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 |
No comments:
Post a Comment