Category Archives: Other Baseball

Pascual Perez

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Pascual prowls the mound like a restless hyena. Every pitch is accompanied by a flurry of gestures, grimaces and moans. “He looks like he’s pitching at the end of a rubber band,” says Joe Torre, who managed Pascual from 1982 to ’84 with the Atlanta Braves.

Pascual wears enough gold to buy Trinidad and Tobago and flashes the sly half smile of a kid in a pet store who has just set all the puppies free. But he can also be mercurial—bored one moment, expansive the next. “Anybody know nothing about Pascual,” says his old friend Felix Becena. “He’s inpredictable.”

After nearly being decapitated by a line drive last August at Wrigley Field, Mr. Inpredictability threw a pitch into the Cubs dugout. “I don’t do nothing in particular on purpose,” he said afterward. Yet two weeks later, while batting against the Dodgers, he purposely ignored three straight bunt signs and struck out swinging. “I was rockin’ and rollin’,” he explained.

– Franz Lidz, Sports Illustrated, Jan. 8, 1990.

Awful news this morning about former Brave, Expo and Yankee jheri-curl hero Pascual Perez, one of the most entertaining baseball players I’ve ever had the pleasure to watch. With a flamboyant windup and demeanor, and a propensity for throwing eephus pitches and attempting pickoffs between his legs, Perez was easily among the non-Mets most frequently imitated in Wiffleball games among my friends when we were kids.

Other fits for Dickey?

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The Royals, Twins, Blue Jays, Padres, Red Sox and Brewers are among the clubs seeking help for their rotations. Such teams might prefer to trade for a Haren or Santana, even on an inflated one-year deal, rather than sign a free agent. The scarcity of quality starters on the open market likely will lead to inflated free-agent prices, particularly with more money in the game due to baseball’s new national television contracts.

– Ken Rosenthal, FoxSports.com.

I’m still looking for possible partners in speculative R.A. Dickey trades besides the Angels, but I had been focusing on teams with outfielders to deal that appeared a starting pitcher away from contention, figuring that rebuilding clubs wouldn’t be too interested in dealing young, cost-controlled players for 38-year-olds (however awesome) signed to one-year deals (however inexpensive). But if Rosenthal’s above suggestion is correct, maybe some hopeful team starved for starters will open its prospect coffers for Dickey.

Of the teams listed there, the Red Sox and Padres seem the most logical fit. The Sox have some outfielders who have performed in the high Minors and, presumably, the payroll flexibility with which to sign Dickey to an extension. San Diego has a few impressive prospects blocked at their positions by young players already producing in the Majors. But of course, the Red Sox could use some help in the Major League outfield, and few of the Padres’ guys appear to be the near-ready regulars the Mets would purportedly be looking for.

Before you say it: I’d love to be proven wrong, but I don’t think the Blue Jays are going to trade Travis d’Arnaud in a deal for one year’s worth of R.A. Dickey.

Taco hero Angel Pagan eats tacos

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Due to the whole hurricane thing, I did not get to enjoy a free Doritos Locos Taco courtesy of Angel Pagan yesterday. I thought about making the trek to my nearest Taco Bell in the wind and rain, but I realized it was on account of like $1.39 or something and that if I injured myself in pursuit of a free Doritos Locos Taco in a hurricane, I’d never live down the LOLs.

Anyway, a Redwood City, Calif. Taco Bell invited Pagan himself to the restaurant for the occasion, and Pagan showed up. Here’s what he had to say:

“I grew up in the projects. If you believe, you can accomplish anything. Look at me.”

And indeed, look at him:

All you have to do is believe in yourself and someday you too can be signing autographs in a Taco Bell while wearing a Doritos Locos Taco shirt.

Also, it’s hard to imagine any athlete in the world pulling off that look better than Pagan does right there. Dude has verve. That might be history’s greatest instagram.

Furthermore, additional photos show Pagan wearing the very same style of Taco Bell hat favored by Mark Sanchez.

Melky Cabrera: Why not?

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Cabrera not only failed a drug test, at least one associate tried to create a fake website for a supplement company to contrive a cover story that Cabrera’s positive results were from a tainted supplement. So teams definitely will investigate him in a significant way. Still, morality will not stand in the way of most clubs adding offense, especially if the offense is a bargain.

After the All-Star Game, there was talk Cabrera, a 28-year-old switch-hitter, would command a five-year contract worth as much as $75 million, maybe more. But in the group of executives with whom I spoke, one thought Cabrera could get two years at $10 million to $12 million, another said one year at $8 million to $10 million. But the large majority saw Cabrera having to take a one-year deal in the $2 million-to-$5 million range. He will have to use 2013 as a forum to prove he is a quality player.

– Joel Sherman, N.Y. Post.

Well, presumably you know why not: Cabrera tested positive for the use of performance-enhancing drugs in 2012, then had someone set up that fake supplement company. If those are the types of behaviors that could forever prevent you from wanting to watch a guy play baseball, that’s your right, but there’s nothing for you below.

My sense of right and wrong often extends right up to what the Mets need to do to win more games. And while I think breaking the rules of a sport to be better at it (and make more money in it) certainly falls on the darker side of the moral grayscale, it’s a decision I am apparently willing to abide — especially in cases like Melky’s, since he served his league-mandated punishment and will now be financially penalized, as Sherman’s article notes. Plus, I have no idea how other free-agent outfielders spend their free time, so I can’t even say for certain that Melky’s indiscretions are in any way more depraved than the daily endeavors of Cody Ross. I try not to use ballplayers as compasses for anything other than how to play ball. Cabrera’s decision seems like a stupid one, but it’s hard to even say that for sure without knowing how many guys get away with the same.

And if you look at the stats on baseball players suspended for steroid use, it’s hard to discern any atypical pattern of decline after a player’s been caught and (presumably) stopped juicing. (That could mean they just took up steroids again, of course.) Cabrera’s offensive explosion in 2011 may look a bit suspicious with the information we now have, but also came in his age-26 season — an age at which he should be expected to improve. His inflated batting average in 2012 seems to have come more from a flukishly high batting average on balls in play than from a needle, and Cabrera likely won’t repeat that. But even if he regresses to his 2011 totals, he’d be a steal at less than $5 million for one year.

The Mets need outfielders, you’ll remember, and they’re not going to have a lot of money to spend pursuing them. Dumpster diving requires some open-mindedness. Cabrera hits from both sides of the plate with no massive platoon split and can capably field a corner.

The biggest concerns with Cabrera, as far as I can see, are that on a one-year deal he wouldn’t doing anything to help the Mets’ future and that he doesn’t walk enough. The former might even be worth addressing with a club option for 2014 — even if it meant a slightly higher guaranteed salary in 2013. The latter means he could be in for a long season if his BABIP normalizes, a problem that would inevitably be made all the more frustrating when it was chalked up to his lack of steroids. But if Dave Hudgens could help Ronny Cedeno to a serviceable on-base percentage than there’s probably no task too great, and it’s not like the Mets can afford to be too choosy right now.

Marlins keep doing Marlin stuff

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As of a week ago, Ozzie Guillen was enjoying time in Europe with several of the Marlins in his charge. Today, there are no more Marlins in his charge. He has been sacked, despite the three years and $7.5 million remaining on his contract and despite the fact that the Marlins actually traded two players to get him.

If the 2012 Miami Marlins season was The Old Man and the Sea, we’re at the part where the great fish has been reduced to a skeleton and a weepy Giancarlo Stanton is bringing the newspaper to Jose Reyes. Or something.

I started to put together a timeline of things that the Marlins did in the past 12 months — the stadium opening the Clevelander, Guillen praising Fidel Castro, the team acquiring Carlos Lee, etc., etc. — but the task became overwhelming and I grew certain you’d see it elsewhere. It’d be a colorful sequence, for sure, mesmerizing in its ugliness, with so many seemingly incongruous elements operating in smooth communion to create something at once spectacular and alarming.

Which is to say, it’d look something like this:

Angels of BABIP smile on San Francisco

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Don’t mistake this for me suggesting the Giants won Game 7 of the NLCS by nine runs last night on account of sheer luck. That’s obviously not what happened. For one thing, they played way better defense than the Cardinals — a big factor in the following number. But check it out (allowing for my inevitable math hiccup):

Cardinals’ Game 7 batting average on balls in play: .269
Giants’ Game 7 batting average on balls in play: .419

Such is baseball, and baseball rules. Really, outside of Brandon Belt’s homer when the game was more or less decided, how many balls did the Giants hit hard? Did Matt Cain actually look as dominant as the 5 2/3 shutout innings in the box score suggest? Certainly the Giants outplayed the Cardinals, but did they dominate them the way the final score says? And could anyone other than Hunter Pence have been responsible for this type of game-changing hit?

Our man Carlos Beltran exits another thunderous postseason with a whisper, earning a bloop single and a walk, with one late fly ball seemingly stifled by the San Francisco wind. Beltran’s 1.252 career postseason OPS, if you’re tracking at home, is still good for the best by anyone ever.