BASEBALL ARCHIVE #5
	THE AFTER-EFFECTS OF A BASEBALL WORK STOPPAGE 8.27.02 The Major League Player's Association has set a strike date for this Friday, September 30.  I'm sure you already know this fact (if you don't then you've probably clicked on the wrong link).  There are a multitude of articles being written lately about how the economics of baseball works (or doesn't work) and why there will or won't be a strike, depending on who is doing the writing.  But I am going to take a different approach to this article, I am going to write about the effects of a work stoppage.  No, I don't mean that fans will lose interest and that the economics will actually probably get worse before they ever get better.  No, I am referring to the effects on the history of the game.  Baseball is an inherently historical game.  Players and teams do not just face their opponents of the day, but they also are challenging their historical predecessors.  This is true because the game of baseball and its history is so very statistically oriented.  The majority of baseball fans could tell you the signifigance of the numbers 755, 56, and 61.   This article, then, will make a case study of the 1994 strike shortened season and its effects on the history and statistics of baseball. In 1994 the player's union stuck in early August.  Most teams had completed between 110 and 120 games of their schedule.  The Montreal Expos had completed 114 games.  Their record was 74-40, which is a winning percentage of .649, and they were six games ahead of Atlanta in the National League East.  It is possible that Atlanta would have mounted a charge in the last 50 games to catch Montreal, but we will never know.  Instead, let's look at the statistical projections based on the first 114 games of Montreal's season.  They would have won the East by 9 games, winning a total of 105 games (which, by the way, would have projected to the best record in baseball).  Here is their starting lineup and primary pitchers (with projected stats): C  -   Darrin Fletcher     .260  14 hrs 81  rbi  0  sb 1B -  Cliff Floyd            .281    6 hrs 58  rbi 14 sb 2B -  Mike Lansing        .266    7 hrs 50  rbi  17 sb 3B -  Sean Berry           .278   16 hrs 58  rbi  20 sb SS -  Wil Cordero         .294   21 hrs 90  rbi  23 sb OF -  Marquis Grissom  .288  16 hrs 64  rbi  51 sb OF -  Moises Alou         .339  31 hrs 111 rbi  10 sb OF -  Larry Walker        .322  27 hrs 122 rbi  21 sb SP -  Ken Hill             23-7   3.32 era SP - Pedro Martinez    16-7   3.42 era SP - Jeff Fassero        11-9   2.99 era SP - Kirk Rueter         10-4   5.17 era SP - Butch Henry        11-4  2.43 era RP - John Wetteland    6-9    2.83 era  36 saves RP - Mel Rojas            4-3    3.32 era  23 saves RP - Jeff Shaw            7-3   3.88 era This team led the national league in ERA and SB, was tied for second in batting average, and was third in homeruns.  The next year, though, Larry Walker, Marquis Grissom, Ken Hill, and John Wetteland were gone.  By 1998 not a single player listed above still played for the Expos.  Would this team have been able to win the World Series in 1994?  No one can answer that, but it was certainly a possibility.  Would the Expos have been able to keep this team together even without the financial strain caused by the strike?  Impossible to say, but you have to believe that the strike had a direct correlation with Montreal's subsequent fire sale of players.  We know that Larry Walker went on to have an MVP season and continues to be one of the top players in the game, Moises Alou put up all-star numbers until the last two years when he disappeared due to injury, John Wetteland was an all-star closer and won a World Series with the Yankees, Cliff Floyd is just now reaching his full potential after years of solid play, Jeff Shaw was a solid closer for the Dodgers for several years, and of course, Pedro Martinez has been one of the top four or five pitchers in all of baseball over the last five years. It is obvious that, if Montreal could have kept the core of this team together, they would have been one of the elite teams in baseball throughout the late 1990's.  Usually success breeds fan interest.  If the Expos had that kind of success, would there have been enough fan interest to remove them from Bud Selig's contraction chopping block? There were other things happening in 1994 at the time of the strike besides the Expos strong season.   Tony Gwynn was batting .394.  Once again, we can only speculate as to whether he would have been able to improve his batting average by .006 over his last 45 games (San Diego played 117 before the strike), but it is certainly possible.  The last person to bat .400 for a season was Ted Williams, but for the 1994 strike that piece of history might have changed.  Matt Williams hit 43 homeruns in 1994.  That put him on pace to hit 60.57 homeruns through a full season.  Would he have broken the single season homerun record then held by Roger Maris?  Who knows, but it was well within the realm of possibilities.   If he had hit 62 homeruns, would people have treated Mark McGwire's 70 homeruns in 1998 with the same "disinterest" (that term is used loosely here) as they did with Barry Bonds' 73 homeruns in 2001?   Instead McGwire is seen as the hero breaking Maris' record and Bonds is seen as, well, still a jerk, regardless of what he does on the field. What we can see from this look back at 1994 is that the 20/20 vision of hindsight will be the true judge of the effects on baseball of a strike.  It is impossible to see now what far-reaching effects the strike could have on the game of baseball. Granger
		MASTER INDEX And For No Apparent Reason Archives Baseball Because I Can Baseball Betting Pool Fat Guys Get Naked Too Fiction Football Betting Pool The Gogs Guest Article Mitch's Multi-Monthly Meanderings Mixed Bag Naked Indian Lesbians The Professor Sex Stone
					Previous baseball articles can be found at the baseball archives page.