Month: December 2013

15 Years Ago Today: Luis Gonzalez for Karim Garcia

On this date in 1998, the Tigers signed free agent Gregg Jefferies to a two-year contract and traded outfielder Luis Gonzalez to the Diamondbacks for Karim Garcia.

A lifetime .289 hitter, Jeffries hit just .231 with a .639 OPS in 111 games for the 1999 and 2000 clubs.

In Gonzalez’s lone season with the Tigers he hit .267, 23 homers and 71 RBI with a .816 OPS. So you can understand why the Tigers were eager to deal him. He would become a legend in Arizona over eight seasons, hitting .298, with 224 homers and a .919 OPS.

Garcia? Well, he had less remarkable career in Detroit: in parts of two seasons, 1999 and 2000, he hit .236 with 14 homers and .708 OPS.

The Case for Jack Morris – and Everyone Else

Scott Raab of Esquire lobs this grenade into the Jack Morris/Hall of Fame discussion:

The Baseball Writers’ Association of America was founded in 1908 and boasts more than 800 members, many of whom were hypnotized at some point during the 1980s and programmed to vote Jack Morris into the Hall of Fame because — they really say this — “Jack Morris knew how to win,” which means that although Jack’s numbers aren’t dazzling in the context of Cooperstown, he had grit, and he was savvy, and he was a warrior, a legend, one of the best big-game pitchers baseball has ever seen.

In the other corner, living in their parents’ basements: the Sons of Bill James … He is Yahweh to a 30-year generation of dweebs, baseball writers and broadcasters, and general managers, and there is a general consensus among them that — based on a fair, square preponderance of data — Jack Morris, while a very good pitcher, was not among the very greatest, and is thus unworthy of the Hall.

Read the rest here.