Money Mike
Going into the AllStar Break, Michael Harris II had an OPS of 0.551, the worst of any qualifying player. Since then, he has an OPS of 1.080, That difference of 0.529 is historic. I took every player in the entire Retrosheet datbase through their first 350 plate appearances (actually, through the game in which they passed 350 plate appearances) and calculated their OPS up to then and then their OPS for the rest of the season (minimum 200 more PA.) (I used 350 PA instead of the ASG for a number of reasons, but MHII had 368 PA before the ASG, so it’s about right.)
No player has ever had an OPS .500 points higher in the second half than the first half. Only four players have even topped .400:
| OPS First 350 PA | OPS Rest of Season (min 200 PA) | Difference | |
| Albert Belle, 1998 | 0.850 | 1.271 | 0.421 |
| Dan Uggla, 2011 | 0.586 | 1.006 | 0.421 |
| Manny Ramirez, 2008 | 0.891 | 1.294 | 0.403 |
| Whitey Kurowski, 1947 | 0.820 | 1.223 | 0.402 |
Three of these are players who had good first halfs and unworldly second halves. The other one is someone I think we all remember: Dan Uggla, 2011, his first year in Atlanta. It is interesting that, as horrible as he was in the forst half of 2011, he was better than MHII, slightly.
The SABR bio of Whitey Kurowski, who I’d never heard of before, is pretty amazing.
The Quantrill Era Begins
Newest Brave Cal Quantrill got the start, The first two innings went OK, but a 2 out three run homer by Jeff McNeill in the 3rd seemed to rattle him a bit. In any case, it turns out 3 runs was enough, as the Mets won the series with a 9-2 triumph. I also note that after all the nice things I said about him above, the “raise your hands and you’ll never get an out again” MHII has had a rough patch the last 4 games. Michael: baseball is a game of adjustments…. adjust.
Sunday game tomorrow… because it’s Sunday. Go get ’em.
Dan Uggla was one of many “bargain” acquisitions of ours. We were never going to compete for the top talent so we signed (yes Uggla was technically trade) second-tier guys that we hoped could deliver for us at a more affordable price. These would include Derek Lowe and BJ Upton. Each of these players came with major red flags, hence their lower costs. In each case, these players produced at best nominal value for fairly rich contracts, but they were “bargains”.
The next player in that lineage appears to be Jurickson Profar. I hope he surprises us.
The takeaway for me is that second tier guys decline more abruptly due to lack of elite skill sets. You’re better off signing one elite guy and trying to find some marginal castoff or develop someone than signing two second tier guys for the same price.
The Whitey Kurowski link is well worth following. I’d never heard of him either.
https://x.com/CrosbyBaseball/status/1959643073090122234
That is a buzz-killing list of guys on the 60-day…
Put it in the W column!
Kurowski’s story is pretty wild. As an old APBA player, I can tell you that he was one of the better players on the 1946 WS champion Cardinals. Along with Enos Slaughter, he added some legit punch around the otherworldly Stan Musial.
Season Series Finale: Braves 8 wins, Mets 5 wins.
Take the victories where we find them. For me, the Mets series was our bowl game.
Recapped.