10 Baseball players that just disapperared (pt.2)

Posted on by anele25

Baseball, as I said last week, is full of unpredictable circumstances and it allows us to follow the players and teams we love. Last week, I took a look at 5 players and they were some of my favorites. They somehow had a period where they were really good and all of a sudden they vanished. This was due to injuries, age, and failure to make adjustments to pitchers/hitters.  These five players were Richie Sexson, Brandon Webb, Miguel Tejada, Jim Edmonds, and Johan Santana. This week I take a look at the following five players: Matt Morris, Mark Grudzielanek, Larry Walker, Grady Sizemore, and Carlos Lee.

5. Larry Walker

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What I remember about Walker is his weird batting stance and it didn’t look like the prototypical home run swing. It would work as if he had a desire to swing for a single but he ended up hitting a deep double or a long homer. He ended up playing the majority of his career with the Colorado Rockies where the ball was launching out of there due to the high altitude. I remember one time a news piece popped out one night and it was talking about his obsession with the number 3 which seemed kind of odd considering that his number was 33. He ended up averaging around 30 homers in his 17 year career and one word comes to mind when I think of Walker: class. He never said anything wrong and he played the game the right way. I would say Walker is one of those rare players that had a great career and even though he was in a class that included players that may have been juicing he was still great in my eyes.

4. Matt Morris

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I know this seems like a strange pick but for some odd reason he always struck me as a guy that would stick around for years. When guys get big contracts their body starts wearing down from all the stress that must come from trying to live up to that big contract. Guys aren’t really playing right after getting that big contract because they have everything right in front of them. If you are given the task of keeping score in a ball game, then obviously at first you aren’t getting paid for that task at first. But, let’s say that someone offers you the chance to get paid for it. You obviously are doing it for the money and the keeping score is an afterthought. This is what happened with Morris as he had many successful years with the Cardinals as he dominated with a sick curveball and a decent fastball. His best years were from 2000 to around 2005 where his ERA was around the mid 3’s which is still pretty good considering that having it in the mid 2’s is considered stuff of legend. He managed to have a weird pitching motion where he swung his arm on top of his head which prompted most hitters to not figure out which pitch was coming out of his hand. Most of the time, he would look good and other times he would look great and that is what matters the most. Morris had his best years and once he got the Giants it was time for his career to wind down. However, Morris ended up winning a world series on a team that was ok considering that their pitching and offense wasn’t great.

3. Mark Grudzielanek

Mark Grudzielanek 2000 hit

One of my favorite players because he never had great power but he was a great contact hitter. He managed 2000 hits in his career which is great for a 2nd baseman. One of the funnier plays I can remember him making was him scooping up a ball and kind of grounding it over to his first baseman. He also played great defense and his range was good due to his medium sized body as he was able to grab the ball and not really worry about too much. I had much respect for the guy because he somehow managed to play for almost all the midwest teams such as the Cubs, Cardinals, and the Royals. I mostly remember that his swing was so compact and sweet that it was almost inevitable that he would make contact at some point in the game. He was one of those hitters that didn’t strike out too much but he didn’t walk that much either. Damn, I miss Grudzielanek!

2. Carlos Lee

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I always enjoyed watching Lee play because he was so good. I have heard the phrase that you don’t have to be in the best shape to play baseball and he did it with precision. He smacked the ball whenever he hit a home run and he never got too cocky in terms of the way he played the game. I remember when he got to the Houston Astros he would run out most plays and he was one of my favorite players that just went away. My theory on Lee is that he never got the chance to really ever play for a contender so eventually your body starts wearing down due to all the stresses that come with not playing for a contender. He did hit many homeruns and he did drive in a lot of RBI in his career. He also ended up playing in most of the games that his team played in which takes a lot of class due to the grind that must take up on your body. He never played with a playoff but he busted his ass every day to be one of the game’s legit players. The last time we saw Carlos Lee was when he was playing for the now Miami Marlins and it is sad that he had to end his career that way but he had to have a lot of dignity in order to do that. Hats off to Carlos Lee!

1. Grady Sizemore

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Talk about one of the greatest short lived careers because there was so much potential with Sizemore! I saw him playing for the first time in 2005 and I figured this guy’s gonna be good for years to come. He would go after most balls that were headed his way in center field and he would also have the longest swing in terms of following through with it. He would also hit sweet home runs that just came off the end of the bat as he didn’t try to hit them but he did anyway. He had what we call the five tools in baseball and if only he hadn’t gotten hurt who knows what would have been of Sizemore. I would like to think at age 30 his career is over but I also have memories of the guy that make me smile. That special moment when he drive in a run for the Indians always had me wondering how many more guys like this could possibly come along in this generation where the five tools are almost impossible to come by? He was young and he had the potential but injuries just caught up with the poor guy. I’m sure he is upset at himself for not having had a longer career but what matters most is that he made the most of it while he played. Much thanks for Sizemore for all those times he would rob a home run because he made it look so easy yet so hard at the same time. I can’t think of anybody close to Sizemore’s range and speed to come close as to how he played the game as he will rank as the biggest what if just because he had the it factor which is missing so much in today’s game. Oh baseball, where do these players go? I don’t have an answer and what I can do is just preserve the memories.

10 baseball players that just disappeared (pt.1)…

Posted on by anele25

If there is one sport I absolutely fascinated by, it would have to be baseball. One of the few things that first intrigues me is the sheer competitive nature and atmosphere of each game. I love when you have a bases loaded situation and the pitcher of the home team has to get out of that bases loaded situation with no outs, one out, or two outs. The second thing I love about it is that it is so unpredictable and yet so predictable at the same time. For example, coming into the year 2012 I had it in the back of my head that my team, the Oakland A’s, had little chance of even sniffing 70 wins and they proved me oh so wrong. It was also predictable in the back of my head that the San Francisco Giants, having been down 3-0 to the St.Louis Cardinals, had a shot once they won game 4 because they did it with pitching, speed, and defense. This is where the idea of unpredictability and predictability come in with one of my other fascinations of baseball: appearing and disappearing baseball players. My goal here is to observe what I saw throughout the years of these players careers as well as what might have lead to them being so great to just vanishing. Now, my first player comes as a bit of a weird one because he was so big and strong yet he struck out so much

10. Richie Sexson

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When I first started watching baseball in 2003, I noticed this big scruffy guy that played for the Milwaukee Brewers and he had this big bad powerful stroke that would scare opposing pitchers. I remember when I saw him playing for the Seattle Mariners he would do one of two things a) strike out or b) hit a home run. I wondered, how do guys with a big powerful swing get punched out so often? I started noticing that this is not the case with every big and tall major league player (i.e. Prince Fielder) but with guys like Adam Dunn, Jack Cust, Josh Hamilton, and even sometimes David Ortiz it is easy to get these to swing at pitches low and away. For example, one time Richie Sexson was going up against Rich Harden and every time Harden threw a nasty splitter at him he would swing away at it which made it seem clear that power hitters just get payed to hit home runs. It didn’t matter that he averaged 150 or some odd strikeouts, he just had to make contact and when he did it had to make an impact. My theory is that Sexson’s body broke down from so many years of striking out, hitting home runs, and also the toll that does to your body by trying to hit home runs. He sure did have a good swing and what mattered is whether or not he had his team on the w column.

9. Brandon Webb

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I have been fascinated by this guy’s career because he retired at the age of 30 and we never got to see the true potential of what could have been one of the greats. I remember one of the few times that I was watching a Giants game and he was throwing a very good sinker against them getting ground ball after ground ball. True, velocity does dip as you get older but from what I saw this guy could have been hall of fame material if shoulder surgery hadn’t ended his career. What’s interesting about Webb’s career is that, not including his rookie year, he pitched 200 innings in 5 straight seasons.  He was well on his way to becoming the next money pitcher had injuries not hampered his career. This is my theory on Brandon Webb, he pitched on a team that wasn’t great but they weren’t awful so what ended up happening is that he they became too reliable on one guy that threw like a machine to save their pitching and eventually your arm just goes out. Cheers to pitchers!

8. Johan Santana

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As the theme with pitchers continues, it seems like Santana’s career might have been too little too late as he had a run with Minnesota Twins that was quite impressive. When he first burst onto the scene, he was nearly unhittable with a beaming fastball that ran in hitters like nobody’s business. His changeup was even more impressive due to the pitch looking like it was going to be hittable but it would go down and in at the last minute. He was very impressive due to his stance he would take on the mound and I was disappointed that we never got more from the pitcher due to the fact that he was seem geared up for the games. He once faced the Oakland A’s and he looked deadly mowing down hitters one by one with that nasty changeup. Recently, he threw a no hitter and he was throwing essentially the same and once again injuries seemed to rack up once again. The theory here is that pitchers seem to put too much stress on their shoulders and this is what ends their careers too early, It might also be that training programs and therapy could play a big part and this is probably no different in Santana’s case.

7. Jim Edmonds

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Nothing got better than watching Edmonds play in the outfield, coming up to bat, or even just hearing his interviews bashing other major league players. He almost had the 5 tools of a baseball player (average, power, defense, speed, and throwing). He didn’t have the speed which, give or take, might have made him a better all around player due to his ability to drive the ball with such a compact swing that just looked like a big golf swing. I am glad I got to see him play in his prime with the Cardinals because he was so good at what he did, you just couldn’t help but to cheer the guy on. He came across like a true gamer and someone that would enjoy getting the team going with his energy and his willingness to win tough games. Man, baseball needs players like this. My theory on Edmonds is that yes, he disappeared, but he had an excellent career which ended with him going to several different teams at the end of his career.

6. Miguel Tejada

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At some point, I had to put Miguel Tejada in here because he always came across as a big league guy that would be fantastic for years. Truth is, he never had quite the success that he had with the Oakland A’s and early on with the Baltimore Orioles as his swing became a little shorter after and he started getting behind the ball just a little bit less than before. One of the key things I remember about Tejada is how excited he would get whenever he made a great defensive play or when he hit a home run which was always welcome in my eyes. Even though he has averaged a .285 Batting average in his years as big leaguer, he will probably never get the accolades that a Derek Jeter or a Jimmy Rollins might get because his career was never as great as the names mentioned. My theory with Tejada is that age and the question of staying healthy probably hampered his career and now he is almost 40 ready to call it a career. Cheers to Tejada and the many great years he had with the Oakland A’s. Next time I’ll come back with the next five players that have probably skipped my mind and yours:

-Matt Morris

–Mark Grudzielanek

-Larry Walker

-Grady Sizemore

-Carlos Lee