Favorite all-time Orioles utility player?

[weams]

22 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I never liked Chris Gomez, and I'm trying to remember why.  I think it has to do with the fact that he was tapped to be the regular first baseman in 2005 when Raffy had his meltdown, and Gomez was a 34-year-old utility guy with a .701 OPS.  I was probably obsessing over the O's not giving a chance to Alejandro Freire and Walter Young.

Also... Gomez' transactions page is odd.  In the winter of 2004-05 the O's signed Gomez.  I'm assuming that was as a minor league free agent, because the Phillies took him as a 34-year-old Rule 5er.  Then the O's immediately bought him back, so they spent actual cash to make up for neglecting/forgetting/betting it wouldn't matter to put him on the 40-man.

Walter Young. Now that was a man. 

[OFFNY]

51 minutes ago, weams said:

 

Walter Young. Now that was a man. 

 

o

 

The late Walter Young.

He was 450 pounds (at 6'5" tall) when he died of a heart attack in 2015, at the age of 35.

He did briefly play in the Major Leagues (and he even hit a home run) in 2005. He had 13 HR's and 81 RBI's for AAA-Ottawa that same season.

 

o

[OFFNY]

54 minutes ago, weams said:

 

Walter Young. Now that was a man. 

 

 

 

2 minutes ago, OFFNY said:

o

 

The late Walter Young.

He was 450 pounds (at 6'5" tall) when he died of a heart attack in 2015, at the age of 35.

He did briefly play in the Major Leagues (and he even hit a home run) in 2005. He had 13 HR's and 81 RBI's for AAA-Ottawa that same season.

 

o

o

 

 

o

[DrungoHazewood]

1 hour ago, weams said:

Walter Young. Now that was a man. 

Still the most massive player in the baseball-reference database.  Or at least most mass anyone would admit to.  

[DrungoHazewood]

48 minutes ago, OFFNY said:

o

 

The late Walter Young.

He was 450 pounds (at 6'5" tall) when he died of a heart attack in 2015, at the age of 35.

He did briefly play in the Major Leagues (and he even hit a home run) in 2005. He had 13 HR's and 81 RBI's for AAA-Ottawa that same season.

 

o

Young was a poor man's Calvin Pickering.  They were both absolutely gigantic left-handed first basemen.  But Pickering had great plate discipline and had a 1.000 OPS at Bowie at 21.  Young had Adam Jones' plate discipline and an .884 OPS at Bowie at 24.  I will always contend that Pickering got a raw deal from a disorganized and outmoded Orioles organization.  Young just wasn't good enough to play in the majors.

[Just Regular]

6 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Young was a poor man's Calvin Pickering.  They were both absolutely gigantic left-handed first basemen.  But Pickering had great plate discipline and had a 1.000 OPS at Bowie at 21.  Young had Adam Jones' plate discipline and an .884 OPS at Bowie at 24.  I will always contend that Pickering got a raw deal from a disorganized and outmoded Orioles organization.  Young just wasn't good enough to play in the majors.

I was there for Pickering's 1st MLB HR, off David Cone in September '98.  I jubilantly exclaimed to my group we had just seen something big in Oriole-dom.

We had....just seen the last game of The Streak.

I went to B-Ref to see what they had for Walter, 320.  They've got Sano at 272 now, but during the ALDS at one point they showed a maximum Sano picture from last year and the report was he was at 320.

 

[Ohfan67]

53 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Young was a poor man's Calvin Pickering.  They were both absolutely gigantic left-handed first basemen.  But Pickering had great plate discipline and had a 1.000 OPS at Bowie at 21.  Young had Adam Jones' plate discipline and an .884 OPS at Bowie at 24.  I will always contend that Pickering got a raw deal from a disorganized and outmoded Orioles organization.  Young just wasn't good enough to play in the majors.

I attended Calvin's first game after he was called up. I don't think he actually played in the game. I stood a few feet away from him as he was interviewed by HTS (I think that was the former sports networks name) on the concourse during the game. Big dude, for sure. I agree that it was a shame that the Orioles didn't give him a real chance, although it seems most major league teams felt the same way. Calvin kicked around the minors for ten seasons while bouncing to foreign leagues and the like some years. He got at bats in 5 MLB seasons. I was always pretty fascinated by him and would have loved to see him get a full year or two of at bats. Heck, his OPS in the 95 at bats he did get wasn't terrible. 

[Ohfan67]

BTW, Jeff Reboulet. 

Best homer of his career.

[DrungoHazewood]

16 minutes ago, Ohfan67 said:

I attended Calvin's first game after he was called up. I don't think he actually played in the game. I stood a few feet away from him as he was interviewed by HTS (I think that was the former sports networks name) on the concourse during the game. Big dude, for sure. I agree that it was a shame that the Orioles didn't give him a real chance, although it seems most major league teams felt the same way. Calvin kicked around the minors for ten seasons while bouncing to foreign leagues and the like some years. He got at bats in 5 MLB seasons. I was always pretty fascinated by him and would have loved to see him get a full year or two of at bats. Heck, his OPS in the 95 at bats he did get wasn't terrible. 

His career minor league OPS was .947.  In his debut at 18 in the GCL he went 30-for-60.  There are people who don't hit .500 in church softball.  At 27 with the Royals' AAA affiliate he OPS'd 1.164 and had 35 homers in 89 games, then hit seven more for the Royals.  So he had 42 homers in 124 games.  The prior year in Mexico he hit 25 homers in 88 games, a 162-game pace of 46.

And of course the offseason after he was EL MVP and in the running for the triple crown at the age of 21, the O's went and signed 30-something Will Clark to a multi-year deal.

I'm very confident that Pickering was somewhere in the Conine-Millar range as a major league player.  But instead of a 15-year career he got 310 PAs.

[jjnono]

It's probably a stretch to call Terry Crowley a utility player, but I always had a soft spot for The Crow... 

[mdbdotcom]

3 hours ago, Ohfan67 said:

I attended Calvin's first game after he was called up. I don't think he actually played in the game. I stood a few feet away from him as he was interviewed by HTS (I think that was the former sports networks name) on the concourse during the game. Big dude, for sure. I agree that it was a shame that the Orioles didn't give him a real chance, although it seems most major league teams felt the same way. Calvin kicked around the minors for ten seasons while bouncing to foreign leagues and the like some years. He got at bats in 5 MLB seasons. I was always pretty fascinated by him and would have loved to see him get a full year or two of at bats. Heck, his OPS in the 95 at bats he did get wasn't terrible. 

I was in Frederick for Calvin's first game there. The racist taunts from some in the crowd ruined the occasion for me. I felt like I'd gone back in time. People who yell things like that should be thrown out of the park. 

[DrungoHazewood]

1 hour ago, jjnono said:

It's probably a stretch to call Terry Crowley a utility player, but I always had a soft spot for The Crow... 

He filled two mostly extinct roles: Platoon DH and American League pinch hitter.  He couldn't field, and couldn't hit lefties.  But had about a .700 OPS as a pinch hitter, which isn't easy to do.

[Can_of_corn]

6 minutes ago, mdbdotcom said:

I was in Frederick for Calvin's first game there. The racist taunts from some in the crowd ruined the occasion for me. I felt like I'd gone back in time. People who yell things like that should be thrown out of the park. 

Thankfully I think they mostly are today.

[Ohfan67]

3 hours ago, mdbdotcom said:

I was in Frederick for Calvin's first game there. The racist taunts from some in the crowd ruined the occasion for me. I felt like I'd gone back in time. People who yell things like that should be thrown out of the park. 

Omg!

[Chelsea_Phil]

Clay Dalrymple.  Do second string catchers count?

Or better yet, Elrod Hendricks.

Edited October 16, 2019 by Chelsea_Phil