Quote:
Originally Posted by BirdWatcher
Absolutely- and I'm sorry if it sounded like I was saying something more than I was actually saying here.
I was just suggesting that there was a bit more to the story about these particular players than was being told here- as while Oyler did indeed lose his job mid-season due to his inability to hit, he regained it later in the season as the guys who replaced him didn't hit much better than Oyler did and his defense was considered valuable enough for him to regain the job- until Stanley replaced him in the WS.
My intention was just to indicate that oldfatbaldguy was maybe being mistreated just a bit on the facts of the specific case.
Any larger implication to what I was saying that you or others might be reading into my statement is purely unintentional on my part.  |
Right, although as mancandy noted, Oyler didn’t actually get the job back once he finally lost it for good in August. Stanley started the World Series and then Oyler was drafted by the expansion Pilots, who also played him for around half a season (and where he became a local fan favorite, to the point that after his baseball career ended he moved back to Seattle and lived there the rest of his life…. but I digress). To me it’s actually more damning that Oyler’s replacements hit so bad but the Tigers still weren’t willing to give him that job back, to the extent that they decided they’d rather take their chances with Mickey Stanley (and even there, they only went with him until July of the following season when they traded for Tom Tresh) than go with the guy who hit almost as badly as a pitcher but knew how to play it.
And I’m just saying, that’s a world of difference from Bill Bergen, who played in the majors for 11 seasons, in many of them being his team’s primary catcher, and who literally did not hit as well as the average pitcher did over the course of his career. Even then, Bergen was a bit of a unicorn, and he wasn’t truly terrible until the second half of it, but I have to admit that it drives me a little crazy when people bring up these supposed counter examples of guys who washed out of the league within 2 or 3 seasons (the other one I see a bit is Rey Ordonez, who still OPSed around 200 points higher than pitchers did in his worst season, and who at that put up the kind of horrible OPS that potentially keeps you in jobs, that is the “empty batting average” style - he hit .246 for his career but never walked and, during an era known for power, was good for around 2 dingers a year).