Ken Harvey was sent down by the Royals after losing his battle with Calvin Pickering for the DH job. Harvey was an All-Star last season after finishing the first half with 10 home runs, 34 RBI, and .305/.353/.452/.805 in the ratio department. Of course, he finished up the year with 3 HR, 21 RBI, and .256/.311/.366/.677.

That made me wonder how often a player made the All-Star team, finishes up the season, and then was never heard from again. That is, assuming that Harvey's career is kaput.

Continue reading...

Paul Lukas has a remarkably detailed article on ESPN Page 2 documenting the minutest of uniform changes for 2005, truly remarkable stuff.

Whether it's the old Baltimore Orioles-inspired "O's" on the present-day Orioles alternate caps:

The Braves heinous homage to the mid-Seventies Cleveland unis:

Brian Schneider's habadasherial evolution, or the color of the Dodgers road uniform buttons, Lukas has it all.

He also reviews the Washington Nationals new uniforms preferring the ones that his readers concocted to the genuine article. I have to say that I'm might partial to this one that features a map of the District of Columbia within a baseball diamond.

Lukas also points out that the Nationals home uniform has a sleeve patch that disingenuously proclaims that the team was "Established 1905". The only reference to 1905 that I can find in DC baseball history is that it was the year that the official, but rarely if ever even mentioned, name of "Nationals" was given to the Washington team. Of course, they were always known as the Senators and this date has the most tenuous of connections to the new Nationals. But then again, this is the sport that re-dubbed Estadia Hiram Bithorn the anglicized Hiram Bithorn Stadium.

I have a guest appearance on The Baseball Analysts discussing the Braves dry spell of late in the postseason.

Also, kudos to anyone who still laughs when they hear the word "duty". Blessed are they.

Andres Galarraga retired the other day, shuffling off his Met-al coil with 399 home runs to his credit. I found it odd because I saw a Mets-Nats game the other day in which Galarraga went yard, as the kids are wont to say. That got me wondering how many players left the game within striking distance of a milestone.

Continue reading...

In the latest entry in the trade series, Studes looks at the biggest trades of all time. Surprise, Steve Jeltz for Jose DeJesus didn't make the list.

As I await an other season of mediocrity in the land of the Phils, I am left wondering where the team would be if they could develop a modicum of decent pitching.

The Phils have three potential starters who came from the organization—Randy Wolf, Brett Myers, and Gavin Floyd. Wolf has shown flashes of being a capable frontline starter and has on occasion drawn comparisons to Tom Glavine, but his career ERA is 4.13, just 4% better than the park-adjusted league average, and his career record is slightly better than .500 (59-56).

The best that can be said of Myers is that he won 14 games two seasons ago. He owns an abysmal 4.84 ERA (14% worse than the park-adjusted league average) in two and one-half seasons.

Floyd looked good in a brief call-up at the end of last season (3.49 ERA, 125 ERA+ in 28.1 IP), but it took a Padilla injury to secure him a spot in the rotation. Of course, that may be more an indictment of the Phils' decision makers than of his abilities.

Then, there's Cole Hammels, who is sure to be a midseason callup in 2005. And of course staff savior Ryan Madson who rescued many a failed start as the long reliever last year. The Phils' future relies on these young pitchers, but given their history, I'm not sanguine.

Continue reading...

Our NL roundtable is up on The Griddle. Order up.

My salad days,
When I was green in judgment, cold in blood,
To say as I said then!
—William "Author" Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra.

Annihilating all that's made
To a green thought in a green shade.
—Andrew Marvell "Wynne"

Dallas Green offers us his thoughts on the upcoming Phillies season:

"This team has been together for a good amount of time now. It's time it played up to its capabilities...

"It's time for them to look in the mirror and recognize that they're the ones who have to perform," Green said. "It's not the manager that has to perform. They can blame [ex-manager Larry] Bowa for last year, but now there's no one to blame.

"I think they're smart enough to realize that the onus is on them. Quit barking and whining. Stop worrying about the ballpark, the manager and the pitching coach and play ball. And win."

He pulled the same crap in 1980. He opened training camp with "There's no I in Team" and things went downhill from there. He alienated the players and in turn the team hated him right back. But it wasn't one of those inspirational types of hatred, like George Scott employed to motivate his troops in "Patton". The Phils meandered for three quarters of the season that year. As a matter of fact, on August 26, 1980, after the Phils lost two in a row by the same abysmal score,8-4, to the Dodgers at home, they were in third place, 3 and one-half games behind Pittsburgh and three full behind Montreal for second. They ended up winning it all after Ron Reed and a few others led a meeting to win in spite of Green. And then Green becomes a local legend even though his greatest accomplishment in the game was fleecing the Phils out of Ryne Sandberg as the Cubs' GM a couple of years later.

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Roberto Alomar quietly, and mercifully, retired from the Devil Ray camp last week. Now, I'm not going to try to convince you that Almoar was a Hall of Famer. I believe that his inclusion among the game's greats is a fait accompli. The question remains whether he will be a first-ballot type or have to wait like fellow second baseman Ryne Sandberg, who seemed a no-brainer as well. We'll find out around 2010.

Given the psyche of the average Hall voter, instead of plumbing those depths, I'd rather focus on two other questions regarding Alomar's career. My first question is where Alomar ranks among the great second baseman. Second, I have to wonder where he would rank if not for his precipitous fall after being traded to the Mets in 2002.

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Our old friend John J Perricone over at Only Baseball Matters writes from the heart about steroids, sportswriters, alternative media, and being a baseball fan. It's recommended reading:

[L]et me say that should [Hall of Fame] voters be pompous and self-righteous enough to deny Mark McGwire or Barry Bonds his plaque in Cooperstown; it will be their downfall.

Hallelujah, brother!

After looking at the best and worst transaction in the Phillies' history, I noticed that the Phils even with all their many past failures on the field came out in the black in Win Shares traded. They were up almost 4000 Win Shares Above Baseline (WSAB). How could arguably the worst franchise in baseball history come out ahead in transactions?

Then it occurred to me that even a poor team over time will come out ahead in transactional Win Shares. They have to. If you draft a future superstar and trade him away before he makes it big, the worst the team can do is break even: the career Win Shares they picked up in drafting the player at least equal those traded away.

Take Sandberg, for instance. In drafting him, the Phils pick up 199 WSAB. In trading him they lost 196 WSAB. So even one of the worst trades in baseball history results in a net of 3 Win Shares for the Phils.
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I am tired of a life of contention, and of being the personal object for the hatred of every man, who hates the present state of things.
—Thomas "Reggie" Jefferson in a letter to his daughter

Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou know’st thy estimate:
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;
My bonds in thee are all determinate.
—William "Author" Shakespeare—Get it? Bonds?

Barry Bonds, as you've probably heard, suffered a setback in rehabilitating his knee, requiring additional surgery, and now may miss the entire season. Bonds though is blaming the press—"I'm tired of my kids crying. You wanted me to jump off a bridge, I finally did. You finally brought me and my family down. ... So now go pick a different person."—as well as Lili Von Shtupp-esque, excessive ennui.

Given the BALCO situation and Congess's interest in the soft issue of steroids, some will speculate that the steroids had something to do with his situation. Certainly, the media's coverage of that subject is one of the major reasons that Bonds feels picked on. What else the juice has to do with Bonds' lack of vim is pure speculation—like that would stop anyone from speculating.

If Bonds does miss the entire 2005 season, what are the odds he could come back next season at age 41?
Continue reading...

Other entries in the Trade Series:

Mike: I’ll Take Manhattan: Baseball’s Most Lopsided Trades: Parts I, I (revised), II

A Quick One (Happy Mike)

Lee Even Stevens: Parts I, II—The Sexy Version

Cain and A-Rod—A Bling-Bling Rivalry: Parts I, II

Kansas City Blues: Part I

Baseball's Most Lopsided Trades—The Revenge of Glenn Davis

Awe-Phil?: Part I

Studes: The Best and Worst Teams of the Trade

Smoltz for Alexander

Next we'll look at the worst transactions:

#1:

Date: Prior to the 1901 Season.
Transaction: Nap Lajoie jumped to the Philadelphia Athletics.
Pre Career WS Diff: -93
Post Career WS Diff: -403
Pre Year WS Diff: 0
Post Year WS Diff: -42
WSAB Pre Career Diff: -48
WSAB Post Career Diff: -252
WSAB Pre Yr Diff: 0
WSAB Post Yr Diff: -32

Goodbye, Larry. Maybe if the Phils had called themselves the Naps, he would have stayed put.
Continue reading...

Other entries in the Trade Series:

Mike: I’ll Take Manhattan: Baseball’s Most Lopsided Trades: Parts I, I (revised), II

A Quick One (Happy Mike)

Lee Even Stevens: Parts I, II—The Sexy Version

Cain and A-Rod—A Bling-Bling Rivalry: Parts I, II

Kansas City Blues: Part I

Baseball's Most Lopsided Trades—The Revenge of Glenn Davis

Studes: The Best and Worst Teams of the Trade

Smoltz for Alexander

On June 8, 1971, the Phils drafted a shortstop from Ohio University "with two bad knees and a dream of becoming a big-league ballplayer" in the second round, right ahead of a third baseman by the name of George Brett. That draft pick would eventually become the best transaction the Phils ever made as Mike Schmidt—he was the pick if you couldn't tell by the reference to the maudlin speech—became arguably the greatest third baseman ever to play the game.

In the offseason prior to the 1901 season, the Phils' twenty-five-year-old starting second baseman jumped to the Philadelphia franchise in the newly major American League. As the Phils fought to bar Nap Lajoie from playing in the state by the next season, AL president Ban Johnson had Lajoie sold to Cleveland where the locals dubbed their nine the Naps. Lajoie would play another 16 seasons in the AL and, of course, go into the Hall of Fame. This would be the worst transaction in the Phils' history.

That is the best and worst the Phils ever did in acquiring or losing talent. So what's in between?
Continue reading...

Other entries in the Trade Series:

Mike: I’ll Take Manhattan: Baseball’s Most Lopsided Trades: Parts I, I (revised), II

A Quick One (Happy Mike)

Lee Even Stevens: Parts I, II—The Sexy Version

Cain and A-Rod—A Bling-Bling Rivalry: Parts I, II

Kansas City Blues: Part I

Studes: The Best and Worst Teams of the Trade

Smoltz for Alexander

I make them feel confident, and they make me feel safe, and pretty. 'Course, what I give them lasts a lifetime; what they give me lasts 142 games. Sometimes it seems like a bad trade. But bad trades are part of baseball -- now who can forget Frank Robinson for Milt Pappas, for God's sake?

—Annie Savoy in "Bull Durham"

Actually, Pappas et al-for-Robinson wound up tied 108th worst in my lopsided study since Pappas was a pretty decent pitcher after that.

That trade doesn't even compare with Glenn Davis for Curt Schilling, Steve Finley, and Pete Harnisch. Schilling is the hero of Beantown because of his postseason heroics. Finley has 285 career home runs. And Harnisch, though not as successful as the other two, was an All-Star his first year in Houston and won 45 games in four years as an Astro. Davis played parts of three seasons in Baltimore appearing in just 185 games and hitting a meager 24 home runs over that span.

However, the one criticism I heard continually about the study on lopsided trades was that the Davis trade could not be the second most lopsided ever because Houston never got the best years from the two best players in the deal. The 23-year-old Schilling lasted one year in Houston's pen. Finley played four seasons in the Astrodome but was nowhere near the power hitter he is today—his top home run total as a 'Stro was 11.

This was because I looked at the total value of the players involved over the rest of their careers. But, in the Yankee-KC A's analysis, I created a stat to look at how the traded players performed just for the teams to which they were traded, Interstitial Win Shares and Interstitial Win Shares Above Baseline (WSAB). So that it doesn't sound so highfalutin, let's just call them Team Win Shares and Team WSAB.

So using the new stats, which trades are the most lopsided all-time? Let's see…

#1:

Date: December 15, 1900
Trade: New York Giants sent Amos Rusie to Cincinnati for Christy Mathewson
Pre Career WS: -293
Post Career WS: 426
Pre Year WS: 0
PostYearWS: 21
WSAB Pre Career: -239
WSAB Post Career: 333
WSAB Pre Yr: 0
WSAB Post Yr: 15
WS Post for Team: 426
WSAB Post for Team: 333

Still number one.

#2:

Date: August 30, 1990
Trade: Boston sent Jeff Bagwell to Houston for Larry Andersen.
Pre Career WS: -63
Post Career WS: 338
Pre Year WS: -10
PostYearWS: -3
WSAB Pre Career: -22
WSAB Post Career: 237
WSAB Pre Yr: -6
WSAB Post Yr: -2
WS Post for Team: 382
WSAB Post for Team: 243

This replaces the other big Houston trade, the Glenn Davis trade, at number two. No matter what Bagwell does in Houston, he won't make up the 100 WSAB difference that separates this from number one.
Continue reading...

Other entries in the Trade Series:

Mike: I’ll Take Manhattan: Baseball’s Most Lopsided Trades: Parts I, I (revised), II

A Quick One (Happy Mike)

Lee Even Stevens: Parts I, II—The Sexy Version

Cain and A-Rod—A Bling-Bling Rivalry: Parts I, II

Kansas City Blues: Part I

Studes: The Best and Worst Teams of the Trade

Smoltz for Alexander

When we last left our heroes, the New York Yankees and Kansas City A's, I introduced the concept of Interstitial Trade Value. The idea was that the Yankees used the KC A's as a means to develop talent, as am affiliate club in the major leagues ostensibly competing directly with the Yankees for a championship. Interstitial Trade Value is a means to evaluate their incestuous interconnected trades in terms of what each team received in the interstices, the slices of time that each traded player performed for that team.

The only problem was that I hadn’t yet perform the data analysis to produce actual results. Well, that problem has been rectified. I now have a balance sheet of interstitial Win Shares and Win Shares Above Baseline (WSAB) for all 27 transactions between the two teams.

The first thing that struck me was that even though the Yankees "won" overall by about 71 Win Shares, but had an even larger edge in WSAB (79.32). That's something you don’t see in trade histories. A team just doesn’t get that much more WSAB, i.e. high-end talent, than Win Shares. Clearly, the Yankees were traded quantity for quality.

The Yankees really didn't outdo the A's in that many of the transactions (They both had advantages of at least 3 WSAB in three transactions and both "won" seven transactions in WSAB). They just clobbered them in the ones they did "win" though.

Here are their most lopsided trades (based on Interstitial WSAB):

#1:

Date: February 19, 1957
Trade: A's sent Bobby Shantz, Jack McMahan, Art Ditmar, Wayne Belardi, and two players to be named later (Clete Boyer, June 4, 1957 and Curt Roberts, April 4, 1957) to the Yankees Irv Noren, Milt Graff, Mickey McDermott, Tom Morgan, Rip Coleman, Billy Hunter, and for a player to be named later (Jack Urban, April 5, 1957).
Pre Career WS Diff: 110 (favoring KC)
Post Career WS Diff: 193 (NYY)
Pre Year WS Diff: 0
Post Year WS Diff: 4 (KC)
WSAB Pre Career Diff: 26 (KC)
WSAB Post Career Diff: 83 (NYY)
WSAB Pre Yr Diff: 0
WSAB Post Yr Diff: 6(NYY)
Int WS: 160 (NYY)
Int WSAB: 71 (NYY)

Bobby Shantz and Clete Boyer for not a whole lot. This one we know was a setup. Boyer was signed by the A's to a $40 K bonus in 1955 at the behest of the Yankees, the team later admitted. Note that the performance prior to the trade favors the A's and after favors the Yankees. This is the prototype: trade age and quantity for youth and quality.

#2:

Date: December 11, 1959
Trade: A's sent Roger Maris, Joe DeMaestri, and Kent Hadley to the Yankees for Hank Bauer, Don Larsen, Norm Siebern, and Marv Throneberry.
Pre Career WS Diff: 183 (favoring KC)
Post Career WS Diff: 11 (KC)
Pre Year WS Diff: 0
Post Year WS Diff: 1 (NYY)
WSAB Pre Career Diff: 85 (KC)
WSAB Post Career Diff: 21 (NYY)
WSAB Pre Yr Diff: 0
WSAB Post Yr Diff: 10(NYY)
Int WS: 44 (NYY)
Int WSAB: 34 (NYY)

The 37-year-old Bauer would play parts of two seasons with the A's, and Larson would go 2-10 in less than 100 innings in a little over a year. Siebern was a productive player for four seasons in KC.

Maris would win two straight MVPs over the next two seasons, and, oh yeah, he would break Babe Ruth's single-season home run record in two years.

This may even be a better example of Yankee-KC trades than the first. The Yankees traded bigger names to get the player they needed. It's telling that they lost the post-trade career Win Share battle, given that they gave up four players. The won the Interstitial battle and the post-trade WSAB battle.

#3:

Date: October 16, 1956
Trade: A's purchase Bob Cerv from the Yankees.
Int WS: 53 (KC)
Int WSAB: 24 (KC)

Casey Stengel famously informed Cerv of this trade by saying, "Nobody knows this, but one of us has been traded to Kansas City."

Cerv was one player for which the Yankee strategy never worked. He was a decent bench player in New York until age 30. Then after being exiled to the A's he had two monster seasons (1958 38/104 /.305 and 1959 20/87/.285). In the middle of the next season, the Yankees traded to get Cerv back. He gave them an average half-season and then was drafted by the expansion Angels. The Yankees must have acquired a taste for Cerv because they traded to get him back mid-1961. He was stinking up the place (.118 BA) by 1962.

Like Marty Fufkin, the Yankees had no timing where it came to Cerv.

#4:

Date: May 26, 1959
Trade: A's sent Ralph Terry and Hector Lopez to the Yankees for Jerry Lumpe, Johnny Kucks, and Tom Sturdivant.
Pre Career WS Diff: 9 (favoring NYY)
Post Career WS Diff: 2 (NYY)
Pre Year WS Diff: 6 (NYY)
Post Year WS Diff: 2 (NYY)
WSAB Pre Career Diff: 4 (NYY)
WSAB Post Career Diff: 9(NYY)
WSAB Pre Yr Diff: 2 (NYY)
WSAB Post Yr Diff: 7(NYY)
Int WS: 56 (NYY)
Int WSAB: 22 (NYY)

The Yankees get Terry back after sending him to KC for seasoning. Lumpe turned into a decent middle infielder for the A's, but that was really a surprise.

#5:

Date: March 30, 1955:
Trade: A's purchase Tom Gorman from the Yankees.
Int WS: 38 (KC)
Int WSAB: 18 (KC)

Gorman was another superfluous player exiled to KC. He had a decent career as a reliever and part-time starter there, but never performed so well that the Yankees tried to get him back.

The rest of the transactions resulted in no more than four Interstitial WSAB. So that's it. The Yankees clobbered the A's with those three big trades. The A's got a couple of decent players shipped from NYC. It seems kind of anticlimactic, but it does establish a pattern that at best does not speak well of the A's decision-making. Given that the Yankees were typically shipping bench players or marginal starters to and from the A's, the rest of the trades really don't seem to make much of an impact.

Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.
—Speech of “a foolish woman” in the Bible: Proverbs ix. 17

MLB.com has an article that proclaims:

[L]ike so many trends that cycle through life and baseball, the running game is coming back.

They site the Marlins' World Series win from two seasons ago, the Padres' acquisition of ALCS stolen base hero Dave Roberts, Ozzie Guillen's re-imaging of the Chisox, and Omar Vizquel's ill-conceived signing in San Francisco.

I read the article and thought, "Hmm, could the stolen base be making a comeback unbeknownst to me?" Hey, if Terri Hatcher, bell bottoms, and Aerosmith can make comebacks, why not the stolen base?

So I brushed aside the anecdotal evidence and the annual "Dave Roberts is an All-Star" rhetoric and looked at the numbers. I ran a query to compare stolen bases and stolen base percentage along with batting ratios to a given team's runs per game ratio for every year since 1990. Here's what I found (the best statistic for correlating to R/G is bolded each year):

Yr	SB	SB%	BA	OBP	SLUG	OPS	HR/PA
1990	-0.344	-0.121	0.533	0.455	0.885	0.874	0.619
1991	-0.155	0.061	0.645	0.855	0.866	0.924	0.632
1992	0.038	0.338	0.676	0.854	0.846	0.915	0.638
1993	-0.007	0.102	0.778	0.820	0.890	0.938	0.654
1994	0.267	0.171	0.737	0.867	0.908	0.940	0.663
1995	0.242	0.037	0.843	0.913	0.894	0.953	0.629
1996	-0.062	0.026	0.833	0.906	0.938	0.961	0.677
1997	-0.276	-0.214	0.871	0.919	0.869	0.943	0.718
1998	0.073	0.149	0.841	0.946	0.890	0.944	0.720
1999	0.188	0.408	0.761	0.879	0.879	0.958	0.646
2000	0.052	0.206	0.797	0.941	0.869	0.929	0.599
2001	0.068	0.336	0.839	0.929	0.879	0.934	0.655
2002	-0.053	0.368	0.832	0.833	0.914	0.935	0.638
2003	-0.182	0.237	0.886	0.916	0.953	0.974	0.704
2004	-0.167	-0.151	0.802	0.875	0.928	0.970	0.716

The only trend that I see in the data is with the ratio stats. OPS took over as the power surge of the early Nineties took hold. By the end of the Nineties, Billy Beane's favorite stat OBP seemed to be eclipsing OPS, but then OPS took over again and Slugging quickly passed OBP.

Meanwhile, stolen bases and stolen base percentage have had very little to do with scoring over the last fifteen years. They had a slight correlation (esp. SB%) from 1999-2003, but slide to actually a very slight negative correlation last year.

If anything, the stolen base had less to do with scoring in 2004 than they had in the previous six seasons.

But maybe looking at the team stats gives an incomplete picture. What about leadoff men? Maybe having one that can steal an extra base from time to time leads to higher scoring?

Let's take a look at 2004. Here are the stats for all teams from the leadoff spot in 2004 sorted by Runs Per Game:

TEAM	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	SB	CS	SB%	HR/PA	R/G
Boston	.294	.370	.455	.825	20	10	66.67%	2.51%	.833
San Francisco	.276	.359	.480	.839	12	7	63.16%	3.29%	.827
NY Yankees	.276	.347	.446	.792	9	11	45.00%	2.57%	.759
Cleveland	.297	.373	.483	.856	19	8	70.37%	3.56%	.747
Philadelphia	.275	.339	.432	.771	25	8	75.76%	1.90%	.728
Atlanta	.260	.320	.386	.706	29	10	74.36%	1.94%	.722
Tampa Bay	.298	.338	.446	.784	60	15	80.00%	1.48%	.720
Baltimore	.275	.341	.388	.730	28	13	68.29%	0.76%	.716
Texas	.301	.354	.481	.836	18	4	81.82%	3.01%	.704
Montreal	.258	.348	.457	.806	17	7	70.83%	3.85%	.698
Anaheim	.291	.350	.377	.726	23	7	76.67%	0.52%	.691
Houston	.283	.342	.462	.804	7	2	77.78%	3.00%	.679
St. Louis	.293	.335	.377	.712	27	7	79.41%	0.92%	.654
San Diego	.288	.334	.395	.729	11	5	68.75%	1.30%	.654
Chicago Sox	.279	.349	.414	.764	23	11	67.65%	2.25%	.648
Seattle	.368	.412	.452	.864	33	12	73.33%	1.15%	.648
Chicago Cubs	.269	.329	.464	.793	21	8	72.41%	3.79%	.642
Los Angeles	.276	.335	.394	.728	48	7	87.27%	1.18%	.636
Oakland	.310	.366	.462	.828	12	5	70.59%	2.41%	.617
Florida	.337	.383	.429	.812	39	21	65.00%	0.67%	.617
Kansas City	.254	.324	.357	.682	19	12	61.29%	1.34%	.605
Cincinnati	.248	.353	.342	.695	33	11	75.00%	0.91%	.593
Milwaukee	.246	.315	.366	.681	71	13	84.52%	1.59%	.590
Colorado	.280	.320	.372	.692	12	11	52.17%	1.41%	.586
Minnesota	.293	.362	.424	.786	12	5	70.59%	2.22%	.568
Toronto	.281	.335	.419	.754	6	4	60.00%	2.52%	.553
Detroit	.277	.309	.377	.687	28	17	62.22%	1.56%	.549
NY Mets	.239	.291	.377	.668	32	9	78.05%	1.98%	.549
Pittsburgh	.301	.364	.382	.745	12	8	60.00%	0.53%	.540
Arizona	.247	.296	.374	.670	11	12	47.83%	1.73%	.488

OK, so how well do the key leadoff stats correlate to runs per game from the leadoff spot? Here goes:

BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	SB	SB%	HR/PA
.173	.393	.592	.583	-.021	.159	.371

So, basically nothing correlates well to scoring from the leadoff spot. Surprisingly, slugging average correlates the best though not well at all.

Most important, stolen bases and stolen base percentage have apparently nothing to do with high scoring from the leadoff spot. They are the two lowest on the board. Besides the top stolen base total was for Milwaukee, one of the lowest scoring teams from the leadoff spot.

My conclusion? It was a slow news day at MLB.com. There's no empirical evidence that the stolen base is back. But I wouldn't mind if they did over the next few years if it helps the underrated Tim Raines get into the Hall.

Danny Gardella, who was involved in a once-famous case against baseball reserve clause, died last week at age 85.

Gardella's was probably the most serious challenge to the reserve clause between Monte Ward's and Curt Flood's. Gardella was banned from the majors for "jumping" to the brand spanking new Mexican league in 1946. Even though he hit 18 homers in 1945, with more players returning from the war, Gardella had expected to be sent back down to the minors and instead decided on trying the new league. Gardella changed his mind and attempted to return to organized ball but was rebuffed. Commissioner Happy Chandler had already issued a suspension for all jumpers to the new rival league.

Gardella sued, claiming that he had not signed a contract for 1946, so the only thing holding him to his ‘45 team (the Giants) was the reserve clause. Gardella won in the Federal courts on appeal and baseball settled with him out of court in 1949 (for $29 K). Gardella returned for one game with the Cardinals in 1950.

Much of this has been reported. However, a rather salient point never seems to get much coverage. Perhaps expecting a rather shortlived interleague battle, Chandler issued the mandatory suspension for just five years. Gardella's case was settled just in time for the 1950 season. Had he just waited out the suspension, he might have returned at the same time.

Another odd story about Gardella was that he once shocked his roommate with a fake suicide note. When the roommate read the note and saw an open hotel window, he immediately rushed to the window only to find Gardella waiting on the ledge to surprise him. And you thought Ashton Kutcher was cruel.

My friend Chris informs me that I was listed in the bibliography section of one of the articles in this year's Baseball Research Journal from SABR. I just received it the other day but had yet to really peruse it. The article is "The Worst Team Ever?" by Jerry Nechal in reference to the 2003 Tigers.

At the end of 2003, I took a look at the execrableness of the Tigers, among other random issues, and found them to be the worst team ever. I called the article "End of Days: Detroit!?! No, Not Detroit!", a reference to the late, great "Kentucky Fried Movie" of Big Jim Slade fame. Alas my site didn't even get a plug since the author referenced another that re-packaged my stiff about a year ago. However, I still think it's hilarious that the old KFM reference made it into a bibilography next to the likes of Baseball-Reference, Robert Creamer, and Fred Lieb.

To quote the incomparable Yakov Smirnoff, "What a country!"

An endless imbroglio
Is law and the world,—
Then first shalt thou know,
That in the wild turmoil,
Horsed on the Proteus,
Thou ridest to power,
And to endurance.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

The other day while reviewing Rick Ankiel's stunted pitching career, I investigated all-time pitching wildness. One thing that I noticed was the fact that what was considered "wild" varied greatly depending on era. Given that, I broke out the best and worst dependent on approximately 25-year periods. But this led me down a different path entirely.

I continued evaluating wildness adjusted for league and year average and deciding to throw strikeouts into the mix. What I ended up with is, I believe, an index for pitching power and control, which I thought was pretty cool.

I used the league average to estimate the expected incidents of wildness (non-intentional walks, wild pitches, balks, and hit batsmen) for each pitcher in every year. I, then, used this to calculate the career Wildness per nine innings pitched above expectation for every pitcher (min.200 innings) along with his strikeouts per nine innings above expectation.

It then occurred to me that I could combine the two to derive a pitching power-control index (by subtracting a relative minimum from each and multiplying them). Without further ado here are the top fifty (note that Career Wild per 9 IP Above Exp is expressed as a negative. That is, negative values are good; positives, bad. The reverse is true of Career K per 9IP Above Exp.):

Name	IP	Career Wild per 9 IP Above Exp	Career K per 9IP Above Exp	Power/Control
Billy Wagner	552.7	0.273	5.486	54.809
Tom Henke	789.7	-0.332	4.119	50.762
Pedro Martinez	2296.0	-0.390	3.979	50.221
Bryan Harvey	387.0	0.354	4.754	49.584
Trevor Hoffman	764.7	-0.728	3.485	49.097
Mark Prior	446.7	-0.163	3.998	48.695
Randy Johnson	3368.0	0.642	4.839	47.772
Rob Dibble	477.0	1.786	6.331	45.530
John Wetteland	765.0	-0.137	3.356	44.233
Robb Nen	715.0	-0.112	3.301	43.700
Eric Gagne	530.0	0.087	3.456	43.389
Armando Benitez	654.0	1.139	4.770	43.362
Sandy Koufax	2324.3	0.393	3.712	42.888
Kazuhiro Sasaki	223.3	0.172	3.457	42.821
Octavio Dotel	585.0	0.782	4.162	42.746
Dazzy Vance	2966.7	0.042	3.294	42.642
Troy Percival	586.7	0.806	4.148	42.493
Lee Smith	1289.3	-0.158	3.017	42.110
Curt Schilling	2812.7	-1.095	2.237	42.080
Dick Radatz	693.7	0.721	3.853	41.412
Ugueth Urbina	617.7	0.698	3.800	41.265
Keith Foulke	660.3	-0.927	2.172	40.671
Bruce Sutter	1042.3	-0.748	2.135	39.425
Paul Assenmacher	855.7	-0.239	2.513	39.215
Rube Waddell	2961.3	0.650	3.390	39.207
Roger Clemens	4493.0	-0.046	2.678	39.180
Bill Caudill	667.0	0.661	3.286	38.518
Victor Cruz	271.0	0.947	3.608	38.428
Duane Ward	666.7	0.941	3.568	38.251
Dan Plesac	1072.0	0.103	2.657	38.156
Johan Santana	624.3	0.691	3.253	38.125
Mariano Rivera	728.3	-0.987	1.715	37.567
Lefty Grove	3940.7	-0.665	1.927	37.481
B.J. Ryan	311.0	1.560	4.240	37.339
Damaso Marte	258.7	0.584	2.990	37.268
Toad Ramsey	2100.7	0.332	2.697	37.037
Dizzy Dean	1967.3	-0.471	2.002	36.990
Billy Taylor	324.7	-0.219	2.191	36.927
Todd Worrell	693.7	-0.450	2.007	36.911
Tom Hall	852.7	0.618	2.954	36.841
Rollie Fingers	1701.3	-0.825	1.700	36.650
David Riske	244.7	1.245	3.639	36.538
Jeff Zimmerman	228.7	-0.232	2.071	36.197
Dennis Eckersley	3285.7	-1.203	1.390	36.140
Ron Guidry	2392.0	-0.684	1.715	36.047
Randy Myers	884.7	0.777	2.953	35.843
Antonio Osuna	486.3	0.483	2.647	35.836
Luis DeLeon	334.3	-1.441	1.208	35.803
Buddy Schultz	240.0	-0.202	2.032	35.765
Walter Johnson	5914.7	-0.464	1.813	35.633

And here are the worst power-control pitchers:

Name	IP	Career Wild per 9 IP Above Exp	Career K per 9IP Above Exp	Power/Control
Aaron Cook	256.3	1.184	-3.291	0.000
Dick Weik	213.7	6.518	1.463	0.000
Nate Cornejo	313.0	0.161	-3.247	0.284
Jimmy Anderson	574.7	0.627	-3.054	1.399
Roger Bailey	356.0	1.300	-2.697	3.102
Jeff Ballard	773.3	-0.479	-2.817	3.315
Jimmy Gobble	200.7	-0.156	-2.771	3.469
Kirk Rueter	1810.7	-0.767	-2.777	3.742
Randy Martz	290.7	0.053	-2.695	3.854
John Doherty	521.3	-1.116	-2.761	4.046
Chris George	237.3	0.942	-2.538	4.198
Dennis Stark	254.0	1.088	-2.443	4.606
Marty Clary	225.0	0.013	-2.580	4.625
Bob Wiesler	241.3	4.939	-0.348	4.647
Carlos Silva	374.3	-0.508	-2.599	4.866
Larry Bearnarth	322.7	1.159	-2.380	4.881
Doug Sisk	523.3	1.393	-2.331	4.918
Dennis Springer	655.3	0.714	-2.440	4.938
Jaime Cocanower	365.7	2.923	-1.812	5.316
Reid Cornelius	211.0	0.558	-2.399	5.316
Jerry Bell	283.0	0.637	-2.374	5.393
Brian Meadows	816.3	-0.973	-2.543	5.607
Jamey Wright	1134.3	1.936	-2.031	5.773
Steve Kline	750.3	-1.005	-2.499	5.961
Dan Serafini	263.3	0.725	-2.242	6.079

Here is a rundown of the "wildest" and "mildest" per era (approx. every 25 years) based on the stat from the Ankiel research. This is followed by the current wildest/mildest-ers.

1871-1900	Wildest
Name	W	L	ERA	IP	BB	WP	HBP	BK	IBB	Wild	FirstYr
Cy Seymour	61	56	3.76	1029.0	655	60	84	8	0	7.06	1896
Bill Daley	29	16	3.49	409.7	291	10	8	0	0	6.79	1889
Mike Morrison	20	39	5.14	504.7	325	21	33	0	0	6.76	1887
Ed Crane	72	96	3.99	1550.3	887	145	23	0	0	6.12	1884
George Keefe	20	48	5.05	616.3	360	39	10	0	0	5.97	1886
Kirtley Baker	9	38	6.16	371.0	186	30	23	0	0	5.80	1890
Jack Easton	26	29	4.12	522.3	262	46	27	0	0	5.77	1889
Ed Doheny	75	83	3.75	1392.7	665	87	132	4	0	5.74	1895
Ed Knouff	20	20	4.17	343.0	175	15	28	0	0	5.72	1885
John Sowders	25	32	4.29	497.0	271	34	9	0	0	5.69	1887
1871-1900	Mildest
Name	W	L	ERA	IP	BB	WP	HBP	BK	IBB	Wild	FirstYr
Al Spalding	253	65	2.14	2890.7	156	1	0	0	0	0.49	1871
John Cassidy	2	21	4.06	232.7	13	0	0	0	0	0.50	1875
Bill Stearns	12	64	4.98	705.0	43	0	0	0	0	0.55	1871
Cherokee Fisher	57	84	2.83	1319.7	77	7	0	0	0	0.57	1871
Candy Cummings	145	94	2.49	2149.7	117	22	0	0	0	0.58	1872
George Zettlein	129	112	2.78	2175.7	148	4	0	0	0	0.63	1871
Jim Britt	26	64	4.38	816.7	59	0	0	0	0	0.65	1872
Tommy Bond	234	163	2.31	3628.7	198	80	2	0	0	0.69	1874
George Bechtel	7	20	4.13	246.0	19	0	0	0	0	0.70	1871
Dick McBride	149	78	2.85	2081.7	172	1	0	0	0	0.75	1871
1901-1925	Wildest
Name	W	L	ERA	IP	BB	WP	HBP	BK	IBB	Wild	FirstYr
George Boehler	6	12	4.71	202.3	134	14	19	0	0	7.43	1912
Carl Cashion	12	13	3.70	255.7	170	15	16	2	0	7.15	1911
Grover Lowdermilk	23	39	3.58	590.3	376	22	37	1	0	6.65	1909
Sandy Burk	4	11	4.25	218.3	133	9	12	2	0	6.43	1910
Joe Engel	17	23	3.34	407.3	242	18	24	5	0	6.39	1912
Weldon Wyckoff	23	34	3.55	573.7	357	32	16	1	0	6.37	1913
Joe Giard	13	15	5.96	277.7	173	5	6	0	0	5.96	1925
Roy Moore	11	26	4.98	406.7	239	13	15	0	0	5.91	1920
Gene Krapp	40	47	3.23	764.3	418	36	32	3	0	5.76	1911
Lefty Weinert	18	33	4.59	437.0	222	20	21	3	0	5.48	1919
1901-1925	Mildest
Name	W	L	ERA	IP	BB	WP	HBP	BK	IBB	Wild	FirstYr
Babe Adams	194	140	2.76	2995.3	430	26	47	2	0	1.52	1906
Red Lucas	157	135	3.72	2542.0	455	7	23	6	0	1.74	1923
Addie Joss	160	97	1.89	2327.0	364	28	60	2	0	1.76	1902
Elmer Steele	18	24	2.41	418.0	68	2	8	4	0	1.77	1907
Pete Alexander	373	208	2.56	5190.0	951	39	70	1	0	1.84	1911
Ray Collins	84	62	2.51	1336.0	269	11	10	2	0	1.97	1909
Jesse Barnes	152	150	3.22	2569.7	515	22	25	0	0	1.97	1915
Slim Sallee	174	143	2.56	2821.7	573	12	43	5	0	2.02	1908
Pete Donohue	134	118	3.87	2112.3	422	10	46	4	0	2.05	1921
Dick Rudolph	121	108	2.66	2049.0	402	39	27	3	0	2.07	1910
1926-1950	Wildest
Name	W	L	ERA	IP	BB	WP	HBP	BK	IBB	Wild	FirstYr
Dick Weik	6	22	5.90	213.7	237	19	2	1	0	10.91	1948
Dave Cole	6	18	4.93	237.3	199	12	7	1	0	8.30	1950
Carl Doyle	6	15	6.95	222.7	155	16	17	2	0	7.68	1935
Tommy Byrne	85	69	4.11	1362.0	1037	28	85	4	10	7.56	1943
Ken Johnson	12	14	4.58	269.3	195	16	9	1	0	7.38	1947
Emmett O'Neill	15	26	4.76	355.7	260	16	8	2	0	7.24	1943
Lefty Mills	15	30	6.06	435.0	302	20	19	1	0	7.08	1934
Rex Barney	35	31	4.31	597.7	410	21	15	4	0	6.78	1943
Johnny Lindell	8	18	4.47	251.7	161	12	7	1	0	6.47	1941
Lou Kretlow	27	47	4.87	785.3	522	25	10	0	4	6.34	1946
1926-1950	Mildest
Name	W	L	ERA	IP	BB	WP	HBP	BK	IBB	Wild	FirstYr
Tiny Bonham	103	72	3.06	1551.0	287	4	9	2	0	1.75	1940
Robin Roberts	286	245	3.41	4688.7	902	33	54	3	69	1.77	1948
Lew Burdette	203	144	3.66	3067.3	628	23	56	7	63	1.91	1950
Ken Raffensberger	119	154	3.60	2151.7	449	10	19	3	0	2.01	1939
Joe Ostrowski	23	25	4.54	455.7	98	2	2	1	0	2.03	1948
Vern Law	162	147	3.77	2672.0	597	39	40	3	74	2.04	1950
Ray Prim	22	21	3.56	351.0	72	8	1	0	0	2.08	1933
Carl Hubbell	253	154	2.98	3590.3	725	53	53	1	0	2.09	1928
Paul Derringer	223	212	3.46	3645.0	761	50	32	2	0	2.09	1931
Curt Davis	158	131	3.42	2325.0	479	20	47	2	0	2.12	1934
1951-1975	Wildest
Name	W	L	ERA	IP	BB	WP	HBP	BK	IBB	Wild	FirstYr
Bob Wiesler	7	19	5.74	241.3	218	11	6	4	1	8.88	1951
Ken Wright	11	15	4.54	236.0	180	11	11	3	1	7.78	1970
Ryne Duren	27	44	3.83	589.3	392	38	41	3	15	7.01	1954
John D'Acquisto	34	51	4.56	779.7	544	56	19	5	25	6.91	1973
Lowell Palmer	5	18	5.29	316.7	202	35	23	1	18	6.91	1969
Bill Laxton	3	10	4.73	243.3	158	18	15	3	14	6.66	1970
Herb Score	55	46	3.36	858.3	573	55	7	2	7	6.61	1955
Lloyd Allen	8	25	4.69	297.3	196	27	11	2	18	6.60	1969
Preston Hanna	17	25	4.61	437.3	279	36	11	3	16	6.44	1975
Dave Jolly	16	14	3.77	291.3	198	12	7	0	11	6.36	1953
1951-1975	Mildest
Name	W	L	ERA	IP	BB	WP	HBP	BK	IBB	Wild	FirstYr
Dick Hall	93	75	3.32	1259.7	236	1	18	0	70	1.32	1952
Oscar Zamora	13	14	4.53	224.7	58	2	1	3	21	1.72	1974
Fritz Peterson	133	131	3.30	2218.3	426	33	42	6	75	1.75	1966
Juan Marichal	243	142	2.89	3507.3	709	51	40	20	82	1.89	1960
Ron Taylor	45	43	3.93	800.0	209	12	21	5	76	1.92	1962
Roy Face	104	95	3.48	1375.0	362	32	14	2	106	1.99	1953
Pedro Borbon	69	39	3.52	1026.7	251	24	28	7	83	1.99	1969
Jim Barr	101	112	3.56	2065.3	469	22	30	14	74	2.01	1971
Jim Merritt	81	86	3.65	1483.0	322	32	25	1	45	2.03	1965
Don Rudolph	18	32	4.00	450.3	102	3	9	2	13	2.06	1957
1976-Present	Wildest
Name	W	L	ERA	IP	BB	WP	HBP	BK	IBB	Wild	FirstYr
Mitch Williams	45	58	3.65	691.3	544	44	52	24	39	8.14	1986
Ed Correa	16	19	5.16	282.7	189	29	7	2	4	7.10	1985
Doug Creek	7	14	5.19	267.0	192	16	17	0	16	7.04	1995
John Rocker	13	22	3.42	255.3	164	29	12	4	17	6.77	1998
Mark Clear	71	49	3.85	804.3	554	49	35	8	45	6.72	1979
Victor Zambrano	37	27	4.45	495.7	294	35	43	3	9	6.65	2001
Dwayne Henry	14	15	4.65	334.7	216	41	9	3	22	6.64	1984
Richie Lewis	14	15	4.88	293.3	191	37	8	6	29	6.54	1992
Kazuhisa Ishii	36	25	4.30	473.0	305	20	14	2	9	6.32	2002
Jose DeJesus	20	19	3.84	349.0	227	17	6	0	8	6.24	1988
1976-Present	Mildest
Name	W	L	ERA	IP	BB	WP	HBP	BK	IBB	Wild	FirstYr
Dan Quisenberry	56	46	2.76	1043.3	162	4	7	5	70	0.93	1979
Bob Tewksbury	110	102	3.92	1807.0	292	24	41	7	22	1.70	1986
Luis DeLeon	17	19	3.12	334.3	77	3	12	0	26	1.78	1981
Tim Crews	11	13	3.44	423.7	110	10	7	1	43	1.81	1987
Steve Howe	47	41	3.03	606.0	139	17	18	2	54	1.81	1980
Rick Reed	93	76	4.03	1545.7	285	11	44	5	28	1.85	1988
Josh Towers	25	23	4.96	348.3	54	3	19	1	5	1.86	2001
Jon Lieber	100	91	4.20	1687.0	329	23	33	12	34	1.94	1994
Eric Hillman	4	14	4.85	232.0	45	2	8	2	7	1.94	1992
Greg Maddux	305	174	2.95	4181.3	871	55	118	26	158	1.96	1986
Active	Wildest
Name	W	L	ERA	IP	BB	WP	HBP	BK	IBB	Wild	FirstYr
Victor Zambrano	37	27	4.45	495.7	294	35	43	3	9	6.65	2001
Kazuhisa Ishii	36	25	4.30	473.0	305	20	14	2	9	6.32	2002
Scott Williamson	25	24	2.98	371.3	208	59	11	2	25	6.18	1999
Matt Mantei	13	18	3.86	296.3	176	14	18	0	8	6.07	1995
Rick Ankiel	13	10	3.90	242.0	130	20	12	2	2	6.02	1999
Dennys Reyes	19	29	4.76	476.0	273	45	11	6	18	5.99	1997
Bobby Jones	14	21	5.77	324.7	195	8	16	1	4	5.99	1997
Matt Perisho	9	17	6.60	262.0	151	11	17	2	7	5.98	1997
Toby Borland	11	9	4.17	269.7	146	33	18	0	19	5.94	1994
Jason Grimsley	40	54	4.74	887.0	481	94	47	2	42	5.91	1989
Active	Mildest
Name	W	L	ERA	IP	BB	WP	HBP	BK	IBB	Wild	FirstYr
Josh Towers	25	23	4.96	348.3	54	3	19	1	5	1.86	2001
Jon Lieber	100	91	4.20	1687.0	329	23	33	12	34	1.94	1994
Greg Maddux	305	174	2.95	4181.3	871	55	118	26	158	1.96	1986
Brad Radke	127	118	4.23	2088.0	390	24	54	3	8	2.00	1995
Gabe White	34	26	4.55	562.3	140	6	16	0	25	2.19	1994
Brian Anderson	81	81	4.69	1516.3	333	22	23	27	27	2.24	1993
Mike Mussina	211	119	3.59	2833.3	637	61	36	1	23	2.26	1991
David Wells	212	136	4.03	3022.3	644	96	71	16	60	2.28	1987
Curt Schilling	184	123	3.32	2812.7	638	70	44	7	41	2.30	1988
Paul Quantrill	66	76	3.74	1186.7	322	5	42	7	65	2.36	1992

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As of today Rich Ankiel is no longer going to be cut by the Cardinals as a pitcher. He's going to be sent down this time with the designation of outfielder in front of his name.

Ankiel, a career .207 hitter, announced that his pitching days are over. Surprisingly, his pitching coach Dave Duncan was caught unawares—"I've been trying to get him ready to pitch". He added, "Doh!"

Ankiel will be remembered as promising pitcher who had problems with wildness, was stalked by the media, and had his share of injuries. I can't say what kind of outfielder he'll be remembered as, but I don’t expect that his second career will add much to his baseball epitaph.

Anyway, now that the book is closed on his pitching career let's look at just how wild he was. For every pitcher all time, I added (non-intentional) walks, balks, wild pitches, and hit batsmen and prorated them per nine innings (Actually, minimum of 200 innings pitched). Ankiel came in 61st out of 3020 pitchers. Here are the wildest pitchers all-time along with Ankiel's stats for comparison's sake:

Name	W	L	ERA	IP	BB	WP	HBP	BK	IBB	Wild
Dick Weik	6	22	5.90	213.7	237	19	2	1	0	10.91
Bob Wiesler	7	19	5.74	241.3	218	11	6	4	1	8.88
Dave Cole	6	18	4.93	237.3	199	12	7	1	0	8.30
Mitch Williams	45	58	3.65	691.3	544	44	52	24	39	8.14
Ken Wright	11	15	4.54	236.0	180	11	11	3	1	7.78
Carl Doyle	6	15	6.95	222.7	155	16	17	2	0	7.68
Tommy Byrne	85	69	4.11	1,362.0	1037	28	85	4	10	7.56
George Boehler	6	12	4.71	202.3	134	14	19	0	0	7.43
Ken Johnson	12	14	4.58	269.3	195	16	9	1	0	7.38
Emmett O'Neill	15	26	4.76	355.7	260	16	8	2	0	7.24
Carl Cashion	12	13	3.70	255.7	170	15	16	2	0	7.15
Ed Correa	16	19	5.16	282.7	189	29	7	2	4	7.10
Lefty Mills	15	30	6.06	435.0	302	20	19	1	0	7.08
Cy Seymour	61	56	3.76	1,029.0	655	60	84	8	0	7.06
Doug Creek	7	14	5.19	267.0	192	16	17	0	16	7.04
Ryne Duren	27	44	3.83	589.3	392	38	41	3	15	7.01
John D'Acquisto	34	51	4.56	779.7	544	56	19	5	25	6.91
Lowell Palmer	5	18	5.29	316.7	202	35	23	1	18	6.91
Bill Daley	29	16	3.49	409.7	291	10	8	0	0	6.79
Rex Barney	35	31	4.31	597.7	410	21	15	4	0	6.78
John Rocker	13	22	3.42	255.3	164	29	12	4	17	6.77
Rick Ankiel	13	10	3.90	242.0	130	20	12	2	2	6.02

So, yeah, Ankiel was wild, but he was no Mitch Williams. And yes the "Wild Thing" moniker fit.

And for all of you who think of Babe Ruth when you hear about a pitcher switching to the outfield, there actually have been 134 men who at one time were primarily a pitcher and eventually played primarily another position. Here are the last ten (and yeah, Kieschnick is a stretch):

Name	HR	AB	W	L	Debut
Brooks Kieschnick	16	306	2	2	1996-04-03
John Upham	0	13	0	1	1967-04-16
Willie Smith	46	1654	2	4	1963-06-18
Bobby Darwin	83	2224	0	1	1962-09-30
Claude Osteen	8	1099	196	195	1957-07-06
Hal Brown	2	484	85	92	1951-04-19
Bob Cain	0	214	37	44	1949-09-18
Don Newcombe	15	878	149	90	1949-05-20
Bobby Shantz	1	548	119	99	1949-05-01
Mickey McDermott	9	619	69	69	1948-04-24
Dan Bankhead	1	45	9	5	1947-08-26
Clint Hartung	14	378	29	29	1947-04-15
Pat Cooper	0	16	0	0	1946-05-11
Joe Vitelli	0	3	0	0	1944-05-30
Al Lyons	1	58	3	3	1944-04-19

For a closer analogue to Ankiel, here are the men who won at least 10 games in a season as a pitcher (Ankiel won 11) prior to moving to another position:

Name	HR	AB	W	L	Debut
Tony Kaufmann	9	414	64	62	1921-09-23
Johnny Cooney	2	3372	34	44	1921-04-19
Babe Ruth	714	8399	94	46	1914-07-11
Rube Bressler	32	3881	26	32	1914-04-24
Reb Russell	22	976	81	59	1913-04-18
Clarence Mitchell	7	1287	125	139	1911-06-02
Joe Wood	23	1952	116	57	1908-08-24
Fred Mitchell	0	572	31	49	1901-04-27
Joe Yeager	4	1853	33	49	1898-04-22
Jack Dunn	1	1622	64	59	1897-05-06
Cy Seymour	52	5682	61	56	1896-04-22
Al Orth	12	1698	204	189	1895-08-15
Cozy Dolan	10	3174	12	13	1895-04-26
Bobby Wallace	34	8618	24	22	1894-09-15
Nixey Callahan	11	3295	99	73	1894-05-12
Tom Parrott	15	999	39	48	1893-06-18
Jack Stivetts	35	1991	203	132	1889-06-26
Kid Gleason	15	7452	138	131	1888-04-20
Elmer Smith	37	4684	75	57	1886-09-10
Ed Daily	19	2573	66	70	1885-05-04
Bob Caruthers	29	2465	218	99	1884-09-07
Dave Foutz	31	4533	147	66	1884-07-29
Perry Werden	26	2740	12	1	1884-04-24
Dick Burns	4	544	25	27	1883-05-03
John Coleman	7	2508	23	72	1883-05-01
Charlie Sweeney	2	894	64	52	1882-05-11
Larry Corcoran	2	1289	177	89	1880-05-01
John Ward	26	7647	164	102	1878-07-15
Frank Hankinson	13	3272	16	12	1878-05-01
Terry Larkin	1	845	89	80	1876-05-20
Lon Knight	3	2288	16	28	1875-09-04
George Bradley	3	2258	171	151	1875-05-04
John McMullin	4	1082	14	15	1871-05-09
Al Spalding	2	1958	253	65	1871-05-05

So, no one's really done it since the era of Ruth. Kaufmann was the last to do it. He joined the Giants at age 28, played the outfield exclusively, and then left the Giants and returned to the mound. Anyway, it'll be pretty rare if Ankiel can pull it off. Given his sad recent past, I hope he can, but I highly doubt it.

By the way, if by the title I made anyone think of the execrable Brad Pitt vehicle (think Pinto) "Troy" I apologize abjectly.

Yesterday, John Smoltz returned to the mound as a starting pitcher after nearly a four-year hiatus, during which time he registered 154 saves and, if you hadn't heard, was a closer.

Of course, Smoltz's move to the rotation is the latest effort by Atlanta manager Bobby Cox and pitching coach Leo Mazzone to challenge themselves. Revivifying near-dead ex-Rockie and ex-Indian pitchers was apparently an insufficient raisin d'etre when you've owned your division for every year dating back to the Coolidge administration.

So, after winning 20 games and then saving 55 games, could John Smoltz again become a 20-game winner? I mean, wasn't the move to the bullpen necessitated by his reconstructed elbow? It's like Rocky III when Rocky can't even see out of his left eye, Mickey is dead, and somehow Apollo Creed's chicken-racing lessons allow the fighter to again become a champion while being completely upstaged by Mr. T.

No pitcher has ever won 20 then saved 55 before—Dennis Eckersley won 20 and save 51—let alone again gone to win 20. If you lower your standards to 15 wins, 15 saves, and then again becomes a starter, you get the following men:

Name	Yr1	Yr2	Yr3	W Yr1	Sv Yr2	W Yr3
Al McBean	1962	1964	1968	15	22	9
Bob Stanley	1979	1983	1987	16	33	4
Don Robinson	1982	1987	1989	15	19	12
Gary Bell	1959	1965	1966	16	17	14
Tim Wakefield	1998	1999	2004	17	15	12

Gary Bell's 14 wins in 1966 is the highest in the group. If Smoltz again becomes a premier starter, he'll be doing something that's unprecedented.

Of course, we are limiting ourselves to the post-Joe Page era by throwing save numbers around. What if we just look at pitchers who first were predominantly starters, then were predominantly relievers, and finally returned to the rotation, what is the highest Win Share (pitching) total for these men and will Smoltz exceed it?

Let's look. Here are the top such candidates:

Name	Yr1	Yr2	Yr3	ToT WS
Eddie Cicotte	1913	1916	1917	80.5
Luis Tiant	1968	1972	1974	75.3
Mordecai Brown	1909	1913	1915	66.6
Joe Wood	1909	1910	1912	65.9
Dizzy Trout	1939	1941	1944	64.2
Virgil Trucks	1949	1951	1953	62.6
Firpo Marberry	1929	1932	1933	61.7
Ed Reulbach	1905	1912	1915	61.3
Bump Hadley	1930	1931	1933	59.8
Gaylord Perry	1962	1964	1972	58.6
Ewell Blackwell	1947	1949	1950	58.4
Chief Bender	1910	1913	1914	58.2
Sal Maglie	1945	1950	1951	58.1

These numbers are based on the pitchers' top totals per role. Smoltz's high in pitching Win Shares as a starter was 25.7 in 1996. His high as a close was 17.2 in 2002. That gives him a 42.9 total for the first two roles. Let's say he matches his 1996 performance this year. That would give him 68.6, just third on the list above.

What does this tell us? Pitching roles were much more fluid—shocking!—a century ago then today. But given that El Tiante made the list in his odd, career-reaffirming season of 1972, relief pitchers also threw a bunch more innings prior to the last twenty, thirty years—shocking again—which made them more valuable.

Finally, what it tells me is that no other organization but the Braves would ever be in a position to try something like Smoltz's return to the rotation. Given his success in the pen, no other coaching tandem would be secure enough to even attempt such a stunt. If nothing else, it reaffirms that Cox is the best manager of his era. If Smoltz again becomes a twenty-game winner it could be enough to put two men, Smoltz himself and Leo Mazzone, in the Hall of Fame. Too bad it's got to happen on the damn Braves.

Other entries in the Trade Series:

Mike: I’ll Take Manhattan: Baseball’s Most Lopsided Trades: Parts I, I (revised), II

A Quick One (Happy Mike)

Lee Even Stevens: Parts I, II—The Sexy Version

Cain and A-Rod—A Bling-Bling Rivalry: Parts I, II

Studes: The Best and Worst Teams of the Trade

Smoltz for Alexander

Kansas City is lost; I am here!

—W.C. Fields on missing his destination in "International House"



I'm going to Kansas City

Coming to get my baby back home

Yeah, yeah

Well, it's a long, long, time

Since my baby's been gone

—"Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!", the Beatles' version of the Little Richard classic.

From 1936-54 Kansas City was a top minor-league team for the New York Yankee organization. The Blues won four regular season titles and two postseason ones in 1952-53.

Starting in 1955, Kansas City was again a major-league city, returning to the majors after a forty-year hiatus. Arnold Johnson had purchase the moribund Philadelphia Athletics from Connie Mack's sons and shifted them out west. However, the KC A's were far from a major-league organization. As Glenn Stout put it in Yankees Century, they were the Yankees' "triple-A farm team masquerading as the Kansas City Athletics of the American League."

Johnson was "a Chicago real estate man and a buddy of both Dan Topping's and George Weiss's. In 1953 they'd sold Yankee stadium to Johnson and his brother, then leased it back. Johnson moved the A's to Kansas City after Topping magnanimously sold him the rights to Kansas City and moved the Yankees' triple-A team to Denver." (Stout)

The Yankees-A's relationship harkened back to the early days of the American League when players were shifted about to solidify big-city franchises, or even earlier to when syndicate ownership would allow one team to divest its partner team of all its talent and sent franchises like the Cleveland Spiders and Louisville Colonels the way of the dodo.

The Yankees would dredge the A's system for talented young players like Clete Boyer, Roger Maris, and Bobby Shantz. In return the A's would receive various and sundry players that no longer held the Yankees' fancy. The Yankees would send quantity for quality (three-for-ones or five-for-twos) like in some primordial fantasy league. They also sent players out to KC for more seasoning and then recall them when they were ready to contribute at the Yankees' level of play (like Ralph Terry). Future Hall of Famer Enos Country Slaughter was exiled to KC when he started 1955 slowly and didn't return until the next season.

All this made for a number of extra roster moves, mulligans, for the Yankees. Or as Weiss's assistant, Lee MacPhail explained, "We've got too many big leaguers and had to cut down. And we were not going to let them go for the $10,000 waiver price."

The result for the A's was thirteen consecutive losing seasons. Actually, Bill James, boyhood KC A's fan he, in his 1986 Abstract looked even deeper and found that the A's had a losing record in 69 of the 78 months (excluding October) that they spent in Kansas City. "The best month that the A's ever had in Kansas City was July of 1959; they started that month 9 games out of first place, and finished 9 1/2 out. By the end of August, one month later, they would be 21 behind."

As James explains, "The pinstripe pipeline rubbed the city at a raw spot, the rawest spot Johnson could have found. With every KC/New York trade the protests grew louder, the bitterness in them grew sharper." Their trade history was "enough to convict Arnold Johnson in almost any court, but it should be noted that the A's farm system in these years produced very little talent—maybe 2 or 3 players of quality. He had to try to come up with young players from somewhere. Unfortunately, what he tried didn't work."

After Johnson died, the A's were sold to Charlie O. Finley at the end of 1960. Aside from various uniform changes (from "Athletics" back to "A"s on the shirt fronts, from blue and white to red-white-and-blue unis to the green-and-yellow we know today), Finley would abandon dealing with the Yankees. After trading Bud Daley, James explains, "the public was outraged. Finley and his new General Manager, Frank Lane, promised the Kansas City public that there would be no more Yankee trades."

In 1968, the A's shuffled off to greener pastures in Oakland. After 18 straight losing seasons, five in Philly and 13 in KC, they registered their first winning season in their first year in Oakland and went nine straight years without another losing season, during which they won three World Series and five division crowns.

Now, that's the legend and legacy of the Kansas City A's. And given that, I expected to find any number of lopsided KC-to-Yankee trades in my previous research When I not only found no lopsided trades, but rather found one (i.e., for Jerry Lumpe) listed among the most even ever, I was considerably nonplussed.

Interstitial Trade Value

Then it occurred to me that these trades cannot be viewed like other trades. I have evaluated transactions throughout this series based on a point-in-time approach. The trade is made independent of what transactions those some players may be involved in in the future. The GM makes the transaction given the previous performance of the players involved as well as his expectations for their performance. Whether he guessed right can be evaluated from the post-transaction performance, which I measured in Win Shares (WS Above Baseline, actually).

However, a nexus is built up based on this transaction and its subsequent transactions, each of which have attendant expectations and realities. Sometimes an acquired player who is expected to perform at a certain level does not do so until he has been subsequently traded. I have decided to treat each transaction separately and have evaluated them accordingly.

Therefore, I rated the Glenn Davis for Curt Schilling, Steve Finley, and Pete Harnisch trade as the second-most lopsided ever even though the Astros didn't get that much directly from the trade. Harnisch, the least valuable overall of the three, was the most productive in Houston. Finley was traded before he developed into a power hitter, and Schilling spent just one year in the bullpen.

My response to that is a) the Astros should not be penalized for future poor transactions when one good trade is being evaluated and b) that way leads only madness…I'll explain. If in evaluating transactions, one follows each of those transactions to the bitter end, a nexus of interconnected transactions over years will be created, and subsequent mess will defy explanation. Never mind that team management and ownership, not to mention team performance, needs, and surfeits may change over the course of this interconnected evaluation. The whole idea that a trade is made at a point in time is lost. If a team expects a certain level of performance from a player within five years and when he does not meet those expectations, the team subsequently trades him, they do so with the knowledge of what he has done over those five years. To connect the second trade to the first is to assume that the team knew how the player would perform in between those two trades.

For everyone who's complained about my point-in-time approach to trades, that's the best explanation that I have. I stand behind it even if I can’t explain it well.

However, in the case of the Yankees and KC A's transactions, one cannot evaluate them as a point in time because that was not apparently how they were approached by the teams involved. The Yankees sent a player to A's with the knowledge that the player could be re-acquired if needed later.

So how can one evaluate these trades and avoid the madness I mentioned earlier? My solution is to use interstitial trade values, that is the value that each team derived directly from the trade, prior to any subsequent transaction for the given players.

To be continued…

Other entries in the Trade Series:

Mike: I’ll Take Manhattan: Baseball’s Most Lopsided Trades

A Quick One (Happy Mike)

I'll Take Manhattan: Baseball's Most Lopsided Trades, Revised Edition

I'll Take Manhattan: Baseball's Most Lopsided Trades, Revised Edition (Cont.)

Lee Even Stevens

Lee Even Stevens, Part II—The Sexy Version

Cain and A-Rod—A Bling-Bling Rivalry

Studes: The Best and Worst Teams of the Trade

Smoltz for Alexander

In this part we will look at the individual transactions between the Yankees and Red Sox to determine which were the most lopsided. But first I want to repeat the balance sheet between the two clubs summed per decade, that was tacked on to the previous entry but got lost in the shuffle:

Decade	# Trans	Pre Career WS	Post Career WS	Pre Year WS	Post Year WS	WSAB Pre Career	WSAB Post Career	WSAB Pre Yr	WSAB Post Yr
1900s	11	-587	-54	-19	-13	-291	-36	-6	-15
1910s	7	-110	51	3	3	13	68	6	6
1920s	11	798	908	11	92	350	628	2	85
1930s	8	3	44	-1	-15	35	75	2	1
1940s	1	-25	-6	0	-5	-1	0	0	0
1950s	4	67	32	2	4	25	7	1	0
1960s	6	-242	0	-2	-5	-55	2	0	0
1970s	1	-58	70	0	14	-11	67	0	13
1980s	1	-140	-12	0	-3	-68	-3	0	-3
1990s	2	103	-25	10	4	45	-10	3	1
2000s	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Total	52	-191	1008	4	76	42	798	8	88

You'll notice that overall the Yankees have traded experience (191 Pre Career WS to the Sox) for future production (1008 Post Career WS to the Yankees). That's true in macrocosm (i.e., career stats) and in microcosm, that is within the given season (4 Pre Year WS and 8 WSAB Pre Yr vs. 76 Post Year WS and 88 WSAB Post Yr, all in the Yankees' favor). One other thing is that the Yankees have traded quantity, experienced quantity (42 WSAB Pre Career to the Yankees and 191 Pre Career WS to the Sox). Finally, even though these two teams were extremely active dealing with each other in the first four decades of the century, their proclivity to trade with each other dried up in the Forties, when their rivalry is generally acknowledged to have begun in earnest.

Ok, now here are the most lopsided Yankee-Red Sox transactions (by WSAB Post Career Difference):

#1:

Date: January 3, 1920
Trade: Yankees purchase Babe Ruth from the Red Sox.
Pre Career WS Diff: 180 (favoring NYY)
Post Career WS Diff: 576 (NYY)
Pre Year WS Diff: 0
Post Year WS Diff: 51 (NYY)
WSAB Pre Career Diff: 141 (NYY)
WSAB Post Career Diff: 424 (NYY)
WSAB Pre Yr Diff: 0
WSAB Post Yr Diff: 41(NYY)

Big surprise here. This is the most lopsided transaction of all time.

#2:

Date: May 6, 1930
Trade: Red Sox trade Red Ruffing to Yanks for Cedric "Don't Call Me Fred" Durst and $50 K.
Pre Career WS Diff: 47 (favoring NYY)
Post Career WS Diff: 262 (NYY)
Pre Year WS Diff: 0
Post Year WS Diff: 13 (NYY)
WSAB Pre Career Diff: 28 (NYY)
WSAB Post Career Diff: 174 (NYY)
WSAB Pre Yr Diff: 1 (NYY)
WSAB Post Yr Diff: 9 (NYY)

Another Hall-of-Famer acquired in his prime (age 25). In the Sox's defense Ruffing showed very little of his future success in his six-plus seasons in Boston (only one park-adjusted ERA better than league average and a 39-96 record). Then again, Durst wasn't much of a player and he was 33 with one partial season left in his tank. The Red Sox inserted him in outfield apparently as a starter for the first and last time in his career.

#3:

Date: December 15, 1920
Trade: Red Sox trade Waite Hoyt, Harry Harper, Mike McNally, and Wally Schang to Yankees for Muddy Ruel, Del Pratt, Sammy Vick, and Hank Thormahlen..
Pre Career WS Diff: 29 (favoring Bos)
Post Career WS Diff: 180 (NYY)
Pre Year WS Diff: 0
Post Year WS Diff: 18 (NYY)
WSAB Pre Career Diff: 31 (Bos)
WSAB Post Career Diff: 124 (NYY)
WSAB Pre Yr Diff: 0
WSAB Post Yr Diff: 17 (NYY)

Hoyt was another future Hall of Famer, acquired when he was just 21. Schang, Pratt, and Ruel were also productive players, favoring the Sox slightly in the non-Hoyt side of the trade.

#4:

Date: January 30, 1923
Trade: Red Sox trade Herb Pennock to Yankees for Camp Skinner, Norm McMillan, George Murray, and $50 K.
Pre Career WS Diff: 72 (favoring NYY)
Post Career WS Diff: 129 (NYY)
Pre Year WS Diff: 0
Post Year WS Diff: 8 (NYY)
WSAB Pre Career Diff: 40 (NYY)
WSAB Post Career Diff: 94 (NYY)
WSAB Pre Yr Diff: 0
WSAB Post Yr Diff: 16 (NYY)

Yet another future Hall-of-Famer, Pennock, this time acquired at age 29.

#5:

Date: July 29, 1919
Trade: Red Sox trade Carl Mays to Yankees for Allan Russell, Bob McGraw, and $40 K.
Pre Career WS Diff: 69 (favoring NYY)
Post Career WS Diff: 88 (NYY)
Pre Year WS Diff: 4 (NYY)
Post Year WS Diff: 3 (NYY)
WSAB Pre Career Diff: 66 (NYY)
WSAB Post Career Diff: 77 (NYY)
WSAB Pre Yr Diff: 6 (NYY)
WSAB Post Yr Diff: 1 (NYY)

Mays wasn't a Hall-of-Famer (at least he hasn't been elected yet), but he was close, and he sure looked like one on the Sox. Russell had some success with the Sox and Senators. He actually won more games in 1919 after the trade than Mays (10 to 9).

#6 (tie):

Date: May 12, 1933
Trade: Red Sox purchase Billy Werber from Yankees.
Pre Career WS Diff: 0
Post Career WS Diff: 162 (favoring Bos)
Pre Year WS Diff: 0
Post Year WS Diff: 8 (Bos)
WSAB Pre Career Diff: 0
WSAB Post Career Diff: 67 (Bos)
WSAB Pre Yr Diff: 0
WSAB Post Yr Diff: 0

The Sox finally take one, and it's Billy Werber?!? Werber was a pretty good third baseman for the Sox before the sent him to the A's after three seasons.

#6 (tie):

Date: March 22, 1972
Trade: Red Sox sent Sparky Lyle to Yankees for Danny Cater and a player to be named later (Mario Guerrero sent June 30).
Pre Career WS Diff: 58 (favoring Bos)
Post Career WS Diff: 70 (NYY)
Pre Year WS Diff: 0
Post Year WS Diff: 14 (NYY)
WSAB Pre Career Diff: 11 (Bos)
WSAB Post Career Diff: 67 (NYY)
WSAB Pre Yr Diff: 0
WSAB Post Yr Diff: 13 (NYY)

This is one that people usually point to after Babe Ruth, I guess because it is fairly recent (the Sox fans have forgotten their Werber conquest apparently). Lyle was a good pitcher for the Sox before the trade. He was their relieving ace, pitching 100+ innings in 1969 with a 2.50 ERA. The Sox must have looked at his mediocre 1970 season, his falling innings totals n 1970-71, and his falling strikeout totals in 1971 (only 37 in 52-1/3 innings) and thought that even at 26, his best days were behind him. He had a big first year with the Yankees (career high 35 saves) and pitched a ton of inning effectively for them and the Rangers for about a decade.

Cater was a standard issue corner outfielder-first baseman with a funky batting stance. Though he had batted .300 just once prior to the trade, he did finish in the top 10 in batting in a pitcher's era (including a second-best .290 in 1967, the year Yaz won the batting title with a .301 average). Pat Tabler is his most similar batter, so that should tell you something.

#8:

Date: January 3, 1923
Trade: Red Sox sent George Pipgras and Harvey Hendrick to Yankees for Al DeVormer.
Pre Career WS Diff: 2 (favoring Bos)
Post Career WS Diff: 163 (NYY)
Pre Year WS Diff: 0
Post Year WS Diff: 1 (Bos)
WSAB Pre Career Diff: 0
WSAB Post Career Diff: 61 (NYY)
WSAB Pre Yr Diff: 0
WSAB Post Yr Diff: 0

Pipgras was a 23-year-old prospect that would go on to win 24 games for the Yankees in 1928 and 57 over three years (1928-30). Hendrick, also a rookie, was a corner outfield-first base type who had some offense and very little defense. DeVormer was a 30-year-old backup catcher with just 127 ABs under his belt at the time. He split time behind the plate with Val Picinich in 1923 and then was, other than a cup of joe with the Giants in 1927, was through in the majors.

#9 (tie):

Date: July, 1902
Trade: Boston Somersets purchase Tom Hughes from Baltimore Orioles.
Pre Career WS Diff: 20 (favoring Bos)
Post Career WS Diff: 114 (Bos)
Pre Year WS Diff: 5 (Bos)
Post Year WS Diff: 4 (Bos)
WSAB Pre Career Diff: 10 (Bos)
WSAB Post Career Diff: 59 (Bos)
WSAB Pre Yr Diff: 2 (Bos)
WSAB Post Yr Diff: 1 (Bos)

A second win for Boston and it comes when the Yankees were still in Baltimore.

Hughes won 20 games for Boston in 1903 and then was traded back to the Yankee franchise, now in New York and known as the Highlanders, for Jesse Tannehill, who won 21 and 22 games over the next two years for Boston. Hughes was 7-11 in part of a season with the Yanks and then was sent to Washington for Al Orth who won 27 games for the Highlanders in 1906.

#9 (tie):

Date: July 23, 1922
Trade: Yankees send Lefty O'Doul, Chick Fewster, Elmer Miller, Johnny Mitchell, and $50 K to the Boston Red Sox for Joe Dugan and Elmer (J.) Smith.
Pre Career WS Diff: 76 (favoring NYY)
Post Career WS Diff: 94 (Bos)
Pre Year WS Diff: 9 (NYY)
Post Year WS Diff: 0
WSAB Pre Career Diff: 29 (NYY)
WSAB Post Career Diff: 59 (Bos)
WSAB Pre Yr Diff: 2 (NYY)
WSAB Post Yr Diff: 2 (NYY)

The Yankees give up too much to get two veterans? The trade drew a protest from then contending St. Louis, causing Commissioner Landis to change the rules to bar non-waiver trades after June 15.

O'Doul was still a young pitcher when the Yanks shipped him to the Sox. He would blow his arm out in Boston and then go back to the PCL to turn himself into a very good batting outfielder with the Giants, Phils, and Dodgers. (Also when in San Francisco, remember to visit Lefty O'Doul's pub. I have a menu from there that I kept as a souvenir.) He was the prize of the trade though the Sox didn't directly benefit from it.

Smith stinks up the field in NY (.185 batting average), and survives only one more year with the Yankees (122 OPS+) and two more years in the majors. Dugan was the Yankee third baseman and leadoff hitter for many years. So even when the Red Sox "win" one, they don't benefit from it.

#11:

Date: June 18, 1904
Trade: Boston Pilgrims send Patsy Dougherty to the New York Highlanders for Bob Unglaub.
Pre Career WS Diff: 54 (favoring NYY)
Post Career WS Diff: 86 (NYY)
Pre Year WS Diff: 9 (NYY)
Post Year WS Diff: 15 (NYY)
WSAB Pre Career Diff: 29 (NYY)
WSAB Post Career Diff: 50 (Bos)
WSAB Pre Yr Diff: 4 (NYY)
WSAB Post Yr Diff: 10 (NYY)

This was a trade that was highly criticized in Boston in its day. Some theorized that it was orchestrated to help the Highlanders compete with the Giants.

Dougherty played well for the Yankees until he got into a fistfight with manager Clark Griffith in 1906 and was waived. He then became part of the "Hitless Wonder" White Sox.

Unglaub was a weak-hitting first baseman, who started just one season in Boston. Six games after the trade he was hospitalized for blood poisoning.

Here is the full list of Red Sox-Yankee trades ranked by WSAB after the trade (positive values indicate the transaction favored the Yankees; negatives, the Sox):

Trans #	Pre Career WS	Post Career WS	Pre Year WS	Post Year WS	WSAB Pre Career	WSAB Post Career	WSAB Pre Yr	WSAB Post Yr
19	180	576	0	51	141	424	0	41
30	47	262	0	13	28	174	1	9
20	-29	180	0	18	-31	124	0	17
25	72	129	0	8	40	94	0	16
18	69	88	4	3	66	77	6	1
34	0	-162	0	-8	0	-67	0	0
49	-58	70	0	14	-11	67	0	13
24	-2	163	0	-1	0	61	0	0
2	-20	-114	-5	-4	-10	-59	-2	-1
23	76	-94	9	0	29	-59	2	2
4	54	86	9	15	29	50	4	10
36	-61	-84	0	-9	-18	-33	0	0
7	-61	-66	-10	-11	-24	-31	-5	-6
6	-33	-105	0	-8	-10	-30	0	0
8	-5	82	-9	3	-2	25	-3	-1
37	9	80	0	0	0	23	0	0
22	-1	-51	0	-10	0	-19	0	-4
31	46	-36	3	1	34	-16	2	0
16	-135	-51	0	-16	-40	-15	0	-5
10	14	50	0	10	0	15	0	0
52	103	-25	10	4	29	-10	3	1
17	-1	-47	0	-3	0	-9	0	0
13	-17	3	0	9	-13	9	0	9
42	0	23	0	0	0	7	0	0
3	-113	14	0	-17	-85	-6	0	-17
14	10	59	0	11	0	6	0	1
32	35	-8	-2	-4	28	-3	0	-5
33	-73	-8	-2	-8	-37	-3	-1	-3
50	-140	-12	0	-3	-68	-3	0	-3
28	289	19	0	8	157	2	0	0
46	0	12	0	0	0	2	0	0
21	-54	-26	0	9	-42	1	0	13
1	2	0	1	0	0	0	0	0
5	-188	-1	0	-1	-29	0	0	0
9	-28	0	-5	0	-11	0	0	0
11	-209	0	0	0	-149	0	0	0
12	-36	-1	-1	-1	0	0	0	0
15	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
26	112	3	0	3	18	0	0	0
27	146	6	0	3	38	0	0	0
29	9	3	2	3	0	0	0	0
35	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
38	-25	-6	0	-5	-1	0	0	0
39	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
40	67	7	2	4	25	0	1	0
41	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	0
43	-47	-4	0	-3	-9	0	0	0
44	-195	-8	-2	-2	-83	0	0	0
45	0	0	0	0	6	0	0	0
47	0	0	0	0	31	0	0	0
48	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
51	0	0	0	0	16	0	0	0

Next, we'll look at the oddly incestuous relationship between the Yankees and the Kansas City A's in the Fifties and how this affected their trading approach.

Today the Hall of Fame Veterans Committee vote was released and—surprise!—no one garnered enough votes to gain admittance to the hallowed Hall. Or as MLB would spin it:

Proving once again to be rigid guardians of the gate to Cooperstown, the National Baseball Hall of Fame's Veterans Committee did not elect any of the 25 candidates on its 2005 ballot.

Gee, it almost makes gridlock sound ennobling. "Honey, it took me three hours to get home today thanks to the rigid guardians of traffic flow. God bless them."

I guess how else can they sell the catastrophe that is the new Vets Committee? Anything less would be admitting defeat, which is something that they'll have to do soon.

But before I go into that, here is a look at the how the players on the ballot fared in their last election. I also listed their previous high in any election:

Name	PCT	Yr Prev	Voted By	PCT	Diff	Prev High
Gil Hodges	65.00%	2003	Veterans	61.73%	3.27	63.37%
Ron Santo	65.00%	2003	Veterans	56.79%	8.21	56.79%
Tony Oliva	56.25%	2003	Veterans	59.26%	-3.01	59.26%
Jim Kaat	53.75%	2003	BBWAA	26.21%	27.54	29.55%
Joe Torre	45.00%	2003	Veterans	35.80%	9.20	35.80%
Maury Wills	32.50%	2003	Veterans	29.63%	2.87	40.65%
Vada Pinson	28.75%	2003	Veterans	25.93%	2.82	25.93%
Luis Tiant	25.00%	2002	BBWAA	18.01%	6.99	30.91%
Roger Maris	23.75%	2003	Veterans	22.22%	1.53	43.09%
Marty Marion	20.00%	2003	Veterans	20.99%	-0.99	40.00%
Ken Boyer	18.75%	2003	Veterans	13.58%	5.17	25.53%
Joe Gordon	17.50%	2003	Veterans	23.46%	-5.96	28.53%
Carl Mays	15.00%	2003	Veterans	19.75%	-4.75	19.75%
Dick Allen	15.00%	2003	Veterans	16.05%	-1.05	18.94%
Minnie Minoso	15.00%	2003	Veterans	19.75%	-4.75	21.08%
Curt Flood	12.50%	2003	Veterans	12.35%	0.15	15.11%
Mickey Lolich	11.25%	2003	Veterans	16.05%	-4.80	25.53%
Wes Ferrell	11.25%	2003	Veterans	14.81%	-3.56	14.81%
Don Newcombe	10.00%	2003	Veterans	13.58%	-3.58	15.32%
Sparky Lyle	8.75%	1991	BBWAA	3.39%	5.36	13.11%
Elston Howard	7.50%	2003	Veterans	7.41%	0.09	20.70%
Bobby Bonds	5.00%	2003	Veterans	6.17%	-1.17	10.64%
Rocky Colavito	5.00%	2003	Veterans	8.64%	-3.64	8.64%
Thurman Munson	2.50%	2003	Veterans	4.94%	-2.44	18.01%
Joe Wood	2.50%	1951	BBWAA	2.21%	0.29	15.46%

You may notice that nothing has changed very dramatically since the last Vets Committee vote. Kaat had a 27% bump, but that was after he fell off the Baseball Writers ballot. The largest increase from the last election was by Joe Torre, who is of course active as a manager, which helps, and still only received 45% of the vote.

By the way, I also have a full rundown of the candidates here.

As for the Veterans Committee, no one has been inducted into the Hall by that august body since Bill Mazeroski and Hilton Smith in 2001. Now we'll have to wait another two years, barring a procedure change, for another Vets Committee inductee. That'll be at least a six-year gap.

The baseball writers had a six-year gap between picking new Hall-of-Famers from 1956 to 1962. It also had five-year gap from 1942 to 1947.

In response the Veterans Committee of the Forties inducted a flotilla of substandard players forever lowering the standards of the Hall in the first place. They inducted 10 in 1945 and 11 in 1946. Included among them were Tinkers-to-Evers-to-Chance, probably the worst player in the Hall (Tommy McCarthy), and possibly O'Brien-to-Ryan-to-Goldberg. I'm not sure. And what damage was left undone by the Veterans Committee of the Forties, was taken up by the Vets in the early Sixties.

So what will this austere period in the Veterans Committee reap in future elections? How about Juan Gone into the Hall? The caretakers of Cooperstown will not stand idly by with empty election classes. There will be a reckoning.

It reminds me of the BBWAA elections in the Forties. Most of the more obvious choices had already gone into the Hall even though there were a number of qualified candidates. However, no one percolated to the top when left to an open vote. This year four candidates received at least 50% of the vote, something that has guaranteed eventual admittance in the past.

What can and should be done to right the Veterans Committee's course? They could get the list down to a more manageable size, say, ten candidates. They could have a runoff, in which the top five or ten vote-getters go through an addition round to help them amass the necessary votes (something that was imposed on the BBWAA system in both the Forties and Sixties). They could guarantee that the top-voter gets in automatically (also done in the Forties).

Whatever they do, the Hall's history tells us that something will have to give. If it's not a minor tweak like the ones I itemized above, a major backlash, like the Vets Committee open-door policy in the Forties and Sixties, will await us as the qualified candidates well up and the number admitted slows from a trickle to nil.

Something's got to give.

And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him…
And the LORD said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.
–The originals of "The Curse of the Bambino", in the Book of Genesis

My heart laments that virtue cannot live
Out of the teeth of emulation.
– William "Author" Shakespeare, Julius (Don't Call Me Syd) Caesar

No spring training games have yet been played and yet Trot Nixon is already filling the Yankee bulletin board with quotes about Alex Rodriguez.

He's not a "Yankee type". He's a "clown" for getting up at dawn to run stairs while Nixon is admittedly sleeping and driving his kids to school, hopefully not at the same time. Nixon also opines that regarding A-Rod's three-month-old infant, "He's got a kid now, too, so I guess he'll have his limo driver take her to school." I guess Nixon started school right out of the womb: that's why he's so proficient at them there fancy ciphering.

Meanwhile, Derek Jeter's name was pronounced "obscene and vulgar" after a Yankee fan won on eBay the one-day naming rights to the Fleet Center and chose the shortstop's moniker. Usually, it's just his glovework in the field that gets called vulgar. Some would say it's vulgar to extort money from the public for a one-day re-christening, especially when neither of the arena's two inhabitants is playing on the given day. (At least they gave the proceeds to the Jimmy Fund, the arena's new one-day, "G Rated" eponym.)

Sheez, how would Boston have reacted this offseason if they hadn't won the World Series? Hanged A-Rod in effigy, or maybe actuality? The Red Sox did complete what has been called by many (especially Curt W. Schilling) the greatest comeback in sports history beating the Yankees in the ALCS. Why all the sniping now?

So it goes in what the media seems to think is the greatest rivalry in baseball history. Sorry, Dodgers and Giants. Your bi-coastal rivalry that helped end Jackie Robinson's career is now just a footnote. The "Shot Heard 'Round the World"? Eh, it doesn't compare to "The Comeback", Jeter's grab in the stands, or the "Tek"/A-Rod-induced brawl. It's been devalued to the also-ran level of, say, the "A-Rod Slap" or the "First Annual Don Zimmer Toss".

Of course, it all dates back to that dreaded and accursed day when the Red Sox sold the great Babe Ruth to the Yankees so that, the apocryphal legend goes, then-owner Harry Frazee could produce "No, No, Nanette". This is the single event other than Robin Williams discourse on the Fisk homer in "Good Will Hunting" that occurred prior to last year's World Series win in the Red Sox fan's view of the world (a truly desolate wasteland like in the famous "New Yorker" illustration).

I think some fans would be surprised by not only the total lack of rivalry in the early years, but by the fact that they were even comrades, "Insurrectos", that faced off against AL founder and then-president Ban Johnson. Frazee eventually mortgaged Fenway to the Yankees as a countermove in this ongoing war. The Yankees almost moved into Fenway as a further countermove, according to historian Glenn Stout. Imagine the Yankees and Red Sox amicably sharing a stadium today.

Anyway, I thought that looking at the transactional history of the two clubs would help shed light on their evolving relationship. And it goes a little something like this…

First, we'll start with a BA table, as is my wont. Below are all the transactions that the two clubs have had throughout their history. The first couple of transactions actually predate the Yankees and the Red Sox. They were between the old Baltimore Orioles (precursor to the Yankees) and the Boston Somersets (who wouldn't be known as the Red Sox until they swiped the name from the Boston NL club in 1907).

Trades, player purchases, waivers picks, and Draft 5 picks are listed. Each player is listed for each transaction along with his Win Share totals. That is, his career WS prior to and following the trade are listed along with his WS totals for the season in which the trade occurred, split up by prior to and following the trade if midseason. Also, the WS values are all translated into Win Shares Above Baseline (WSAB).

After each transaction, running totals for all trades up to that point appear. The positive values in the running totals favor the Yankees; negatives the Sox (don't feel slighted, Red Sox Nation—it's arbitrary). At the bottom is a breakdown of the transaction totals per decade.

Season	Date	Type	Trans #	From	To	Name	Pre Career WS	Post Career WS	Pre Year WS	Post Year WS	WSAB Pre Career	WSAB Post Career	WSAB Pre Yr	WSAB Post Yr
1902	1902-06-00	Purchase	1	BOS	NYY	George Prentiss	2	0	1	0	0	0	0	0
Total							2	0	1	0	0	0	0	0
1902	1902-07-00	Purchase	2	NYY	BOS	Tom Hughes	20	114	5	4	10	59	2	1
Total							-18	-114	-4	-4	-10	-59	-2	-1
1904	1903-12-00	Trade	3	BOS	NYY	Tom Hughes	47	87	0	8	28	41	0	2
1904	1903-12-00	Trade	3	NYY	BOS	Jesse Tannehill	160	73	0	25	113	47	0	19
Total							-131	-100	-4	-21	-95	-65	-2	-18
1904	1904-06-18	Trade	4	BOS	NYY	Patsy Dougherty	54	133	9	15	29	60	4	10
1904	1904-06-18	Trade	4	NYY	BOS	Bob Unglaub	0	47	0	0	0	10	0	0
Total							-77	-14	5	-6	-66	-15	2	-8
1907	1907-06-29	Waiver	5	NYY	BOS	Deacon McGuire	188	1	0	1	29	0	0	0
Total							-265	-15	5	-7	-95	-15	2	-8
1908	1907-12-00	Purchase	6	NYY	BOS	Frank LaPorte	33	105	0	8	10	30	0	0
Total							-298	-120	5	-15	-105	-45	2	-8
1908	1908-07-10	Purchase	7	NYY	BOS	Jake Stahl	61	66	10	11	24	31	5	6
Total							-359	-186	-5	-26	-129	-76	-3	-14
1908	1908-07-17	Trade	8	BOS	NYY	Frank LaPorte	36	102	3	5	10	30	0	0
1908	1908-07-17	Trade	8	NYY	BOS	Harry Niles	41	20	12	2	12	5	3	1
Total							-364	-104	-14	-23	-131	-51	-6	-15
1908	1908-08-00	Purchase	9	NYY	BOS	Jake Thielman	28	0	5	0	11	0	0	0
Total							-392	-104	-19	-23	-142	-51	-6	-15
1909	1909-02-00	Waiver	10	BOS	NYY	John Knight	14	50	0	10	0	15	0	0
Total							-378	-54	-19	-13	-142	-36	-6	-15
1909	1909-09-11	Waiver	11	NYY	BOS	Jack Chesbro	209	0	0	0	149	0	0	0
Total							-587	-54	-19	-13	-291	-36	-6	-15
1910	1910-05-00	Purchase	12	NYY	BOS	Red Kleinow	36	1	1	1	0	0	0	0
Total							-623	-55	-20	-14	-291	-36	-6	-15
1910	1910-05-00	Trade	13	BOS	NYY	Harry Wolter	6	64	0	21	0	22	0	11
1910	1910-05-00	Trade	13	NYY	BOS	Clyde Engle	23	61	0	12	13	13	0	2
Total							-640	-52	-20	-5	-304	-27	-6	-6
1914	1914-05-13	Purchase	14	BOS	NYY	Les Nunamaker	10	59	0	11	0	6	0	1
Total							-630	7	-20	6	-304	-21	-6	-5
1914	1914-05-27	Purchase	15	NYY	BOS	Guy Cooper	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Total							-630	7	-20	6	-304	-21	-6	-5
1919	1918-12-18	Trade	16	BOS	NYY	Ernie Shore	64	4	0	3	40	0	0	0
1919	1918-12-18	Trade	16	NYY	BOS	Frank Gilhooley	32	1	0	1	4	0	0	0
1919	1918-12-18	Trade	16	NYY	BOS	Ray Caldwell	130	31	0	10	67	14	0	4
1919	1918-12-18	Trade	16	NYY	BOS	Roxy Walters	15	17	0	2	0	0	0	0
1919	1918-12-18	Trade	16	NYY	BOS	Slim Love	22	6	0	6	9	1	0	1
Total							-765	-44	-20	-10	-344	-36	-6	-10
1919	1919-05-00	Purchase	17	NYY	BOS	Bill Lamar	1	47	0	3	0	9	0	0
Total							-766	-91	-20	-13	-344	-45	-6	-10
1919	1919-07-29	Trade	18	BOS	NYY	Carl Mays	97	159	9	14	76	99	11	6
1919	1919-07-29	Trade	18	NYY	BOS	Allan Russell	26	51	4	11	10	20	5	5
1919	1919-07-29	Trade	18	NYY	BOS	Bob McGraw	2	20	1	0	0	2	0	0
Total							-697	-3	-16	-10	-278	32	0	-9
1920	1920-01-03	Purchase	19	BOS	NYY	Babe Ruth	180	576	0	51	141	424	0	41
Total							-517	573	-16	41	-137	456	0	32
1921	1920-12-15	Trade	20	BOS	NYY	Harry Harper	65	4	0	4	29	0	0	0
1921	1920-12-15	Trade	20	BOS	NYY	Mike McNally	9	10	0	5	0	0	0	0
1921	1920-12-15	Trade	20	BOS	NYY	Waite Hoyt	9	253	0	24	0	156	0	18
1921	1920-12-15	Trade	20	BOS	NYY	Wally Schang	125	120	0	20	45	35	0	10
1921	1920-12-15	Trade	20	NYY	BOS	Del Pratt	183	59	0	20	93	20	0	10
1921	1920-12-15	Trade	20	NYY	BOS	Hank Thormahlen	30	4	0	4	12	0	0	0
1921	1920-12-15	Trade	20	NYY	BOS	Muddy Ruel	12	144	0	11	0	47	0	1
1921	1920-12-15	Trade	20	NYY	BOS	Sammy Vick	12	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Total							-546	753	-16	59	-168	580	0	49
1922	1921-12-20	Trade	21	BOS	NYY	Everett Scott	99	43	0	16	24	7	0	6
1922	1921-12-20	Trade	21	BOS	NYY	Joe Bush	96	99	0	26	52	67	0	20
1922	1921-12-20	Trade	21	BOS	NYY	Sam Jones	74	171	0	20	44	88	0	14
1922	1921-12-20	Trade	21	NYY	BOS	Bill Piercy	7	21	0	4	1	5	0	0
1922	1921-12-20	Trade	21	NYY	BOS	Jack Quinn	138	149	0	19	84	86	0	13
1922	1921-12-20	Trade	21	NYY	BOS	Rip Collins	17	91	0	16	7	42	0	10
1922	1921-12-20	Trade	21	NYY	BOS	Roger Peckinpaugh	161	78	0	14	70	28	0	4
Total							-600	727	-16	68	-210	581	0	62
1922	1922-02-24	Waiver	22	NYY	BOS	Alex Ferguson	1	51	0	10	0	19	0	4
Total							-601	676	-16	58	-210	562	0	58
1922	1922-07-23	Trade	23	BOS	NYY	Elmer Smith	86	15	8	0	23	0	0	0
1922	1922-07-23	Trade	23	BOS	NYY	Joe Dugan	41	75	7	7	6	16	2	2
1922	1922-07-23	Trade	23	NYY	BOS	Chick Fewster	20	18	2	3	0	0	0	0
1922	1922-07-23	Trade	23	NYY	BOS	Elmer Miller	30	1	4	1	0	0	0	0
1922	1922-07-23	Trade	23	NYY	BOS	Johnny Mitchell	1	21	0	3	0	0	0	0
1922	1922-07-23	Trade	23	NYY	BOS	Lefty O'Doul	0	144	0	0	0	75	0	0
Total							-525	582	-7	58	-181	503	2	60
1923	1923-01-03	Trade	24	BOS	NYY	George Pipgras	0	81	0	0	0	40	0	0
1923	1923-01-03	Trade	24	BOS	NYY	Harvey Hendrick	0	88	0	2	0	21	0	0
1923	1923-01-03	Trade	24	NYY	BOS	Al DeVormer	2	6	0	3	0	0	0	0
Total							-527	745	-7	57	-181	564	2	60
1923	1923-01-30	Trade	25	BOS	NYY	Herb Pennock	77	163	0	23	40	97	0	17
1923	1923-01-30	Trade	25	NYY	BOS	Camp Skinner	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
1923	1923-01-30	Trade	25	NYY	BOS	George Murray	4	7	0	6	0	1	0	1
1923	1923-01-30	Trade	25	NYY	BOS	Norm McMillan	1	27	0	9	0	2	0	0
Total							-455	874	-7	65	-141	658	2	76
1925	1924-12-10	Trade	26	BOS	NYY	Howie Shanks	131	3	0	3	18	0	0	0
1925	1924-12-10	Trade	26	NYY	BOS	Mike McNally	19	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Total							-343	877	-7	68	-123	658	2	76
1925	1924-12-12	Waiver	27	BOS	NYY	Steve O'Neill	146	6	0	3	38	0	0	0
Total							-197	883	-7	71	-85	658	2	76
1925	1925-05-05	Trade	28	BOS	NYY	Alex Ferguson	36	16	0	5	17	2	0	0
1925	1925-05-05	Trade	28	BOS	NYY	Bobby Veach	262	3	0	3	140	0	0	0
1925	1925-05-05	Trade	28	NYY	BOS	Ray Francis	9	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Total							92	902	-7	79	72	660	2	76
1926	1926-06-15	Waiver	29	BOS	NYY	Roy Carlyle	9	3	2	3	0	0	0	0
Total							101	905	-5	82	72	660	2	76
1930	1930-05-06	Trade	30	BOS	NYY	Red Ruffing	57	265	0	16	28	174	1	9
1930	1930-05-06	Trade	30	NYY	BOS	Cedric Durst	10	3	0	3	0	0	0	0
Total							148	1167	-5	95	100	834	3	85
1932	1932-05-01	Trade	31	BOS	NYY	Wilcy Moore	52	5	3	4	34	0	2	0
1932	1932-05-01	Trade	31	NYY	BOS	Gordon Rhodes	6	41	0	3	0	16	0	0
Total							194	1131	-2	96	134	818	5	85
1932	1932-06-05	Trade	32	BOS	NYY	Danny MacFayden	69	81	2	6	39	39	1	1
1932	1932-06-05	Trade	32	NYY	BOS	Hank Johnson	29	18	1	0	10	4	0	0
1932	1932-06-05	Trade	32	NYY	BOS	Ivy Andrews	5	71	3	10	1	38	1	6
Total							229	1123	-4	92	162	815	5	80
1933	1933-05-12	Purchase	33	NYY	BOS	George Pipgras	73	8	2	8	37	3	1	3
Total							156	1115	-6	84	125	812	4	77
1933	1933-05-12	Purchase	34	NYY	BOS	Billy Werber	0	162	0	8	0	67	0	0
Total							156	953	-6	76	125	745	4	77
1934	1934-05-15	Trade	35	BOS	NYY	Freddie Muller	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Total							156	953	-6	76	125	745	4	77
1934	1934-05-15	Trade	36	NYY	BOS	Lyn Lary	61	84	0	9	18	33	0	0
Total							95	869	-6	67	107	712	4	77
1937	1937-02-17	Purchase	37	BOS	NYY	Babe Dahlgren	9	80	0	0	0	23	0	0
Total							104	949	-6	67	107	735	4	77
1946	1946-06-18	Purchase	38	NYY	BOS	Bill Zuber	25	6	0	5	1	0	0	0
Total							79	943	-6	62	106	735	4	77
1951	1950-11-16	Rule 5 Draft	39	NYY	BOS	Paul Hinrichs	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Total							79	943	-6	62	106	735	4	77
1952	1952-08-22	Purchase	40	BOS	NYY	Ray Scarborough	67	7	2	4	25	0	1	0
Total							146	950	-4	66	131	735	5	77
1957	1957-00-00	Unknown	41	BOS	NYY	Gordie Windhorn	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	0
Total							146	952	-4	66	131	735	5	77
1959	1959-00-00	Unknown	42	BOS	NYY	Eli Grba	0	23	0	0	0	7	0	0
Total							146	975	-4	66	131	742	5	77
1962	1962-06-12	Trade	43	BOS	NYY	Tom Umphlett	17	0	0	0	4	0	0	0
1962	1962-06-12	Trade	43	NYY	BOS	Billy Gardner	64	4	0	3	13	0	0	0
Total							99	971	-4	63	122	742	5	77
1967	1967-08-03	Trade	44	BOS	NYY	Pete Magrini	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
1967	1967-08-03	Trade	44	NYY	BOS	Elston Howard	195	8	2	2	83	0	0	0
Total							-96	963	-6	61	39	742	5	77
1967	1967-08-08	Purchase	45	BOS	NYY	Bob Tillman	0	0	0	0	6	0	0	0
Total							-96	963	-6	61	45	742	5	77
1967	1967-08-08	Trade	46	BOS	NYY	Ron Klimkowski	0	12	0	0	0	2	0	0
Total							-96	975	-6	61	45	744	5	77
1968	1968-05-18	Purchase	47	BOS	NYY	John Wyatt	0	0	0	0	31	0	0	0
Total							-96	975	-6	61	76	744	5	77
1969	1968-12-02	Rule 5 Draft	48	BOS	NYY	Bobby Mitchell	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Total							-96	975	-6	61	76	744	5	77
1972	1972-03-22	Trade	49	BOS	NYY	Sparky Lyle	42	119	0	18	17	68	0	13
1972	1972-03-22	Trade	49	NYY	BOS	Danny Cater	100	11	0	4	28	0	0	0
1972	1972-06-30	Trade	49	NYY	BOS	Mario Guerrero	0	38	0	0	0	1	0	0
Total							-154	1045	-6	75	65	811	5	90
1986	1986-03-28	Trade	50	BOS	NYY	Mike Easler	92	18	0	13	30	3	0	3
1986	1986-03-28	Trade	50	NYY	BOS	Don Baylor	232	30	0	16	98	6	0	6
Total							-294	1033	-6	72	-3	808	5	87
1994	1994-09-01	Purchase	51	BOS	NYY	Scott Bankhead	0	0	0	0	16	0	0	0
Total							-294	1033	-6	72	13	808	5	87
1997	1997-08-13	Trade	52	BOS	NYY	Mike Stanley	106	39	10	4	29	10	3	1
1997	1997-08-13	Trade	52	NYY	BOS	Tony Armas Jr.	0	28	0	0	0	7	0	0
1997	1997-09-29	Trade	52	NYY	BOS	Jim Mecir	3	36	0	0	0	13	0	0
Total							-191	1008	4	76	42	798	8	88
1900s			11				-587	-54	-19	-13	-291	-36	-6	-15
1910s			7				-110	51	3	3	13	68	6	6
1920s			11				798	908	11	92	350	628	2	85
1930s			8				3	44	-1	-15	35	75	2	1
1940s			1				-25	-6	0	-5	-1	0	0	0
1950s			4				67	32	2	4	25	7	1	0
1960s			6				-242	0	-2	-5	-55	2	0	0
1970s			1				-58	70	0	14	-11	67	0	13
1980s			1				-140	-12	0	-3	-68	-3	0	-3
1990s			2				103	-25	10	4	45	-10	3	1
2000s			0				0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Total			52				-191	1008	4	76	42	798	8	88

You'll note that the Twenties, which kicked off with the Ruth sale, were a huge plus for the Yankees. But you can also see that the first decade of the century was a big plus for Boston and helped build their early dynasty. From the 1910s through the 1970s, the Yankees pretty much owned the Sox in their mutual transactions, though the Sox have "won" their scant few trades since.

Next, we'll look at their biggest individual transactions.