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Could Have Been A Hall of Famer

              Many times, a player has busted onto the Major League scene and has immediately been compared to some or one of the greats who preceded him. I remember when Eric Davis first burst on the scene for the Reds. He showed promise, but from 1986-89, he was one of the best players in the majors. He slipped a little in 1990, but still was top 15 in the MVP vote.

           Injuries then started taking their toll and he was never the same player. The player the Dodgers traded for in 1992 was a shadow of what he was before. He wasn’t much better in 93 and they traded him to the Tigers. He hung on until 2001. He did have one very good year in 1998 with Baltimore where he hit .327 with 28 homers and 89 RBIs His OPS that year was .970. 

       His last season with the Giants, he played 74 games and hit.205, His career numbers were good, but he could have been so much better without the injuries.

        Donny Baseball is another one who had his career derailed by injuries. The first six seasons of Mattingly’s career, he was definitely on a Hall of Fame path. Six straight seasons of averages over .300. He was a lot like Freeman, good power, but a ton of extra base hits. He led the league in doubles three straight seasons and improved his number each of those years culminating in a career high 53 in 1986. Over his six years of excellence, he never had less than 36 doubles, and never hit less than 18 homers. Then his problems started with his back issues. 

    He hit over .300 just once more in his entire career. And this was when BA meant something. He did finish his career over .300 at .307. But for a first baseman, what is considered a power position, he slugged 222 homers in his 14-year career. An average of 20 per season. He did though win an MVP award in 1985. He earned 9 gold gloves, but never played in a single postseason game. 

       On of the more prominent players who had all the tools, and started out so well was Darryl Strawberry. Strawberry was the first pick in the 1980 June draft. Born in Los Angeles, he went to Crenshaw High. He spent part of 80, and then all of 81 and 82 in the Mets system. He started out at AAA Tidewater in 1983 and after 16 games, the Mets brought him up for good. He hit 26 homers and drove in 74 and was named the NL ROY for 1983. He played for the Mets for 8 seasons, and then he became a free agent. He was signed to a six-year contract at around 3 million or so a year. 

        He had been averaging 35 homers a season between 1987-90. He hit 28 for the Dodgers in 1991. He amazingly hit 10 of those against one team, the Astros. He drove in 99 runs and hit .265. His OPS was .852. He played in 139 games for the Dodgers that season. He would play 100 or more just once more in his career, which lasted until 1999. His 1992 season got off to a slow start. He was hitting .237 with 5 homers and 25 RBIs when he asked for help with a serious drug addiction. I remember seeing him in the players parking lot with Eric Davis after a split in a doubleheader with the Expos. Both left without acknowledging the fans who were trying to get autographs. He played in only 43 games for LA that season. In 1993, it was even worse, he played in just 32 games and hit .140. The Dodgers then decided to cut bait and released him in May of 1994. He signed with the Giants, but his fortunes did not improve much. He only played 29 games in SF.

        The Yankees took a chance on him in 1995. He would finish his career in New York. His first two seasons with the Yanks were ok. But his third year, he only played in 11 games. In 1998, he had a bounce back season. He played in 101 games for the Yankees, he hit 24 homers, three less than he had hit over the previous six years combined and drove in 57 runs. He hit .247 for the Yanks that year. He missed the postseason for the Yankees. He had been a huge part of their post season win over Baltimore in 1996. He slammed 3 homers in the 4 games. 1999, his last year, he played only 24 games. But he had his best BA of his career, .327, and the highest OPS he ever posted, 1.112. He hit .333 in the playoffs, 5-15 with 2 homers and 4 runs driven in as the Yankees won the series over the Braves. He retired after that. His career line, .257/.357/.505 with an OPS of .862. He slugged 335 homers and drove in exactly 1000 runs. Just think what he might have been capable of had he not gotten into drugs.

         Another one we thought destined for the Hall was Strawberry’s teammate, Dwight Gooden. Doc as he was called, won the ROY the season after Strawberry. He won the Cy Young the next season after that. He would be an A-list pitcher for much of his career. Unlike Strawberry, who had an addiction to cocaine and freely admitted the same, Gooden always seemed to deny that coke was the problem. He always said he had health issues. But Doc was one of those guys who you just did not want your team to face. He was just flat nasty. 

          Gooden burst on the scene, and he was so electric. His rookie year, he was second in the Cy Young voting. His Cy Young year, he was other worldly. 24-4 1.53 ERA, 16 complete games, 276.2 innings pitched and 268 Ks. Which was actually down from his rookie season when he struck out 276 in 218 innings. But he was 0-4 in his career in postseason play. Even in 1986 when the Mets won the World Series, Gooden was 0-3 in that postseason. He was 0-2 with an 8.00 ERA against Boston. 

        After that World Series season, he struck out over 200 hitters only once more in his career. A career that lasted 13 more seasons. He won 20 or more only that once. So, what happened to this guy? The answer was cocaine and alcohol. He remained effective, but not dominant. After three successive losing seasons, he was suspended by MLB for the 1995 season after a positive drug test while serving a prior suspension. In 1996, he helped the Yankees to a pennant in a championship year, but he did not pitch in the postseason. He retired after the 2000 season, finishing just 6 wins shy of 200. He had an excellent won-lost percentage of .634. He was elected to the Mets Hall of Fame in 2024 and his #16 was retired. His addiction problems continued after his career, and he was arrested several times. He also was incarcerated for 7 months in 2006 for violating the terms of his probation. 

        The way Pete Reiser started out, many felt he could have made the hall. Reiser’s all out style of play would eventually end his career. He was as they say, a baller. Pete had only one speed in which he played the game, fast. His rookie status was used up in 1940 when he was 21. He played in 58 games for Brooklyn and hit .293. But the following year Reiser showed his skills.  He won the batting crown with a .343 average. He led the league in doubles, triples, BA, runs, slugging, OPS, OPS+ and total bases. He did all of that in 137 games. He would only hit .200 in the series against the Yankees, but he had the trifecta, a double, triple and homer in the series driving in 3 runs. 

 

          The injury problem started the next season. Reiser was hitting .350 when on July 19th, he crashed face first

into the wall in center field in St. Louis, trying to catch what turned out to be a game-winning inside the park homer by Enos Slaughter. He would miss only 4 games with the resulting concussion, but he only hit .244 the rest of the way and his average dropped to .310. Brooklyn lost the pennant by 2 games to the Cardinals. Reiser would spend the next 3 years in the Army. 

        Reiser, who was a switch-hitter, would sometimes restrict himself to hitting left-handed because of an injury. While in the service, he mostly played baseball for Army teams. He was injured again and had to learn to throw with both hands. The shoulder injury he suffered in the Army would eventually be what ended his career. The shoulder would keep popping out, bone chips developed, and he had constant pain in his arm and shoulder. 

          Some good came from Reiser’s injury’s, they caused the Dodgers to pad the outfield walls at Ebbets Field in 1948. Although robbed of some of his other talents, Reiser maintained his speed. He stole home a record 7 times in 1946. If one may wonder just how good Reiser was, or could have been, his first manager, Leo Durocher said this about Pete. ” There is one player who could compare to Pete, Willie Mays. Pete had more power than Willie, both left and right-handed.  He could at least throw as well as Mays both right and left-handed. Willie had everything; Pete had everything but luck.” High praise indeed for a very talented ballplayer. 

                                           The Dodgers blew the Rockies out with a solid 13-2 win. Yamamoto went 5 innings and gave up the 2 runs. Wrobleski pitched 4 scoreless innings in relief to get his first MLB save. Yoshi got his 7th win. The Dodgers pounded out 18 hits and had 9 walks. The Hernandez boys, Kike and Teo, both hit 3 run homers. Teo’s was his career high, 33rd.  He also is 1 RBI short of 100. They scored all of that without Ohtani driving in a run. Ohtani, Muncy, and Smith all had 2 hits. Kike, Lux, and Taylor had 3. The Phillies lost earlier in the day, and the Dodgers secured home field for the entire playoffs. 

 

Born June 14th, 1948, in Los Angeles California. AKA The Bear

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OhioDodger

Ahh, what might have been. Great article/post Bear. I remember very well how high mine and the Dodgers hopes were when we got Davis and Strawberry. Just did not pan out.

Duke Not Snider

Eric Davis seemed like the next Willie Mays for a couple of seasons. I was a big fan. The injuries really cost him.
When I joined an office “rotisserie” league, the guy who had Mattingly suggested that every “owner” could keep one player from the previous season. The so-called “Mattingly Rule” was swiftly rejected.
Off the top of my head I would add a couple of other names to this list: Fred Lynn and our own Cody Bellinger….
Right now I wonder if the Pads plan to sit Arraez again to keep his BA where it is. I remember when the Angels sat Alex Johnson to help him win the batting title. Pretty wimpy move…
Yamamoto’s start is encouraging. It will be interesting to see how the pitching staff shakes out. I’d love to see Henriquez get a couple more innings, especially with Graterol again in doubt.
I don’t know anyone who predicted that Shohei’s speed and base-running ability would be such an important dimension to this team. Would he steal a bit? Sure. He did some for the Angels. ..
But would he be a threat every time he got to 1B? Nope. He can put the defense on its heels. When Mookie went down, Shohei shifted to lead off. But it took a while for him to cut loose.

Shohei’s stats for the last 30 days:
a 1.270 OPS with a .393 BA, 12 HRs, 36 RBI, 30 Runs, 16 SBs (0 caught)

Old Bear 48

Fred Lynn for sure. His first seven years when he was with Boston, he was on a HOF track. Went in the tank when he moved to the Angels. Cody only had 3 really good years to start then he went down and did not rebound until he went to Chicago. Another guy who could have been great, Tony Conigliaro. Shame his career was basically ended when he was hit in the face by a pitch.

dodgerram

Good blog Bear !
I remember ST in Vero Beach in 92 when both Strawberry and Davis were walking to Holman Stadium from the clubhouse about 1 hour before a spring training game. Fans were walking with them from the clubhouse , trying to talk to them a little bit. Both guys arrogantly ignored the fans all the way up to the stadium. Not even looking at them.
What a total contrast only minutes later when Vin Scully on his way to the press box took time to sign our caps, t-shirts and balls, even talking to us for about a minute.

Yamamoto was on today. If not for some squeeing by the HP umpire the first run would not have scored against him.
70 plus pitches should enable him to go maybe 85-90 next time out.
Wrobleski looked sharp too. Maybe an outside chance for him to crack the postseason roster as a power lefty out of the pen who can also give you length if needed.
Arraez is a coward.

Go Dodgers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OhioDodger

Vero Beach was a great place. I was also there in 1992. Never got an autograph from either Davis or Strawberry. They were very aloof. Brett Butler was very accommodating and nice to the fans.

dodgerram

Yes, Vero was great. Camelback is very nice too but the athmosphere and the flair of Dodgertown was different. A lifetime experience when we first visited.
We used to stay at the Holiday Inn on Ocean drive. Right next was a great coffee shop for breakfast, the Ocean Grill and the Black Pearl /Dodger players and coaches used to come there too) for dinner and a seafood bar named Crustys right on the beach.
Witnessed my first and only hurricane in Vero Beach too.
So many memories !

Go Dodgers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Eric

The key things from Yamamoto’s start was he allowed 4 guys on base in 5 innings which is good. The bad thing is 1 of the hits was a home run and it doesn’t matter (other than in this game) that there was nobody on base when you’re talking about the playoffs. Home runs allowed can kill you in the playoffs.

With that said, I’m pretty confident about wins in the playoffs when Yamamoto starts. I think he’s the ace in the playoffs.

Buehler the other day was encouraging. 6 guys allowed on base in 5 innings and no home runs allowed. That was good too.

Knack, Flaherty, Buehler, Hudson, Miller, Wrobleski all have well above league average HR%. Some will make the roster and some won’t or all will make the roster. Let’s don’t do a Lance Lynn this year.

Cassidy

Well I feel pretty confident if we play the Rockies.

Bluto

Given how well the Dodgers have done against lefties, I think the Braves would be a better match-up. Even though the Braves’ lefties are quite good.

Not too sure about this.

Last edited 5 days ago by Bluto
Old Bear 48

Their BA is 15 points higher against LHP.

Badger

I have two vivid memories of Davis and Strawberry, both from the 80’s, both from Candlestick.

I was sitting between home and first, about 5 rows up and Davis hit a line drive so hard it took the glove off the shortstop’s hand. I think the shortstop was Chris Speier but I’m not entirely sure of that. Trainers came out to check his hand as he was in a lot of pain.

I saw Strawberry hit one in batting practice before a game into the right field upper deck. It was a towering drive into the upper section over some guy’s head that never saw it coming. He was up there all by himself walking between the upper and lower seats of that section. The ball hiiting the seats made a very loud noise and the guy was so surprised he ducked like he thought somebody was shooting at him. Those were football seats and hardly anyone was ever up there at baseball games. There was a buzz in the stadium when it happened and people were saying nobody’s ever hit one that far at The Stick and it could have gone 500’.

Like I said, vivid memories from a long time ago.

Last edited 6 days ago by Badger
Bluto

Bear,

I’ve tried to look this up, but can’t confirm. Maybe you can.

Is it true that before the recent ownership team, the Dodgers had the best record in all of MLB only once?

Bluto

Thanks!

Just shows how awesome this run has been.

Badger

The way this post season bracketing is set up the #1 seed could play the #4 seed and the #2 seed could play the #6 seed. That seems odd to me. Couldn’t they just wait to see who wins Wild Card rounds?

Last edited 6 days ago by Badger
Badger

Talk? It seems obvious to me. Why get the #1 if it doesn’t guarantee you play the lowest seed in your round?

Dionysus

Because Manfred is a moron.

Bluto

How is it on Manfred?

Isn’t this a CBA thing?

Or is it not?

Last edited 5 days ago by Bluto
OhioDodger

Regardless, Manfred is still a moron.

OhioDodger

And they are slower than molasses.

Badger

“Manfred is still a moron”

Then Timmons should ban him.

Problem solved.

Last edited 5 days ago by Badger
Bluto

Quality response.

nice one.

bravo!

Bumsrap

Outman called up.

Bumsrap

Oh, put me in, Coach
I’m ready to play today
Put me in, Coach
I’m ready to play today
Look at me, I can be centerfield

OhioDodger

I read that they are shopping Sonny Gray. Shedding payroll.

Bluto

Goldschmidt was dreadful.

thankfully those fans who wanted the Dodgers to acquire him were just fans

Old Bear 48

He did have a very un-Goldschmidt year. In fact the last two years have been downers.

Badger

Means nothing for him to get it. Would have meant a lot if Ohtani got it.

And on a personal note, averages that low should never win a batting title.

Cassidy

Outman just can’t hit big league pitching

Last edited 5 days ago by Cassidy
Old Bear 48

This year that has been the case. But he might make the post-season roster if Kiermaier can’t.

Bisonjones

Remember Yaz in ’68? That was a mound-affair, if I have my facts straight.

Badger

Even.328 is low for a batting champion. And .318 with a .744 OPS sounds like a good but not great hitter with little power. And to sit on the bench to win it is weak.

Bisonjones

I’m Happy for CT3. That home run in his final AB tied the game and brought his avg over .200 for the first time this season. He batted .326 in September and ends the year at .202. It ain’t pretty, but given he was 3 for hist first 49, that means something. He may have a role to play in the post season.

Bobby

Agree with you. He and Lux both really turned it on the 2nd half, and let’s hope they can keep this thru the next 5 weeks!

Northmsdodger

I am very happy for CT3.Fans have given him crap all year.

Badger

Great talent. Smart guy too. Rhodes Scholar, helicopter pilot, completed Ranger School, Not many like him, that’s for sure.

Dionysus

Not a moron

Cassidy

Best record in mlb and the most injuries. Is time fire AF and his minions along with Roberts? Blow it all up and begin again as some have called for. Roberts is manager of the year for me.

Last edited 5 days ago by Cassidy
Bluto

Some have called for?

Only one person (maybe two?) have called for blowing it up. That person (those persons?) are best just ignored. they are just in it for the attention.

I’m still not sold on Roberts at all, but he did an admirable job this year.

I think there’s a greater than 50% chance the team moves on from him though if no WS win. Not that he deserves it.

Last edited 5 days ago by Bluto
Old Bear 48

Not here usually, but that other guy’s site has guys doing that a lot. I am pulling for the Mets and Braves to split tomorrow and send Arizona home.

Bluto

The number-one rule of the road is never go to bed with anyone crazier than yourself. Break this rule, and you will be sorry.

Fred Vogel

I had the pleasure of spending an evening with Kris’s daughter, Tracey, and her boyfriend at the time, speed skater Eric Heyden, at an LA Kings game at the Forum and the displeasure of dealing with one of his exes,a drunken, belligerent Rita Coolidge.

Old Bear 48

Looks like Roberts is planning on starting Flaherty in game one.

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