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Posted: Tuesday July 13, 1999 03:18 PM

DH Dilemma  

For many players, the hit-and-sit role does not fit like a glove

By Stephen Cannella and Jeff Pearlman

As a full-time player. Thomas has a career .337 average, which is 50 points higher than when he's a DH. Jonathan Daniel

Asked how he felt about the designated hitter rule, former Cardinals and Pirates outfielder Andy Van Slyke once said, "It seems like Satan has thrown the DH into our game." Harsh words, given that Van Slyke was never a DH, but not at odds with the mind-set of several current designated hitters. The Angels' Mo Vaughn, forced into DH duty this year by a sprained left ankle, and the White Sox's Paul Konerko, who played first base early in the season before becoming a full-time DH last month, are just two of the players who have deplored their roles in recent weeks. "When you're DHing, you can't feel a part of what's going on," says Vaughn. "The game flows when you're on the field."

Adds Konerko, "If it's between not playing and DHing, I love DHing. If it's between DHing and first base, they're not even in the same ballpark."

Konerko, who was batting .282 with 11 homers through Sunday, seems comfortable in the DH slot. (He hit .315 with seven of those homers while at DH.) That's fortunate, because Frank Thomas, with whom Konerko switched positions on June 1, has flourished since returning to first. In 148 at bats as a DH this year, Thomas had hit .284 with five home runs; in 168 at bats when playing the field, the Big Hurt's average jumped to .357 with seven homers. In Thomas's career, his average as a two-way player (.337) is 50 points higher than it is when he's a DH.

He's not the only slugger who improves when wearing batting and fielding gloves. Vaughn's lifetime average as a first baseman is .309; as a DH it's .266. Boston's Mike Stanley, a former catcher who splits time between DH and first, has hit .277 as a defender, 26 points better than as a DH. "It's a boring existence," he says. "So many guys have come up to me the last couple of years and said, 'How do you do this?'"

Designated hitters also have to deal with the pressure of having only four or five chances to help their team: A pop-up with the bases loaded, say, can't be atoned for with a defensive gem. Of course, some DHs realize the negative impact they would most likely have on their teams by playing the field. Says the Yankees' Chili Davis, who set an Angels record with 19 outfield errors in 1988 and has played only eight games in the outfield over the past nine seasons, "I was very happy when the Yankees signed me and said I didn't have to bring a glove."

Ron Villone Fits In:  
A Starting Point At Last

The latest story in the Reds' feel-good season is the one about a blue-collar baseball nomad who is suddenly essential to his team's playoff hopes. Over his last seven starts -- the first seven starts of his major league career -- lefthander Ron Villone is 3-2 with a 4.66 ERA. A reliever for five teams in five seasons, he was called on in early June to help shake up the rotation.

In his second start, on June 14, he one-hit the Mets over five innings; in his fourth, on June 24, he one-hit the Astros over seven; six days later, against the Diamondbacks, he permitted one hit over eight. (He was 2-0 in those games.) On July 5 he slumped, allowing six hits over seven innings in a 5-2 win against the Astros. "Success is about opportunity," says Villone, 29, who was a first-round draft choice of the Mariners in 1992. "I've had opportunities before, but I guess I finally decided to take advantage of it."

Converted from a starter to a closer in the Seattle system, Villone had a fastball in the mid-90s, a decent changeup and an emerging curve. He also had control problems, and after 19 big league games, in which Villone went 0-2 with a 7.91 ERA, the Mariners shipped him to the Padres as part of a deal for righty Andy Benes in July '95. That's pretty much Villone's resume -- bad numbers followed by a deal for a bigger name. In '96 the Padres sent Villone to the Brewers as part of the Greg Vaughn swap. In '97 he went to the Indians in a deal for Marquis Grissom.

Then last spring Cleveland released him. Villone says he has no hard feelings toward the Tribe. "Hopefully, Ron won't try too hard," Reds pitching coach Don Gullett said before Villone started against the Indians at Jacobs Field. "When you face a team that let you go, sometimes there's the desire to prove it was a mistake." Villone pitched well against the Indians, except for a four-run second inning. The Reds lost 11-10, but Cleveland G.M. John Hart, forever searching for a lefty starter, surely noted Villone's stats. The mistake was obvious.

Dennis Martinez's Plans:  
One More Time: Pan Am Games

Dennis Martinez was 43 when he retired from major league baseball after pitching for the Braves in the National League Championship Series last October; nine months later he is 45. In documentation for the Pan Am Games, scheduled to begin on July 23 in Winnipeg, Martinez, a player-coach for Nicaragua, lists his birth year as 1954 instead of 1955, the date listed for him in all big league records. In the grand tradition of Hollywood, Martinez had been fudging his age.

Now that the righthander has come clean on his birth, the only people he will finesse are some hitters. Martinez was planning to work an inning or two in exhibition games while grooming his breaking ball for one key Pan Am start. "If we get to the semifinals, against Cuba or the U.S., maybe I'll put myself in and see if I can go four or five innings," Martinez says. "This is the Olympic qualifier" -- the top two teams will go to Sydney -- "and if that can't motivate you, nothing can."

Martinez, the winningest Latin American pitcher in major league history, with 245 victories in 23 seasons, had planned to take a sabbatical from baseball this season. But the man revered in his country as El Presidente was pressed into service by the Nicaraguan baseball federation.

Martinez, who hopes to return to the majors as a coach or scout next season, ran the team's pre-Pan Am Games training camp and then was asked to help manage even though he has no professional managerial experience. "It's a challenge I like," he says. "We'll see how I respond."

Every fifth day in the clubhouse of the Triple A Fresno Grizzlies, before righthander Jason Grilli takes the mound, his pitching coach offers a reminder. "For each guy you strike out," Joel Horlen tells him, "you pay me five bucks."

While discussing this financial arrangement before Sunday's All-Star Futures Game at Fenway Park (in which a team of U.S. minor leaguers faced a team from the rest of the world), Grilli doesn't crack a smile. He is 22, a former standout at Seton Hall, and has a 96-mph fastball and one of Triple A's best sinkers. In 17 games through last Saturday, he was 7-4 with a 4.70 ERA. He is a likely September call-up to the Giants. He is, by virtue of more than just the Fenway appearance, a future star -- and in 92 innings, he had 69 strikeouts. That's $345.

"Coach is stressing something all young pitchers have to learn," says Grilli, who retired both batters he faced in the U.S.'s 7-0 loss to the world's future stars. "Everyone wants to see home runs, and everyone wants to see the 15 strikeouts, but the pitcher who survives is the one who gets a lot of grounders to second."

Despite career-threatening arm injuries suffered by fireballers Matt Morris of the Cardinals and Kerry Wood of the Cubs, and despite the financial benefits of a long career, most young pitchers refuse to abandon the sexy high fastball for, say, the low-and-away slider. Of the 11 pitchers on the U.S. Futures Game roster, seven averaged more than a strikeout per inning. Indeed, St. Louis's Rick Ankiel, Seattle's Ryan Anderson, Florida's A.J. Burnett and Brad Penny, and Baltimore's Matt Riley -- arguably baseball's top five up-and-coming arms -- all throw fastballs in the low- to mid-90s.

"It can be a conflict," says Penny (2-7, 4.70 ERA for Double A El Paso, with 100 strikeouts in 90 innings), who last Friday was traded from the Diamondbacks to the Marlins as part of a deal for closer Matt Mantei. "Strikeouts look great, and they feel great. But if it's between striking out 10 guys and having all pop outs and grounders, we should be smart enough to go for easy outs. I want my career to last."

The sorry state of major league pitching (the 30 teams have a combined 4.77 ERA, the highest figure in 69 years), has organizations rushing along young pitchers with live arms -- often before they have learned such restraint. That's why Ankiel (3-1, 3.38 ERA at Triple A Memphis), who turns 20 on July 19, could be in St. Louis in September. Penny, too, who probably would not have played with the Diamondbacks until 2000, will probably appear for the Marlins this year. Burnett, an explosive 22-year-old who was pitching Class A ball last season, almost made Florida's Opening Day roster as the No. 5 starter. (He lost out to Dennis Springer, a soft-toss knuckler.) Instead, Burnett wound up at Double A Portland, where he has struggled to a 4-8 record and 5.73 ERA.

Anderson, the eccentric 6'10" lefty who is constantly compared to Randy Johnson, also wrestles with his control, which would hardly deter the pitching-poor Mariners from giving him a late-season shot. "I'm anxious to make it," says Anderson (5-10, 5.11 ERA, with 103 strikeouts in 91 2/3 innings). "It's been a long road."

Anderson is 20. These days, a long road can be awfully short.

Juan Gonzalez's refusal to appear at the All-Star Game as a nonstarter was fitting, this being the 20th anniversary of another infamous midsummer snub. In 1979 Cardinals shortstop Garry Templeton, miffed because fans had voted Larry Bowa to start for the National League, eschewed the trip to Seattle's Kingdome to be a reserve by declaring, "If I ain't startin', I ain't departin'." Apparently Templeton's still a stay-at-home guy. Asked to coach the U.S. team in Sunday's Futures Game at Fenway, Templeton, who now manages the Angels' Double A affiliate in Erie, Pa., declined, saying he wanted to spend some time with his family.

Look for the players' association to fight baseball's plan to have the Mets and the Cardinals open next season with a series in Japan. Says Mark McGwire , "Major league baseball belongs in the United States. The Japanese have Japanese baseball, so there's no reason for us to go over there." ... Since 1988 only the '94 Dodgers have finished a season with more blown saves than successful conversions, but the Royals and the Orioles were on pace to do just that. At the break Kansas City had 21 failed opportunities and 13 saves; Baltimore had 20 and 14....

Outfielder John Wehner was planning a family vacation to Aruba in June when the Pirates, for whom he played from 1991 through '96, called. At the time Wehner, who had hit .227 in 53 games for the Marlins last season, had no job prospects. Pittsburgh sent him to Double A Altoona. Said Wehner, "Altoona is just like Aruba, only without the beaches." The Pirates called him up on July 6. ... A poll conducted by Diehard, a monthly Red Sox magazine, asked fans to pick G.M. Dan Duquette 's greatest blunder. The winner: signing Steve Avery to a contract worth $8.7 million in 1997, which received 44.1% of the votes. Not keeping Mo Vaughn (38.2%) was second, Roger Clemens 's '96 departure (14.7%) third. ... The Marlins and pitcher Josh Beckett , the No. 2 selection in last month's amateur draft, are nowhere close in contract talks. Beckett is asking for a package in the $8 million range. The Marlins are offering $3 million to $4 million.

Issue date: July 19, 1999

 

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