Esteban Negron. I've posted about him a couple of times before.
So I was running the Philadelphia Crackers (which have since been renamed to the Firecrackers due to complaints of a racist name by fans) and I ran them into the ground early so I could have a massive rebuild. It comes as no surprise that Negron's first major league season was the first in franchise history where the team didn't lose 100 games. Just the same, it comes as no surprise that his second season brought us our first ever season above .500. The next year after that, we won 98 games and missed out on the playoffs in a tiebreaker game (at the time, only 2 out of 8 teams in the league qualified for the playoffs). We would consistently win 90+ games over the next 3 seasons, and we would also consistently finish in second in our league. The next year, the league expanded to 12 teams and expanded the playoffs to 4. Following that, the team made the playoffs 8 of the next 9 seasons, with two championships. In the two championship seasons, Negron hit over .300 in both postseason runs, hit 7 homers and drove in 21 runs. Unfortunately, in his last 2 seasons before retiring, we missed out on the playoffs, going 82-80 and 67-95.
Negron was an incredible all around player. In his 15 years as an actual factor (before his last 2 seasons where he was a shell of himself
), he hit 570 home runs and had 2597 hits. He holds the league record with a 59 home run season, and was the league's leading home run hitter (with 580 total) until Edwin Walsh (who was also a member of my team and a part of the two championship teams) unearthed him (Walsh is up to over 600 homers and still going strong). Negron was a 14 time all star, 10 time gold glover, 3 time MVP. Oh, and did I fail to mention he was a catcher?