No way a team like this would ever have worked
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Major League
flameman3 — 9 years ago(July 06, 2016 08:05 AM)
I like Major League and it is actually 1 of my very favorites. However, I feel I know enough about baseball to say this. There's just no way a team that was put together the way it was would have done as well as they did. And any manager with a brain would have fixed it.
Ricky Vaughn- No chance in hell someone who was as wild as he was would be pitching in the Majors. Vaughn would have started the season in the Minors. Also I could be wrong, but I doubt any scout would recommend to any team that they sign Vaughn with his extreme wildness. The only exception could be that later on they find out about his vision problems, he starts pitching better in the Minors, and then gets called up to the Majors later.
Roger Dorn- The guy cannot field, plain and simple. Since the movie takes place in 1989 and in the American League, the DH has been around since 1973. No manager is going to have someone like Dorn playing at 3rd base, or even at 1st. He would be DH only because he can hit really good, and they would have either had someone else play 3rd (anyone else's glove at 3rd would've been better than Dorn) or they call up a rookie from the Minors.
Pedro Cerrano- It won't take long at all for pitchers to figure him out, and when they see that he cannot hit curveballs to save his life, that's all they'll ever throw him. No chance he'll get a fastball to hit. Cerrano would be lucky to hit .200, and I'm sure he'd be starting the season in the Minors, or maybe he would get sent down shortly after the start of the season.
Willie Mays Hayes- Speed and good defense is all the guy has going for him. He showed that he clearly could not hit, so his only chance is to bunt or get a high chopper so he can beat out the throw to 1st. The infield would be drawn in every time he comes to the plate and easily throw him out at 1st. Also he got picked off some, so pitchers would be using that info to their advantage. Hayes would start the season as a bench player and be used as a pinch runner.
Jake Taylor- He was old but proved his worth as a great team leader. Someone else would have split the catching duties with him, especially since he was 40 years old and had knee problems. Also base runners would be stealing bases off him when they see he has trouble just throwing to 2nd. Taylor improves on this as the season goes on. I see him starting the season in the Majors since there probably no other catcher in the Minors ready to come up yet. -
bryanmmiles — 9 years ago(July 07, 2016 02:06 PM)
I think you're missing the whole premise on why these guys are on the team to begin with. No one expected them to be any good. They languished, and then each overcame their shortcomings much the same way as the "Moneyball" 2002 Oakland A's.
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flameman3 — 9 years ago(July 08, 2016 07:47 AM)
Oh trust me, this movie was very good and entertaining. I was simply putting it into a realistic perspective. Vaughn for example with his huge control problems would not make it to the Majors for a very long time. Dorn would obviously be used as DH, Cerrano would be sent down to the Minors to work on his hitting, and Hayes might stay in the Majors and improve on his hitting. And a 40 year old catcher would be lucky to play half the games.
But as you pointed out, some of them did overcome their shortcomings, such as Vaughn simply needing glasses. 1 thing did not make any sense to me in the final game. When Jackson is pitching to Cerrano I assume the last pitch when he gave up the homer was not a curveball because the announcer said the pitcher wanted a new sign. Jackson knows Cerrano can't hit a curveball or even come anywhere remotely close to hitting a curveball, so why would he throw anything else? I'm guessing that pitch was a fastball. We might be able to chalk that one up to Jobu's magic, but then again Jobu had not helped Cerrano much, so why would he now? -
bryanmmiles — 9 years ago(July 08, 2016 10:43 AM)
I'm with you. Don't understand the need for a new pitch when dude couldn't sniff the curve.
Also, there is a wide misconception here and on the DVD commentary with the Indians players in 2007 that Cerrano finally hit the curveball. He didn't. He jacked a heater just like he'd been doing for the second half of the season. -
noone1647 — 9 years ago(October 21, 2016 03:41 PM)
You're STILL missing the point of the movie.
Vaughn was on the team BECAUSE he had control issues. Cerrano was on the team BECAUSE he couldn't hit a breaking ball. The owner is the boss. The owner WANTED a team that would lose (so she could relocate). She wasn't sending anyone to the minors to work anything out, they were there for one reason and one reason only - to be bad. -
bote — 9 years ago(October 27, 2016 12:03 PM)
Curiously, in the original/alternative ending Rachel Phelps admits to Lou Brown that she was able to acquire those players because their flaws hid their true potential and because the team was broke they were all she could afford. She beat Sandy Alderson and Billy Beane to the Moneyball punch line by about 10 years.
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jefgg — 9 years ago(October 21, 2016 03:46 PM)
I was a big baseball fan when I was a kid back in the '70s and '80s. I lost interest in the sport many years ago.
Roger Dorn was a perfect candidate for DH. Did they ever say who the DH was?
Ricky Vaughn would be sent to the low minors. That would be a rookie league or short season A ball. Maybe a very raw talent like him would have been sent to an instructional league to work on his control. -
Rockhound6165 — 9 years ago(October 26, 2016 06:43 PM)
There is precedence that a patchwork teams full of has beens and never was' can become a winner. The 1993 Philadelphia Phillies lineup looked like this:
Ricky Jordan/John Kruk-1B
Mickey Morandini/Mariano Duncan-2B
Dave Hollins/Kim Batiste-3B
Juan Bell/Kevin Stocker-SS
Jim Eisenreich/Wes Chamberlain-RF
Lenny Dykstra-CF
Pete Incaviglia/Milt Thompson-LF
Darren Daulton/Todd Pratt-C
Pitchers
Curt Shilling-SP
Terry Muholland-SP
Danny Jackson-SP
Tommy Greene-SP
Ben Rivera-SP
Larry Anderson-RP
David West-RP
Roger Mason-RP
Mark Davis-RP
Mitch Williams-Closer
Through the season there were an assortment of bit players. None of these players had stellar careers before or after they left Philly except for Shilling. Daulton and Eisenreich ended up playing for the 1997 Marlins who won the World Series but that was it for them. Dykstra was on the 1986 Mets but until he started juicing, he was just an average player. Thompson and Morandini ended up coaching the Phillies after their careers were over with Thompson being the hitting coach when the Phils won the Series in '08 but there really wasn't a real superstar on this team outside of Shilling. A boat load of colorful personalities for sure with what they called Macho Row but unlike the Indians in this movie, this Phillies team came out of the gate and were red hot, built a big lead in the NL East, and at times had to hang on for dear life. Then they beat up a very talented Braves team only to lose to the Blue Jays in a series they should have won so it's not impossible.