The Better Than You Remember Thread

[ShaneDawg85]

So @Moose Milliganstarted a thread yesterday about Will Clark's short tenure with the Orioles and being surprised that his actual performance was a lot better than he remembered.  So that got me to thinking, who are some other guys whose performance was far better than you remember at the time?  Doesn't matter how long they were here, just that your mind tells you they weren't very good, or flat out sucked, but in actuality it wasn't so bad.

I feel like for me I could extend this to a lot of guys from the dark ages of 1998-2011, but I'll start with a couple.  I remember Kerry Lightenberg being a "major signing" for on a bad 2003 team, and I remember a lot of people online, if it was here or another board I was on at the time, didn't really care for him in his only season here.  But, he was actually a lot better than I remember.  One season, but 3.34 ERA and 1.5 WAR.  Pretty much the only consistent reliever on the team that year outside of BJ Ryan.

Another one was Pat Hentgen.  I remember him starting out the 2001 season like gang busters and pitching really well, and considering he was basically supposed to be our glorified consolation prize to losing Mike Mussina, that meant a lot.  Then he got hurt, and my memory just told me he was terrible the rest of his time here.  That was probably mostly because in 2002 he was coming back from the injury and terrible in a whopping four starts.  But, in 2003 he was pretty serviceable with a 160 IP and a 3.4 WAR.  Nothing amazing, but on the crap scale that was the dark ages, he weighs in pretty darn low.

[Enjoy Terror]

First thing that came to my mind was Jeff Conine. I never liked him. Looking at his stats now, he was never abjectly bad, and even had one pretty good season with us.

[Moose Milligan]

Eric Davis is another.  I knew he was good but daaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn .970 OPS, 28 homers, 29 doubles. .327 batting average.

I think if Eric Davis could have stayed healthy, he'd have been a first ballot HoFer, easily.  

[Frobby]

Moose Milligan’s namesake is a guy who looks much better through the lens of OPS than he did using the stats that were commonly used in 1989.    

[OFFNY]

30 minutes ago, ShaneDawg85 said:

 

So @Moose Milliganstarted a thread yesterday about Will Clark's short tenure with the Orioles and being surprised that his actual performance was a lot better than he remembered.  So that got me to thinking, who are some other guys whose performance was far better than you remember at the time?  Doesn't matter how long they were here, just that your mind tells you they weren't very good, or flat out sucked, but in actuality it wasn't so bad.

I feel like for me I could extend this to a lot of guys from the dark ages of 1998-2011, but I'll start with a couple.  I remember Kerry Lightenberg being a "major signing" for on a bad 2003 team, and I remember a lot of people online, if it was here or another board I was on at the time, didn't really care for him in his only season here.  But, he was actually a lot better than I remember.  One season, but 3.34 ERA and 1.5 WAR.  Pretty much the only consistent reliever on the team that year outside of BJ Ryan.

Another one was Pat Hentgen.  I remember him starting out the 2001 season like gang busters and pitching really well, and considering he was basically supposed to be our glorified consolation prize to losing Mike Mussina, that meant a lot.  Then he got hurt, and my memory just told me he was terrible the rest of his time here.  That was probably mostly because in 2002 he was coming back from the injury and terrible in a whopping four starts.  But, in 2003 he was pretty serviceable with a 160 IP and a 3.4 WAR.  Nothing amazing, but on the crap scale that was the dark ages, he weighs in pretty darn low.

 

o

 

Good thread.

Let me try to think of something that I remembered incorrectly.

 

o

[orioles119]

Dare I say Aubrey Huff?  60 HRs and .815 OPS and 3.4 WAR while with the Orioles.  Of course, he's known for his off the field comments in regard to Baltimore, but production wise he wasn't horrible.

[ShaneDawg85]

9 minutes ago, orioles119 said:

Dare I say Aubrey Huff?  60 HRs and .815 OPS and 3.4 WAR while with the Orioles.  Of course, he's known for his off the field comments in regard to Baltimore, but production wise he wasn't horrible.

I was thinking about him the other day.  He was kind of like Mark Trumbo before Trumbo.  He had a really good year sandwiched between one mediocre year and a terrible one.  Best thing about Huff to me, which I'd forgotten about until just now, was trading him to the Giants for Brett Jacobson, who was one of the two no names we gave up to the Twins in exchange for...JJ Hardy.

[ScGO's]

David Segui in his second stint with the O's, although injury plagued, was to the tune of an .800 OPS.

And 1994 Mark Eichorn

 

[OFFNY]

21 minutes ago, OFFNY said:

o

 

Good thread.

Let me try to think of something that I remembered incorrectly.

 

o

o

 

OK, I got one.

I sometimes incorrectly revered Pat Dobson's follow-up season in 1972 to the historical "The Orioles have four 20-game winners" 1971 season as mediocre.

 

Part of the reason for that is probably because of the fact that the other 3 pitchers in that foursome (Jim Palmer, Mike Cuellar, and Dave McNally) had very long, very distinguished overall stints/careers with the Orioles ........ so Dobson's 1972 season, which was only his 2nd and last one with the team, was fraudulently devalued in my mind because of the long-term Orioles tenure success of the other 3 in that quartet.

 

Another likely reason why I incorrectly presumed mediocrity for Dobson in 1972 was the often flawed W-L stat ........ Dobson led the league in losses in 1972 with 18, and he was under .500 overall (16-18.)

 

HOWEVER ........ upon further review, Dobson's raw stats in 1972 were actually better than those from his 1971 season !!! )  ) His ERA improved from 2.90 in 1971 to 2.65 in 1972, and his WHIP improved from 1.102 in 1971 to 1.077 in 1972.

 

My apologies to the late Pat Dobson for the inaccurate way in which I sometimes presumed/remembered your overall tenure with the Orioles to be.

 

o

[Moose Milligan]

27 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Moose Milligan’s namesake is a guy who looks much better through the lens of OPS than he did using the stats that were commonly used in 1989.    

A man ahead of his time.

[ShaneDawg85]

I sometimes forget Charles Johnson was with the Orioles.  Not that I remember him being bad, in fact I remember him being good, but he was even better than I remember.  1.5 seasons, 6.2 WAR during that time period, good offense and defense at the catcher position.  Served as an excellent successor from Chris Hoiles, and most importantly, acquiring him from the Mets expunged us from the disaster that was Armando Benitez.  Unfortunately, what should have been one of the best trades the Orioles made at the 2000 deadline turned into one of the absolute worsts, which is saying something.

[The Goob]

A few guys that were way better than I remember them:

Chris Hoiles - OPS from 1992 - 1996 - .890, 1.001, .820, .830, .833 - Career .833 and 23.5 WAR.  That would likely make him the best catcher in MLB today.  By comparison JT Realmuto has a career OPS of .768 and his best year was last year at .825

Randy Milligan OPS of .852 and .900 in 1989 and 1990

Gregg Olson had 11.5 WAR from 1989 - 1993 with 176 saves and an ERA of 2.23

 

[DrungoHazewood]

45 minutes ago, ScGO's said:

David Segui in his second stint with the O's, although injury plagued, was to the tune of an .800 OPS.

And 1994 Mark Eichorn

 

Segui did have that one half-year where he tried to make up for 1800 PAs in Baltimore as a 0.0 WAR player.

Eichhorn was awesome.  In his rookie year with the Jays he threw 157 innings in relief, to a 1.74 ERA.  You know how everyone says WAR hates relievers?  He had a 7-win season as a reliever.  Third-highest total of all time.

[DrungoHazewood]

I tend to forget Ben McDonald had a year where he threw 220 innings to a 3.39.  And Storm Davis had one with 225 innings and a 3.12.  Bruce Chen 197 innings of a 3.83.

In 2011 Matt Wieters had a five-win season, but it was drowned out by the fact it wasn't an 11-win season.  Luis Matos had a year where he hit .303 with an .811 OPS as a center fielder.

[interloper]

15 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I tend to forget Ben McDonald had a year where he threw 220 innings to a 3.39.  And Storm Davis had one with 225 innings and a 3.12.  Bruce Chen 197 innings of a 3.83.

In 2011 Matt Wieters had a five-win season, but it was drowned out by the fact it wasn't an 11-win season.  Luis Matos had a year where he hit .303 with an .811 OPS as a center fielder.

Hell yeah, Bruce Chen.