LA Times columnist's awkward exchange with Casey Blake
From L.A. Times columnist T.J. Simers... You gotta feel at least a wee bit bad for Blake. It's entertaining reading, but Simers is a bit hypocritical for suggesting Blake wouldn't fit in the OF since earlier in the column he criticizes some of LA's outfielders.
Quoting Simers:
SO THE fans in Cleveland didn't take a liking to Casey Blake over the years. Wonder how they'd feel watching Jones play every day. Or Berroa.
"They were pretty tough on me," Blake said. "I think they were looking for a 40-home-run guy."
So are the Dodgers and their fans.
"Oh," Blake said.
Blake, who is free to go elsewhere after the season, said the Dodgers and their fans will probably like the versatility he offers in the next two months playing first base and the outfield as well as third base.
"Doubt it," I said. "They've got James Loney parked at first and four guys already vying for three outfield spots."
"Oh," Blake said.
over 3 years ago
parsons
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Much like the fans/media here in Cleveland .. this writer seems to be taking out his anger at the Dodger management on the player. I feel like wherever Casey goes, he will probably run into this resentment. It’s too bad.
It might have been worse if he had gotten traded to the Mets. Welcome to a large media market, Casey.
by PatBordersHelmet on Jul 29, 2008 2:20 PM EDT up reply actions
I don’t think the fans here were tough on Blake.
He was very well liked here for his first two years, when he surpassed expectations.
In 2005, we needed him to be good, and he was awful. Can’t blame the fans for boing at that point.
In 2006, he was good when he was healthy, but the team was awful.
In 2007, he was decent, but he cemented his reputation for not capitalizing on RBI opportunities. It doesn’t matter whether that holds up mathematically, you can’t blame the fans for being mad at a guy who strands 26 straight RISP to start the season. You just can’t.
Had Blake not been terrible in 2005 and incredibly un-clutch in 2007, he would have been one of the most popular Indians this decade. It didn’t have anything to do with his not being a 40 HR guy. We’ve had exactly two 30-HR seasons out of the entire roster since Thome left, both of them from Hafner.
So fans are supposed to remain neutral to the actual result on the field?
I get that it probably wasn’t Casey’s “fault” he was so bad in RISP but it still makes me disappointed as a fan and not like him. Similarly, I get that no one can explain to me why we distributed runs so poorly in 2006 and 2008 but it still makes me want to boo something.
I felt like Blake was in over his head sometimes, like the team and the fans just expected too much of him. I’m not excusing his periods of poor play, but they were magnified considering he was the only option the team had at third base for a while, but that was the team’s decision to stick with him. Blake wasn’t terrible or great, just average. If teams want to keep starting him the fans should be prepared for that kind of performance, but that doesn’t mean they have to be complacent towards the team’s decision.
I was going to type this earlier. I’m not sure if I’ll let that go for sometime. I’m more pissed at Skinner though.
Hello mjschaefer,
I too am more ticked at Skinner – he holds arguably our fastest runner (Lofton) at that point, who likely would have scored. Especially when you see some of the runners that Skinner has sent this year that have been thrown out by a mile this year, in the effort to “steal a run” – preferably, you’d like to “steal a run” with guys who have some speed and ability to score more often than not when there will be a play at the plate.
That’s another reason why adding more speed to this team would be beneficial in my opinion – that way, Skinner (or whoever is the 3B coach, where I wouldn’t mind a change) can “steal more runs” more successfully than sending Peralta, Shoppach, Dellucci, and whoever else is running toward 3B and being waved home. More often than not, they’ve been thrown out by a mile, plus it sets them up for possible injuries, something we do not need, since injuries are partly to blame for why this season has fallen short of expectations.
Just my 2 cents – no offense.
The "cream of the crop" doesn't always rise to the top.
Just out of curiosity, do you remember Blake’s BA with RISP during the playoffs? If not, then you’re a perfect example of someone with selective memory who just remembers moments when Blake didn’t do well.
I remember it being high, but I don’t remember him ever getting a big hit either. Driving in a run when you’re up (or down) six doesn’t mean much.
I’ve never said Blake wasn’t worth what we paid him. He was an average third baseman when we had no other options. In that respect, he saved us.
On the other hand, in the biggest game of the year, he grounded into a double play with the tying runner on third and less than two outs, and then made an error on a routine play that opened the flood gates to a loss.
Blake had a pretty good ALCS all in all. He was 4-for-10 in the last three games, which is more than I can say for most of the offense. I believe he broke a scoreless tie with a solo shot in Game 2. He did hit a couple of doubles in Game 1 when we were down by 7 or more, but hey, at least someone was trying to win that game.
Solo shot in game 4. Again, I was using the Jacobs Field urinals at the time.
by supermarioelia on Aug 1, 2008 9:11 AM EDT up reply actions
Yesterday Castrovince wrote on CastroTurf:
Lots of feedback coming from Saturday’s Casey Blake trade—in my e-mail and mailbag inboxes and in the comment section below. It’s possible I’ve received as many angry e-mails over this trade as I did about the Sabathia trade, which is surprising.
[...]
That being said, my one concern about this trade is the effect it could have on this clubhouse, where Blake, simply put, was a glue. Several players have hinted this season that the loss of Trot Nixon’s leadership was an underrated factor in the team’s early troubles and losing guys like CC and Blake adds to that.
I’m a Blake fan. loved him ever since 2003 spring training. He-and Nixon-have an intangible that doesn’t show up in the stats. He was worth every dollar we paid him.
Grit? Love of pies? I actually kinda liked Casey, too, although I think we got, by far, the better end of the deal with LA. I kinda liked him only because I thought his stats weren’t horrible, not because he has an “intangible” that trumps stats. Until baseball becomes like D&D or one of those trading card games and the manager gets to play an intangible multiplier, intangibles are overrated, and mostly an excuse to keep guys around that you like but otherwise can’t justify wasting a roster spot on. It’s not that clubhouse leadership or not being an ass isn’t important, it’s just that you need to serve some other purpose, too. Casey did, so the only reason I’m not sad to see him go is because I think both Deloan and Santana will someday be good. Nixon didn’t, so the only thing we miss is the pie.
I think he was worth every dollar we paid him and more — after all, we only paid him about $10 million total for 2003 through 2007. Some complained this year that we shouldn’t be spending $6 million on him, but I wasn’t one of them. Clearly we got a lot more than $6 million in value out of the guy.
Thanks for this well-reasoned response. It’s never made sense to me to boo or criticize someone like Blake whose value-to-salary ration is so high. While I’m generally not a big fan of booing players, it makes much more sense for fans to boo, say, C.C. for choking in the playoffs or Hafner for, well, everything in the past two years, than to boo someone like Blake. It’s all about the ratio of what the team is paying for and what they’re getting.
I don’t entirely agree with that. If Blake had been just a league-average RF in 2005, we’d probably have gone to the playoffs. He was a disappointment in the one year when it turned out to matter the most. Same goes for Broussard.
Forgot the other thing I was going to say.
I am not someone who likes to discount the effects of leadership, but having said that … just because the players think someone’s gluiness had an effect doesn’t mean that it did. His glue didn’t help Cabrera or Garko or Gutierrez find their hitting groove, nor did it help Betancourt. If Blake’s leadership can’t hold together a clubhouse without Trot, then what good is it? Just how many of these glue guys are we supposed to keep on the payroll, anyway?
What the players know for sure is that Blake made the environment better in the clubhouse by virtue of his personality. What effect that environmental improvement had on winning or losing, let me just politely say that they don’t know as much about that as they do about the environment itself.
Here’s your silver lining: At least C.C. isn’t around for this part of the season to see what a hellhole the clubhouse is without Blake there to glue it all together.
And in conclusion: HIRE BONDS.
Good points. The team leadership didn’t do diddly squat in 2008. Victor always seemed to be more of a leader, but maybe the Latin-Anglo divide exists in the Tribe clubhouse too. Whoever was the leader of this team should be fired. It could be that Wedge’s affiliation with Blake had a poor effect with Blake’s teammates, though they still look pretty lifeless—even with Casey in LA.
I’m wary of this Blake revisionism, with people here coming out in favor of Casey now that he’s at a safe remove. Perhaps Blake was antimotivational. Maybe he bummed everybody out with his superhuman ability to strand runners. To me Blake symbolized this team’s persistent and mystifying underachievement, even though he remains an archetypal overachiever. Double-play followed by error. That’s unfair, but that’s what I thin when I see him. And it was time for him to move on.
As I said above, Blake was one of the teams best hitters with RISP in the playoffs last year. That DP was a disappointment, sure. But I tend to remember C.C.’s choking when I think about last year’s failures.
I’m with Jimmy on this. It was typical of C.C.’s tragic flaw—his inability to control his emotions at critical moments. Thus, we kind of knew he would get too worked up (twice) when pitching in the ALCS. In a way, it was endearingly Cleveland, to verb up when it really mattered. While it was humanly possible for C.C. to pitch one of his better games, we suspected he might blow up, and weren’t surprised when he did.
I liked Blake as a person, but if baseball players are motivated by veterans that can’t hit, then maybe management should look into bringing in retired ball players as guest motivators instead instead of filling our roster up with dead weight (i.e. Boone, Nixon, Dellucci). Heck, with the extra cash we could probably even bring a comedian or two in to throw a couple of pies and crack some jokes. Maybe Dane Cook can work April for us.
T.J. Simers
Simers’ style is to have awkward exchanges with a number of sports people. He sort of picked on Gary Matthews Jr. last season. He has nicknames for people. He used to call the Dodgers owner McCourt the Boston Parking Lot Attendant and had a name for McCourt’s wife too. It was fun to root for the Dodgers when I was growing up, but I have been turned off since O’Malley sold the team. The Fox ownership follow by McCourt and his latest GM who signed free agents like Juan Pierre, Jason Schmidt, Garciaparra, and Andrew Jones are nonbaseball people investing while the O’Malleys were baseball people.,. Check out his acerbic columns at LAtimes.com.
The fans wanted a 40 HR guy? BS. We fans wanted a player who didn’t suck when the game was on the line.
And BTW, there ARE 40 HR guys in this league who have been booed way more than Casey (ARod).
Words do not do justice to my hatred for Boston sports teams.
by FaustosSinkingFastball on Jul 29, 2008 5:51 PM EDT reply actions
“Hmm, this columnist guy sure is being a jerk to me for no apparent reason. Heck, I didn’t agree to trade those kids for myself. But I’ll just say whatever I thinks he wants to hear. Under-appreciated, versatile. That might play…or not. He’s just a jerk. Monosyllabic. Concentrate on the pre-paid 2008 salary. Monosyllabic. I could totally beat this punk up though.”
by fleerdon on Jul 29, 2008 6:25 PM EDT reply actions 3 recs
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