No man is a (Coney) island...

One of the bigger surprises of this year’s Hall of Fame vote to me was the fact David Cone went one-and-out on the ballot. In my January 14 Hardball Times article Daze of whine and posers all I had to say on the subject was “David Cone (3.9%) … I thought he might hang around and wouldn’t be surprised to see him get some attention from the VC.”

He strikes me as a guy that was probably a bit underappreciated by both the media and the sabermetric community hence he didn’t get a lot of attention during the vote. I do think however that his peers (or whatever form the VC will take) will one day show him a lot more love.

Probably the most striking aspect to his career from my point of view is that a David Cone likely would not happen today with the emphasis on protecting hurlers’ arms and pitch counts. Cone enjoyed a remarkable 12 year run from 1988-1999 and was known as a guy with a rubber arm. Indeed he made 348 regular season starts in those years and topped 120 pitches in 130 of them; of those 130 turns, 58 times he threw over 130 pitches, he tossed 140 or more on a dozen occasions and in one iron man outing--he tossed a 166 pitch shutout against the San Francisco Giants in July 1992 whiffing 13.

Amazingly, that was part of an eight start stretch where he went 6-0, 3.15 ERA, struck out 80 in 60 IP averaging 137 pitches per game; his pitch counts were 134, 136, 142, 134, 166, 132, 115 and 138.

Ouch.

Cone made his résumé in those seasons and it was indeed a very impressive 12 years: 175-96, 3.15 ERA (lg. ERA: 4.17), topping 200 innings eight times in ten full campaigns (1994-95 were shortened by the strike) and was over 190 frames in the other two non-strike seasons. He pitched 2468 innings overall and struck out 2331; over those 12 seasons he was third in ERA behind Greg Maddux and Roger Clemens, fifth in innings pitched, fourth in RSAA (Runs Saved Against Average) behind Maddux, Clemens and Randy Johnson, third in strikeouts (Johnson and Clemens), second in winning percentage (Maddux) and fourth in wins (Maddux, Clemens and Tom Glavine).

He won a Cy Young Award, enjoyed a pair of 20-win seasons picked up four World Series rings as a starter (he picked up a fifth as a reliever for the Yankees in 2000), and although he didn’t fare well in LDS play, he was 6-2, 3.01 ERA in over 80 LCS/Fall Classic innings and had a stellar 2.12 ERA in the five World Series in which he appeared.

During those 12 seasons he certainly held his own against the greats of that era. He was considered the team leader of the great Yankee team of 1996-2000 and has a perfect game on his ledger to boot--in all, I think a case can be made for the Hall of Fame for one David Brian Cone.

Chapeaus and such…

While the offseason the Yankees enjoyed has some clubs calling for a salary cap, I do think that Selig is serious about not being interested in one at the moment. To begin with, he is in a poor position to decry player costs when he’s pulling down $18 million a year--a level that only a small handful of players are currently at; also there is the small matter that MLB is actually doing a lot better than the other three sports (all with caps) insofar as percentages of revenue being devoted to player salaries.

A salary cap usually assigns a fixed percentage of revenues to be used for compensation and to match the other three sports baseball would actually have to agree to devote more money to salaries. Of course, if ownership does push for a cap and agrees to this (higher percentage) you can bet your bottom dollar/salary floor that management feels confident that it can hide a lot of revenues in third/related party transactions and funnelling funds to interests under the same corporate umbrella.

Still, it would be funny to watch Selig squirm in front of the microphones about how the sport needs to curtail player costs while being questioned about how much he makes. Of course, the big question that I would ask baseball’s commander-and-thief would be “How can a sport that loses so much money afford to pay their commissioner $18 million a year?” Heck, each club kicks in on average as much as all the clubs put in combined to pay his predecessor Fay Vincent’s salary; Vincent made about $600,000 when given the boot.

See ya on the other side…

This will be my last post for a little while--I go under the knife for the ol’ ticker at 7:15 AM Monday. Again, thanks for all the notes and well-wishes; once I’m fixed…er, repaired, I’ll be back with a vengeance. I’ve submitted a column for SMSN Sports that will run next week--beyond that it’s wait-and-see. Regardless, I’ve been a busy boy this week and here’s the latest:

Somebody needs A-Clue (SMSN Sports) A lighter look at Alex Rodriguez’s recent pratfall--my editor rejected my suggestion for a title: “Like A-Burgeon(ing problem).”

A-Reck (Hardball Times) I don my tinfoil hat and deal with something that I’ve always wondered about regarding the enigmatic-Rod.

Five questions: Toronto Blue Jays (Hardball Times) I do this every year with my usual mix of optimism and snark.

Best Regards

John