RALPH KINER
One of the guys who's career I always enjoy looking at is Ralph Kiner. Not sure exactly why but I guess it traces back to a big sim he had when I did a history of baseball in the OOTP3 or 4 timeframe. Whenever I do a non-draft sim he ends up on a terrible Pirates time (which of course they were in real life in that era) and this sim was no different. He made his debut in 1946 and for each of his first 6 seasons they finished dead last in the National League including 4 100+ loss seaons. In his final two seasons in Pittsburgh, the Pirates finished 6th and 7th.
In real-life Kiner was out of major league baseball by 1956 but in the sim he was dealt from the Pirates to Detroit in exchange for Hal Woodshick and Duke Maas. He saw limited action over six years with Detroit but did stick around long enough to pass the 1000 run mark but never did see the post-season as the closest any of his Tiger teams came was a pair of third place finishes.
Kiner's 385 career homers and 1,563 hits compare nicely to real-life numbers. Despite being on such a bad team he won the National League MVP in 1950, was a 6-time all-star and led the NL in homeruns on 4 occasions. His 58 homers in 1950 was at the time 1 shy of Chuck Klein's 1930 National League record and 5 off of Jimmie Foxx's major league mark of 63 set in 1932.
Somehow, despite Kiner leading the National League in both homeruns and rbi's in 1946, he failed to win the rookie of the year award that season. Instead it went to 3B Grady Hatton (.325/.436/.487 15,83) of Cincinnati instead.