Cory bleeping Snyder

[Moose Milligan]

From The Athletic:

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That freaking guy. That guy who just kills your team. You already have a player in your head, but now it’s time to try to find those guys using the numbers.

The biggest critique of our first effort to do this, with the National League, was that there were other players with gaudier counting stats than the team killers we picked. It’s true that Barry Bonds has 87 homers against the Padres, and that definitely is ownage. But Bonds has a better OPS against 12 other teams than he did against the Padres, and was such a great hitter that his 1.150 OPS against the Padres was actually not all that much better than his overall 1.051 career OPS. In other words, one of the three greatest hitters of all time killed every team, not just your team. If we sorted for overall homers against each team, we’d get a list of Hall of Famers that stayed in their division for their whole careers.

What we’re looking for here are guys who upped their game against your team. Guys who were fine against the rest of the league but absolute stars against yours. So we went back to 1974 — when free agency began — and asked which players (minimum 2,000 career plate appearances) had the largest difference between their career work and their work against a certain team (minimum 150 plate appearances against that team). That guy.

But we do want to give a nod in the direction of the player who played a ton against your team (300 to 400-plus plate appearances against your team) and still outperformed his career stats. That guy, bulk. And also the guy who was a below-average player normally and then destroyed your team. That guy, super-utility.

And now, the American League team killers.

 

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Baltimore Orioles

That guy: Cory Snyder
That guy, bulk: Ian Kinsler
That guy, super-utility: Juan Beníquez

In terms of power, Snyder’s career burned fairly bright — he averaged nearly 30 homers a year for the first three years of his career — but also short, as he was a regular for one season after he left the Indians five seasons into his career. A lack of patience, some issues making contact and poor defense sapped his value. But those late 1980s seasons also produced the bulk of a .332/.356/.573 line that was almost 200 points higher than what he did against any other team. Sixteen homers in 217 plate appearances! And yes, it had a fair amount to do with liking that Baltimore stadium — he hit 10 homers there and had a 1.162 OPS in Memorial Stadium.

Kinsler had some similar lines against other teams, but clearly his .341/.401/.517 in 426 plate appearances was the best combination of bulk and superiority. He had more homers against other teams, but boy did he like to rack up the hits against the O’s. Maybe nothing more encapsulates his dominance against Baltimore than the time he racked up six hits in six plate appearances and hit for the cycle while powering a blowout. It’s fun to watch (unless you’re an O’s fan):

 

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Beníquez only twice hit double-digit homers. Only four times did he steal more than 10 bases. His career slugging percentage was .379. Against the Orioles, the journeyman outfielder hit eight homers and stole 10 bases and slugged .466 in 427 plate appearances. Guys like Pat Kelly, Larry Herndon, Marty Barrett and Michael Saunders also loved playing the Orioles, but Beníquez was the one with the most bulk.

 

[DrungoHazewood]

When I was about 15 I found the original Rotisserie League Baseball book at a bookstore.  This was the origins of fantasy sports.  I still have the book somewhere.  So I started a little fantasy league with my brother and a handful of other kids on the street.  It only lasted maybe a month or so, but I drafted Cory Snyder.  Pretty sure this was his rookie year.  He was really good, or at least hit a lot of homers.  He became my favorite non-Oriole.

When the O's tanked completely in '88 I had a little dalliance with the Indians. Not proud of it.  Didn't last long.  But I got tickets to an O's - Indians game.  Printed out a big banner on a long, continuous sheet of computer paper that said "Cory Snyder".  At batting practice me and a friend held up the banner, Snyder saw it, and threw a ball all the way across the field to us.  Some other kid got it. 

After the '97 playoffs I burned my Indians hat I had from '88.

[Tony-OH]

24 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

When I was about 15 I found the original Rotisserie League Baseball book at a bookstore.  This was the origins of fantasy sports.  I still have the book somewhere.  So I started a little fantasy league with my brother and a handful of other kids on the street.  It only lasted maybe a month or so, but I drafted Cory Snyder.  Pretty sure this was his rookie year.  He was really good, or at least hit a lot of homers.  He became my favorite non-Oriole.

When the O's tanked completely in '88 I had a little dalliance with the Indians. Not proud of it.  Didn't last long.  But I got tickets to an O's - Indians game.  Printed out a big banner on a long, continuous sheet of computer paper that said "Cory Snyder".  At batting practice me and a friend held up the banner, Snyder saw it, and threw a ball all the way across the field to us.  Some other kid got it. 

After the '97 playoffs I burned my Indians hat I had from '88.

TRAITOR!!!!! 

I can remember Snyder owning the Orioles, no doubt. Funny you mention that Rotisserie book. I bought that too and created leagues based off their categories for years. It wasn't until about 1989 that I ran a league in my unit that I changed some of the categories to make it more "realistic."

By 1993, I had developed a league that included waivers, contracts (After the draft, you had to sign a guy to a 1, 2 or 3 year contract that went up 10% each year and were guaranteed against your salary cap) and included stats like SB-CS, SV-BS and I believe we used EBHs as a category to help those guys who did more than hit homers and collect RBIs.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

Snyder really owned the Orioles. Career OPS of 1.030 versus the O's and next best was an .869 OPS vs the Astros.  

[osfan83]

1 hour ago, DrungoHazewood said:

When I was about 15 I found the original Rotisserie League Baseball book at a bookstore.  This was the origins of fantasy sports.  I still have the book somewhere.  So I started a little fantasy league with my brother and a handful of other kids on the street.  It only lasted maybe a month or so, but I drafted Cory Snyder.  Pretty sure this was his rookie year.  He was really good, or at least hit a lot of homers.  He became my favorite non-Oriole.

When the O's tanked completely in '88 I had a little dalliance with the Indians. Not proud of it.  Didn't last long.  But I got tickets to an O's - Indians game.  Printed out a big banner on a long, continuous sheet of computer paper that said "Cory Snyder".  At batting practice me and a friend held up the banner, Snyder saw it, and threw a ball all the way across the field to us.  Some other kid got it. 

After the '97 playoffs I burned my Indians hat I had from '88.

I was born into being an O's fan, but at the age of 8 in 1973 my family moved to Cleveland. So I was a Tribe fan (and O's) from 1973 until 1978 when we moved to NJ (then I dropped Cleveland and stayed with Baltimore). I was a big John Lowenstein fan when he was in Cleveland...and was thrilled when Brother Low ended up in Baltimore! 

[Moose Milligan]

I remember Mike Lieberthal being a pain in the ass.

[Frobby]

Funny, I didn’t remember Snyder being that good against us.    I think I had him on my fantasy team once during his good years.

I certainly remember how Kinsler owned us throughout his career.