Quote:
Originally Posted by Syd Thrift
Because Ryan Howard was stuck in the minors for a period of time due to lack of skill, not due to being Japanese or black or Cuban. Anyway, I don't really have a problem with taking full-on minor league numbers into account. They sure make a good case for Lefty Grove being perhaps the best pitcher in the history of baseball. And as stated, if you're going to count what Hoss Radbourn was in as "major league", I'm not sure how you can exclude the Japanese League.
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In his final year in the minors, the guy hit .371/.467/.690 in AAA (after posting a 1.000 in AA and AAA combined the previous year) and then finally came up and easily won ROY the next year with a HoF-caliber 133 OPS+.
He wasn't in the minors because of a lack of skill. He was probably a top 10 MLB 1B the last year and a half he was in the minors. He was in the minors because he had no recourse and the Phillies had an expensive Thome and didn't want to start Howard's clock.