Monday, December 9, 2013

BRING OUT YOUR KELTNERS:  Roy Halladay, clearly the best pitcher of [insert arbitrary endpoints here], will today sign a one-day contract with the Toronto Blue Jays and announce his retirement from baseball.  From 2002-2012, for instance:

Rk Player W Age G CG SHO IP H BB SO ERA HR
1 Roy Halladay 181 25-35 329 63 18 2351.0 2222 408 1831 3.07 186
2 CC Sabathia 174 21-31 350 35 12 2384.0 2212 674 2043 3.44 208
3 Derek Lowe 155 29-39 374 10 4 2174.0 2266 650 1344 4.08 178
4 Mark Buehrle 154 23-33 361 24 6 2406.1 2564 537 1358 3.86 271
5 Roy Oswalt 149 24-34 328 17 7 2071.1 2024 487 1674 3.32 181
6 Tim Hudson 148 26-36 318 19 11 2108.2 1998 595 1319 3.37 158
7 Johan Santana 136 23-33 315 15 10 1896.0 1574 497 1896 3.02 203
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 12/9/2013.

A Cy Young in each league, eight All-Star appearances, a perfect game and a playoff no-hitter. Induct! (Basically, you're making the Koufax case here given the career length, but ... it's justified.)

12 comments:

  1. The Pathetic Earthling12:18 PM

    How much money do you get from a one-day contract? $20M annual for a day is $54K a day? Even if you take $1, does your agent want 20%?

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  2. Benner12:58 PM

    Those weights are on the low side -- no way Sabbathia is only 174 pounds, and Santana as 136? He's skinny but not that skinny.

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  3. Adam C.1:11 PM

    In response to the short-career argument, per BB-Ref, Doc is 41st all time in career WAR for pitchers, and 42nd in JAWS (ahead of 32 current HOF SPs, including Koufax himself, and right behind Feller and Newhouser). I grant that easier cases can be made for Maddux, Johnson, Clemens, Martinez, Mussina, Schilling, and Glavine (and maybe Smoltz). But still, not that hard a case: Induct.

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  4. Adam C.1:27 PM

    In other baseball news, I'm intensely curious to hear from Isaac Spaceman on the Geoff Baker article from this weekend (http://seattletimes.com/html/mariners/2022420240_mariners08xml.html).

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  5. The Pathetic Earthling2:18 PM

    274, more like. He's 6' 7" -- a guy who is 6' 7" and 174 is a stick.

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  6. Genevieve3:30 PM

    Could someone explain the point of the one-day contract?

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  7. victoria4:20 PM

    Apparently so that he can retire as a Blue Jay: http://www.ctvnews.ca/sports/roy-halladay-signs-1-day-contract-to-retire-as-a-blue-jay-1.1581363

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  8. Adam C.4:22 PM

    Largely if not entirely symbolic way to retire "as a member of" what is usually thought of as the most meaningful team in a player's career. Here, Roy was a free agent, having played out his multi-year contract with the Phillies, so he inked a deal with his original team just for the purpose of retiring as a Blue Jay. Gonna guess no money changed hands.

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  9. Adam C.4:26 PM

    Apparently former 49er Roger Craig may have been the first (in US pro sports at least) to sign a one-day contract for the purpose of retiring: http://thebiglead.com/2013/08/09/roger-craig-was-responsible-for-the-first-one-day-retirement-contract-in-the-nfl/

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  10. Guest5:46 PM

    Tweet of the day on this comes from the Philadelphia Zoo: https://twitter.com/phillyzoo/status/410133393540919296

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  11. Genevieve6:32 PM

    thanks!

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  12. Let us not forget that he was robbed of the 2011 Cy, and merited real consideration for the 2002 Cy and perhaps an outright award. I'd have voted him 2010 MVP.

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