Three Players Who Are About To Get Famous
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Every year, players come out of nowhere to do wonderful things for excellent teams. Sometimes they’re stars that just haven’t been appreciated as such; sometimes they’re random young guys with a good fastball or a good glove; sometimes they’re nobodies who never do anything again. The following three ballplayers, all who play for clubs that could win or lose 90 games, aren’t the most important players on their teams. I have a hunch, though, that each of them will be far more famous by the end of this summer than they are right now, and that if they aren’t, their teams aren’t going to be doing much of anything.
BILL HALL, BREWERS Here is a proposition: If Bill Hall played in New York and had a cool name like Skeets McAllister or Jimmy Guitar, people would love him and he would be famous. As is, Hall has a boring name and plays in perhaps the least colorful city in the majors, so no one cares about him. It’s madness. Last year, Hall hit .270 BA/.345 OBA/.553 SLG with 35 home runs; the year before, he hit .291/.342/.495. Those are lines that wouldn’t look at all out of place on the back of Miguel Tejada’s baseball card, and Hall not only plays a reasonable shortstop but can handle center field, second, and third. One doesn’t need to be too imaginative to see what you can do with such a player: Stick him at short or center and give yourself a leg up on the competition, or play him every day at a different position so you can rest your regulars while keeping a strong lineup in place. There are no bad choices. The Brewers were threatening to play him in left for a while, but now it looks more likely that he’ll play center.
Wherever he plays, Hall will be one of the better players on a team that has a lot of top talent. This team is going to contend, and while guys like Olympian Ben Sheets and son of a famous fat guy Prince Fielder will get the attention, Hall will be pulling at least as much weight. Any proposals for colorful nicknames that might draw attention to this anonymous star will be taken seriously.
FERNANDO CABRERA, INDIANS Relief pitching is perhaps the most mystifying thing in baseball. Expensive free agent closers are often terrible, while minor league veterans are often great. Past simple truisms (you’d probably prefer a reliever to have a hard, moving fastball and a good secondary pitch), building a good bullpen is a crapshoot.
No one’s more aware of this than the Indians. On paper, this has been one of the elite teams in baseball for the last two years, yet they have nothing to show for it, largely because of a lousy pen. Whether it’s been bad managing, bad coaching, bad luck, bad pitchers, or, as is most likely, a bit of each, they’ve built bad bullpens and even given good pitchers away. The Mets traded for Guillermo Mota when he had a 6.21 ERA for Cleveland last year and watched him give up two runs in 18 innings down the stretch, which is a bit like Warren Buffett picking a homeless guy’s pocket and finding a $50 bill. That’s how it’s gone for the Indians.
With a crew of derelicts and hobos likely making up the Cleveland pen this year, they’re going to have to get something out of someone if they want to do anything. I think (as I do every year) that the Indians are going to do something, and that’s partly because I like Fernando Cabrera. A big strong guy with the usual assortment of hard stuff, Cabrera ate the minors alive and ran up a 1.47 ERA in his 2005 debut before getting knocked around for a 5.19 ERA last year. Opponents hit .304 when he threw fastballs, but he still struck out 71 in 60.2 innings. Given his stuff and track record, I put a bit more stock in the latter number than in the former. If he can step up and give Cleveland the late-inning horse they’ve lacked, they might actually make the leap from being a great team on paper to being a great team.
CHARLIE HAEGER, WHITE SOX If relief pitching isn’t the most mystifying thing in baseball, that’s only because the knuckleball exists. The sight of a .330 hitter flailing helplessly at a 70-mph pitch thrown by a guy who looks like an accountant is and always will be one of the sport’s most rewarding spectacles. Past the sheer thrill of this image, knuckleballers are also extremely valuable to ballclubs because of their durability and seeming imperviousness to injury.
Charlie Haeger, who pitched 170 innings with a 3.07 ERA in Triple A last year and threw well in a brief stint with the big club, is trying to become the newest member of the knuckleball fraternity, and one can’t help but root for him. Past offering the hope of aesthetically pleasing floaters, though, Haeger also gives the White Sox a chance to stabilize a rotation that, after trades made to take advantage of an overheated pitching market, isn’t quite as deep as it has been over the last two years. In a highly competitive division, the difference between 200 solid innings of knuckleballing and 200 innings from various washouts, green prospects, and bums could be the difference between a division crown and a fourth-place finish for Ozzie Guillen’s crew. Haeger isn’t going to be handed a rotation spot; teams will always give a shot to a guy with a 10% chance of becoming a good no. 2 starter rather than giving it to a guy with a 60% chance of becoming a good no. 4 starter. If the Sox ride high this summer, though, I suspect this heir to past Pale Hose knuckeballers like Hall of Famers Hoyt Wilhelm and Ted Lyons will have his neatly manicured hand right in the midst of things.
