Hitting The Cutoff Man

My last post about Eric Chavez was an apt lead-in to yesterday's news that Nomar Garciaparra was retiring. As Rob Neyer phrased it, Nomar's career was "an excellent object lesson in the non-inevitability of immortality."

Garciaparra was on his way to becoming an absolute, no-doubt Hall of Famer until the injuries started chipping away at him.

It's amazing to look back now on the 2000 season. That year was Nomaaaaaaaah's best, as he hit .372/.434/.599, won the AL batting title and punched up a career-high 155 OPS+.

It's funny though -- immortality is certainly not inevitable, but even if Nomar isn't a Hall of Famer, he's a guy people will remember for a long time. If you look at other guys who had great seasons in 2000 (just 10 years ago!) it's stunning how quickly players of a somewhat lower quality become completely irrelevant.

For example, who were the top 10 in batting average in the majors in 2000? Nomar was one, and Todd Helton, Manny Ramirez, Vladimir Guerrero, Carlos Delgado and Derek Jeter appear on the list too.

The rest of that list inspired me to scratch my head and go, "THAT guy?"

In 2000, it's difficult to remember, Darin Erstad and Moises Alou hit .355, Jeffrey Hammonds hit .335 and David Segui hit .334, all finishing in the top 10. This same year, Richard Hidalgo finished fifth in home runs, and the top 10 in ERA included Jeff D'Amico, Chan Ho Park and Rick Ankiel.

The fact is, nothing is inevitable in baseball. If you look at last year's leaders, you can confidently predict that Albert Pujols and Joe Mauer will go down as two of the greatest players of all time, Hanley Ramirez and Miguel Cabrera will eventually cruise into the Hall and Joey Votto and Pablo Sandoval have years of All-Star games and MVP votes ahead of them.

But reality is a lot messier than that. Chances are, injuries will sap somebody's potential before it fully blooms, and someone else's career will fizzle out just as quickly as it erupted in the first place.

We'll just have to stay tuned to find out who.

Follow Hitting The Cutoff Man on Twitter at HitTheCutoff

It's already been a tough Spring Training for injuries.

We've had Alex Gordon and Russell Martin go down with a broken thumb and a pulled groin respectively, issues that will keep them out for at least a few weeks. Cubs set-up man Angel Guzman tore a ligament in his shoulder, and Joe Nathan tore one in his elbow, with both pitchers' seasons likely finished.

It's certainly a shame -- for those players, and for the fantasy players owners who have drafted them (this is why you don't hold your draft this early).

Yet I've been focused more on a guy who's now hurt -- at least not now.

The news out of A's camp is that Eric Chavez is working out at first base. It's an effort to increase the ways Chavez can get playing time this season, as Oakland has a glut of corner infielders, including Kevin Kouzmanoff and Jake Fox, plus Jack Cust penciled in at DH.

It's nice that the A's are trying to make room for a guy who not so long ago was a franchise cornerstone, and good for Chavez for giving the move a shot. But the whole thing makes me kind of sad.

Every season from 2000 through 2003, Chavez played at least 150 games and put up an OPS between .850 and .900. Starting in 2001, he won six straight Gold Glove awards (from 2002-06, his UZR at third was 34.8, suggesting he was well above average at the hot corner).

After the 2003 season, Oakland signed him to a six-year, $66 million extension that kicked in starting in 2005 and will end after this year. There was little reason to argue against the idea. Chavez was a bona fide star who was going into his age 26 season and had very little injury history.

The next three seasons went OK, as Chavez averaged about 140 games per season and won three more Gold Gloves, although his offensive production slowed down in 2005 and 2006.

Simply put, the past three seasons have been increasingly brutal for Chavez, who has had to deal with a wave of serious injuries, including to his back.

2007: 90 games, 101 OPS+, .322 wOBA
2008: 23 games, 85 OPS+, .302 wOBA
2009: 8 games, 3-for-30, 1 extra-base hit

A guy who was worth 23.2 WAR from 2002-06 was worth 0.6 from 2007-09.

Chavez is just 32, but even someone without his injury history likely would be on the downslope of his career by now. It's possible Chavez could finally kick the injury bug and find a second wind, at least for a while, but that type of thing just doesn't happen often.

What's more likely is that we'll see a guy who once fielded the hot corner as smoothly as anyone and was one of the game's brightest young stars hobble around first base every so often and share some at-bats with the likes of Fox, Daric Barton and Adam Rosales.

It's another sad reminder of how quickly and completely injuries can rob someone of their career and us of the chance to enjoy watching them play.

Follow Hitting The Cutoff Man on Twitter at HitTheCutoff