Tuesday, March 16, 2010

1981 Baltimore Orioles



Ken Singleton - Best Player In Baseball?
One of my favorite online sportswriters makes that claim in this column. Joe Posnanski, who writes for Sports Illustrated used win shares (if you don't know what that stat is, google win shares, it's an interesting concept) tallied over any given five year period in the past 40 years and came up with the best players. He was using this to make arguments for the Hall-of-Fame. According to this study, from 1975-1979, Ken Singleton had the most win shares in all of baseball. He was probably the most suprising player on the list.

At least where I grew up, Ken Singleton was one step above receiving a common player in your pack of cards. You knew he was better than some set up reliever for the Rangers, but you didn't get excited when you saw him in your pack of cards either.

Earl Weaver
Another of my all time favorite managers, who's style you don't see in today's game. As you can hear in this classic rant, which I have no idea if it is real or not, you can hear Earl Weaver knock down the value of a stolen base. 20-30 years later when everyone is discovering more and more stats thanks to the explosion of the home computer, the concensus has been the stolen base is bad. So Earl was way ahead of his time.

It's interesting to note, Weaver was the best manager of the 1970s winning percentage wise, but never played in the major leagues. Why don't bad teams take this sort of chance now with a person with no major league playing experience. There are only a few teams with managers with that resume now. It amazes me being a Tigers fan that anybody would ever hire Buddy Bell or Phil Garner after their time in Detroit, they were decent players in their time, but proven to be awful managers. Wouldn't it be better to take a chance with an unknown than a known commodity?

Starters
__ TO 615 C Rick Dempsey BAL
__ TO 490 1B Eddie Murray BAL
__ TO 314 2B Rich Dauer BAL
__ TO 188 3B Doug DeCinces BAL
__ TO 641 SS Mark Belanger BAL
__ TO 591 LF John Lowenstein BAL
__ TO 425 CF Al Bumbry BAL
__ TO 570 RF Ken Singleton BAL
__ TO 543 DH Terry Crowley BAL
__ TO 37 OF Gary Roenicke BAL

Starting Pitchers
__ TO 367 SP Dennis Martinez BAL
__ TO 65 SP Scott McGregor BAL
__ TO 210 SP Jim Palmer BAL
__ TO 10 SP Mike Flanagan BAL
__ TO 520 SP Steve Stone BAL

Relief Pitchers
__ TO 119 CL Tippy Martinez BAL
__ TO 262 RP Sammy Stewart BAL
__ TO 91 RP Tim Stoddard BAL
__ TO 706 RP Dave Ford BAL

Other Players
__ TO 287 SS Lenn Sakata BAL
__ TT 757 OF Jim Dwyer BAL
__ TO 161 C Dan Graham BAL
__ TO 101 DH Benny Ayala BAL
__ TT 806 DH Jose Morales BAL
__

UT Wayne Krenchicki
__

IF Cal Ripken
__

SS Bobby Bonner
__ FL 193 OF Mark Corey BAL
__

C Willie Royster
__

CF John Shelby
__

LF Dallas Williams
__

RP Jeff Schneider
__

RP Steve Luebber
__

RP Mike Boddicker

Manager/Coaches
__ FL 178 MG Earl Weaver (or DO 356)
BAL

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