Fastest Orioles of All Time

[Gurgi]

4 hours ago, larrytt said:

Jorge Mateo is one of the fastest runners in baseball, and Cedric Mullins and Ryan McKenna are also pretty fast. I remember Al Bumbry as being super fast. Luis Aparicio, Brady Anderson, and Brian Roberts were also fast, but probably not Mateo fast. If you lined up all the fastest Orioles since 1954 for a 100 meter sprint, who would win or finish in the top five?

Felix Pie, Alan Wiggins, Mateo, Mike Devereaux, Brady Anderson

[baltfan]

52 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Yea, I was aware that it existed but couldn't be bothered to look up that time.

There is a really nice graphic showing the advances over a much longer period of time.

Barring an odd outlier fast guys today are faster than fast guys in the past.

And that Bo Jackson 40 time is pure mythmaking.

I agree guys are faster in general today.  I do think there is the possibility of freaks from the past, but agree Jackson’s supposed time is fiction. Darryl Green, on the other hand, appears to have been legitimately fast over 40 yards given the repeated testing and the fact that he beat bonafide world class sprinters in superstars competitions. 

[baltfan]

36 minutes ago, Gurgi said:

Felix Pie, Alan Wiggins, Mateo, Mike Devereaux, Brady Anderson

I think Mateo is the fastest of that bunch. Jeff Stone is closest to Mateo I suspect. 

[SteveA]

Dave Crescione, Walter Young.

OH, WAIT, YOU SAID FASTEST!!!

[emmett16]

On 9/28/2023 at 11:53 AM, jdwilde1 said:

Maybe I misunderstood what you meant by “the modern game.”  I agree with most of your take. In general, players are more physically fit than players of yesteryear.  But I do not think its safe to assume that Jorge Mateo is the faster than someone else simply because that person played 20 or 30 years ago.  For example, I do not believe anyone in MLB is as fast as either Bo Jackson or Deon Sanders were even though they played in the 80s and early 90s. And that’s not old man back in my day nonsense.  Bo Jackson’s pre-draft 40 yard time was 4.13.

Likewise, I do not assume that Mateo is faster than someone like Alan Wiggins, who is the fastest Oriole that I remember other than Mateo.  They are/were both lightning fast and any difference is likely negligible.

 

 

Do you watch the Olympics? Not many 30-40 year old records hanging around.  A quick look and I saw a handful of records from pre-2000.  
 

Sure there are one offs, but the point of the whole thing is……evolution.  As a whole athleticism will continue to improve as time goes on.  
 

[Jagwar]

9 hours ago, emmett16 said:

Do you watch the Olympics? Not many 30-40 year old records hanging around.  A quick look and I saw a handful of records from pre-2000.  
 

Sure there are one offs, but the point of the whole thing is……evolution.  As a whole athleticism will continue to improve as time goes on.  
 

My waistline and bathroom scale must be in the control group. 

Who was the Orioles player who they said ran until he scored or was tagged out? Was that Luis Mercedes?

[jabba72]

Fastest Oriole ever probably Mateo. Im not aware of any other speedsters in the O's past that could outrun him.

Corey Patterson might be the next fastest.

[Number5]

How about Wee Willie Keeler?  Drungo?  Any stories about him outrunning a train or maybe a horse?  

[Frobby]

It’s pretty hard to argue with Mateo being in the 99th percentile in the modern game.  I’d put my money on him.  

Mike Devereaux set the Wyoming high school records in the 100-meter, 200-meter and 400-meter dashes (and the high jump) as a high school senior.  He was pretty darned fast.  Corey Patterson also was blindingly fast.  
 

[SemperFi]

Flat out speed- not on the basepaths, I think you have to include Jeffrey Hammonds.  When drafted he had elite speed, in college set all the PAC 10 stolen base records.  You know the rest of the story, injuries and unfulfilled expectations....

[WillyM]

Though he won AL pennants in 1969, 70, and 71, Earl Weaver didn't win a Manager of the Year award until 1973, when he transformed the Orioles from a team that waited for the three-run homer to an aggressive base-running team, featuring eight players with stolen bases in double figures.

I was a little surprised when I looked it up and found that the guy who led that team in stolen bases was someone I remembered more as a big bopper - Don Baylor, who swiped 32.

Baylor had very good speed.  But I have to concede that he probably wasn't as fast as Mateo, who stole 32 this year despite not getting on base as often as Baylor did.

[baltfan]

On 10/12/2023 at 10:15 PM, SemperFi said:

Flat out speed- not on the basepaths, I think you have to include Jeffrey Hammonds.  When drafted he had elite speed, in college set all the PAC 10 stolen base records.  You know the rest of the story, injuries and unfulfilled expectations....

Hammond might have stolen a lot of bases in college, but he was not blindingly fast.  I remember when he first came up and expecting to see some freak athlete.  I was disappointed.  Brady was much more impressive athletically. 

Edited October 14, 2023 by baltfan
Not should have been in there.

[SemperFi]

10 minutes ago, baltfan said:

Hammond might have stolen a lot of bases in college, but he was blindingly fast.  I remember when he first came up and expecting to see some freak athlete.  I was disappointed.  Brady was much more impressive athletically. 

He was never the same after injuring his knee in the minors then very seriously as a rookie. 

Another Oriole that was sneaky fast and elite on the basepaths was Steve Finley who if he had stayed an Oriole likely would have been their all time leader in SB-he stole 320 in his career.

Another flat out speed guy might be Don Baylor, I remember him as a bulky manager but he was 6-1 190 as a player and a great athlete.

[backwardsk]

On 10/12/2023 at 6:21 PM, Frobby said:

It’s pretty hard to argue with Mateo being in the 99th percentile in the modern game.  I’d put my money on him.  

Mike Devereaux set the Wyoming high school records in the 100-meter, 200-meter and 400-meter dashes (and the high jump) as a high school senior.  He was pretty darned fast.  Corey Patterson also was blindingly fast.  
 

Plus one for Corey Patterson. He was so effortlessly fast.

[Big Al]

On 10/13/2023 at 10:36 PM, WillyM said:

Though he won AL pennants in 1969, 70, and 71, Earl Weaver didn't win a Manager of the Year award until 1973, when he transformed the Orioles from a team that waited for the three-run homer to an aggressive base-running team, featuring eight players with stolen bases in double figures.

I was a little surprised when I looked it up and found that the guy who led that team in stolen bases was someone I remembered more as a big bopper - Don Baylor, who swiped 32.

Baylor had very good speed.  But I have to concede that he probably wasn't as fast as Mateo, who stole 32 this year despite not getting on base as often as Baylor did.

Baylor was my favorite player. Broke my heart when we traded him for Reggie. He didn’t have much of an OF arm due to an old football shoulder injury. Because of his great speed, they used to say he had a better chance running the ball in, than trying to throw the baserunner out.