The 1989 Project Day 12 – Scott Scudder

 

1989 Fleer update

 

Scott Scudder was not a particularly impressive minor league pitcher for the Reds after being drafted in the 1^st round of the 1986 draft and signing on July 4^th of that year. He had, however, been a highly-coveted high-school pitcher out of Texas, scoring a 14-0 record with a 0.74 ERA and 147 strikeouts as a Senior. The Reds sent him to the rookie-league Billings Mustangs that year, and he put up a pedestrian 1-3 line with a 4.79 ERA and 38 strikeouts in 52 innings to go with a 1.50 WHIP. He spent two years at Single-A Cedar Rapids, going 14-15 before getting bumped up to AA Chattanooga at the back end of 1988. He wasn’t showing much to the organization, and yet they were shooting him through the system. He hit AAA Nashville in 1989, going 6-2 with a 2.68 ERA in 12 games, striking out 64 in 80 IP with a 1.26 WHIP. Combine that with a strong Spring Training that impressed manager Pete Rose, and I guess the Reds thought he had finally put it together, because they recalled him and he pitched in his first game on June 6^th in San Francisco. He gave up a homer to Kevin Mitchell in the early going, but he ended up lasting six innings, giving up three runs on three hits with FIVE walks and five strikeouts. Yikes.

 

1989 Score Rookie and Traded

 

He went on to be 4-9 with a 4.49 ERA and almost as many walks (61) as strikeouts (66). Seriously, his BB/9 was 5.5, and his SO/9 was 5.9. That’s not really going to get the job done, and presaged his future role as a AAAA pitcher. He would spend only one year entirely in the majors, 1991, when he started and relieved, still unable to bring that walk rate down. In the 91 offseason, the Reds traded him, Joe Turek, and Jack Armstrong to the Indians for Greg Swindell. He played two partial years with the Indians, going 6-11 with a 5.42 ERA and 67 strikeouts in 113 innings. That walk rate still sucked, as he had a 4.7 BB/9 and a 1.752 WHIP. He became a free agent in the 1993 offseason and signed with the Pirates, but never made the team, spending 1994 in their minor league system before landing with the Reds in 1995. And then his career was done, never living up to the promise of his hype.

Scudder was never a particularly popular player in our hometown, but then we were a long way from Cincinnati and never really saw their games.  Still, it seemed like he would pan out to be more than he ended up being. I’m going to go ahead and blame being rushed to the majors. I don’t know why the Reds did that when they had a fairly good rotation that would take them to the World Series Championship the next year.

Morning Coffee and the Blog Roundup 11/11: NL Gold Glove Edition

So I sit here sipping on my first gingerbread latte of the season and realize they announced the NL Gold Gloves. I decide to browse on over to bbref.com to see what happened…

*sigh* I don’t know why I get worked up about this stuff. It’s obvious by now that the Gold Glove has little to do with fielding and more to do with hitting. I know this. But come on, Carlos Gonzalez? He was a good hitter, but he wasn’t even the best defensive outfielder on the Rockies, let alone in the top three in the league. And Scott Rolen? He wasn’t necessarily a bad fielder, but he wasn’t the first in any of the significant defensive categories for third baseman – even when it comes to fielding percentage, the hoary old flawed stat, he wasn’t tops. I just…argh, whatever.

Dave Niehaus passed away. I’d never heard the man call a game, and I feel the less for it, as I hear he was amazing. Condolences, Mariners fans.

The Nationals unveiled their new jerseys yesterday.

I never cared for that blue/star-spangled…thing, glad to see it’s back, and the new home jersey is a hideous redesign of the Reds’ jersey. Seriously, Nats, are you ever going to stop riding the Reds’ coattails? It’s getting a little annoying.

Ian Desmond was all stylin’ up on the fashion show, thing though.

Received two trade posts in the mail yesterday. GREAT stuff, but unfortunately I may not be able to post them until Monday. For now, thanks to Rhubarb Runner of E Rayhahn, Rayhahn and Mike of BA Benny’s Card Buffet. You guys rock, and I think I found some good stuff for you.

And that’s all for today. Let’s see what everyone else was talking about…

• Sports Cards Uncensored featured some shockingly bad Triple Threads cards. Wow.
• The Great Sports Name Hall of Fame received the craziest mother effer of all time. I’d never even heard of this guy!
• The Hall of Very Good informs us that Jose Canseco is BACK. Yeaaaaah!
• White  Sox Cards continued the birth year series with Jason Bourgeois.
• Number 5 Type Collection featured Japanese player Makoto Matsubara’s TCMA card.
• The Great Orioles Autograph Project examined the O’s offseason moves.
• Sewingmachine guy continues to whittle away at his artifacts auto collection.

And that’s all for today. Have a good one!

 

The 1988 Project Phase 2 Day 5: Cincinnati Reds

As always, rookies first…

Jack Armstrong -The All-American boy was a lauded rookie for the Reds, so getting him into these sets was kind of a big deal. Unfortunately, 1988 was not a good year for him. He went 4-7 with a 5.79 ERA, 45K in 65 IP, a 62 ERA+, and a -1.4 WAR. He had a good season in him, but 1988 was not it.

Rob Dibble – No comment on this clown. 1-1, 1.82, 37 games, 1.4 WAR. Next.

Jeff Treadway – Jeff had appeared in some games in 1987, but 88 was his first full season. He hit .252/.315/.362, a 91 OPS+. Good for a rookie second baseman. He finished with a 1.5 WAR.

And the vets…

Tim Birtsas – He was a name I only vaguely remembered. With good reason; he played very little in the majors. Part of the Jose Rijo/Dave Parker deal, he went 1-3 with a 4.20 ERA in 36 games that year for a -0.5 WAR.

Danny Jackson – Good GOD Danny Jackson had a good 1988. I had no idea how good. He led the league in wins with 23, and went 23-8 with a 2.73 ERA. He also led the league in complete games with 15. A 132 ERA+ and a 4.7 WAR. Great pickup!

Herm Winningham – Did you know his middle name is Son? Neither did I. A midseason pickup, Herm hit .230/.261/.292 in 53 games for the Reds, good for a 56 OPS+ and a -0.1 WAR. Yuck.

Paul O’Neill is an oddball. He’d been with the team since 85 at this point. Much like Alejandro Pena, I think Fleer just missed him in the regular set, so he doesn’t count.

So these guys all add up to 5.6 WAR, which we’ll round down to 4.5 given that the Reds would almost assuredly have replaced some of these guys with above replacement-level guys. What does subtracting those wins do for the 88 Reds? Well, it drops them from 87-74 to 82-79, which would have put them near the bottom of the AL East that year. I think Jackson has to account for a lot of that, though, so good job, Danny Jackson!

2008 Upper Deck Timeline 1992 Flashback Pt. 7

The last entry to complete the set before we move on to some other Flashback sets…

Oh, Elijah. I went from hating his signing to thinking he had some potential to being absolutely confused when he was cut from the team. I guess his attitude just got the best of him? I’m also confused that he’s playing for the Newark Bears, apparently, as he wasn’t GREAT last year, but he was only 25. Surely someone would have picked him up? But yeah, according to the Washington Post:

But Rizzo also implied that Dukes’s presence in the clubhouse adversely affected the Nationals, saying they “will be a more cohesive group” without him.

“The clubhouse will be more united,” Rizzo said. “We’ll have a better feel around the ballclub. We’ll gain just by that alone.”

So yeah, attitude entirely. Oh, well. Good luck to the guy.

Another of the great, lost Expos from the MLB years.

Phillips as an Expo.

I liked Phillips way back, and I’ve been happy to see him find his talent and turn it into a productive career. I like this card a lot, as well – it captures exactly the spirit of 92 Upper Deck.

So we get to the first of today’s entries that isn’t in some way tied to the Nats/Expos…but IS from Washington, DC. No, I didn’t plan it this way, but it’s a nice little coincidence. Emmanuel isn’t a very good hitter (in the way that Hitler wasn’t a very nice man), but he’s managed to stick in the majors since debuting in 08, and was even rumored to be part of a trade for Jose Bautista this season, though that never got off the ground. I thought he might be a good glove man, so I hit up fangraphs, and his UZR is -17.7. So uhm…what value does he provide, actually? A warm body? I don’t get it. But he’s still out there.

And so the final card I’ll cover in this set. Uhm…Rico Washington. That’s about the flimsiest connection to this “theme” you can come up with. Rico was a 30-year old rookie when this was published, so I can appreciate that this was probably just a neat moment for him. He didn’t really hit well in his run, which lasted most of April, 2008, and he hasn’t been back since. In fact, he seems to have retired completely, but at least he got a shot. Good for him.

2008 Upper Deck Timeline 1992 Flashback Pt. 6

And we resume the series, closing in on the end…

Yes, there are two Nationals in this subset, and I wanted to save them for last (and next-to-last). Tyler Clippard has completely revived his career the last two seasons, pitching to a 157 and 126 ERA+ respectively with enough innings for those numbers to actually mean something. He hasn’t been quite as effective of late, but I suspect that has to do with overuse – the guy has already appeared in 50 games this year. I still have faith in Clip, and I have an autographed version of this card, as well:

I will forever associate Chris Duncan with the asinine crap that went down with his exit from St. Louis. For those unfamiliar, when St. Louis (rightfully) dealt him to Boston for being unable to hit water falling out of a boat, his dad, pitching coach Dave Duncan, and manager Tony LaRussa were very butthurt and gave the front office trouble about it. But come on, the guy really was underperforming and fans didn’t like him. It was time for a change. And yes, technically Chris is a National now, though he hasn’t suited up for them in an official game yet. Here’s a shot of him from Spring Training, though:

Duncan is hitting .191 in Syracuse this year, so don’t expect to see him in Washington any time soon.

I had never heard of this guy when I pulled this card, and I still haven’t seen him in a game. To me, Janish looks and smells like a AAAA player, and the numbers bear it out, though he has managed a 109 OPS+ in 37 games this year (small sample size caveats aside). I also did not realize he pitched in two games last year, but was less than impressive.

Russ was one of the last two cards I needed to complete this set. I had high hopes for this guy once upon a time. He looked like another in the tradition of good-hitting Dodgers catchers in the mold of Mike Piazza, but lately he’s looked more like a Paul LoDuca. I also have something of a grudge against him because I picked him up last year for my fantasy team as what I thought would be a steal and he completely tanked and has kept it up this year.

Finally, we have Clay Timpner, another player who was a mystery to me. So far he has appeared in only two ML games with two at-bats, striking out both times, and hasn’t returned since 2008. No wonder I’d never heard of the guy. He’s playing at AA Richmond this year, with a .707 OPS. Meh.

So far, while I like the design of the subset, the player choices leave me more than a bit underwhelmed. There are some good players to come, sure, but nothing that’ll wow you. Thankfully, we’re almost done and can get to something better – 2002 UD Authentics.

The 1988 Project – Day Ten – Jose Rijo

1988 Fleer Update

Jose Rijo made his debut as a 19-year old with the New York Yankees in 1984 and was shipped to the Oakland A’s in the Rickey Henderson deal in the 1984 offseason. He had three up-and-down seasons with the A’s from 1985 to 1987 before being sent off to Cincinnati in return for Dave Parker. And promptly blew up in 1988. He had a 151 ERA+ and 3.5 WAR in 1988, the beginning of a great run for the team that would culminate in a 1990 World Series victory.

So obviously this shot was taken sometime at Wrigley Field in 1988, making it either 5/31/88 or 6/1/88, both games where he made scoreless appearances. As for the card itself, fairly standard; not much to say about it. The color is a little screwy, but the red on his uniform and the logo work with the 88 design.

1988 Score Rookies and Traded

Rijo pitched primarily in relief for the Reds in 88 and yet he still managed to go 13-8. Is that a testament to the strength of the Reds’ offense or the weakness? I’m not entirely sure.

This is a pretty cool card. I wish I could determine when the shot was taken, but it’s completely impossible. I think the action shot is great, though, and works a lot better than the Fleer card.

1988 Topps Traded

Jose’s worst 1988 nightmare was Marvell Wynne. Other people had a higher OPS against him, but in far fewer at-bats. In 12 at-bats against him, Wynne had a .364 BA, 2 home runs, and a 1.326 OPS. By contrast, he owned Benito Santiago and Keith Moreland (who appeared in these sets as well), holding them to a .211 and .182 OPS respectively. In fact, he held the entire Padres team to a .581 OPS. Only the Mets (.569), Pirates (.564), Astros (.381) and Expos (.327, that’s a 12 TOps+!) fared worse.

As for this card, well, it’s generic 1988 Topps, isn’t it? Just kind of there. It does, however, continue to confound me why they choose these colors for the team. Blue and yellow. What. Oh, well. Still a player worth covering.

2008 Upper Deck Timeline 1992 Flashback Pt. 5

…it is complete. I received the last two cards I needed for the subset yesterday. Woohoo! My first completed subset in…well…a loooong time. That means we will definitely look at the entire thing. I may move on to some other subsets of Timeline, but for right now I’m focused on some of the 2002 issues I talked about yesterday.

Poor Edinson. He looked so brilliant in 2008, then lost most of the last two years to injury. Given Johnny Cueto’s pitching motion, I always figured he would be the first of the two brilliant young pitchers to give out. I’m thinking Cueto will still eventually give out, but for now, it seems the Reds have both of them back in the rotation, along with some other great pitchers. Speaking of which, what the hell happened to Aaron Harang? That guy was a world-beater for awhile there, and now…wow. Just awful.

Anyway, Edinson returned recently and pitched a great game. Good for him! As for the card itself, I like it, but it’s not a standout in the set, exactly. They’ve applied that 92 filter (look at the way the light diffracts on his arm to understand what I’m talking about) that I just love so much (ugh), but the shot is vintage 92. It would definitely have fit in with the original set.

This was another one of those “Who?” cards when I pulled it from the blaster. Iribarren had a blistering 10 OPS+ in 15 plate appearances in 2008, and faired slightly, if not significantly, better in 2009 with a 78 OPS+. He managed a 0.0 WAR in 2009, making him the very definition of a replacement player. Good job? All I can think is he must be a glove guy, because his minor league numbers really aren’t much better. I mean, he had a .680 OPS in the friggin’ Pacific Coast League in 2008. Not exactly what you call a world-beater, but I’m always glad to see a guy like this get a card. Even if he never sticks, he’ll always have this to point to.

Let’s finish it up with a couple of Cubs. First is Reed Johnson. Reed joined the Cubs in 2008, so I wonder if he was included in this set as a sort of “traded” nod, because he’s kind of far from being the sort of young player Upper Deck seemed to be going for here. Reed’s never been the most amazing player, but 2008 was about par for the course, and shows why batting average is not the be-all end-all for judging a player. He hit a deceptive .303, but his obp was .358. Ick. He did, however, manage a 98 OPS+, not great for a corner outfielder and certainly below league average, but he accounted for 1.3 WAR. Not a terrible pickup from the scrap heap.

What a letdown this guy must be for Cubs fans. I remember the hype with him coming in, that he would be the next Ichiro or Hideki Matsui. What they got instead was a corner outfielder who couldn’t muster a 100 OPS+. Hell, even a 90 OPS+. He rebounded a bit last year, mustering a 104 OPS+ with a 3.1 WAR, but he’s back down again this year, and can’t seem to manage to get above a .260 batting average (one of those times when batting average does kind of matter). He’s been especially wretched in July. Just another thing that’s gone wrong for the Cubs.

2008 Upper Deck Timeline 1992 Flashback Pt. 3

I’m in the home stretch of completing this subset now…I think I only have one or two more cards that I need for it (I completely filled out two pages of the set last night and it was glorious). So. Let’s take a look at a few more cards from the set.

Votto.

With today being the All-Star Game, it seemed appropriate to lead off with Votto. Votto made the game at last, and uh…it seems kind of messed up that he had to be the last man added, given that he currently leads the NL in OBP, SLG, OPS, and OPS+ and is tied for the lead in home runs. Shouldn’t that be a no-brainer? The guy is kind of good. Anyway, I love this card. Nice, subdued shot – action but it doesn’t beat you over the head with it, and the color balance is nice, even if they’ve again applied that 1992 Upper Deck Mannequin Filter.

What

The first time I saw this last name, I thought “you must be kidding me, right?” Even in 2008, I’d never heard of the guy, which I guess makes sense, given that he was a low-round Cleveland pick who only made the majors as 28-year-old. This set has some damn odd choices for rookie cards, that’s for sure. Van Every seems to have bounced up and down between Boston and Pawtucket for the last few years, but I have a feeling he won’t stick long-term. One thing I like about this set is the photography; they went back to basics here with some old-school Upper Deck action, and I like it.

Now a Devil Ray.

Yeah, Matt Joyce was part of the deal that brought Edwin Jackson to the Tigers (before he was shipped off). It looks like his rookie year in Detroit was half-decent (a 2.2 WAR for a 23-year old outfielder isn’t bad), actually, so he was a decent choice for this set. Unfortunately, he seems to have gone downhill since then with Tampa Bay, but he’s only 25 so he still has time to pull it out.

The Edwin Jackson Connection lives.

And since we mentioned Edwin Jackson, this set also has the man that came from Arizona to Detroit for him. I’ve always had a good feeling about Scherzer, but it looks like he’s kind of been iffy for Detroit so far. Could it be the adjustment to the AL’s much more difficult offenses? Maybe. Could just be a down year, too. I guess we’ll see how he is after the All-Star Break. This card is my favorite of the ones pictured here. Good action shot? Check. Nice color choices? Check. Goofy pitching face? Check.

I received a big pack of these yesterday, so I’ll be writing about them more soon, as well as some other throwback-style sets that I’ve begun collecting.

The 1988 Project Day 5: Baseball’s Best Catch-Up Edition

As promised, here are the 1988 Donruss Baseball’s Best cards that correspond to the players we’ve seen so far (save Walt Weiss, who was not in the set). I’ve also done a comparison between the Rookies edition and Baseball’s Best, just for point of reference.

1988 Donruss Rookies

1988 Donruss Baseball's Best

I’ll talk about my feelings on the design of the Baseball’s Best set in a bit, but obviously I prefer the BB aside from the design…yeah that orange and red will scar your retina, but it’s a much better photo, far more engaging. And you can see his face!

1988 Donruss the Rookies

1988 Donruss Baseball's Best

The Leiter’s kind of funny. It’s probably from the same roll of film as the Rookies shot, but I like the Rookies one much better, for some reason. This one is interesting, though, almost in an alternate reality way. What if that had been Leiter’s Rookies card?

1988 Donruss the Rookies

1988 Donruss Baseball's Best

And finally, Grace. Let’s just say that this one is a definite downgrade. From interesting photo to too dark, and impossible to see his face. Just…yuck.

Okay, now, on to the design…up front, let me state that I had actually never seen an 88 Baseball’s Best card in person. I had the 89 set back in the day, and some of the 1990 cards (which were highly superior to the 1990 Donruss base set). The 1988? Wow. I didn’t think anything could be uglier than the base 88 design, but Donruss proved me wrong. “Yeah, let’s take an ugly-ass design and make it orange. That’ll work!” It is, without a doubt, one of the ugliest baseball card sets I’ve ever seen. I mean, the history is kinda cool. As I said, some of it has an alternate reality feel to it, but good lord. I would never have purchased this set outside of this project. Which means it’ll be fun as hell to see the differences. Just prepare your eyes.

The 1988 Project – Day Three – Chris Sabo – Significant Rookie (Then)

What would a 1988 update set be without Spuds, the 1988 NL rookie of the year? Nowhere, that’s where. Sabo was THE hot rookie of 1988. Odd-looking, intense, but talented, just about anyone wanted to “be” him when we played ball.

Side note, does anyone remember that whole aspect of sandlot ball? Or were we the only ones who did this? We’d pick teams and we got to “be” the player we picked. The other kids always picked the superstars, and I’d pick some obscure rookie or prospect; hell, I didn’t see the point of picking players anyway, so I figured I’d try to be as weird as possible. It’s the only reason I remember the existence of players like Sherwin Clintje (and yes, I had to order this card – expect to see it soon) to this day, honestly, so it was kind of neat for obscure minor leaguers, if nothing else.

Anyway. On to the Sabo goodness.

1988 Donruss Rookies

A shot of Sabo’s back. Meh. I guess there’s no doubt who he is, though, between the uniform and the glasses. Okay, gonna call this a crappy photo. I guess it’s showing his intensity, but you can only really see his profile (which is already obscured by the giant goggles). Not my favorite Sabo card.

Speaking of intensity…

1988 Fleer Update

No goggles?!?!? What trickery is this? Oddly, this was my favorite Sabo rookie back in the day, and I’m not even sure why. I look at it now and it’s boring as hell and lacking the goggles, but maybe that was what made it for me. I don’t know.

Oh, Chris Sabo, you are my nutty buddy…

1988 Score Rookie and Traded

Now that’s what I’m talking about. Classic Sabo pose, goggles representin’, poised to strike. This was one of the most desirable cards of this set, and you can see why. I didn’t get to see a copy til my mid-teens, by which time Sabo was pretty much done with as a fan favorite, but seeing it now is a lot of fun.

1988 Topps Traded

Well, how about that? Topps Traded with a pretty good action shot. If the actual photo quality were better (by which I mean the color balance, etc.), I’d be even happier, but that was a problem even the Traded sets struggled with when it came to Topps. For Topps, this is a damn good card, and was another key to the set back in the day.

Ultimately, of course, Sabo fell off after his rookie season, which is bound to happen to a 26-year old rookie who never OPSed far above 800 in the minors. And let’s not forget he had a .315 OBP that “amazing” rookie year of 1988. But he managed to last until 1996 with a 13.3 career WAR, so he didn’t totally suck. So hats off to you, Chris Sabo!