Eleven years ago today, Fernando Tatis became the first and only player in baseball history to hit two grand slams in one inning. Amazingly, both came off Chan Ho Park, who allowed 11 runs while recording eight outs. Tatis went on to hit .298/.404/.553 with 34 homeruns for the Cardinals that season, easily the best of the big league career.
Here are a handful of links from around the blogosphere…
- Maddon's Mission wonders if the Rays' handling of Matt Garza tells us about their plans for him in the future.
- The Pale Hose Pariah concludes that A.J. Pierzynski is worth a grade-B position player prospect for a couple of grade-C pitching prospects in a trade.
- Pittsburgh Lumber Co. notes that Lastings Milledge has shown improved on-field maturity since joining the Pirates.
- The Friarhood says the Padres recent winning streak puts any trade talks on hold.
- And Counting makes the case for Carlos Zambrano and Alfonso Soriano being underpaid.
- Capitol Avenue Club visualizes the Braves' proverbial five-year plan.
- Around The Basepath thinks an worldwide draft is a great idea.
- Crashburn Alley takes stock of the Phillies' roster.
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The most unbreakable record in baseball.
how about rickey hendersons all time stolen base record?
or bobby cox all time ejections?
or ripkens iron man streak?
The most unbreakable record in baseball is the Johnny Vander Meer’s back to back no hitters. Nobody will ever throw three in a row.
the same can be said for hitting three grand slams in the same inning, i would say that is more difficlut. Vander Meer’s feat isn’t really a record as it is a streak.
The most unbreakable record is Cy Young’s 749 complete games.
i had to read the word “underpaid” about 10 times before i clicked on the link because i just couldn’t believe anyone would make such an argument
That Soriano/Zambrano post is a card-carrying example of just glancing at WAR/Salary figures on Fangraphs without looking at, well, anything else.
Ha, I didn’t realize they gave out cards for that. Honestly, it’s not an argument that their current contracts are too low or even that any player deserves to be paid according to their Fangraphs page. It’s just a matter of looking at what both guys have been paid throughout their careers thus far and comparing it to an objective (albeit inflated) measurement of how much it would cost to replace those stats through free agency. Over the first 11 years of his career, Soriano made about $4.6 million per year. In the first 7 years of Zambrano’s contract, he made about $8 million per. Over those stretches alone, those guys were paid less than what they were worth.
But I fully concede that will never, ever happen again for either of them.
Well I hope you didn’t spend too much time on it.
as far as im concerned, an actual obtainable goal that no one will ever match ever again is Joe Dimaggio’s hit streak. that grand slam thing is a cool freak of nature, but it doesnt prove anything about talent. besides, saying you hit two home runs of Park is like saying you hit them off a Tee, especially in 99′
a record should be something you earn from being the most skilled, not from being in the right place at the right time
Well, one could certainly argue (especially in the sabermetrics era) that the Yankee Clipper’s amazing hitting streak had SOME luck involved. I wonder what his BABIP was during the streak…
This is NOT to say that it’s not an amazing streak, influenced primarily by skill. Just that every great accomplishment is due in no small part to a good deal of luck too…
you could go 1-5 with a single for 56 straight games. sure you have a hit streak but you still suck.
what about hitting safely in 56 strait games?
my bad, didn’t see 04forever’s comment.
Well, Zambrano is now the richest set-up man in baseball. (;
umm i think Cal Ripken’s streak is very very safe.
also very very true
Ahaha. That article about Zambrano and Soriano is a joke. I could use that same logic to say that Tommy Hanson is underpaid because of how good he was last year, and how little he got for it.
Tommy Hanson IS underpaid. The vast majority of pre-arb players are.
Exactly. Which justifies my point about that article being dumb.
He takes into account times when EVERY SINGLE GOOD PLAYER is underpaid, and uses it to his advantage.
The only two years Soriano was significantly underpaid were 2006 and 2007.
Vernon Wells is underpaid, too!
He’s been worth $76.3MM, and has only been paid $21.6MM since 2002.
Surely using this logic, the loaded A-Rod couldn’t be underpaid, could he? SURE HE COULD.
Since 2002, he has been worth $208.9MM, and has only been paid $164.4MM.
That article is trash.
Actually, he’s been paid $25.5 million just in signing bonus money over the last three years, the last installment of which he just collected this March. But you obviously haven’t been able to make the distinction between what he WILL be paid and what he HAS been paid or even bothered to notice that the 2009 player salaries don’t even show up on fangraphs yet. Had you done either, you’d see that Vernon Wells has not yet begun to be overpaid on the whole and that it will all change when his $12.5 million salary will double next year (BTW: it was $1.5 million last year . . . it’s a VERY weird contract).
Also, on the A-Rod comment, if you had done just a little bit more checking, you would have seen that fangraphs is missing about $35 million of A-Rod income from his 2009 salary and the initial $2 million portion of the signing bonus. So his actual income and the value his production would pull (and has pulled) on the free-agent market is pretty much even.
You have to realize the whole point was to help Cub fans realize they’re overlooking a lot of Soriano and Zambrano’s contributions to the team, not to justify the contracts in their entirety. Too many people revel in the wins brought by pre-arb players and the first few years of backloaded contracts and then whine like babies when it comes time to pay up.
But hey, thanks for reading nonetheless.