THE HOT CORNER
Baseball coverage from the inside — Sacramento Prayers and the FBL
By Claude Playball | Baseball Insider & Analyst | Host, "Hot Corner" Podcast
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November 1993 | Season's End — Awards, Transactions, and the Road to 1994
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THE YEAR THAT WAS, THE WINTER THAT IS, AND THE SEASON THAT WILL BE
The awards have been handed out. The contracts have been signed and unsigned and negotiated and deferred. The World Series trophy sits in Charlotte, North Carolina, in the hands of a franchise that had never won one before and played all season as if it intended to change that. The Sacramento Prayers are home for the winter, watching October from the outside for the first time since 1986, and the Hot Corner is doing what it always does at the end of a season: sitting with what happened, accounting for it honestly, and trying to understand what it means for what comes next.
What happened in 1993 is this: Sacramento won one hundred and five games, produced the likely best pitching staff in the American League for the third consecutive season, watched Alejandro Lopez become the most complete offensive player in the league at twenty-four years old, and lost to Fort Worth in the Division Series in four games. Those two things — one hundred and five wins and a first-round exit — exist simultaneously and neither one cancels the other. The Hot Corner has said this before and will say it again because it bears repeating: the regular season is a true measure of what a team is. The playoffs are a true measure of what a team does on a specific set of days. Sacramento was the better team this year. Fort Worth was better in October.
The awards have confirmed what the box scores suggested all season. The transactions have confirmed what the Hot Corner has been arguing since September. And the questions that remain unanswered — one of them above all others — will define whether 1994 is a return to October or another year of accumulating wins that do not produce the result this franchise was built to produce.
Let us account for all of it, carefully and completely.
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BEYOND THE BOX SCORE
Jordan Rubalcava, American League Cy Young Award — Sixteen of twenty-four first-place votes. One hundred and forty-four points. The margin over David Hernandez was convincing rather than comfortable, and the result was the correct one by every meaningful measure. Rubalcava went 19-8 with a 2.77 ERA, threw 240.2 innings, struck out 199 batters, walked 50, and posted a WHIP of 1.04 and a batting average against of .225. His 6.7 WAR led every pitcher in the American League and, had Hernandez not won eight of the first nine Cy Young votes cast in his favor before his season ended with a rotator cuff strain, the margin would have been larger. Andretti received zero first-place votes and sixty-two points — the contribution of a twenty-win, 2.90 ERA pitcher being treated as a secondary story on his own staff, which is the most accurate measure of how dominant Rubalcava was.
The Cy Young Award is the third significant individual honor Rubalcava has received in his Sacramento career, and his career WAR of 77.7 with this franchise has moved him into a conversation that this column wants to address directly for the first time: Jordan Rubalcava is the second-greatest pitcher in Sacramento Prayers history. Fernando Salazar's 113.8 career WAR and 292 wins place him in a category occupied by very few pitchers in the history of this game. Rubalcava at 77.7 WAR, a career ERA of 2.67, and a winning percentage of .735 that leads the FBL all-time is, depending on what happens in his remaining seasons, capable of closing that gap. He is thirty-one years old. He is healthy, or we are told he is. He has just won the most important individual award in American League pitching. The Hot Corner does not take that lightly, and neither should the Sacramento front office when his contract situation eventually arrives at its desk.
Jorge Jaime, American League Most Valuable Player — and what it means for Lopez — Jaime won with twenty of twenty-four first-place votes and 316 points. Lopez finished second with four first-place votes and 236 points. Musco finished third with 184 points. Cruz was fifth with 122. This is the paragraph in which I tell you what I believe about the MVP vote and then tell you what I believe about what it means.
What I believe about the vote: Jaime's season was historic. A .355 average, a .477 on-base percentage, forty-three home runs, 137 RBI, 125 runs scored, and an 8.6 WAR from a first baseman on a 101-win team that won the American League pennant. It was a legitimate MVP season and the voters were not wrong to award it. What I also believe: Lopez's season was the more complete individual performance when evaluated by the full range of metrics. Forty-five home runs. One hundred and thirty runs scored — the FBL single-season record. Sixty stolen bases — seventh on the Sacramento franchise single-season list. A .940 OPS. An 8.0 WAR that leads every position player in the American League not named Jaime. The AL Batter of the Month award in September. The difference between Lopez and Jaime in the MVP vote is approximately forty points and the fact that Baltimore won the pennant while Sacramento was watching Fort Worth celebrate on the Cathedral Stadium mound. The voters were not wrong about Jaime. They were also not wrong about Lopez. They simply weighted the pennant above the metrics. Sacramento fans are entitled to disagree with that weighting. The Hot Corner is entitled to note that Lopez at twenty-four years old, with the best statistical season in Sacramento history by runs scored and one of the best by WAR, is a player whose MVP will come. The question is not whether but when.
Three Silver Sluggers and two Gold Glovers — Lopez won the Silver Slugger at center field. Musco won at shortstop. Cruz won at second base. Three Silver Sluggers from one franchise in a single season is a number that deserves acknowledgment as a team achievement: the infield and outfield combination of Cruz, Musco, and Lopez produced a combined WAR of 21.4 from three positions that together form the spine of this lineup. MacDonald won the Gold Glove at first base — his defense at that position has been one of the quiet contributions of the 1993 roster — and Baldelomar won in left field. Two Gold Glovers from a team that also led the American League in ERA is the statistical expression of a defense that gave its pitching staff the ability to turn contact into outs at a rate that ERA and WHIP alone do not fully capture.
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THE STORIES BEHIND THE WINTER
Lopez is locked up. This is the most important transaction of the offseason. — Five years, $3,562,000 total. Lopez is under contract through 1998. He will be twenty-eight years old when that contract expires, which means the franchise has secured the best years of the best player in Sacramento baseball — a player who just set the FBL single-season runs record, finished second in MVP voting, and won the Silver Slugger Award — at a price that will look like an organizational gift by the time he turns twenty-six. The Hot Corner has spent eight months documenting what Lopez does on a baseball field. The front office has spent eight months watching it from closer range. The fact that they moved quickly and secured him before he could approach free agency is the correct decision executed at the correct moment, and it changes the calculus of every other roster conversation for the next five years.
Espenoza at five years is exceptional value — Five years, $1,954,000 total. Espenoza went 16-4 in 1993 with a career winning percentage of .804 that leads the franchise all-time. His K/BB ratio of 5.06 ranked second in Sacramento single-season history behind only Salazar's 1986 season. He is thirty years old and his contract lines up cleanly with the Lopez extension, meaning the two most cost-efficient members of the 1993 roster will be in Sacramento uniforms together through at least 1998. The Hot Corner noted in April that Espenoza's inconsistency was the primary narrative about him entering the season. The primary narrative entering 1994 is that he went 16-4 and is signed through 1998. Both of those things happened to the same pitcher.
Salazar re-signed — the letter got a response — Three years, $696,000 total. Fernando Salazar wrote to Jimmy Aces asking why he had not received an extension offer, described the absence as perplexing, and signed a three-year deal within the month. His career ERA of 2.74 is fifth in franchise history. His career WAR of 113.8 is the highest ever produced by a pitcher wearing a Sacramento uniform. He is forty-two years old. The three years he has been given represent the organization's acknowledgment that his perplexity was legitimate, and the Hot Corner acknowledges that the front office did the right thing. Eventually. The letter should not have been necessary.
The Nashville trade is worth examining carefully — Sacramento sends Ryan Singleton, Antonio Berrios, Frank Rector, and a second-round pick to Nashville. Sacramento receives Jason Garcia — twenty-four years old, right-handed, 7-4 record, 3.41 ERA, 128 strikeouts in 155.2 innings — and a first-round pick. The return of a first-round pick and a young pitcher with a solid ERA and strikeout rate is a meaningful upgrade on what was sent. Berrios was a capable backup catcher who served the organization well. Rector was a Triple-A depth piece. Singleton was a minor league infielder. The first-round pick Sacramento receives, combined with the supplemental first-round pick earned by Lopez's top-three MVP finish under the Prospect Promotion Incentive rules, gives the organization two additional premium selections in the upcoming draft. Building depth through the minor leagues was identified in the final regular-season column as the most important organizational task of the winter. This trade and those supplemental picks are the first concrete steps toward that goal.
Alonzo's opt-out and what it might mean — The catcher exercised his opt-out and is reportedly in direct talks with the front office on a renegotiated extension. The Hot Corner's read on this situation is that both parties want the same outcome — Alonzo in Sacramento — and that the opt-out was the appropriate mechanism for a player who had an All-Star season and wanted the organization to acknowledge it in financial terms rather than simply assuming his return. His .305/.355/.448 line in 1993, his franchise-record-tying five-hit game in Boston, his Gold Glove-caliber defense, and his handling of a pitching staff that led the American League in ERA are collectively worth a meaningful raise from whatever his previous arrangement specified. The front office knows this. The talks continuing is the evidence that both parties are serious. The Hot Corner expects an announcement before spring training.
Andretti is waiting, and waiting is dangerous — The rumor that he intends to hold off contract extension talks until he enters the final year of his current deal is the most concerning piece of offseason intelligence this column has received. Andretti is thirty-three years old. He is coming off a twenty-win season. He has just received zero first-place Cy Young votes despite winning twenty games, which tells you something about how thoroughly Rubalcava has dominated the pitching conversation in this market. In a contract year, Andretti will be thirty-four and motivated in the way that final contract years motivate accomplished veterans. He will be excellent. And then he will be a free agent, and the Sacramento front office will be in the position of bidding against other organizations for a thirty-four-year-old pitcher who has just had his best season at the worst possible time for organizational leverage. The Hot Corner's position has not changed: find the number now. The number will be higher in November 1994 than it is in November 1993, and the rotation that this franchise needs to win in October cannot afford to rebuild around the loss of its second-most reliable starter.
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THE LEAGUE AT LARGE
Charlotte Monks are the 1993 World Series champions, having defeated Baltimore four games to one with a clinching game of eight to three at Monks Field. Series MVP Jesus Rodriguez — not our Rodriguez, Charlotte's Rodriguez, the second baseman — hit .286 with three home runs and five RBI. The Monks completed a regular season that saw them finish second in the NL East at ninety-two and seventy, qualify for the playoffs as a wild card, sweep Philadelphia in the NLCS, and win the World Series in five games. It was the first championship in franchise history. Charlotte manager Ben Smith said his team played better than the other team, which is the most economical and accurate description of winning a World Series that the Hot Corner has encountered this year. Congratulations to Charlotte, sincerely and without reservation. They were the best team in October and they have the trophy to prove it.
Baltimore, the team Sacramento expected to face in October, made the World Series and lost it. Fort Worth, the team Sacramento actually faced in October, lost to Baltimore in seven games with Frauenheim winning ALCS MVP at .444 and nine runs scored. The symmetry of those facts is not lost on this column: Sacramento lost to the team that lost to the team that lost the World Series in five games. That chain of causation does not change the Division Series result, but it is worth documenting that the team Sacramento could not beat in four games was itself beaten in seven by Baltimore, and Baltimore was beaten in five by Charlotte. October is the smallest sample in the sport and it produces conclusions that the full season does not always support.
Jorge Jaime won the AL MVP at twenty-four years old with a .355 average, forty-three home runs, and 137 RBI. He is under contract through at least next season and is the best first baseman in the American League by a margin that the Silver Slugger voters and the MVP voters independently confirmed. He will be the most important individual opponent Sacramento faces in any future playoff series against Baltimore, and the pitching approach the organization develops for facing him will be worth more than most offseason transactions.
Costodio Carro of Phoenix won the NL Cy Young at twenty-three years old with a 21-3 record, a 2.89 ERA, and 252 innings. He is the best pitcher in the National League and will almost certainly be the best pitcher Sacramento would face in a World Series. The Hot Corner notes this not to generate anxiety but to establish a baseline: if the 1994 Prayers make the World Series, the pitcher standing between them and the championship is a twenty-three-year-old with a 21-3 record and a career ahead of him. Preparation begins now.
Baltimore's David Hernandez is not healing as expected from the rotator cuff strain and will miss an additional seven weeks. A pitcher who finished second in the Cy Young vote and would have been the most dangerous arm in a potential Sacramento-Baltimore ALCS is now entering his own recovery process. Whether he returns at full capacity for 1994 is the most significant injury question in the American League this winter, and its answer will shape the pennant race in ways that no current transaction can fully anticipate.
Boston fired both their manager and their general manager. Washington fired their general manager. Detroit fired their general manager. Los Angeles fired their manager. The Hot Corner notes this wave of organizational upheaval not to celebrate the misfortune of other franchises but because the teams that replace these men will spend 1994 differently than they spent 1993, and the pennant race responds to organizational change in ways that are not always linear. Sacramento should pay attention to who takes these jobs and what they intend to do with the rosters they inherit.
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THE MAILBAG — Your questions, my opinions.
From Tom Bradley of Curtis Park, who has been a Sacramento season ticket holder since 1971 and who describes himself as someone who can watch a Rubalcava start the way other people watch sunsets — with attention, appreciation, and the understanding that not everything that beautiful lasts forever: "Did Rubalcava deserve the Cy Young?"
Tom, the analogy you have constructed is the most appropriate one available and I intend to borrow it without attribution. Yes, he deserved the Cy Young. Sixteen first-place votes from twenty-four voters is not a close decision. His 6.7 WAR led every pitcher in the American League. His WHIP of 1.04, his batting average against of .225, his 199 strikeouts against 50 walks — these are the numbers of a pitcher operating at the top of his craft across a full season. Andretti's season was worthy of serious consideration, which is why he received sixty-two points without a single first-place vote, but Rubalcava was better by the metrics that matter most and the voters, to their credit, recognized it. The sunset analogy is apt precisely because it contains the acknowledgment that things this good do not last forever. What it does not contain is the suggestion that we should watch with anything other than full attention while they are happening.
From Sarah Mitchell of East Sacramento, a pediatric nurse who listens to the Hot Corner on her commute and who wrote that the Lopez MVP loss was the first time she had genuinely argued with her car radio: "Did Lopez deserve the MVP more than Jaime?"
Sarah, arguing with a car radio is one of the more honest responses to sports broadcasting that a listener can have, and the Hot Corner accepts the implied criticism graciously. The honest answer to your question requires two honest parts. Part one: Jaime's season was legitimately great. A .355 average and forty-three home runs and 137 RBI and 125 runs on a pennant-winning team is a season that belongs in any MVP conversation regardless of who else is in the field. Part two: Lopez's season, evaluated by the full range of metrics, was the more complete individual performance. The FBL single-season runs record. An 8.0 WAR. Forty-five home runs and sixty stolen bases from the same player in the same season. The difference between their vote totals — eighty points — reflects the weight voters gave to Baltimore winning the pennant, and that is a legitimate consideration even if it is not the one the Hot Corner would have weighted most heavily. Lopez was not robbed. Jaime was not undeserving. It was a genuinely close call between two historic seasons, and the four voters who put Lopez first were not wrong to do so.
From Hiroshi Nakamura of Rancho Cordova, who attended the final home game of the regular season on September 30th and who described Musco's walk-off double in the ninth inning as the moment he decided to buy season tickets for 1994: "Three Silver Sluggers from one team — how do we think about this offense going forward?"
Hiroshi, the decision to buy season tickets was made at the correct moment. The three Silver Sluggers — Lopez, Musco, Cruz — represent the productive core of a lineup that is now locked in contractually in two of its three components. Lopez through 1998. Cruz through 1996. Musco approaching the final chapters of a career that has already produced a WAR of 52.0 with Sacramento, which is third in franchise history behind only Swift and Iniguez. The offense going forward is in better shape than the first-round exit might suggest, for the simple reason that its three best contributors are under thirty-one years old collectively, with Lopez at twenty-four and Cruz at twenty-five giving the lineup a foundation that the organization can build around rather than replace. The walk-off double you watched was Musco at thirty-three playing the best baseball of his Sacramento tenure. The season tickets you bought will see that version of him for at least one more year, possibly two. That is worth attending.
From David Morrison of Land Park, a high school history teacher who has used the 1993 Sacramento season as a classroom case study in the difference between process and outcome — a distinction he says his students understand better through baseball than through any other framework: "What does this team need to do to win the World Series in 1994?"
David, the classroom application of process versus outcome is exactly right and I suspect your students are learning something about October that most adults learn too late. What this team needs to do in 1994 to win the World Series is the following, in order of importance. First: keep Rubalcava healthy. Everything begins and ends there. A healthy Rubalcava is the best pitcher in this league and the foundation on which any October run is built. Second: re-sign Andretti before the contract year conversation becomes a negotiation under pressure. The rotation that can win a seven-game series in October requires both of them at full capacity. Third: commit unconditionally to the bullpen hierarchy that the 1993 second half established — Dodge closes, Gutierrez sets up, Prieto contributes in defined lower-leverage situations. The blown save in Game 1 of the Division Series was not evidence against this arrangement. It was evidence that closers sometimes give up home runs and that the correct response is to continue deploying the best available closer in the ninth inning regardless of outcome variance. Fourth: develop the depth that September injuries exposed, and the draft capital from the Lopez supplemental pick and the Nashville trade creates the opportunity to begin doing exactly that. The process for building a championship team is intact. The outcome in October depends on whether the organization executes that process in the winter, before the season begins.
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That is the 1993 Sacramento Prayers season, in full. One hundred and five wins. A division title — the twenty-second in franchise history. A Cy Young Award for the best pitcher in the American League. Two Silver Sluggers worth of MVP votes. A first-round playoff exit that will inform every decision this organization makes between now and February. The Hot Corner has covered every development from the first exhibition box score to the final transaction filing, and what this program can say with confidence is that the 1993 Sacramento Prayers were a great team that did not win the championship, which is the most honest sentence available and also the one that most urgently demands a response.
The response will come in spring training. The response will come in the draft. The response will come when Andretti's contract situation resolves one way or another, and when Alonzo signs the extension that both parties appear to want, and when Garcia arrives in camp to be evaluated, and when Lopez takes his first at-bat of 1994 wearing the uniform he will wear through 1998. The Hot Corner will be there for all of it. We will be watching, and arguing, and occasionally being wrong, and trying always to tell you the truth about what we see.
Thank you for listening. See you in February.
Got a question for the mailbag? Find the Hot Corner wherever you get your podcasts.
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Claude Playball is a baseball insider and analyst and host of the Hot Corner podcast, based in Sacramento, California.