Comment: The football field they have in Honolulu -- the place where they play the Pro Bowl -- is covered with artificial turf. This has always driven me absolutely nuts. This tropical paradise should not have artificial turf. It just shouldn't. It's an absolute crime against sports humanity. ... It bothers me even more than they play indoor baseball in Tampa.

22. St. Louis Cardinals
Current record: 15-20
Last five years: Four playoffs appearances, two World Series appearances, one WS title.
Comment: I'm not sure if I mentioned this here before, but I was doing some research about 1947 -- and I came across a few articles that year discussing the potential of moving the Cardinals to Chicago. I had never heard about that before, and I don't think the talk went very far. But I found that fascinating, especially because one of my best friends, a huge Cardinals fan, HATES the Cubs with a passion people usually reserve for terrorists and that Jim Belushi show. ... St. Louis, the city, is really a tiny town. But the metro area is almost three million. And there are Cardinals fans everywhere; there are, I believe, 1.23 million Cardinals blogs on the Internet.

23. San Diego Padres
Current record: 20-18
Last five years: Two playoff appearances
Comment: Why doesn't everyone live in San Diego? I am not a sociologist, and I cannot explain why people settle where they settle. But why is it that San Diego -- where it is 70 degrees and sunny every day (weatherman in San Diego -- easy job) -- has fewer people than, say, Minneapolis or Phoenix? I'm sure it has something to do with land availability or property values or the San Diego Chicken or something. It's like I've always wondered: Why doesn't Pepperdine have the National Champion in every single sport. Have you SEEN the Pepperdine campus? It makes Pebble Beach look like a dog track. I don't understand why a coach couldn't fly out the best players in the country, wave his or her arm and just say: "OK, see this campus. Yeah. That's it. That's our whole recruiting pitch."

24. Pittsburgh Pirates
Current record: 16-20
Last five years: Bad. Very, very bad.
Comment: Wow, suddenly you look at the Pirates ... I like this team. Ian Snell is amazing -- remember when my favorite unnamed scout went on and on about Snell? He's the real deal. Tom Gorzelanny's looking awfully good. And what about this Matt Capps character? Zack Duke. The pitching looks really promising. I think they might be getting somewhere in Pittsburgh. ... Oh yeah, Pittsburgh is slightly larger as a market than I thought. I would have guessed the bottom five was Minnesota, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Cincinnati and Milwaukee. I would have missed the first two.

25. Baltimore Orioles
Current record: 18-20
Last five years: Lots of losses and three different managers
Comment: Ah, remember the good old days when Camden Yards was new and the Orioles spent money like it was Brewster's Millions II? Memories. Baltimore is a true small market, but Camden Yards is such a nice place, and that whole baseball experience is so good, that they are still pulling in serious revenue there. Of course, they're spending that revenue on Aubrey Huff and Steve Trachsel. But that's a different blog item.

The teeny weeny markets

26. Colorado Rockies
Current record: 16-22
Last five years: Pain. Suffering. Light air. Clint Hurdle.
Comment: There have always been great hitters' parks and great pitchers parks in baseball, of course. But there's something different about Coors Field. You get the feeling that it's not exactly baseball they play there -- it's like every other ballpark is a clay tennis court and in Colorado they're playing on grass. I'm not sure how you adjust to that as a fan -- to know that no matter what happens, you will never, ever have a starter with a sub-3.00 ERA, that it's not even possible, and also to know that if a Rockies guy hits .297 with 23 homers in Colorado that is, in fact, a crappy year. ... I do believe this, though: Someday, someone in Colorado is going to figure out how to make that park work for them -- they're going to figure out the right kind of pitcher for that light air and the right kind of hitter too. Then the Rockies will have the greatest homefield advantage in the game.

27. Cleveland Indians
Current record: 21-14
Last five years: Won 93 games and choked it away down the stretch in 2005.
Comment: I realize now that I have lived most of my life in three of the four smallest markets in baseball: Cleveland, Cincinnati, KC. I think that probably explains a lot about who I am, and why I am always taken aback when they give me my price total at the McDonald's drive-thru. Remember the old McDonald's commercials where they promised you could get a whole meal for a $1 and still get change? Actually, unless you're ancient you probably don't remember that. I still remember when the first number on the Price is Right car was always a 4. Always. ... My Cleveland accent comes out whenever I go back there. Most of the time, I would I have no accent -- that's what comes from living in Cleveland, Charlotte, Augusta, Ga., Cincinnati and Kansas City. But whenever I go to Cleveland, the voice comes out ... "Hey, look at the clouds in da skeeee-iiii."

28. Cincinnati Reds
Current record: 15-23
Last five years: The Reds were almost .500 one year.
Comment: I wish I had some Skyline Chili right now. A big fat three-way. I realize that these comments are now beginning to lose focus, but it's getting late and I would do just about anything legal for a Skyline Chili right now. I've tried to make Skyline -- you know it's a secret recipe -- and I have failed miserably. I wonder what a round-trip ticket to Cincinnati would cost.

29. Kansas City Royals
Current Record: 12-26
Last five years: Sigh.
Comment: Did anyone see the Simpsons' episode where Marge (I think) was looking through an old bookstore that had these old, outdated books? One of the books was "Royals: Champions Forever." I think that about says it all. There was a proud history here once. Once.

30. Milwaukee Brewers
Current record: 25-12(!)
Last five years: A .500 years in 2005 is the highlight.
Comment: Milwaukee is quite clearly the smallest market in baseball -- Kansas City actually ranks one place ahead of Milwaukee in all three categories. ... I love Milwaukee. I always have ... going back to Laverne and Shirley. The reason I love Milwaukee is that it is Cleveland. I don't mean it's "like" Cleveland. I mean it IS Cleveland. I mean if I dropped you out of a plane into the heart of Milwaukee and told you "You are in Cleveland" you would believe me. I think Milwaukee and Cleveland are probably the two most alike cities in America -- closer in type, certainly, than the Twin Cities in Minnesota or Tampa and St. Pete or San Jose/Oakland.

So there you go, the big and small markets in baseball. To review:

Last five years:

Filthy Rich Teams: 12 playoff appearances, 1 World Championship.
Deluxe Apartment in the Sky Teams: 6 playoff appearances, 1 World Championship.
Comfortably Well-Off Teams: 9 playoff appearances, 1 World Championship
Upwardly Mobile Teams: 7 playoff appearances, 1 World Championship
Small Market Teams: 6 playoff appearances, 1 World Championship.
Teeny-Weeny Market Teams: 0 playoff appearances, 0 World Championships.

Final lesson: It's tough to be a teeny-weeny market.

The boys try to look so hard ...

Well, thanks to a few of the computer genius who read this site -- along with an Internet miracle called the Wayback Machine -- I was able to go back five years and take a look at my old ListedNumbers Web site. It brought tears to my eyes. Who was that young idealist who got his friends to make lists of their ten best breakfast cereals (by Dinn Mann, now the president of MLB.com), their ten best Hitchcock moves (by Tommy Tomlinson, a Charlotte columnist who was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), the ten best Dr. Evil lines from Austin Powers (OK, I did that one) and the ten best Norm lines from Cheers (OK, yeah, I did that one too)?

We wanted to change the world. Sort of.

Anyway, I somehow got author Michael MacCambridge (America's Game) to give me his ten best Springsteen songs (he insisted on 15). They were:

1. Backstreets (unabridged live version)
2. Darkness on the edge of town
3. Born to run
4. Incident/Rosalita/New York City Serenade (as one entry)
5. Don't Look Back
6. Land of Hope and Dreams
7. Dancing in the Dark
8. Ramrod
9. Streets of Philadelphia
10. Thunder Road
11. Stolen Car
12. County Fair
13. State Trooper
14. Walk Like a Man
15. The E Street Shuffle

Now, this was a few years ago -- this was before "The Rising" and "Devils and Dust" and the Pete Seeger thing Bruce just did. My list would look more like this:

1. Born to Run
2. Rosalita
3. Thunder Road
4. The Promise (should be a double entry with Thunder Road)
5. My City of Ruins
6. It's Hard to be a Saint in the City
7. The Promised Land
8. Jungleland
9. Streets of Philadelphia
10. Nothing Man
Followed in no particular order by: Darkness, Atlantic City, She's the One, Land of Hope and Dreams, Youngstown, Waitin' on a Sunny Day, Incident/New York City Serenade, Badlands, Secret Garden and Streets of Fire. And there are about 50 other great ones.

Back to baseball. The challenge was thrown out after the last entry to come up with the LEAST intimidating pitchers in baseball history. So I did. And it just so happens that Bill James, while coming up with his most intimidating pitchers, also came up with his least intimidating. So this time I'm going to combine our lists. And after that, I came up with a quick Top 10 list of the least intimidating pitchers of the last 25 years (because, as you will see, almost all of the least intimidating pitchers on our list pitched quite a while ago.

Honorable mention: Peaches Davis.
He pitched for the Reds from 1936-39 -- he wasn't terrible, but he didn't strike out anybody. And his name was Peaches.

15. Frank Gabler (pitched 1935-38)
They called him "The Great Gabbo" because of his talent for yapping. Bill says he was a staple on the New York after-dinner circuiit ... I love this story: I guess in 1936, Gabler guaranteed he would win 10 games. To me, the story could end there and be a classic, I mean -- TEN stinking games? That's a guarantee? But anyway, the Giants secretary Eddie Brannick was so sure that Frank was full of gabbo that he offered a $100 suit if Gabbo won EIGHT games. The Great Gabbo won nine, got his suit, but frankly he should have been humiliated. ... He was a remarkably unintimidating pitcher, at least by the numbers, but the Baseball Library offers this little nugget: He was known for "fistfights on the mound with Tex Carleton." That's fistfights -- plural. How many times could he have fought Tex Carleton?

14. Ross Grimsley (pitched from 1971-82).
He probably doesn't quite belong on this list, but I will admit pushing him up a couple of spots because he's the first pitcher I ever saw at any level (including Little League) who I honestly thought I could hit. ... To be fair, Grimsley had some very good years when he was young, even though he didn't throw hard. He even won two World Series games. But by the time I saw him in Cleveland, his fastball was school-zone slow. You could start a "Let's Go Tribe" chant as he released the ball and say it about 10 times before the ball hit the catcher's mitt.

13. Monte Weaver (pitched from 1931-39).
They called him the Professor. He hit just five batters in a fairly lengthy career. ... One thing that drives Bill to distraction is that people have started spelling Weaver's name "Montie" in the various baseball encyclopedias. This was apparently a decision made by the the SABR Committee in charge of deciding how names should be spelled or whatever.

From Bill: "How in the bloody hell they decided this, I have no idea. I found in my library, with a few minutes checking, 20 or 30 places where he had signed his name -- Monte. (His first name was Montgomery). ... Further, since Monte Weaver had a master's degree in some kind of engineering from the University of Virginia, we can hardly assume that he was some semi-literate goon whose spelling of his own name was haphazard. For some reason, this just irritates the living hell out of me."

12. Ernie Wingard
Bill says Wingard was the first pitcher to go right from college and win 10-plus games in a season (later Jim Abbott would do it). ... Wingard was a pretty big guy, but he didn't strike out anybody. I mean ANYBODY. His first year, that straight-from-college season, he struck out 23 batters in 218 innings. In his career he has a 3-1 walk-to-strikeout ratio -- three times as many walks as strikeouts. Considering that handicap, he really wasn't too bad.

11. Johnny Couch (pitched from 1917-1925)
They called him lucky after he won 16 games as a 31-year-old rookie in 1922. But he would go on to show everybody by ... no, wait, sorry, he was lucky. The guy gave up 11 hits per nine innings in his career, and he was another guy who didn't strike out anybody. He did go to Stanford. Many of the least intimidating pitchers had fine academic careers.

10. Bud Thomas (pitched from 1932-1941)
Thomas gave up Ted Williams first homer (he later got an autographed photo from Williams). ... He averaged 2.3 strikeouts per nine innings and hit only four batters in his career.

9. Ted Lyons (pitched from 1923-1946)
He probably does not belong on the list, being a Hall of Famer and all. But when I ran the numbers, his name came up -- he didn't strike out people, he gave up homers and he refused to hit batters. ... I still probably would have left him off except Bill offered this nugget: He has to be the only Hall of Famer ever to go to college (Baylor) on a TROMBONE scholarship. And the fact he lost that scholarship because he hit an A&M fan on the head with it at halftime doesn't ruin the story. ... Lyons was an awful manager for three years. The reason? He was too soft.

8. George Blaeholder (pitched from 1925-36).
He was a well-rounded unintimidator -- for years, batters crowded the plate, banged hits off of him, homers too, hardly every struck out. Blaeholder is known for his connection with the slider (which was more of a nickel curve then). There are those who suggest he actually invented the pitch, but Bill says that ain't so. He did call it the "slide ball" though, so he named the pitch.

7. Erv Brame (pitched from 1928-32).
One of the great mismanaged careers in baseball history. Erv Brame could really hit. I mean, he could REALLY hit. He hit .300 for his career -- hit .353 in 1930 and struck out two times in 116 at-bats -- and at one point had the record for pinch-hits. But Pittsburgh saw him as a pitcher -- he did win 17 and 16 games in two seasons. Trouble is, he was doing it with mirrors. He's another guy who couldn't strike out anybody, gave up bunches of hits, wouldn't pitch inside, etc. The Pirates didn't seem to care. They used him up (he had 30 complete games in 1930) and Brame was finished when he was 30.

6. Ted Wingfield (pitched from 1923-27)
He is on this list for one reason and one reason only: He didn't strike out people. More than any pitcher I've come across, he didn't strike out people. He averaged 1.11 strikeouts per nine innings in his career. His 1927 season is one for the ages. He pitched for the Boston Red Sox that year, and he went 1-7 with a 5.06 ERA, which ain't too good. He threw 74 2/3 innings and gave up 105 hits, which ain't too good either. He gave up 18 unearned runs, which is quite an achievement. But that's not what makes it special. That year Ted Wingfield struck out -- wait for it, wait for it -- ONE BATTER. That's one (1) batter.

5. Chubby Dean (pitched from 1937-1943)
First off, he apparently wasn't too chubby -- it was a childhood nickname. So you have a reasonably svelte guy everybody calls Chubby, well, that's just not going to intimidate too many people. ... Chubby went right from Duke to the big leagues, and he was actually a pretty good young hitter. At 19, he hit .287 in the big leagues (though with no power). Connie Mack made him a pitcher and he was pretty nondescript except for one thing: In 685 innings, he hit one batter. And it wasn't like Chubby had razor-sharp control -- he didn't. He simply did not hit batters. In fact, going into his last season, the Chubster had never hit a batter in his Major League career. I don't know when he hit that batter in '43, but I have this dream that it was the very last batter he faced -- as if Chubby, realizing his career was about to come to a close, said to himself: "OK, I've got to hit ONE guy before I go off to war."

4. Benny Frey (pitched from 1929-36)
A tragic tale. Frey was a very mediocre pitcher -- like everyone else on this list, he didn't strike out people, gave up lots of hits and homers, etc. In 1937, the year after Frey had the only winning record of his career (10-8), the Reds said they were sending him down. Frey refused to go. He didn't play baseball again. That November, he killed himself. He was 31.

3. John Coleman (pitched from 1883-1890)
I wasn't going to put any pre-1900 pitchers on here for obvious reasons, but Bill had Coleman on his list, and I can't pass it up. In 1883, Coleman went 12-48. I just love that. I realize the rules were different then, but at what point does a manager say: "OK, you know what? Can any of you other guys pitch?" The managers of that team (Bob Ferguson and Blondie Purcell) were sort of 19th century Buddy Bells, no? ... To be fair, that team was awful. Coleman did have 12 of the team's 17 victories.

2. Ivy Andrews (pitched from 1931-1938)
He wasn't at the top Bill's list or mine, but Poison Ivy was high on both of our lists. He could do it all. He gave up hits (about 10 per nine innings), didn't strike out people (2.22 per nine), gave up the bingos (Top 10 in homers allowed in 1936) and hit just four batters in his career. It should be said, though, that even though he didn't have a fastball, he did scrape along, win 50 games in his big league career and twice finished in the Top 10 in ERA. Bill seems to recall that he briefly had a run a Yankee killer too.

1. Joe Ostrowski (pitched from 1948-52).
Had the two least intimidating nicknames in baseball history -- Professor (because he taught math during the off-season) and Specs (for obvious reasons). He gave up 11 hits per nine. He gave up lots of homers. He hit two batters his whole career.

So there you go, the 15 least intimidating pitchers ever. Now, quickly, the least intimidating since 1980 (min. 500 IP)

1. Darrell May
-- It warms my heart to see him pop up on top of my formula. I covered Darrell. This is 100 percent accurate. There are many story to indicate how unintimidating Darrell May was, but my favorite came during a slump, when he whined (no kidding): "Things are going so badly I can't even get a no-decision."
2. Kevin Jarvis
3. Brad Havens
-- Showed promise first two seasons, then went 5-8 with an 8.18 ERA in 1983. Re-emerged for a while as a reliever
4. Rob Bell
5. Josh Towers
-- He was good in 2005. Since then he's 3-13 with an ERA about 8.
6. Ron Romanick
-- Weird career. Won 12 games as a rookie. Won 14 his second year. Then went 5-8 with a 5.50 ERA and was done.
7. Brian Meadows
-- Yes! Another Royals pitcher. Meadows was so utterly hittable with Kansas City (in 2001, the league hit .351 against him and slugged .587) that it made the seemingly irrelevant Meadows-for-Witasick trade seem like Pappas for Robinson.
8. Jeff Ballard
-- Pitching is such an odd science or art or whatever. Jeff Ballard had nothing. He couldn't strike out anybody, he gave up hits and homers, etc. But in 1989, he went 18-8 with a 3.43 ERA. He couldn't get people out before or after, but for one season he finished sixth in the Cy Young balloting. Crazy.
9. Dennis Springer
-- From 1995-2001, started every season for a team with a different name: Philadelphia Phillies. California Angels, Anaheim Angels, Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Florida Marlins, New York Mets, Los Angeles Dodgers. Then in 2002, he had a repeat year with the Dodgers, which naturally ended his career.
10. Mike Sirotka

What do you think should be next: Most intimidating hitters ever?

Intimidation! For Excitement! And Emotion!

I love lists. For a while a few years ago, I had a Web site called "listednumbers.com" (now a site that has one word on it -- "leo." Don't ask me. It's a mystery). Anyway, on that listednumbers site I put together dozens of lists with friends ... I remember a few:

Top 10 Godfather lines.
Top 10 Bruce Springsteen songs.
Top 10 Schoolhouse Rocks
Top 10 Twilight Zones
Top 10 Uniform numbers
Top 10 U2 songs.
Top 10 Halloween candies
Top 10 Breakfast cereals
Top 10 Seinfeld episodes
Top 10 Disco songs

And so on. I lost the lists somewhere along the way -- you might be aware that I'm not the most organized or computer savvy person who has ever lived. You know once my laptop computer flipped out when I was in Surprise, Arizona (probably from the strain of watching the Royals). I took it into a Best Buy, where some 14-year-old kid fixed it with a pencil eraser. He was like MacGyver with acne. I'll have that kid in my will.

ANYWAY, we're losing focus here. I love lists. So, I was thrilled the other day when I ran across Sports Illustrated's, "Fifteen Most Intimidating Pitchers Ever." That's exactly the kind of list that gets me going -- you take an imprecise sports word like "intimidating" and try to rank players by it. I love words like that. That's why I'm so fascinated by the MVP award (built around the imprecise word: valuable), the Heisman Trophy (imprecise phrase: "most outstanding) and the U.S. constitution, (imprecise phrase: right to bear arms).

The Sports Illustrated list is not bad at all ... but predictable.

SI's Most Intimidating Pitchers
1. Bob Gibson
2. Don Drysdale
3. Early Wynn
4. Roger Clemens
5. Nolan Ryan
6. Randy Johnson
7. Juan Marichal
8. Sandy Koufax
9. Goose Gossage
10. J.R. Richard
11. Pedro Martinez
12. Sal Maglie
13. Bob Feller
14. Walter Johnson
15. Sam McDowell

Like I say, this isn't a bad list at all -- it's a good list, in fact. It's pretty much the list you would come up with if you were hanging out with your baseball loving friends at a game and decided to come up with a most intimidating pitchers list.

You would decide that "intimidating" means a "guy who glares a lot" and "throws really, really hard" and is "likely to throw at a guy's head if he was crowding the plate." So you would certainly pick Gibson first, and Drysdale is probably the second guy who comes to mind. Wynn was famous for that whole grandmother thing -- someone said he was so mean he would throw at his own grandmother and Wynn said: "I'd have to. My grandma could really hit the curveball."

We all know Clemens is intimidating, especially in contract negotiations. Ryan had the fastest fastball ever, Marichal hit Roseboro in the head with a bat, Koufax threw pretty hard if memory serves, Gossage hit Ron Cey in the head with a pitch, J.R. Richard was about 11 feet tall, Pedro hit Reggie Sanders with a pitch during a perfect game (causing the normally genial Sanders to lose his mind and charge the mound), Sal Maglie was called "The Barber" for his close shaves, Feller was fast and wild, Big Train was fast, Sam McDowell was fast.

So, that's a fine list. The trouble is, it doesn't SAY anything. It doesn't surprise. It doesn't make you mad. It doesn't create an argument. There's no real reason why Wynn is listed ahead of Clemens or Pedro is behind Gossage. It's just opinion, top of the head stuff, and while that's fine, I really wonder: If you could break it down statistically, who are the 15 most intimidating pitchers ever? That sounds like a blog challenge, no?

Step 1: You need a more precise definition of "intimidating pitcher." The word "intimidating" means "to fill with fear." So naturally everyone assumes that an intimidating pitcher will be a hard-throwing guy who might, at any time, throw at a player's head. But I have to say, I think that's only part of the deal.

What is it that scares hitters? Is it the danger? Sure. Some. But I think, generally speaking, we're projecting our own fears on Major Leaguers -- many of us were afraid of hot fastballs in Little League, in high school, whatever. WE were afraid of getting hit by the ball. Major League hitters -- I don' t think that's a big part of their makeup. They're really not afraid of the ball.

I think hitters fear being made to look like a fool. I suspect that hitters (in general) lose as much sleep thinking about Tim Wakefield's knuckleball as Joel Zumaya's fastball. It's hard to think of Wakefield being "intimidating" -- that's just not how we view the word -- but I feel pretty certain that on those days when Wakefield's knuckler is really dancing, he will make hitters sweat through their uniforms.

So, we'll go with that definition: The pitchers who most fill batters with fear.

Step 2: Let's find statistics that speak to intimidation. I've come up with three:

1. Hit by pitch. This one's obvious -- it tells you how likely a pitcher is to plunk a batter. It doesn't measure close shaves, unfortunately, but it's best we've got.

2. Hits allowed per nine innings. This tells you how likely a hitter is to be successful -- I cannot imagine that any pitcher in baseball history was more intimidating than Nolan Ryan during his no-hit, low-hit games. I have a story in the book about Ralph Garr -- he has this piercing high-pitched voice. He led off a game against Nolan Ryan, stared at three blinding fastballs, struck out, and went back to the dugout. And then all through the stadium, you could hear Garr's voice shout: "Boys, we got NO shot today."

3. K's per nine innings. What's the most embarrassing thing that can happen to a hitter. Well, it might be what happened to Mike Sweeney a couple of weeks ago -- he squared up to bunt, the ball hit his bat and literally knocked him down. And then there was Jason LaRue striking out on an attempted sacrifice bunt ... anyway with those exceptions, you would have to say the strikeout is the most embarrassing thing -- you have to walk back to the dugout, everybody's watching you, the pitcher knows he beat you, etc. Strikeouts are not quite the anathema they used to be (I'm pretty sure I'm using "anathema" incorrectly there, but it's a good word). But they're still embarrassing.

Step 3: Contact Bill James. Well, you knew that was coming. I got a great email back from Bill on this -- filled with all sorts of fabulous thoughts. I'll try to sum up some of them here.

-- Bill thinks "intimidation" is probably not the kind of thing you can or should measure with some goofy statistical formula. It's something you view from the heart. He quotes the e.e. cummings poem:

as long as we have eyes to see
and lips to kiss and sing with
what does it matter if some son of a bitch
invents an instrument to measure spring with

-- That said, he suggests that if I really AM going to come up with an intimidation formula (of course I am), I should include two more stats: Height and homers per nine innings. He says this would be worthwhile because:
a. There's simply no question that height plays a role in intimidation. Billy Wagner may throw harder than Randy Johnson, but at 5-foot-10, he is not the presence that Johnson is.
b. If batters hit home runs off of you (or feel like they can) they are not intimidated by you.

He offered a few other fun thoughts. ... He wondered if Eric Plunk should get bonus intimidation points since his name is "Plunk." ... He also wondered if Ugueth Urbina gets some machete bonus points ... He looked at the Top 100 pitchers in strikeouts per nine (500 ip minimum) and was stunned to learn that Ted Lilly, Stan Belinda, Paul Assenmacher, Jay Witasik and Darren Holmes are on the list. Bob Gibson is not.

He also sent me his 20 most intimidating pitchers in baseball history. I'll include that list at the end -- that way you have to read my junk first (assuming you don't, er, just scroll down).

First my list. I came up with a formula that is so confusing, I don't understand it. I do know it measures pitchers (against league average) for hits per nine innings pitched, strikeouts per nine, homers per nine, hit batsmen per nine and height. It weighs these at different levels -- I don't even remember the levels anymore. I played with it and played with it, and it's late, and I'm not going to go back and check my work. The Intimidation Quotient is set up so that 100 is a very intimidating pitcher -- Sad Sam Jones scored 100. Goose Gossage scored 102.

15. Mariano Rivera.
IQ: 108.
I just got a book in the mail -- "The Ultimate Top-Ten Rankings of the Best in Sports," written by Christopher Russo, who is of course the Mad Dog, and while I have not had a chance to really delve into it, I did look at his 10 greatest baseball players of all time. At No. 10 -- Mariano Rivera. The 10th best baseball player ever. I didn't really get the chance to glance much beyond that. ...

I don't know how well this formula is working with Rivera ahead of players like Early Wynn, Sandy Koufax and Gossage, but I do think that he intimidates hitters, or at least he did until this year. There was a finality when Rivera came into the game -- and I don't think there has been another great pitcher who so plainly said: "Here's what I've got -- one pitch. Try to hit it." Well, none come to mind anyway. ... Mo's on the list in large part because of his astonishing ability to prevent home runs -- the last six years he's never given up more than three in a season.

14. J.R. Richard
IQ: 109
There's a great show I saw once late at night on ESPN Classic -- it was a report someone had done years and years ago for CBS News (I think) on J.R. Richard. He was still in high school then in Louisiana, and at the time nobody knew for sure if he would be a hitter or a pitcher in the big leagues. But everyone knew he would be great. For a five year period until his stroke -- 1976-1980 -- Richard was better than Nolan Ryan. ... Anyway in the Classic show, there's a wide shot of all the scouts who were watching Richard play in a high school game. There had to be about 50 of them. But only one of them was black. And then you heard the black scout's voice: "This guy can PLAY!" That was my friend Buck O'Neil.

13. Ryne Duren
IQ: 109
Well, the formula got him right, I think. Blind Ryne had a high-90s fastball and absolutely no idea where it was going. He plunked 41 batters in 589 innings, the highest ratio on the list (he actually plunked twice as many men as Koufax in about one-fourth the time). Duren supposedly used to throw the ball against the screen on purpose to scare the next hitter -- the ol' Nuke Laloosh trick. But he threw so hard and was so wild and unstable, they were already scared.

12. Don Drysdale
IQ: 110
He hit a lot of batters -- especially for that time frame -- and that's why he's on the list. But you know for a great pitcher in a great pitcher's era (on a mound roughly the size of Yao Ming) he was surprisingly hittable. He really just barely made the list. ... This seems as good a time as any to point out a possible myth. Lots of people seem to think pitchers were more likely to hit batters back in the old days. You always hear those stories about how "you just took it like a man" back then and "pitchers used to own the inside part of the plate" and all that. Well, maybe. But hitters are getting plunked about twice as often these days compared to the 1940s through the 1980s. Drysdale hit .40 batters per nine innings -- which was a very high rate in the 1960s. But it would be just about average in 2006. Now, there's no way to measure how many times hitters were knocked down in the old days -- maybe they were just better at dodging the inside pitches. Maybe the stats are faulty. Or, maybe -- just maybe -- memories are faulty.

11. Smoky Joe Wood.
IQ: 110
He's one of the many pitchers who may have had the fastest fastball of all time. A partial list of candidates: Walter Johnson, Smoky Joe Wood, Smokey Joe Williams, Slim Jones, Bob Feller, Satchel Paige, Dazzy Vance, Herb Score, Sam McDowell, Steve Dalkowski, Sandy Koufax, Nolan Ryan, Bob Gibson, Goose Gossage, Rob Dibble, Mark Wohlers, Randy Johnson, Colt Griffin (only high schooler to be clocked at 100 mph -- fine Royals pick), Billy Wagner, Joel Zumaya. Whew.

Walter Johnson was quoted saying that Joe Wood had the fastest fastball in the world ("Listen my friend, there's no man alive who can throw faster than Smoky Joe Wood"). And Johnson, while a modest fellow, was not naive. Years later, when he saw a young Bob Feller, he was impressed. But Johnson still believed that in his prime, he threw harder than Feller. ... Wood's career was cut short after he broke his thumb during a play. He had one legendary year for the Red Sox, 1912 -- 34-5, 1.93 ERA, won three games in the World Series. Gary Thorne later said he really won only two games.

10. Sam McDowell.
IQ: 111.
I wish he had been higher on the list to be honest -- but I don't have any control over these numbers. Sudden Sam had an amazing ability to lose games even when nobody could touch him. In 1965, he had a league leading 2.18 ERA. The league hit .185 against him. He led the league in strikeouts. And he still went 17-11, because he also led the league in walks and wild pitches and and he lost two games 2-1, one game 3-1 and one game 1-0. ... Three years later, in the wild 1968 season, he went 15-14 with a 1.81 ERA and league leading 283 strikeouts. That record might be due to the Indians being shut out five times when McDowell was pitching. ... In 1970, he finally won 20, though even that year he had a couple of 2-1 losses. ... I remember a former teammate of McDowell's telling me that Sam was absolutely the meanest son of a gun he ever played with, bar none. He said: "When he drank, which was all the time, he was a ruthless SOB. But you know, he wasn't all that nice when he didn't drink." These days, McDowell is a drug and alcohol counselor.

9. Bob Gibson
IQ: 116
Yes, I'm embarrassed. Everybody knows Gibson was the most intimidating pitcher ever and it's humiliating to have Gibson this low (especially when you see some of the guys above him). But if there's a bright side, having him here allows me to make a point that Bill and I are discussing: Doesn't it seem like Bob Gibson gets better every single year?

Sure he was an all-time great pitcher, no doubt about it, I'm not denying that. I'm a very big Gibson fan. But a halo-effect definitely takes hold when it comes to certain players. Joe DiMaggio was a better player in 1965 than he was in '55, better still in '75, better yet in '85. I was just talking to a friend, an old scout, who swears that Mickey Mantle ran a 3.3 from home to first on a bunt. Buck O'Neil had the great Negro Leagues star Oscar Charleston hitting 40 homers a year when when we first started traveling together, and by the end of the road trip it was 50 homers a year.

Gibson has a special quality that makes him grow in memory. He was a larger than life. It's a rare and beautiful thing. And I'm not here to say that Gibson wasn't the most intimidating pitcher ever -- we're just having fun with a goofy blog. But I'll say this: He had a reputation as a guy who would knock a guy down just for the way he looked; but he really didn't hit that many batters. He was a strikeout guy, but on this list everyone but Drysdale and has better strikeout numbers (Rivera's numbers are the same as Gibson's). His hit and homer numbers are terrific, of course, but again in this company they are average or below.

If we had a poll of every living baseball player and asked "Who is the most intimidating pitcher of all time?" there is no doubt in my mind that Gibson would win going away. I don't have any doubt that Gibson intimidated more hitters than anyone ever. But it's also true that enough of those intimidated players got hits and homers, and so Gibson is ninth on the list.

8. Pedro Martinez.
IQ: 119.
For about seven years, he was the best pitcher I ever saw. ... For some reason I've always associated him with Greg Maddux (which possibly makes sense) and my brother David (which makes no sense at all). I don't know if I can explain this, but I'll try: I've always been a huge Maddux fan, even though he is the exact opposite of Pedro (and the exact opposite of intimidating). Pedro is all "Here I am, come and hit me, I'll stick this ball in your ear, who do you think you are getting a hit off me?" And so on. And Maddux is the guy who pitches nine innings and everyone in the losing clubhouse thinks they had a good day until they see the box score.

So, when I was a kid, we had an early bed time. Something like 9 p.m. But on Tuesday nights we both wanted to stay up to -- like I need to say it -- watch "Three's Company." (Chrissie! Yummy!) OK, so we each had our own strategy. My strategy was to be really quiet so that my parents wouldn't notice that I was still up. And my brother's strategy was to make some grand speech about how we had earned the RIGHT to stay up until 9:30, and ALL THE KIDS OUR AGE got to stay up AND who did our parents think they were holding us back and so on.

He was Pedro. I was Maddux.

7. Rube Waddell
IQ: 122
I could be miscounting, but I've got three alcoholics on the list so far, right? Duren, McDowell and Waddell. ... Waddell is not often listed on "most dominant" lists and maybe he shouldn't be, I don't know. But he was an absolutely remarkable strikeout pitcher in the 1900s. ... They say he used to leave in the middle of games to chase fire engines. ... Bill writes that before one game he was being baited to wrestle by Boston's Candy LaChance and at some point Waddell simply picked up LaChance and body slammed him. Then Waddell went out and won the game. That's intimidation. ... Connie Mack: "(Waddell) was the atom bomb of baseball long before the atom bomb was discovered."

6. Bob Feller
IQ: 123
Feller is on the list even though he hardly hit anybody in his career. Among the players on the list, only J.R. Richard hit fewer batters per nine innings ... I'm both fascinated and appalled by Feller. I remember once I was interviewing him and I would say that, no joke, he told me 20 times that the Bob Feller Museum was in Van Meter "just 17 miles from Des Moines." Twenty times, minimum. In the next day's column I mentioned that the Bob Feller Museum was 17 miles from Des Moines several times (not 20), which led Feller to rip me, which was fine. He also said: "Hey, if you don't promote yourself, who will?" And I really like that. ... Another time I was talking to him on the phone -- this was probably about 15 years ago -- and after a perfectly pleasant 20 minutes he snapped: "What time are you going to pick me up from the airport?" I said, "Um, do you need me to pick you up from the airport?" And he said, "Never mind. You're useless."

5. Dazzy Vance
IQ: 127
Vance's strikeout numbers don't look all that special now -- he struck out about 2,000, same as Orel Hershiser -- but in the 1920s they were mind-boggling. He led the National League in strikeouts every single year from 1922-28, and he usually led by a lot (in 1925, for instance, he had 221 strikeouts. Dolf Luque was next with 140. Nobody else had 100. In 1924, he had more strikeouts than the second and third guys combined. Batters did not strike out then, except when Vance was pitching). ... Vance is an amazing story. He was a rookie when he was 31 years old. He had hurt his arm by banging his arm on a poker table. An unknown doctor (perhaps a Frank Jobe ancestor) performed some emergency surgery, and Vance was suddenly throwing the ball harder than ever. He had a little mean streak too, even though they called him Dazzy.

4. Randy Johnson
IQ: 129
I actually saw Randy Johnson pitch in the minor leagues. I went to Jacksonville to cover a playoff game between the Charlotte O's and the Jacksonville Suns ... this had to be 1987. It was my first road trip as a sportswriter. I was 20 years old, Johnson was 23, and what I remember is that he was viewed as a freak of nature. Everyone in the little wooden press box was talking about how he was too tall to pitch in the big leagues. ... The thing I like about Johnson on the mound is that he's always looks like the guy who's just about ready to start a bar fight. You know that guy: He's sort of in control but you know that if just one thing went wrong -- the wrong song came on the jukebox, the wrong ex-girlfriend walked in -- he would snap and start throwing beer bottles.

3. Roger Clemens
IQ: 134
I've always felt kind of bad for Dan Duquette. Just a little. When he made that "Twilight of his career" comment about Clemens, well, Clemens had been pretty crappy for four seasons. Well, maybe "crappy" is overselling it, but he was 11-14 with a 4.46 in 1993, 9-7 in the strike year, 10-5 and 10-13. And that's when Duquette said it. Lots of people believed the same thing (though they were smart enough not to say it publicly). Then Clemens goes to Toronto, has his best season in a half dozen years, and then he goes on to become win 187 Cy Young Awards and become one of the great old pitchers in baseball history. Kind of a raw deal for the Duke, if you ask me.

2. Walter Johnson
IQ: 144
The Big Train had this reputation as baseball's ultimate gentleman. In fact, the story goes that Ty Cobb used to crowd the plate against Johnson because he knew that Johnson would not hit him with a pitch. If that's true, Cobb was taking his health into his own hands because Walter Johnson hit 203 batters in his career, more than any player in baseball history. ... It's fun to play the make believe sports game -- like how good would Jim Brown be if you could pluck him right out of 1964 (no weight training, no nothing) and put him in a starting NFL lineup? Would he still run over people? Or would he get killed because now linebackers weigh 275 pounds and run faster than he did? ... How would Tiger Woods do if he played against Harry Vardon in 1907 -- but he had to use the wooden shafts, and hit that crappy ball they hit, and he had to putt on greens that are rougher than Warrensville Road in my old Cleveland hometown? ... My favorite question involves Walter Johnson: How would he look to us if he just showed up tomorrow, straight out of 1913? Would we be wowed by his fastball or would it really look like Rodrigo Lopez's fastball? Would he blow away hitters with his motion and overpowering stuff? I don't have any answers for this, but I wish ...

1. Nolan Ryan
IQ: 149
What was Ryan on the SI list? No. 5? I guess I don't see that. He blows everyone away statistically, and I still cannot imagine that there has ever been a more intimidating presence. He threw impossibly hard, he had a ridiculous curveball, he was wild and more often than any pitcher before or since he was unhittable. And he body slammed Robin Ventura. That, to me, equals intimidation.

Quick wrap-up: Early Wynn never even got close to this list. And neither did Juan Marichal. I don't dispute that they were intimidating, but the numbers I chose simply didn't show it ... The next five after Rivera were: Rob Dibble (good choice), Sandy Koufax (good choice -- didn't make the list because he didn't hit ANYBODY in his career), Jeff Nelson (um), Jim Kern (one of my childhood heroes) and Bob Veale (I don't know -- maybe a good choice).

And finally, without comment (because I've been working on this blog WAY too long) we enclose Bill James' 20 most intimidating pitchers ever. Thanks for getting this far into it ... and I apologize for the many, many mistakes that I'm sure are in here. I'll try to clean it up in the morning.

Bill James list
1. Randy Johnson
2. Sam McDowell
3. Roger Clemens
4. Bob Feller
5. Nolan Ryan
6. Walter Johnson
7. J.R. Richard
8. Goose Gossage
9. Bob Gibson
10. Don Drysdale
11. Ewell Blackwell
12. Rube Waddell
13. Dick Radatz
14. Ryne Duren
15. Bob Veale
16. Joe Wood
17. Stan Williams
18. Rob Dibble
19. Johny Vander Meer
20. Hippo Vaughn