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Chase Utley - MLB Baseball Player Bio

2/22/2018

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by  R.A. Rowell; Co-Owner of Intent-sive Nature & the Brand Shamans network
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Chase Utley  has been a very good ballplayer. He was the Phillies’ overall best player for a very long time. Between 2003-2015,  even while suffering through many different injury, Utley  compiled 61.5 Baseball-Reference WAR for the Phillies. This includes the 0.3 WAR from his call-up stint in 2003 and the -0.5 WAR he put up before being traded to the Dodgers. He put up 3.5 WAR  with the Dodgers over the next three and a half seasons before retiring after the 2018 season.

As it stands, 65.4 WAR gives him more career WAR than Hall-of-Famers Craig Biggio, Andre Dawson, Dave Winfield, Willie Stargell, Hank Greenberg, and Joe Torre (although Torre is in the HOF as a manager). As he's in the company of a lot of Hall-of-Famers, Chase Utley certainly deserves consideration as a Hall-of-Fame worthy player.

What’s most incredible about Utley is he's accomplished all this while only playing more than 156 games 3 times in his career. To think he’s missed perhaps about 2 full seasons worth of games in his career and still amassed 5 seasons of at least 7.2 WAR is unbelievable. It is hard to say whether a player who has been oft-injured as Utley will be voted into the Hall-of-Fame, but the talent has always been there.

When Utley played, he was a superstar caliber player. It’s also important to note that despite never having won a Gold Glove, Utley was a well-above average defender at second base, amassing 133 Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) in his career. That’s pretty impressive, even when you consider he became a slightly below average defender after 2015. Whether or not you believe in the defensive metrics, people who watched him play would agree he was a spectacular defender.


When it’s all said and done, it’s hard not to see Utley getting at least a fair shot on his first eligible Hall-of-Fame ballot. His grit and determination for playing through so many injury-plagued seasons must count for something. Still, the numbers alone tell the story of a perennial All-Star with underrated defense. See you in Cooperstown someday, Chase!


Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons
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MLB - Is the Dodgers' Andrew Friedman a Mad Genius?

7/30/2015

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by Richard Rowell, Write W.A.V.E. Media Staff
PicturePitcher Alex Wood, now formerly of the Atlanta Braves. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons user Johnmaxmena2
I've always been a huge fan of current Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman since he first began in the Tampa Bay front office.. Along with stat guru Farhan Zaidi as General Manager, he has remade the Los Angeles Dodgers in some clever and intelligent ways. After snagging Mat Latos and Michael Morse, plus a competitive balance pick, for three probably forgettable minor league arms, he's now made a coup. He used that pick, along with expensive international free agent infielder Hector Olivera to steal lefty starter Alex Wood and top prospect second baseman Jose Peraza from the Braves. He threw lefty specialist Paco Rodriguez in there for good measure.

Friedman was well aware that the Braves coveted Hector Olivera. They'd scouted him heavily and tried to sign him before the Dodgers blew them out of the water with a huge signing bonus. Now the Braves get their guy, minus the signing bonus, at the cost of one of their best pitchers and a guy who could be a better Dee Gordon. Could Olivera step right in at third base or second base for the Braves? Absolutely. So far, in his roughly 100 minor league plate appearances, he's looked fine. But he has a shaky medical history, and he's 30. He's no spring chicken. While he doesn't have to be a perennial all-star for this trade to not look like a stinker, it's puzzling you'd give up a strong starter like Wood.

Dave Cameron of FanGraphs has pointed out that Wood is comparable to David Price and Cole Hamels, just without the track record. Price is a rental and Hamels is now with the Rangers. Hamels is expensive. Price, again, is a rental. Wood is probably earning the league minimum (under $600K) next year and has three years of arbitration ahead. Combined he'll be about the same price as roughly a season and a half of Price or Hamels going forward. Yes, they had to deal a pick in the process, but it was the Marlins' pick, and they had to eat $20+ million of signing bonus payments to Olivera. That seems worth Alex Wood and the possibility that Peraza is going to be a starting caliber infielder.

The Dodgers had to take advantage of their massive financial resources, but it's money they were already spending anyway. They actually save money here. It's hard to say where Michael Morse fits on the Dodgers, but he'll probably be flipped, too - Morse is nowhere as bad as his numbers this season would suggest.

So is Andrew Friedman and Co. a company of mad baseball geniuses?. It hasn't even been a full season, but the reallocation of resources is going very well so far., especially going forward

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Willie Davis - MLB Baseball Player Bio

10/25/2014

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by  R.A. Rowell; Co-Owner of Intent-sive Nature & the Brand Shamans network
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Willie Davis was a fantastic defensive outfielder for 18 seasons in the Major Leagues. He debuted with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1960 and would end up taking over center field from Hall of Famer Duke Snider. While Davis wasn't the most consistent offensive player, Davis hit over .300 three times and .280 or higher ten times. While batting average isn't as revered as it once was, Davis didn't walk much at all, so those hits were important to his value. He also had a way of running into home runs and consistently hit 20+ doubles a season, even leading the league in triples (16) in 1970.

Davis won three Gold Gloves, and probably should have had more. Baseball-Reference has him as compiling 10.9 WAR of his 54.5 career WAR from his defense alone. FanGraphs rates his defense higher than his offensive WAR contributions, due to using TotalZone marks that rate him extremely high. There were no UZR stats in those days (obviously) and Fielding Bible doesn't go back that far. But it's pretty well established that Davis was one of the best defensive center fielders in Dodgers history.

Davis played for the LA Dodgers from 1960-1973. He had one more good season for the Montreal Expos in 1974, before just sort of hanging on with the Texas Rangers and St. Louis Cardinals the next season. He got into 141 games with the Padres in 1976, bounced around the minors for awhile and got into 43 games for the California Angels in 1979 for his last major league action.


Davis was not a Hall of Fame player, but he was extremely good. He definitely should have won more Gold Gloves than he did. Sadly, Willie is no longer with us as he passed away at age 69 in March of 2010.

You will be missed, Willie. Thanks for the memories.


Do Willie Davis Baseball Cards Have Value?

Because Willie Davis played in the 1960's and 1970's, his cards are fairly valuable, especially in near-mint to mint condition. In fact, there are only 721 PSA 9 examples of his 1961 Topps rookie card, plus 7 more with Off-Center qualifiers (which essentially drops it to roughly a PSA 7 value-wise). Because of its rarity, a PSA 9 example sold just before Christmas 2018 for $350! PSA 8 examples are much more affordable in the $45-50 range, although you can find them for less. Still, there are only 177 PSA 8 examples as of February 2019. Despite PSA 7 examples being even rarer than PSA 8, they can be found for under $20.

But his 1961 Topps Rookie Card isn't Willie Davis's most valuable baseball card by far. One of his most expensive cards ever sold at auction was a 1970 Topps PSA 10, of which there are only 4 (as of this writing). It sold on eBay for $750 in January 2019. A PSA 8 Willie Davis card from the rare 1968 Topps 3D set sold for  $488 in December 2018. There are plenty of other high-graded Willie Davis cards worth money, too. Playing for the Dodgers for such a long time definitely helps his cards' collectible value.


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