Man, 2020 just will not stop will it?
Yesterday, the baseball world lost a good one in Joe Morgan. Let’s put aside what you thought of him as an announcer and focus on him as a baseball player. For me, he’s the greatest second baseman ever. Yes, yes, there are those pesky number that would place Rogers Hornsby above him, Eddie Collins as well. Factoring in all of the other things that are outside of the realm of statistics (pitcher quality, African American inclusion, quality of stuff, etc.) and anecdotally for me at least, it brings the two much closer together. It’s not an argument I’m going to get in, but there is no doubt the league lost one of its greats in Morgan.
His one season in Philadelphia wasn’t much to look at according to the triple slash line (.230/.370/.403), but that 3.5 fWAR number is something to behold for a 39 year old second baseman in the twilight of his career. As primarily the third hitter in that lineup, he did his job getting on base for Mike Schmidt behind him, helping Schmidt drive in 109 runs and finish 3rd in MVP voting that year. He wasn’t the sole reason for Schmidt’s success, but he was definitely a factor. Baseball will miss Morgan greatly. Rest in peace, sir.
On to the links.
Phillies news:
- Matt Breen gives his take on the passing of Morgan.
- One of the most oft-quoted ways of the Phillies slashing salary for the next season is to get rid of Jean Segura and his contract. Jim Salisbury takes a look at what might be in the cards for the third baseman/second baseman/shortstop.
- Todd Zolecki gave his FAQs for the 2020 season, but there is a note in it that leads to some negativity about the J.T. Realmuto situation.
MLB news:
- Obviously, there was a lot of talk about Morgan yesterday.
- Joe Posnanski, who wrote a great book about the Big Red Machine, gave his thoughts about Morgan yesterday ($).
- In scary news, Padres outfielder Tommy Pham was stabbed Sunday night, but seems to be fine and on track to recover.
- Billy Beane looks ready to leave the A’s and move on to much, much bigger things.
- The 2021 draft, henceforth known as the Kumar Rocker countdown, now has an order and the Phillies aren’t first.