Orioles Biggest One Hit Wonder of all time...

[LA2]

Turning to hitters: SAM BOWENS was also a 1964 rookie flash with his 22 homers and .263/.323/.453/.776, 114 OPS+. I rooted loyally for him during his remaining seasons, during which he barely batted above .200 only once: .210 on the '66 team.

 

[LA2]

3 hours ago, Bahama O's Fan said:

I know they won't fall into this, but as a teenager I thought Chito Martinez and Leo Gomez were going to be great

Sort of like Craig Worthington.

[DrungoHazewood]

7 hours ago, LA2 said:

Y'all forgotten Jim Hardin! 18-13, 2.51 ERA at age 24 for the '68 O's, his second ML season. Never won more than 6 after that.

And 1964 RoY Wally Bunker: 19-5, 2.69 ERA.

Both were plagued by sore arms.

 

If not for the ridiculously high attrition rate among pitchers they would have to change the rules.  If 90% of pitchers got through their careers healthy the league ERA would be a run or run-and-a-half lower.  The strike zone would have to go back to the belt, or they'd have to juice the ball.

Although I think Wally Bunker wasn't destined for a long and successful career in any case.  His 19-5, 2.69 season came with four K/9.  Even in '64 that was only 2/3rds of league average.  Almost no one is successful starting out striking out 2/3rds of average.  His BABIP was .216.  Completely, utterly unsustainable.  The same year Koufax had a BABIP 30 points higher.

[DrungoHazewood]

7 hours ago, LA2 said:

Sort of like Craig Worthington.

Worthington was the 1988 IL MVP.  He hit .244/.303/.419 with 16 homers and 73 RBI.   That was a pitcher's league, but that has to be one of the weakest MVP lines I've ever seen.  He was 32nd in the league in OPS.  The voters must have thought he was Brooks with the glove.

It was a little like Mountcastle's MVP where he wasn't nearly the best player in AAA. He just was the (one of the) best real prospect(s) who wasn't called up after a couple hundred ABs.

[PaulFolk]

ESPN's post for the AL is up. And the pick is...Wally Bunker.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/28941911/the-biggest-one-hit-wonders-every-american-league-team

[weams]

11 hours ago, LA2 said:

Y'all forgotten Jim Hardin! 18-13, 2.51 ERA at age 24 for the '68 O's, his second ML season. Never won more than 6 after that.

 

 

His son posts here sometimes.

[Moose Milligan]

Props to @LA2 for picking Wally Bunker.

[rudyrooster]

My pick is Jim Traber.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

I'll add Dave Johnson from 1989-90 to the mix. Even if Johnson was slightly below average going by ERA+, he was miles better in that 1.5 year stretch, than the rest of his career when he was absolutely hammered. Plus, I always admired how he gutted out an emergency start against the Blue Jays the final weekend of 1989 season after Pete Harnisch got scratched because he stepped on a nail. 

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/j/johnsda04.shtml

[Moose Milligan]

34 minutes ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

I'll add Dave Johnson from 1989-90 to the mix. Even if Johnson was slightly below average going by ERA+, he was miles better in that 1.5 year stretch, than the rest of his career when he was absolutely hammered. Plus, I always admired how he gutted out an emergency start against the Blue Jays the final weekend of 1989 season after Pete Harnisch got scratched because he stepped on a nail. 

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/j/johnsda04.shtml

I don't care what anyone says, I like him on the postgame broadcasts.  He's a hardass but for good reason...he had a hard road to the majors and it wasn't easy for him when he got there.  

https://www.mlb.com/news/dave-johnson-unique-orioles-hero

 

Quote

“Billy Ripken told me a story once,” Johnson said, "we were playing the Athletics, the next year, and Dave Henderson was on first base and they were making a pitching change. Billy was wandering over to talk to Dave. He goes to Billy, ‘Hey, who’s pitching tomorrow?’

“Magic,” Billy said.

“Who?”

“Magic Johnson.”

“Who the hell is Magic Johnson?” said Dave Henderson. “What does he got?”

Then Billy said: “The catcher throws down a bunch of fingers, but it all looks the same."

Quote

Johnson used those low expectations as fuel, never hiding from his limitations. He still doesn’t.

“That was my driving force. I needed that. If I didn’t have that, I couldn’t compete at that level,” Johnson said. “At the end of the next year, I remember sitting back in my lounge chair and saying, ‘I made it.’ And I went right in the toilet from there. I lost that edge. My stuff wasn’t good enough. But my stuff combined with ‘I’m coming at ya, this is everything I’ve got, and I’m going to prove to you that I could do this,’ even though deep down inside, I wasn’t sure I could.”

Quote

“A lot of people would look at it in a negative way, like, ‘That guy wasn’t very good.' I know I wasn’t!” Johnson said. “But I pitched parts of five years in the big leagues and you don’t do that by luck. I played 12 years professionally. I did some things that a lot of guys who were a lot more talented than I was didn’t do. I take pride in that. I wear it as a badge of honor, knowing he wasn’t very good, but he did some things he wasn’t supposed to do.”

 

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

8 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

I don't care what anyone says, I like him on the postgame broadcasts.  He's a hardass but for good reason...he had a hard road to the majors and it wasn't easy for him when he got there.  

https://www.mlb.com/news/dave-johnson-unique-orioles-hero

 

 

I like Dave Johnson on the postgame and on the MASN baseball show. He has always given good insights on the failures (and successes) of Orioles pitchers, especially Gausman when he was an Oriole. 

[Ruzious]

On 3/31/2020 at 12:51 PM, InsideCoroner said:

What about Rich Coggins in '73? He hit .319 with an .831 OPS, worth nearly 4 WAR, had a disappointing sophomore season for the Birds (0.2 WAR),  bounced around three teams and was out of baseball by '77.  

I'm amazed it took the 3rd page for someone to mention Coggins.  

[now]

48 minutes ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

I like Dave Johnson on the postgame and on the MASN baseball show. He has always given good insights on the failures (and successes) of Orioles pitchers, especially Gausman when he was an Oriole. 

Just curious, what was his take on Gausman?

And BTW, re. Johnson, I remembered the truck driver part, but wasn't he also a softball pitcher before--or am I thinking of some other O's pitcher of that era?

[DrungoHazewood]

3 hours ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

I'll add Dave Johnson from 1989-90 to the mix. Even if Johnson was slightly below average going by ERA+, he was miles better in that 1.5 year stretch, than the rest of his career when he was absolutely hammered. Plus, I always admired how he gutted out an emergency start against the Blue Jays the final weekend of 1989 season after Pete Harnisch got scratched because he stepped on a nail. 

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/j/johnsda04.shtml

Dave Johnson was just good enough at exactly the right moment in '89.  People say Pete Rose got more out of his talent than anyone else.  But Johnson threw about 83 mph.  He had nothin'.  If a 29-year old version of Johnson showed up to Orioles spring training this year you'd check Elias' sanity.  He had 26 strikeouts in 89 innings.  And he started the most important game of the 1989 Major League season and almost won the thing.

In his MLB career base stealers were 4-for-17 off him.

[DrungoHazewood]

1 hour ago, now said:

Just curious, what was his take on Gausman?

And BTW, re. Johnson, I remembered the truck driver part, but wasn't he also a softball pitcher before--or am I thinking of some other O's pitcher of that era?

Kevin Hickey.