Ask Baseball America By James Bailey
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- March 10, 2000
March 13, 2000Since I wrote Friday's column, one of our topics has become a little more newsworthy than I had imagined it would. Jorge "The Spider" Diaz has been denied an entry visa to come to the United States. I had been under the impression that he was already in camp, which was obviously incorrect. I did not, as one reader suggested, get him confused with Edwin Diaz. I simply had thought I'd already heard he was in camp. He wasn't. Diaz' agent, Joe Kehoskie, is hopeful the visa problem will be straightened out shortly, but for the moment Diaz is stuck in the Dominican Republic. If you're interested in reading more on Diaz' plight, we've got a story just for you. His trouble is par for the course this spring for the Rangers. They've had minor injuries keep both John Wetteland and Mike Venafro out of exhibition play and Sunday Rusty Greer came up lame. He's been bothered with a sore ankle this spring, but it got worse yesterday and he's going to have it examined this week. There could be bone chips that will need to be removed before he can play comfortably again. If that's the case, the Rangers will have a completely different Opening Day outfield than they had last year: Chad Curtis, Ruben Mateo and Gabe Kapler vs. Greer, Tom Goodwin and Juan Gonzalez. The race in the AL West could be wide open this year. Speaking of the AL West, speculation has the Diamondbacks moving there before long. Here's a question on the topic of realignment. So it appears that the Devil Rays are looking forward to coming to the National League, as are their fans. It also appears that the Diamondbacks are opposed to going to the AL, as are their fans. It is just me or does it seem like the bulk of the baseball fans (and teams) prefer the No DH rule? Are there any more rumblings that baseball will try again to adopt NL rules in both leagues? Is all of baseball being held hostage by the players association for just 14 DH jobs? Thanks for your help, Alec Milne, Ottawa There's more to the Diamondbacks resistance than the DH. Their big issue is that they feel like the division rivals they have in the NL West are more appealing than the teams they would face off against in the AL West. It appears their pleas will fall on deaf ears, however, and their long tradition in the NL will end after three short seasons. There does seem to be a lot of players and managers out there who despise the DH. I hope they can win over everyone else and purge the game of the DH "experiment." Theoretically, the union likes the DH rule because it provides 14 high-paying jobs for 14 formidable offensive stars. But the truth is, the number of star players who DH full-time or nearly full-time is substantially fewer than 14. Here's the list of every player to DH more than 80 games last year: Harold Baines, Jose Canseco, Marty Cordova, Chili Davis, John Jaha, Edgar Martinez, Rafael Palmeiro and Frank Thomas. Palmeiro, as you all know, won the Gold Glove at first base, despite his limited time in the field. So he shouldn't really be considered with this group. That leaves Baines, Canseco, Cordova, Davis, Jaha, Martinez and Thomas as the seven guys the union is fighting so hard to keep in baseball. Davis retired, so make that six. Cordova was invited to spring training as a nonroster player by the Red Sox this year. He is not the high-priced superstar the DH rule is supposed to be providing a job for. So reduce your pool to five. If they had to play defense, all but Baines could. Not that Martinez would be an asset at first base, but he could do the job. Remember, in the old days, fading superstars were put out to pasture at first base. So is the union fighting to keep Harold Baines in baseball? I'm trying to find numbers on how many extra tickets the Orioles will sell this year because Baines is on their roster, but those are hard to come by. I believe his family members are generally entitled to comp tickets, so they don't really count. I'd love for the union to trade the DH rule off for some other concession in the next round of collective bargaining. Heck, Harold Baines will probably be retired by then anyway. I was wondering about what you thought about Mets prospect Juan LeBron. When the Mets traded for him people were raving that he could be the next Juan Gonzalez. However, he did not play last year because of shoulder problems. This spring he is in the major league camp and once again being compared to a certain Tiger. Is he for real? When I looked up his stats for 1997 and 1998 they were nothing special. His plate judgement could be better. What do you think? sethphill@aol.com It was actually an elbow problem, not a shoulder problem, that cost LeBron his 1999 season. Apparently he's back in shape enough to impress Mets manager Bobby Valentine, who said, "He's as near to Juan Gonzalez as I've ever seen. Their abilities are similar. They have the same body type. The ball comes off his bat the same." Valentine is hardly the first one to draw the comparison between LeBron and fellow Puerto Rican Gonzalez. The association has been made since LeBron was taken in the first round of the 1995 draft. I don't think LeBron will ever be the run producer that Gonzalez is, simply because Gonzalez is one of the best sluggers in the game. But he does have all the tools to become an above-average major league player. It will be interesting to see what LeBron can do this year. The Mets farm system is thin at this point and it would be a real boost for them if he could step forward with a big season. As for his strike-zone judgment, LeBron has struck out 307 times and drawn just 90 walks as a pro. He did make a big improvement there in 1998, walking a career high 57 times. By the way, Gonzalez never walked more than 32 times in any minor league season, for whatever that's worth. March 10, 2000Judging from the mail we receive, I'm going to rank Brewers fans as among the most optimistic in the game. I know I've said before that I'm not sure they have good reason to be optimistic, but it's refreshing to see, nonetheless. Today we have an interesting question from a Brewers fan about two trades that are yet to be completed. They both bear watching, but it will likely be a few more months before the deals are done. Before we get to that, though, a quick followup on Ben Christensen. Reader Josh Chrisman wrote in to say that Christensen had a slight hamstring problem early in camp and had been unable to fully participate. That may have contributed to his early exit as well, though he was not destined to stick around much longer than he did for reasons discussed on Wednesday. I have two questions. They both involve trades for players to be named later. I have been reading raving spring training reviews of ex-Brewer Fernando Vina. As a Brewer fan, I saw that he was traded to St. Louis for Juan Acevedo and two players to be named later. Now I know these guys are '99 draft picks--supposedly high ones. So will the Brewers be able to get at least one of they guys BA has rated as one of the Cards' top ten prospects: Nick Stocks, Chance Caple, or Ben Johnson? The Brewers recently acquired Mark Sweeney and a player to be named later from Cincinnati in exchange for outfielder Alex Ochoa. The same questions relate here. Will the Brew Crew pick up Ty Howington or Ben Broussard? Thanks, Sean Lynch Washington, DC
John
I hope the same fans that are salivating over jumping guys from the Midwest League to the big leagues are not going to be the same ones complaining when the rookies struggle and don't play fundamental baseball. Ed Sprague might not be the guy everyone stands in line to see, but he's the kind of player that can be useful to a team because he can buy them a year or two while they wait for someone down on the farm. Last year the Pirates used him to fill in while they farmed Aramis Ramirez out. This year the Padres can use him and Phil Nevin at third base and try to resist any urge to call Burroughs to town. I don't really see the Burroughs temptation being as strong as the Patterson temptation in Chicago, either. I can see San Diego keeping Burroughs in Double-A all year, or maybe moving him to Triple-A at the break if he's really tearing it up. Fans will have to settle for a September callup. I have a question about Jorge "The Spider" Diaz. Who is this man? Another newspaper (USA Today) had a one-line glowing reference to him as in the mix for the Texas 2B position in 2000. I promise not to follow him until BA says so. Thanks, Tom McCullough York, PA
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