State of the Franchise
Brooklyn won the whole thing, in a year where nobody saw them coming. But they’re Brooklyn — nobody ever does. The Royal Giants were a surprise division winner and a bigger surprise in October, running through the bracket and then handling the heavily favored San Francisco Sea Lions in the Whirled Series. From a .500 team in 2000 to a 99-63 champion.
And then … they spent the winter trading 2 of the key pieces of the championship run.
Brooklyn is New York’s third team, forever looked down on by the Yankees and the Gothams, and its edge seems to be first, to feel no sentiment, and, second, to care for the clubhouse. A ring didn’t change that. Within months of the parade the champions dealt Don Drysdale and John Briggs, the former for pouting when he was passed over to start the opening game of the Whirled Series and the latter because the Royal Giants believe they could get more value in return.
Brooklyn is convinced their offense will survive the passing of the home-run-friendly era, with Ron Cey at third, Jackie Robinson and Roy White as the heart and soul of the club, Mike Piazza behind the plate, and Smokey Joe Williams and Orel Hershiser at the front of the rotation.
The job now isn’t to defend a title. It’s to turn a surprise into a dynasty.
2001 Revisited
Our preview a year ago called this roster very middle of the road, penciled in a modest playoff hunt, and hung the whole thing on 2 names: Drysdale, the supposed lone dependable starter, and Briggs, the outfielder we swore would keep setting the world on fire.
Not wrong. Also not the story.
Cey slugged 47 homers with a 291/381/656 line and took the club MVP. Piazza finally arrived, mashing 48. Dan Brouthers settled first base with a .950 OPS. And the arms the org supposedly couldn’t trust carried it: Hershiser went 19-5, a converted Fernando Valenzuela 14-5, and Eric Gagné slammed the door 39 times. Williams was the best of them and had the least to show for it — a 7-WAR performance stuck with a 12-13 record.
Then the champions got to work dismantling the edges of their own title team. Drysdale — who threw a public fit about ceding the top of the rotation spot to Hershiser — went to Memphis with Red Ruffing (signed as a FA the previous week) in a package essentially for Mookie Betts, giving Brooklyn the marquee OF they had always lacked. Briggs, exactly the doubted-kid-makes-good story this fanbase adores, followed him to Memphis a few weeks later, bringing back a first-round pick and a pair of prospects.
Key Changes
In: Mookie Betts (MEM); Billy Bryan (MEM); Joe Smith (FA)
Out: John Briggs (MEM); Don Drysdale (MEM)
Opening Day Rookies: Ralph Branca; Nap Rucker; Joe Smith
Best Case for 2002
The core doesn’t regress and the luck evens out. Cey, Piazza, Robinson, and Brouthers are all in their primes. Williams gets the record his WAR deserves, Hershiser is Hershiser, and Gagné closes. Behind the top 2, one of the other arms holds up well enough to carry them into October again. And, if someone does go down, the best farm system in baseball — it isn’t close — starts feeding the big club: for example, Ed Delahanty or Al Simmons arriving to turn the outfield into an embarrassment of riches. All of that, and Brooklyn goes back-to-back, and the surprise becomes a dynasty.
Worst Case for 2002
The pitching falls short. Behind Williams and Hershiser, Valenzuela regresses, Dick Redding fails to develop, and the rest turn out to be merely average at best. The bullpen — excellent in 2001 — collapses, leaving no reliable bridge to Gagné. Pedro Guerrero keeps flailing, and the lineup that looked fearsome in a juiced year looks ordinary in a normal one. All of that, and the champion drifts back toward the .500 club it was in 2000, relegated to be a curious footnote of WBL history.
Oh yeah, and Drysdale wins the Brock Rutherford Award in the AL.
Key Questions
- Can the rotation hold? Yeah, Brooklyn had excess pitching. But trading Drysdale is a massive bet on … well, who exactly? Valenzuela? Redding? Ralph Branca? Nap Rucker? You can’t say you would prefer any of them over Drysdale without giggling. The answer may be young lefty Sandy Koufax, but he’s likely a bullpen arm this season as he works on building up the endurance to handle a starter’s load.
- Can a champion still be the underdog? What happens when Brooklyn wins, again? It sort of breaks reality, yes?
- How much of Duke Snider is real? Center field is now his with Briggs’ departure. Snider led the club with 51 homers — and was worth 0.2 WAR doing it, a .259 average and a .295 on-base underneath the power. Brooklyn traded the productive outfielder in Briggs and kept the other one in center, betting his ceiling was higher. It’s not clear.
- Where does the Whirled Series MVP play? Lost in Piazza’s October is the man who won the round that mattered most: Ray Dandridge, a 22-year-old infielder who caught fire in the Series and has no position to call his own. Cey owns third, Robinson owns second, and Vern Stephens sparkled since being brought in at SS. Dandridge takes his reps everywhere, but at some point will force some hard questions.
Roster Evaluation
Tier = the player’s 2001 positional grade (S best → F worst; color coded S A B C D F). Bold names carry a substantive WBL track; italic names are pure projection — a hope, not a grade — with no qualifying track to anchor them.
| Pos | Players |
|---|---|
| C | Piazza A · Bryan |
| 1B | Brouthers B |
| 2B | Robinson A |
| SS | Stephens D |
| 3B | Cey S |
| LF | White C |
| CF | Snider C |
| RF | Betts C |
| DH | Becker C · Guerrero F |
| SP | Williams A · Hershiser B · Valenzuela A · Redding · Leonard · Dreifort |
| RP | Gagné S (CL) · Forster A · Koufax C · Knauss D · Hildenberger B (IL) |
A core of genuine stars — Cey, Piazza, Robinson, Williams, Valenzuela — deep enough to win a title and young enough to win several.
The bullpen is where the grid hides something. Gagné is an S-tier closer and Terry Forster an A-tier setup man, but the bridge to them leans hard left, and Trevor Hildenberger — the one right-handed answer with a real track — opens the year on the IL. Until he’s back, it’s all lefties all the time for Brooklyn.
Talent Ratings
| WBL | Minors | |
|---|---|---|
| Raw Power | C Mike Piazza | 1B Justin Smoak; 1B Jim Gentile |
| Batting Eye | 3B Ron Cey | 1B Justin Smoak |
| Contact | 1B Dan Brouthers | RF Matty Alou |
| Running Speed | RF Mookie Betts | SS Sonny Jackson |
| Base Stealing | RF Beals Becker; 1B Dan Brouthers | 2B Davey Lopes; RF Chicken Wolf |
| IF Defense | 2B Jackie Robinson | SS Tim Foli |
| OF Defense | RF Mookie Betts | RF Chicken Wolf |
| Stuff | RP Eric Gagné | SP Jim Bunning; SP Allen Russell |
| Control | SP Smokey Joe Williams | SP Jordan Zimmermann |
| Velocity | RP Eric Gagné | RP Steve Chitren |
Best In The Minors
| Rank | Age | Pos | Name |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 (1) | 21 | 2B | Ed Delahanty |
| 2 (13) | 25 | RF | Chicken Wolf |
| 3 (17) | 23 | SP | Walker Buehler |
| 4 (24) | 22 | SP | Jim Kaat |
| 5 (25) | 21 | CF | Al Simmons |
| 6 (34) | 22 | SP | Eustace Newton |
| 7 (47) | 23 | RF | Don Mueller |
| 8 (56) | 25 | SP | Dustin McGowan |
| 9 (79) | 26 | RF | George Selkirk |
Others: OF Brett Butler, OF Jay Johnstone, P Victor González, P Odalis Pérez.
The best farm system in baseball, and it isn’t close — 9 ranked names headed by Ed Delahanty, the No. 1 prospect in the sport, a 21-year-old second baseman with the small problem that Robinson already owns the position. He is taking reps in left field.
A year ago this list graduated Smokey Joe Williams and Valenzuela straight into a championship rotation, and produced Briggs at #5. What remains is an arms-and-outfielders wave — Al Simmons, Jim Kaat, Walker Buehler — pressing up from below.
Superlatives
| Most | Least | |
|---|---|---|
| Age | Burleigh Grimes, 36 | Odalis Pérez, 20 |
| Height | Luke Farrell, 6’6″ | Candy Jim Taylor, 5’5″ |
| OPS | Jim Gentile, 1.053 (AAA) | Rollie Hemsley, 0.550 (A) |
| HR | Duke Snider, 51 | Rollie Hemsley, 1 (A) |
| SB | Jackie Robinson, 53 | – |
| WAR (bat) | Ron Cey, 5.0 | Pedro Guerrero, -1.1 |
| W | Orel Hershiser, 19 | – |
| SV | Eric Gagné, 39 | – |
| ERA | Art H Johnson, 3.20 (AA) | Jordan Zimmermann, 5.80 (AAA) |
| WAR (pit) | Smokey Joe Williams, 7.1 | Dazzy Vance, -0.1 (A) |
Stats across all levels, 2001 season. 200 PA / 75 IP minimum. Non-WBL levels tagged in parentheses.