The vintage baby pictures quiz (Volume 3)
It’s been a while since our last look at the old photo album.
A reminder of what we’re up to here: When presented with a snapshot of a familiar adult from when he or she was in diapers, sometimes we can clearly see the resemblance, and sometimes we can’t. The same is true of prominent major league players, when viewing only their minor league statistics.
Presented below are the minor league stats of some big leaguers. Some achieved great stardom; others’ eventual success was more modest. Your challenge is to guess who each player is.
The answers are at the bottom of the article. And peeking is against the rules!
Questions
These two prospects were the same age, and in the same organization, and were teammates right up the ladder. Obviously, great things became expected of both, and both did indeed emerge as significant big league stars.
Who do you think they are?
Player No. 1 Year Age League Class Pos G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB BA OBP SLG OPS 1967 18 Appal. Rookie OF 67 246 50 85 10 8 8 47 35 52 26 .346 .435 .549 .983 1968 19 Calif. A OF 68 244 52 90 6 3 7 40 35 65 14 .369 .463 .504 .967 1968 19 East. AA OF 6 24 4 8 1 1 1 3 3 4 1 .333 .444 .583 1.028 1968 19 I.L. AAA OF 15 46 4 10 2 0 0 4 3 17 1 .217 .300 .261 .561 1969 20 Fla. St A OF 17 56 13 21 5 4 3 24 7 8 3 .375 .455 .768 1.222 1969 20 Texas AA OF 109 406 71 122 17 10 11 57 48 77 19 .300 .399 .473 .872 1970 21 I.L. AAA OF 140 508 127 166 34 15 22 107 76 99 26 .327 .441 .583 1.024 1971 22 I.L. AAA OF 136 492 104 154 31 10 20 95 79 73 25 .313 .433 .539 .972 Player No. 2 Year Age League Class Pos G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB BA OBP SLG OPS 1967 18 Appal. Rookie SS 58 213 43 54 10 4 3 26 38 36 8 .254 .364 .380 .744 1968 19 Calif. A SS 113 426 63 97 18 2 8 44 61 126 2 .228 .323 .336 .659 1969 20 Texas AA SS 121 413 60 128 16 8 2 50 51 79 2 .310 .382 .402 .784 1970 21 I.L. AAA 2B-SS 63 235 67 90 11 3 9 42 57 42 10 .383 .503 .570 1.074 1971 22 I.L. AAA SS 130 473 124 159 26 9 32 83 81 98 5 .336 .442 .632 1.074
Here are two more youngsters from a single organization. The second power-hitting first baseman was a year behind the first on the organizational depth chart, though, having been a college player, the second was a few years older.
Player No. 3 Year Age League Class Pos G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB BA OBP SLG OPS 1978 18 Pion. Rookie 1B-OF 65 256 48 83 15 2 12 70 32 62 2 .324 .396 .539 .935 1979 19 Calif. A 1B 137 525 101 186 37 3 24 116 71 86 22 .354 .433 .573 1.006 1980 20 Texas AA 1B 134 470 95 151 21 6 16 82 86 97 6 .321 .423 .494 .917 1981 21 P.C.L. AAA 1B 128 467 114 174 25 7 34 137 57 80 21 .370 .451 .675 1.126 1982 22 P.C.L. AAA 1B 66 255 74 99 20 1 14 58 46 58 11 .388 .498 .639 1.138 Player No. 4 Year Age League Class Pos G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB BA OBP SLG OPS 1979 22 Pion. Rookie 1B 66 247 61 88 18 2 16 77 54 26 7 .356 .466 .640 1.105 1980 23 Calif. A 1B 121 418 72 125 19 3 29 95 62 50 3 .299 .387 .567 .954 1981 24 Texas AA 1B 128 499 86 147 25 3 32 106 46 67 3 .295 .352 .549 .901 1982 25 P.C.L. AAA 1B-OF 135 480 118 149 20 8 44 138 105 81 4 .310 .433 .660 1.093
Next let’s reach back to the 1940s, for two southpaws who weren’t the least bit shy about racking up the walks, or the strikeouts. Who are these wild ones?
Pitcher No. 1 Year Age League Class G IP W L H HR BB SO ERA WHIP 1940 20 I.L. AA 16 69 2 5 69 ? 39 35 4.70 1.57 1941 21 I.L. AA 26 129 10 7 127 ? 68 75 3.98 1.51 1942 22 I.L. AA 28 209 17 4 160 ? 145 147 3.10 1.46 1943-46 (In Military Service) 1947 27 A.A. AAA 19 149 12 6 109 ? 106 138 3.26 1.44 Pitcher No. 2 Year Age League Class G IP W L H HR BB SO ERA WHIP 1945 16 East. A 13 69 2 5 71 ? 31 42 3.39 1.48 1946 17 East. A 30 175 16 6 136 ? 105 144 3.20 1.38 1947 18 A.A. AAA 5 27 1 0 17 ? 32 25 5.33 1.81 1947 18 East. A 18 132 12 4 102 ? 71 136 2.86 1.31 1948 19 East. A 11 87 3 6 56 ? 43 115 2.07 1.14 1949 20 A.A. AAA 11 77 6 4 53 ? 54 116 3.27 1.39
Here are three robust-hitting infielders of exactly the same age. One became a Hall of Famer, one became an MVP, and one was never a regular after his age-26 season. Recognize them?
Player No. 5 Year Age League Class Pos G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB BA OBP SLG OPS 1960 18 Mdw. D 3B 30 109 15 29 5 0 2 11 8 18 2 .266 .316 .367 .683 1960 18 Appal. D 2B-OF 34 139 42 56 11 2 11 28 15 37 1 .403 .468 .748 1.216 1961 19 Calif. C SS-OF 138 507 100 180 24 14 22 123 56 77 15 .355 .423 .588 1.011 1962 20 East. A 3B 140 540 97 182 30 9 18 107 60 74 5 .337 .401 .526 .927 1963 21 P.C.L. AAA 3B 83 317 53 99 8 7 11 56 29 35 6 .312 .372 .486 .858 Player No. 6 Year Age League Class Pos G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB BA OBP SLG OPS 1960 18 NY-P D 2-O-3 104 384 82 107 21 4 6 43 45 68 11 .279 .352 .401 .753 1961 19 NY-P D 3B 121 460 110 160 32 7 27 132 61 86 17 .348 .435 .624 1.059 1962 20 Carol. B 3B 100 384 72 112 20 8 18 74 68 61 8 .292 .400 .526 .926 1963 21 Sally AA 3B 69 256 44 79 19 3 11 48 24 52 8 .309 .376 .535 .911 1963 21 P.C.L. AAA 3B 8 29 4 11 3 1 1 5 2 8 1 .379 .419 .655 1.075 1964 22 P.C.L. AAA 1-3-O 124 479 96 148 20 8 34 107 45 102 4 .309 .379 .597 .976 Player No. 7 Year Age League Class Pos G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB BA OBP SLG OPS 1960 18 NY-P D SS 88 320 56 90 19 10 8 42 57 75 6 .281 .386 .478 .865 1961 19 Pion. C 2B 117 460 101 146 17 8 21 94 63 131 10 .317 .403 .526 .929 1962 20 East. A OF-2B 132 511 97 168 32 10 20 109 69 106 11 .329 .411 .548 .959 1963 21 I.L. AAA OF 145 544 93 157 19 12 33 97 42 110 3 .289 .341 .550 .890
Back to pitchers: How about we stick with the theme of extremely hard throwers displaying a few issues with control. No. 5 is a left hander, and the other three are all righties. Two of these four would eventually make it as big stars, but the other two would encounter some struggles.
Pitcher No. 3 Year Age League Class G IP W L H HR BB SO ERA WHIP 1950 24 East. A 30 219 17 8 164 ? 127 169 2.71 1.33 1951 25 P.C.L. AAA 40 267 16 13 179 ? 175 246 2.76 1.33 1952 26 A.A. AAA 5 35 4 0 28 ? 18 24 3.09 1.31 1953 27 A.A. AAA 31 187 10 12 160 19 115 118 3.32 1.47 1954 28 A.A. AAA 35 199 15 8 155 18 129 178 3.75 1.43 Pitcher No. 4 Year Age League Class G IP W L H HR BB SO ERA WHIP 1948 17 Ill. St D 16 97 9 3 99 ? 71 53 4.45 1.75 1949 18 North. C 33 230 23 5 175 ? 131 205 2.31 1.33 1950 19 Texas AA 4 14 0 2 15 ? 19 10 9.00 2.43 1950 19 West. A 40 208 11 14 213 ? 118 153 4.28 1.59 1951 20 Texas AA 34 268 20 8 236 ? 142 200 2.95 1.41 Pitcher No. 5 Year Age League Class G IP W L H HR BB SO ERA WHIP 1951 20 Pony D 27 170 10 12 128 ? 163 200 4.19 1.71 1952 21 Fla. In B 2 7 0 2 7 ? 8 6 6.43 2.14 1952 21 Pied. B 17 62 1 6 66 ? 64 46 6.82 2.10 1952 21 Ct. St. C 9 51 3 4 38 ? 49 70 3.55 1.71 1953 22 East. A 8 50 1 6 29 2 49 35 3.42 1.56 1953 22 West. A 21 153 11 6 97 7 115 198 2.53 1.39 1954 23 Texas AA 42 238 21 9 176 15 162 262 3.14 1.42 Pitcher No. 6 Year Age League Class G IP W L H HR BB SO ERA WHIP 1951 17 Pony D 23 108 6 3 99 ? 93 87 4.33 1.78 1952 18 K-O-M D 35 245 22 7 137 ? 170 300 1.76 1.25 1953 19 Three-I B 42 244 22 8 167 9 139 197 2.51 1.25 1954 20 I.L. AAA 36 223 17 9 183 4 127 150 2.87 1.39 1955 21 I.L. AAA 31 211 15 11 171 10 124 161 3.11 1.40 1956 22 I.L. AAA 15 104 5 7 94 4 57 62 2.86 1.45
On the basis of these glittering stats, huge stardom was widely expected of both of these two. It never materialized for either. Who are they?
Player No. 8 Year Age League Class Pos G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB BA OBP SLG OPS 1944 22 Appal. D OF 72 267 76 98 16 4 13 64 30 27 17 .367 .460 .603 1.063 1944 22 S.A. A-1 OF 48 194 47 65 5 8 0 15 10 31 9 .335 .380 .443 .823 1945 23 S.A. AA OF 140 540 126 201 40 28 16 117 69 62 37 .372 .457 .639 1.096 1947 25 S.A. AA OF 151 585 126 199 34 17 22 92 56 74 42 .340 .411 .569 .980 Player No. 9 Year Age League Class Pos G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB BA OBP SLG OPS 1947 20 East. A OF 121 426 88 136 26 14 10 78 58 35 9 .319 .399 .516 .916 1948 21 I.L. AAA OF 150 586 124 199 37 16 30 97 54 75 7 .340 .395 .611 1.006
Would you believe that both of these prospects became Cy Young Award winners?
Pitcher No. 7 Year Age League Class G IP W L H HR BB SO ERA WHIP 1979 20 Mdw. A 15 43 4 0 33 2 17 33 2.09 1.16 1980 21 Texas AA 49 109 5 9 120 7 59 75 3.55 1.64 1981 22 Texas AA 42 102 7 6 94 12 50 95 4.68 1.41 1982 23 P.C.L. AAA 47 124 9 6 121 10 63 93 3.71 1.48 1983 24 P.C.L. AAA 49 134 10 8 132 16 58 95 4.09 1.42 Pitcher No. 8 Year Age League Class G IP W L H HR BB SO ERA WHIP 1981 18 G.C.L. Rookie 14 67 6 4 52 0 33 45 2.55 1.27 1982 19 Sally A 16 105 9 2 84 4 47 87 2.06 1.25 1982 19 Fla. St A 10 72 7 1 56 1 25 57 2.12 1.13 1983 20 (On disabled list) 1984 21 South. AA 29 179 8 12 162 9 114 110 4.28 1.54 1985 22 A.A. AAA 28 159 9 15 157 13 93 115 4.65 1.57 1986 23 A.A. AAA 39 71 8 4 60 3 25 63 2.79 1.20 1987 24 I.L. AAA 3 11 0 1 10 1 6 7 5.73 1.45
A left-handed-hitting catcher with some pop in his bat is rare and precious. Yet these three came along at the same time, and moreover, all within the same organization. Only one would make it as a big league star. Who are they?
Player No. 10 Year Age League Class Pos G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB BA OBP SLG OPS 1944 18 Appal. D C 55 182 26 48 4 4 1 28 8 26 1 .264 .311 .346 .657 1945 19 S.A. A-1 C 20 51 3 11 1 2 0 6 2 2 0 .216 .245 .314 .559 1945 19 Pied. B C 71 225 31 58 14 1 7 27 24 22 1 .258 .341 .422 .764 1946 20 Three-I B C 96 356 53 126 18 6 13 85 34 25 2 .354 .412 .548 .960 1947 21 S.A. AA C 128 435 67 144 20 1 22 105 26 45 0 .331 .369 .533 .902 Player No. 11 Year Age League Class Pos G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB BA OBP SLG OPS 1944 17 Pony D C-OF 54 203 31 66 6 3 2 32 9 9 10 .325 .352 .414 .766 1945 18 Pied. B C-OF 12 45 3 18 2 4 0 3 3 2 1 .400 .429 .622 1.051 1945-46 (In Military Service) 1946 19 P.C.L. AAA C 1 2 0 1 0 0 0 0 ? ? 0 .500 ? .500 ? 1947 20 Sally A C 16 38 3 11 3 2 0 7 2 3 0 .289 .325 .474 .799 1947 20 Tri.-St B OF-C 99 388 79 150 28 2 11 76 43 23 8 .387 .459 .554 1.014 1948 21 S.A. AA C-OF 116 433 93 167 38 6 22 102 32 22 2 .386 .428 .654 1.082 1949 22 P.C.L. AAA OF 19 43 5 12 1 0 2 12 2 4 1 .278 .311 .442 .753 1950 23 I.L. AAA C 88 315 55 103 15 10 8 52 29 23 4 .327 .382 .514 .896 Player No. 12 Year Age League Class Pos G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB BA OBP SLG OPS 1945 17 Pony D OF 124 461 88 136 27 10 13 111 78 89 5 .295 .392 .482 .874 1946 18 Can.-Am C OF 40 136 17 32 8 0 1 18 26 28 4 .235 .364 .316 .680 1946 18 No. Atl D C-OF 48 154 26 43 8 1 7 35 31 35 0 .279 .422 .481 .902 1947 19 No. Atl D C-OF-P 127 457 105 161 31 6 34 139 82 47 4 .352 .456 .670 1.125 1948 20 West. A C-OF 109 338 67 94 10 5 29 111 73 45 0 .278 .420 .595 1.015 1949 21 S.A. AA C 128 431 86 155 33 1 45 153 85 73 3 .360 .473 .754 1.227 1950 22 S.A. AA C 80 273 54 84 10 2 24 73 64 55 2 .308 .445 .623 1.068
Answers
Player No. 1: Don Baylor
Player No. 2: Bobby Grich
Yes, these two were a pretty special couple of young players. Baylor was Minor League Player of the Year in 1970, and Grich took the honor in 1971. The only reason both repeated Triple-A in ’71 was that the Orioles were just obscenely overloaded with talent.
Player No. 3: Mike Marshall
Player No. 4: Greg Brock
Remember this pair? They were going to be superstars, weren’t they? It didn’t happen; both turned out to be pretty good, but nothing special.
With Brock, it seems pretty clear what was going on: He was a couple of years overaged for each level in the minors, as the Dodgers brought him along a lot more slowly through their system than they needed to. Thus the gaudy stats were something of an illusion, further amplified by the fact that just about all the Dodger farm clubs played in great hitting environments.
But Marshall was four years younger than Brock, and as such his stats were genuinely stunning. When someone that age is utterly dismantling the minors, it’s something that shines through the heaviest-grade park-and-league-filter. This kid was huge and strong, with long arms and long legs, and he seemed bound to hit roughly 900 homers.
But Marshall never really got it going in the majors. Mostly it was because he just kept getting hurt, but even before he started to fall apart physically, in his first few years in the big leagues there was a nagging sense that Marshall was spinning his wheels.
Pitcher No. 1: Tommy Byrne
Pitcher No. 2: Mickey McDermott
Yep, these two were really, really wild. Byrne would turn out the be the wildest pitcher in history to sustain a significant career, and McDermott wasn’t far behind.
But interestingly, Byrne’s minor league stats weren’t all that outrageous. Looking at his major league numbers, one would expect his minor league career to have been more Dalkowskiesque than it was.
And the thing that stands out about McDermott’s minor league numbers (well, along with how incredibly young he was) are those strikeout rates. Bear in mind that batters tended to be a whole lot more strikeout-averse in those days than they’ve since become; just about everybody in that era truly did choke up and “protect the plate” with two strikes. Despite that, McDermott was blowing away 12.6 hitters per nine innings in 1948-49.
McDermott would become notorious as a party boy, and that no doubt had something to do with the disappointing arc his major league career would take. But these minor league stats make it clear just why the Red Sox were so excited about McDermott. He was an exceptional young talent.
Player No. 5: Jim Ray Hart
Player No. 6: Tony Perez
Player No. 7: Dick Allen
Did these boys put a hurtin’ on the minor league pitchers, or what?
While clearly it would be Allen who would make the quickest and biggest splash in the majors, as minor leaguers it was hard to see a whole lot of difference among these three. In their first several years in the big leagues, Hart would be distinctly better than Perez—yet among the trio it would be Perez achieving by far the greatest longevity and consistency.
Pitcher No. 3: Sam Jones
Pitcher No. 4: Bob Turley
Pitcher No. 5: Karl Spooner
Pitcher No. 6: Jim Owens
Toothpick Sam, recruited from the Negro Leagues, was pointlessly warehoused in Triple-A by the Indians, and it may well be the case that mounting frustration on Jones’ part, as he wasted year after year with nothing left to prove in the minors, resulted in deteriorating performance. Once he finally got a serious chance in the major leagues, within a couple of years Jones improved his control and emerged as an elite ace.
Turley, an extremely similar talent, never really sharpened his control very much, but his stuff was just so overpowering that in between bouts with arm trouble he was a terrific star, copping a major league-wide Cy Young Award in 1958.
Spooner dazzled the baseball world with his debut major league performance as a September call-up in 1954: two starts, two complete-game shutouts, allowing a total of just seven hits while striking out 27. But the next year serious arm problems began to develop, and his career would reach a sudden and frustrating end.
Owens as well seemed poised for big league stardom. Following this remarkable minor league apprenticeship, he spent a couple of years in military service, but in 1959, in his first full season in the majors, Owens was among the league’s better starters. Then things went haywire, and the only effective pitching Owens would ever again produce would be a couple of decent years out of the Houston bullpen in 1964-65.
He then became the Astros’ pitching coach. Jim Bouton encountered Owens there in 1969, and would have appreciative things to say about him in Ball Four. While Owens’ hugely disappointing big league career bears all the earmarks of a sore arm, his own explanation for it is more mechanical than medical:
“You just can’t tell some guy he has to throw a slider,” Owens says. “That’s what they did to me. I had a helluva overhand curve when I first came up and they told me I had to throw a slider. So I worked on the slider until I lost my overhand curve. That taught me never to take a young pitcher and force him to come up with a new pitch.”
Player No. 8: Gil Coan
Player No. 9: Johnny Groth
Groth would get off to a terrific start in the majors before becoming a rather prominent disappointment.
But Coan, despite that spectacular minor league performance, never really got it going in the big leagues (well, other than a pretty cool job in his late-season call-up in 1947: 21-for-42, a nice round .500 average). Coan was an extraordinarily inconsistent hitter in the majors, and in particular he didn’t show a hint of the power he’d demonstrated in the minors.
We now know that Coan was two years older than he presented himself when he was playing, so part of the issue is that, like Greg Brock above, Coan was older than most of his minor league competitors. But perhaps also part of Coan’s problem was that he was never able to progress through a full minor league development ladder, because the Senators’ organization in that period, operating on a shoestring, didn’t have a Triple-A affiliate.
Despite his blazing speed, Coan was almost never deployed in center field in the majors, and was instead nearly exclusively a left fielder, the telltale sign of a weak arm. As a left fielder, it would be critical for Coan to hit well to succeed in the majors, and perhaps that put an extra measure of stress upon him.
Pitcher No. 7: Orel Hershiser
Pitcher No. 8: David Cone
Well, pitching performance is of course the least predictable outcome this side of a roulette wheel. But even acknowledging that, these two were exceptional long-shot payoffs.
With Cone, at least, one could see the latent outstanding talent in his superb teenaged low-minors performances. But then he’d gotten seriously hurt, and his post-injury stats were completely pedestrian. His rate stats got a boost with the demotion to the bullpen in 1986, but a 23-year-old putting up nice-but-unspectacular numbers as a Triple-A long reliever isn’t exactly cause for excitement. The truth is that nobody saw Cone’s subsequent tremendous blossoming coming, least of all the Royals, who blithely packed him off in a swap of seeming nobodies at the end of spring training in 1987.
And with Hershiser there wasn’t even the glint of what-might-be. Not only was he a year or two older than most of his competition at each rung of the ladder, he put up nothing more than blandly so-so numbers across four full seasons. A guy being deployed as a long reliever/spot starter in that circumstance, and putting up those kind of forgettable results, is obviously and properly slotted as roster filler by his organization. His major league upside is back-of-the-bullpen marginal. Hershiser’s sudden development into a brilliant pitcher at the major league level was an astonishing turn of events.
Player No. 10: Rube Walker
Player No. 11: Smoky Burgess
Player No. 12: Carl Sawatski
It was the Cubs’ organization that simultaneously produced this trio of lefty-swinging backstops. The team appeared confused by the bounty, and couldn’t quite figure out what to do with any of them.
Walker, by far the most defensively adept among the trio, was allowed to bypass Triple-A and brought straight to the majors at the age of 22. He put together a good rookie season with the bat in a limited opportunity. But the Cubs never gave Walker a chance as a first-stringer, instead quickly pigeon-holing him as a backup, a role he would fulfill in the majors for a decade.
Burgess so impressed the Cubs with his bat that they leapfrogged him as well to the majors at 22, and deployed him as a pinch-hitting specialist—a most unusual use of a player so young and inexperienced. Then it was back to the minors, apparently to focus on developing his defensive skill as a catcher.
While Burgess would never be anyone’s idea of a good defensive receiver, he would become adequate, certainly so given the sort of remarkable hitter he would turn out to be. But he wouldn’t be doing it for the Cubs, because they would dump Burgess in a pointless giveaway trade before his 25th birthday.
Sawatski, too, was a catcher of questionable defensive acumen, but few backstops in minor league history have put up quite such arresting numbers with the bat. What did the Cubs do but rush him, too, to the majors as a 22-year-old, without the benefit of an inning at Triple-A, over the second half of 1950. What this accomplished was to have the struggling rookie Sawatski take big league playing time away from Walker, who was still just 24 himself.
Sawatski would then be drafted into the military for two years. Upon his return, the Cubs—despite the fact that both Walker and Burgess had been traded away—would bury Sawatski as a sparsely used third-stringer behind established mediocrities. At last, having done everything within his power to drain Sawatski of value, Cubs’ GM Wid Matthews delivered the coup de grace by letting the still-only-26-year-old catcher go for the waiver price in November of 1953.
Sawatski would bounce around and wind up back in the minors for a couple of years. Eventually he’d re-emerge with the Braves in 1957. There, he’d finally establish himself as a useful big league power-hitting backup/platoon catcher, a status he’d maintain through the age of 35.
Following his playing career Sawatski would become a minor league executive, including a 15-year tenure as president of the Southern League.
References & Resources
Jim Bouton, edited by Leonard Shecter, Ball Four: My Life and Hard Times Throwing the Knuckleball in the Big Leagues, New York: World, 1970, p. 341.