Latest Post on THE HARDBALL TIMES - If Jamie Moyer had been average in his 20s

My latest article for The Hardball Times ponders the question "If Jamie Moyer had pitched better in his twenties, would he be a Hall of Fame candidate?"

The debate over the value of wins in determining a pitcher's worth found an interesting case study with Felix Hernandez and the Cy Young Award this year.

Imagine if Jamie Moyer was on the cusp of 300 wins?

CLICK HERE to read the article.

The Pirates should TRY to sign Derek Jeter

Derek Jeter is going to be a free agent at the end of this year and it is a foregone conclusion that he will resign with the Yankees.

He's given the Yankees 16 seasons and is only 102 hits away from being the first Yankee to reach 3,000.

And of course he is the most beloved New York sports star in the last quarter century. (Seriously, who has come close?)

All of that being said... this should not be a free agency where he gets no other bids.

The Pirates need to throw in a bid.

Yup. I am dead serious.

So all of you Pirate fans who think I am picking on you guys... I am not. There is some logic to my insanity.

The Pirates have been bad for so long that there are Pirate fans who can legally buy a drink and have no memory of their team winning 82 games in a season... and not because they are drunk.

And guess what? That is now the identity of the team. In Buster Olney's great book The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty, he wrote about Luis Sojo's brief time in Pittsburgh. Sojo was stunned how there was complacency in the clubhouse that they are simply not going to contend.

That was 10 seasons ago. They haven't come close to relevance since and are currently the worst team in baseball.

But as I wrote before, there is some hope for the 2011 team. They are cobbling together some nice talent, including Pedro Alvarez at third and an outfield of Jose Tabata, Andrew McCutchen and the grizzled 25 year old veteran Lastings Milledge. Plus there are some decent arms that are going through some growing pains.

I was thinking about teams that made and unexpected turn arounds over the years.
I can think of teams like the 1986 Red Sox... 1988 Dodgers... the 1991 Twins and Braves... the 2006 Tigers... the 2008 Rays.

Each of those teams had a new comer who had post season experience and simply wouldn't tolerate losing. And it rubbed off.

Don Baylor came into the Red Sox clubhouse and helped turn a fractured team into almost a World Series winner.

Kirk Gibson stormed out of the Dodgers spring training when he felt there was too much joking. He led by example and even homered when he couldn't walk.

The 1991 World Series was between teams that were in last place the year before. Charlie Liebrandt helped anchor Atlanta's rotation and Terry Pendleton had an MVP season sparking the line up. Meanwhile the Twins imported Jack Morris to the rotation and 10 innings in Game 7 later, the Twins were champs.

Jim Leyland turned the 2006 Tigers around with some help from Pudge Rodriguez, who started the change in the culture a few years prior.

And importing some veterans like Cliff Floyd transformed Tampa from the laughing stock of baseball to a pennant winner.

Now of course each of these teams won because their talent clicked... but you can point to those veterans who helped turn the proverbial rag tag bunch of also rans into contenders.

Which brings us to the Pirates.
They desperately need someone to help change the culture and stop the "They haven't been above .500 since 1992" clock.

They need someone to tell Milledge and Alvarez how to play the game and not let the Pirates be content with losing.

And we're not even pining for a World Series winner. An 82-80 record will get the monkey off their back.

Who commands more respect than Jeter?
Who do you think would be LESS tolerant of a clubhouse that has all the peppiness of a Droopy cartoon?

The players would play UP to his level... or at least try to the same way any of us try to do a good job when someone we respect is watching us.

The Pirates NEED to go into this free agency period and put in an offer for him and do it publicly.

Now do the Pirates have a shot?
Of course not. Jeter is a Yankee for life. We all know it. And the Yankees will out bid the Pirates in a matter of nanoseconds.

And in the end the Pirates won't have to spend the money they bid.
But at least it would be a positive gesture.

And telling their fans "We see what part of the problem is" is a start.

(But man, wouldn't it be cool to see him in Gold and black?)

Jamie Moyer deserved better

What the hell happened to the Phillies? Aren't they supposed to be the NL answer to the Yankees and Red Sox juggernaut?

Aren't they supposed to be a dynasty in the making?

Don't the know they have Jamie Moyer pitching tonight, sitting on 267 wins... a mere 33 wins from a trip to Cooperstown?

He pitched well... 6 innings, 1 earned run, 8 strikeouts versus the lowly Pirates.

But the mighty Phillies managed NO runs off of Ross Ohlendorf! Going into tonight's game he was tied with ME for wins.

Come on Phils!
You've got an unlikely uniform to retire and Hall of Fame ticket to punch. Let's get on the ball. You can't blame EVERYTHING on Chase Utley's injury!

Next stop for the Jamie Moyer Express... COOPERSTOWN!

I wrote a piece last March tongue firmly in cheek about Jamie Moyer possibly winning 42 more games over his career... getting to win #300... and becoming the single most unlikely Hall of Famer possibly of all time.

It was a theoretical post as Moyer was 47 years old going into this season (and has now pitched in 4 different decades) and would have to go a few years into THIS decade to pull it off.

It was just one of those Sully Baseball idle thoughts that I have 4,392 times a day.

Well in his performance last night, a 2 hit shutout against the Atlanta Braves, he sure looked like a guy who had his eyes on the prize.

Look, I don't think he is going to get to 300... but he's only 38 wins away now.

38 wins doesn't seem like that much, does it?
Especially on a team like Philadelphia.

I still don't think he will... but man am I rooting for it!

I talked earlier this week about the passing of one Phillies Ace, Robin Roberts and the dominance of the new Phillies ace, Roy Halladay.

I might be wrong about this, but I think Moyer is closer in age to Robers than Halladay!

Can there be 42 more wins for Jamie Moyer?

On June 16, 1986, the Cubs were facing the Phillies at Wrigley Field. Both teams were hopelessly behind the Mets. The Phillies started Steve Carlton that day, whose brilliant Hall of Fame career was winding down. Future Hall of Famers Mike Schmidt and Ryne Sandberg also played in that game. So did some big names from the 1970s like Davey Lopes and Kent Tekulve.

And pitching for the Cubs that day was a rookie making his big league debut. He won the game, beating Carlton, letting up 4 runs in 6 1/3 innings.

That pitcher is now in Philadelphia and still pitching... in fact Jamie Moyer won the 5th starter's job for the Phillies going into the 2010 season... and guess what? When all is said and done, HE could be a Hall of Famer!

He will be pitching in his 4th decade (yes, I am counting this as a new decade.) In his first six seasons in the bigs, he played for three different teams, went 34-54 with an ERA in the high 4's. He spent all of 1992 in the minor leagues. I bet if you told him then that he would still be pitching in the bigs in 2010... well he probably would have thought you were either crazy or wondered how you bent the rules of time and space.

But here he is... all of these years later... still pitching. Thanks to a truly rotten trade by the Red Sox, Moyer settled into a groove in Seattle and pitched for 10 1/2 seasons. And now has spent the past 3 1/2 seasons in Philly.

He has a World Series ring with the 2008 Phillies, a pair of top 5 Cy Young finishes and one more top 10 finish, pitched in the 2003 All Star Game and along the way earned 10s of millions of dollars.

You'd think that would be enough. But folks... he's pitching on arguably the best team in the National League. In two of the last three years his ERA has soared to nearly 5 but his win totals remained in double digits.

He is currently sitting on 258 wins.

Imagine if he wins 12 this year, which isn't out of the question.
And then he wins 11 the year afterwards.

Are you seeing where I am taking this?

Let's say he has 4 mediocre seasons with high win totals. If over the next 4 seasons, get wins 10 or 11 each year...

He'd get 300 wins, and we're talking first ballot Hall of Famer.

Does he have it in him? He'll be 47 this season, so I am talking about pitching into his 50s.

But can he do it? He's not a power pitcher. In his prime, his pitches couldn't destroy a spider web.

He has the NL's best lineup hitting behind him and he'll be starting every fifth day.

Basically Jamie Moyer is to pitching what Harold Baines was to batting.
Harold had a nice but hardly eye popping career. But as I wrote before, if he got 7 more hits a year, he would have cleared 3,000 and been Hall of Fame bound.

Moyer doesn't have a shot without 300. But NOT reaching 300 is the only thing keeping Bert Blyleven out.

And the idea of Jamie Moyer being a Hall of Famer while an ace and a post season stud like Jack Morris is kept out is mildly insane.

But I like insanity. So count me in to wanting to see Jamie Moyer get 42 more wins in his career.

How can you not root for a man who career stretches from playing Ron Cey to playing with Cole Hamels?

So he didn't throw a no hitter

But 300 wins is pretty damn cool.

Nothing left to do on Randy Johnson's baseball career bucket list other than figure out which cap he is going to wear on his Hall of Fame plaque.

According to Tim Brown's column there is no love lost between The Big Unit and the Diamondbacks.

I hope they bury whatever hatchet might exist.

Yeah he might be a surly bird exploding S.O.B.... but he also came out of the bullpen on no days rest to shut down the Yankees in the last few innings of Game 7 of the 2001 World Series... a series that Randy Johnson had a 3-0 record in.

That makes any grumpiness forgivable.

Now to finish out the season with the Giants (a season no doubt my dad thinks the Giants can win!!!)

There's no way he could... could he?

Randy Johnson has a lead for his bid to win 300 games.

And he has a no hitter through 4.

He wouldn't win #300 with his third no hitter will he?