December 27, 2003
Career Over?
One person I'm hearing very little buzz about this off season is Roberto Alomar. I did a search of google news, and the only tidbit I found that was the least bit interesting was in this assessment of the Cardinals moves:
Meanwhile, left field and second base remain unsettled, and the club still needs a leadoff hitter. Names like Roberto Alomar and Eric Young keep popping up, but neither is exciting. Alomar will be 36 next season and coming off two seasons of mediocrity. Young, who will be 37 in May, batted .251 and fields about the same. Is either one better than Vina?
Roberto Alomar
not exciting? Roberto Alomar
36?! This is a man who was one of the most exciting players in the game for the first 14 years of his career. He got on base. He had some pop in his bat. He was fast and knew how to steal bases (80.9 % for his career). He was a playoff hero, and often dazzled spectators with his fielding. Yes, he had his umpire run-in that will leave a negative stain on his image, but this is a Hall of Fame player.
The last two season he's put up OBA's 40 points below his career average, with no power. He's a free agent likely looking for megabucks, and teams are now smart enough to know that he's a bad investment at eight figures, and even at high seven figures. He needs 321 hits for 3000. A couple of years ago, he looked like a shoe-in, but at his current rate, he'll have to play three seasons to get there. Maybe some club will offer him a low base with lots of incentives. Or maybe he'll just hang up his spikes, go home and enjoy his millions. It's just a reminder of how fast a career can fall apart.
David,
Robbie's numbers in 2002 and 2003 are scary enough as is. But for those unfortunate enough to watch him play everyday for the Mets for a season and a half, they only tell part of the story. The precipitous decline in Alomar's skills is one thing --- his seeming lack of concentration at the plate, his listless displays at 2B...more than anything else, he looked like a player who was cashing a check and not much else.
For those who speculated that what Robbie really needed was a pennant race to wake him up, White Sox fans can testify otherwise.
GC
The White Sox actually wanted to resign Robbie, but they didn't offer as much as he would have liked (and then lowered their offer from that at the last minute).
As for Robbie with the White Sox last year, it's another case where the stats don't tell the whole story. The stats don't show it, but his addition really did help the team. From stats alone he doesn't seem too different than D'Angelo Jimenez, who he replaced, but Jimenez was a horrible ballplayer who made constant mental mistakes and just wasn't good at all. Maybe it was just in comparision to D'Angelo, but Robbie did seem to have a lot more hustle, and we did play better after getting him and Carl Everitt (at least until September, where the team choked horribly).
Believe it or not, most White Sox fans I've heard from wanted him back (at least at the price of about $3 mil a year we were offering him), because the alternative appears to be Willie Harris, who's never shown much of anything ever. Sigh.
Reminds me a lot of Carlos Baerga, who seemed to be a star 2B for years to come, and fell off the planet in about one year.
It's really absolutely NOTHING like Carlos Baerga. Alomar had a Hall of Fame career until 2 years ago, when he turned 34 or so, and he will still probably get in to the Hall. Baerga had a couple of good seasons, then started stinking up the joint. They are NOTHING like each other.
I would hope that Robbie's numbers in Chicago don't tell the full story. Because the numbers are pretty bad.
253 AB, 42 runs, 64 hits, 11 2B, 1 3B, 3 HR, 17 RBI, 6 SB, 30 BB, 37 SO, .253 BA, .330 OBP, .340 SLG.
At 36 years old coming off 2 straight years of similar numbers to the above, $3 million would be a pretty sweet deal...for Alomar. Keep in mind that the Mets paid him $8 million in 2003.
Though Alomar is an obvious upgrade over the likes Willie Harris, Harris isn't going to cost $3 million, either.
re : Baerga. His decline came after what I'd call 5 pretty good years in Cleveland ('92 and '93 more great than good), but certainly nothing approaching Hall Of Fame credentials. That said, his contributions as a role player for Arizona in 2003 are notable, especially at $500,000
Spitting at umpires does not endear you to owners either. Why would I give a guy like that millions?
Owners don't have any problem signing a player who spit at an umpire if his numbers are good. It's his horrible numbers and lacksidasical play that is causing the owners to shy away from him.
I'd put the max market at Alomar now at about $1mil. We'll see how committed he is to getting to 3000 hits. Not many 2Bs with his numbers over the years so I agree he doesn't need it for the Hall. But it's still a magical number that would solidify his place in baseball history (and probably erase the spitting incident from any recount of his career).
If I was the Royals, that's a veteran I'd want to bring in, and I think Tony Pena is just the manager to get Robby motivated.
David - I and the Mets should have paid more attention to history . . . as I noted at the time, when the Mets acquired Alomar, the most similar players included three guys - Robin Yount, Ryne Sandberg and Joe Morgan - whose productivity just fell off a cliff the following year. After watching him in NY, I really think Alomar's just lost it, although he still has some use if he's platooned, like Lou Whitaker and George Brett were late in their careers.