Close!
Rick Reilly almost writes a good column. I was able to wade through the poor analogies, cheesy sentimentality and crappy 2nd grade references to read the column and not feel the need to post it. Then I read the end and decided it all irritated me after all.
How hard is it to write once a week, for only 600 words, and write a good column that is coherent and not incorrect? For Rick Reilly, it is really hard.
Mitch Jones is the biggest fish in the puddle, the fastest snail on the beach, the best understudy on Broadway. No active player has hit more home runs in the minor leagues—nearly 200 dingers—without getting a shot at the bigs.
Two things here: First, all of the analogies is overkill. To write the same analogy over and over shows either (a) a lack of good material to write about or (b) you are the type of writer who gets off on killing space. I will let you decide which, if not both, of these Reilly suffers from.
My question, and one Reilly is too busy getting sentimental to ask is this...What do his other numbers look like, outside of homeruns? Once you find this out, then you might have the reason he was not called up sooner.
http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/J/Mitch-Jones.shtml
Seriously, his numbers are pretty freaking good in the homerun and RBI department.
Then you see he struck out 131, 152, 174, and 145 times in four consecutive years. No big deal, strikeouts are the same as any other out, as long you get on base other ways, should not be a big deal. This is called the Adam Dunn Theory.
His OBP for those years was .338, .334, .347, and .318, so you see he was not exactly getting on base at an alarmingly good pace. He mostly played OF and 1B, so I would say he is a borderline major league player at best. It is wonderful to hit homeruns but when you hit below .250 you are not going to get noticed.
Nine years now, and not even an at-bat. These September call-ups could be his last chance. He's 30, and 30-year-olds get called up every other pyramid.
I find this sad, I really do. I personally think someone should have called him up at some point but maybe there is a long line of OF/1B who can hit homeruns that don't strikeout and get on base?
"Gets called up every other pyramid?" Is that really the best you can do? You can't just write, 30 year olds don't get called up very frequently, followed by a quote from a front office executive somewhere, and actually make it sound like you are a professional writer.
Why didn't he make it? Because he was dumb enough to start his career at the exact wrong time in baseball history: during the Pharmacy Era, when old guys got young with syringes and injured guys got well with shipments from Mexico.
I have never heard it called the Pharmacy Era...that is not catchy so we will never call it that again. He played in the Yankees farm system, so it was not a good time to be in the Yankee farm system either, because they were spending $450 million on free agents per year. Rather than a generalization that this was the steroid era and attribute it solely to that, maybe acknowledge the Yankee roster is a tough one to crack and that this fact could have something to do with it.
I think minor league players like Jones should file a class action, restraint of trade lawsuit against Major League Baseball because they sat stewing in the minors while big leaguers were allowed to cheat.
I hope this is a joke. There are so many reasons this would fail. Namely the fact the players in said class action suit would have to prove they were denied an opportunity because the 24th and 25th man on the roster was using steroids that increased their performance to where they were better than the class action players and the only reason the major league kept the steroided bench players in the majors was because they had incredible skills (aided by steroids) and did not have to do with a certain bench player being out of options or any other silly baseball reason.
I could list 100 other reasons and couch it in terms Reilly is not familiar with, such as the rules of free agency and minor league contract terms, but I don't want to confuse him. It's easier for him to take a 3rd grade, "this is unfair" approach.
Take Shawn Garrett of the Tacoma Rainiers, who, at 29, has played the most games (more than 1,200 since 1998) without being called up. He's had to participate in four cow-milking contests on the field. He's had to wear Hawaiian Night jerseys, camo jerseys, pink jerseys and tie-dye jerseys. He's a lifetime .290 hitter and never had day one in the majors.
That is interesting, I wonder what Reilly's reasoning is for this.
Yeah, steroids.
I did some super-secret research that may help us figure this mystery out. Check out Shawn's statistics and take out the small sample size .371 that he has never even come close to reaching since then.
http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/G/shawn-garrett.shtml
During the "Pharmacy Era," which I am going to go ahead and assume is 1998-2005, he played for San Diego, Pittsburgh, and Colorado. If anyone can name one player on each of those teams that has been even suspected of using steroids, then you win a box of Cheez-Its. There was some other unfair reason why he was not called up potentially, but the reason was not steroids for those three teams during that time period.
Let's be honest, it may be a reflection of those team's inability to identify talent or the fact Shawn Garrett had Juan Pierre-esque power. It could have been a Scientology related reason where the team was afraid he was the reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard and did not want him on the major league roster due to this irrational fear. This is likely more likely than a person on those three teams were blocking him due to that player being steroided up.
The whole point Reilly and many other who dare to discuss steroids has missed is that if any of these players were called up, it would most likely not be to start, it would to be on the bench and pinch hit when needed. So the star players, who were on steroids, are not the problem, it is the bench players a call up would replace on a major league team who players like Mitch Jones would replace.
This may seem like a "chicken or the egg" argument but it is really not. Some of the players accused of using steroids were better than 90% of the league without the steroids.
Oriole David Segui told his GM that he wanted to go to Florida to pick up juice, and the GM never reported it. A Twins visiting clubhouse attendant found a used syringe and told manager Tom Kelly, who never reported it.
Wasn't this all covered nearly a year ago? Baseball turned a blind eye because they were prospering from it and there were probably other players who were using so they did not want to open Pandora's Box. This is wrong, but just because a visiting clubhouse attendant found a used syringe does not mean that is the exact reason Shawn Garrett or Mitch Jones have never played in the major leagues.
Jones played in the Yankees' farm system from 2000 to 2006 as a corner outfielder and first baseman. He hit 39 HRs in a season, and nobody in the Bronx even blinked. That's because the Yankees had Jason Giambi at first and Gary Sheffield in right. And guess who were both cited in the Mitchell Report? Giambi and Sheffield.
I am as anti-steroid as everyone else in the free world, but Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield were exceptional ball players before they took steroids and are exceptional ball players after they took steroids. Their steroid use did not propel them to being the players they were, they were good before the steroids. The steroids did propel them to putting up exceptional numbers though but I really doubt Mitch Jones would have matched these numbers.
I would go out on a limb over the Grand Canyon and say the presence of Hideki Matsui and Bernie Williams in the outfield also had something to do with Micah Jones not being called up.
Rick Reilly is the master of hyperbole and trying to use an emotional viewpoint to get his point across. I am devoid of emotion so this is useless on me. You can not tell me Jason Giambi, Mitch Jones and Gary Sheffield, are on an equal playing field regarding baseball talent when all three are not on steroids. This is wrong.
"Man, I look at what those guys make," says Jones, who's never driven anything nicer than a Toyota pickup, "and I think, That could've been me."
(vein popping out of forehead) They were better than you before they used steroids! Blame the 24th/25th man on the roster who you would have actually replaced. People like Shane Spencer, Luis Sojo, and Enrique Wilson, not players who were All Stars before they took illegal drugs.
What happened to Jones on May 19, 2006, alone ought to be worth a few mil in punitive damages. He was in Richmond when the Yankees called him up, emergency style. He raced to the airport, flew to LaGuardia, got in a cab, had to talk his way into Yankee Stadium, picked up his uniform, called his dad to tell him ("I'd always dreamed of the day I'd make that call," Jones says), sat next to Sheffield in the dugout (oh, irony!) and … never got into the game.
I guess Reilly was not joking about the lawsuit. I have never been really excited for something and then been let down. Mitch Jones has to have been the first person in the history of the world to get this feeling. I am glad Rick Reilly was here to document this significant historical moment.
This is how being a marginal baseball prospect works. If you can't deal with it, leave the game and sell patio furniture by the side of the road out of the back of your Toyota pickup.
Afterward, Joe Torre called him into his office and said, "Man, I hate to do this to you, but we're sending you back down." Jones was, naturally, crushed.
I would be very disappointed also and it seems like Joe Torre did not like to make this decision. Also he was sent down for a pitcher named Colter Bean. That is just embarrassing.
Now Jones is in the Dodger organization, and guess who's the Dodger manager? Torre.
Hey, Joe, call him up right now, and we'll ask the lawyers to go easy on you during the cross.
First off, it was not Joe Torre's fault Jones was sent down, only a moron would not know that Brian Cashman or someone else made that decision. Second off, I know Rick Reilly is being funny but do the Dodgers really need another OF?
This column started well but blaming steroids for the reason these two players were not called up is blatantly incorrect. It is not the star players on steroids who prevented them from playing in the major leagues, it was the bench players who would have gotten sent down instead.
All I ask in my human interest stories is to not let facts get run over by the need to get everyone emotional about the situation. Reilly stinks at this.
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