Mickey Tettleton - Sign and Trade

[Just Regular]

An enjoyable recent discovery has been a Team Year's transactions page on B-Ref.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/BAL/1991-transactions.shtml

I saw it was the Glenn Davis trade anniversary yesterday so browsed back at that whole offseason.  Apparently we retained Tettleton as a free agent on 12/19 before trading him on 1/11.  I had forgotten the immediacy of the Tettleton chaser compounding the Davis mistake, but I guess we needed to backfill those Schilling/Harnisch innings for the new slugger's team.

[Moose Milligan]

I wonder how the Orioles would have done in the early/mid 90s if the Glenn Davis trade doesn't go down.

You keep Tettleton AND you've got Hoiles.

You still have Harnisch, Schilling, Finley.  I've always thought that Harnisch and Finley still go on to be valuable players and have good careers, I am not sure if Schilling stays in Baltimore that he goes on to reach the heights that he did.  I'm not sure why I've always thought that but it makes sense in my head.

The 1992 team, the first team in OPACY, won 89 games.  If you keep the vastly underrated Milligan at 1st base (.383 OBP), Hoiles at catcher and have Tettleton at DH instead of Davis, with Steve Finley in RF instead of Orsulak that's a better lineup.  And better outfield defense.  Devo, Brady, Finley....what an outfield.

As far as the staff goes, let's go with my idea that Harnisch (but not Schilling) goes on to do what he does but does it in an Orioles uniform.  If you swap out Milacki with Harnisch, that's way better.  

Had Schilling progressed in an Orioles uniform, you give those starts that you gave to Arthur Rhodes and Joe Table to Schilling and put Rhodes and Table in the bullpen.

The rotation would have been:

Mussina

McDonald

Harnisch

Sutcliffe

Schilling (and if Schilling doesn't progress, Rhodes still isn't bad).

That's a hell of a team.  That would have been a lot of fun.

The Glenn Davis trade, IMO, just sucked the life out of the organization to a certain degree.  And Mickey Tettleton was a player I loved whne I was young, it would have been great to have kept him in an Orioles uniform.

I always liked these two cards.  

 

 

 

Mickey Tettleton always looked like a badass to me.  In that first photo, he looks like he wants to deck the umpire.  And with the eye black, he looks menacing.  In the 2nd photo, he's having a good time but the cheek full of chaw lets you know he's a serious ballplayer.

 

 

 

[jtschrei]

On 1/13/2020 at 10:51 AM, Moose Milligan said:

I wonder how the Orioles would have done in the early/mid 90s if the Glenn Davis trade doesn't go down.

You keep Tettleton AND you've got Hoiles.

You still have Harnisch, Schilling, Finley.  I've always thought that Harnisch and Finley still go on to be valuable players and have good careers, I am not sure if Schilling stays in Baltimore that he goes on to reach the heights that he did.  I'm not sure why I've always thought that but it makes sense in my head.

The 1992 team, the first team in OPACY, won 89 games.  If you keep the vastly underrated Milligan at 1st base (.383 OBP), Hoiles at catcher and have Tettleton at DH instead of Davis, with Steve Finley in RF instead of Orsulak that's a better lineup.  And better outfield defense.  Devo, Brady, Finley....what an outfield.

As far as the staff goes, let's go with my idea that Harnisch (but not Schilling) goes on to do what he does but does it in an Orioles uniform.  If you swap out Milacki with Harnisch, that's way better.  

Had Schilling progressed in an Orioles uniform, you give those starts that you gave to Arthur Rhodes and Joe Table to Schilling and put Rhodes and Table in the bullpen.

The rotation would have been:

Mussina

McDonald

Harnisch

Sutcliffe

Schilling (and if Schilling doesn't progress, Rhodes still isn't bad).

That's a hell of a team.  That would have been a lot of fun.

The Glenn Davis trade, IMO, just sucked the life out of the organization to a certain degree.  And Mickey Tettleton was a player I loved whne I was young, it would have been great to have kept him in an Orioles uniform.

 

Wow. I'm sick. I was so excited to get Davis. I remember thinking we had immediately turned ourselves into a contending team. Just the opposite, we were probably ready to become a contender and should have not made that deal. Sigh... 

[jtschrei]

Someone will make a documentary about this one day... 

[Number5]

Fruit loops.

[Just Regular]

I remember reading, 90% sure in one of Bill James's historical abstracts, about Tettleton's career and how underestimated he was.  Teams didn't prize him, and whenever he went to a new team it got good.

The 1988-1990 Orioles won 54, 87 and 76.

The '90 Tigers won 79, then with him the 1991-1994 Tigers won 84, 75, 85 and went 53-62 in the strike year.

The '94 Rangers were 52-62 in the strike year, then the 1995 Rangers were 74-70 in the abbreviated season with a World Series, and got Johnny Oates a division title with 90 wins in 1996, Tettleton's last year as a regular.

That's some effect, but not as clear as I guessed it might be - fair chance of fuzzy memory.

[gtown]

The Tettleton trade was one of the worst in team history but has been overshadowed by the trade for Davis. They traded a switch-hitting catcher with power for a pitcher recovering from arm problems.

OBP wasn't valued as much then -- Tettleton walked a lot and was way more valuable than what they got for him.  

[POR]

On 1/18/2020 at 7:56 AM, gtown said:

The Tettleton trade was one of the worst in team history but has been overshadowed by the trade for Davis. They traded a switch-hitting catcher with power for a pitcher recovering from arm problems.

OBP wasn't valued as much then -- Tettleton walked a lot and was way more valuable than what they got for him.  

I had no recollection of Tettleton being as good as he was offensively after being traded from the Orioles until  I looked up his stats.  Three straight years of 30 plus homers and 100 plus walks out of the catching position.  That is a fantasy baseball  monster in a OBP league.

He made less that $16 million for his career.  He would have made more than that a year today if he was at his peak. 

 

[eddie83]

The Tettleton trade from my memory was about money. I recall the last game of 1990 there was speculation he could be dealt. I recall Jon Miller discussing it. 

He hit a walk off HR in his last Orioles at bat. The Blue Jays had just been eliminated from the playoffs right before the HR when Boston won.  

[Redskins Rick]

I think wiki is pretty accurate:

Quote

At the end of the year, Tettleton opted for free agency, then surprised the Orioles by accepting their salary arbitration offer. They had expected him to accept a higher offer from another team and were not prepared to pay him more than $1 million.^[23] Two days after acquiring high-priced players Glenn Davis and Dwight Evans, the Orioles traded Tettleton to the Detroit Tigers for pitcher Jeff Robinson in what was seen as a cost-saving measure on the part of the Orioles.^[24]

 

[MongoBoy]

I just remember his stance.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

A completely under appreciated player during his time. No one would care about Tettleton's strikeouts now with his power and high OBP. Yes, I'm still bitter he was traded for Jeff Robinson who posted a 5.96 ERA in 1990. Which was only marginally better than 2017 Chris Tillman after you adjust for league average. 

[UpstateNYfan]

I love players with dirty uniforms....Tettlelton was such a player. Another very unpopular player here, Mark Reynolds, was such a player. Despite his flaws Reynolds was not afraid to sacrifice his body to "try" and make a play. Not pretty, but A+ for effort.

[DrungoHazewood]

I loved Sparky Andersons total WTF attitude towards defense his later years in Detroit.  Tettleton was a catcher/DH with the A's and the Orioles, occasionally playing a game or two in the OF or 1B in a pinch.  In 1993 Sparky played Tettleton at first in 59 games, at catcher in 5, in RF 39 times and 18 more in LF.  More or less repeated that in '94. By modern calculations he was somewhere between below average and "Mark Reynolds at third" at every position. 

But who cares.  They led the league in runs, OBP, and were 2nd in homers.  They had a winning record despite just missing allowing the most runs in the American League.