Wednesday, November 11, 2009
TW: The Terry Wilshusens
Infield: Ty Wigginton (2002- ), a versatile guy who can play all over the field but is best suited to corner infield, holds down first base. He's moved around a lot but has hit fairly well wherever he's been, and he can be counted for for around 20 home runs if given regular playing time. Third baseman Tim Wallach (1980-96) hit 260 home runs and played very fine defense. He wasn't a Hall of Famer, but he had the same basic skill set as the legendary Brooks Robinson - mediocre batting average, mid-range power, slow runner, great defense, very durable and consistent. He never won an MVP like Brooks did, but he did finish as high as fourth in the votinig. A fine player. Second baseman Todd Walker (1996-2007) generally hit around .300 and finished his career at .289 with 104 home runs. He was never a threat to win a Gold Glove. Shortstop Tony Womack (1993-2006) was sort of the prototype of the guy who couldn't steal first base. He didn't get on base enough to be effective in the leadoff role, but when he did get on base he could run like the wind. He led the league in steals for three straights years and stole 363 in his career (almost two-thirds of them between 1997-99). He was a singles hitter, and he never produced much in the postseason, but the biggest play of his career was the game-tying double he hit for the Diamondbacks in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 7 of the 2001 World Series, off Mariano Rivera.
Outfield: Ted Williams in left field. Teddy Ballgame, the Splendid Splinter, The Kid. He always said he wanted to be remembered as "the best goddamn hitter who ever lived," and he might well have accomplished that. His career average was .344, he drew an astronomical number of walks and had the best on-base percentage in history, and he mashed 521 home runs (and 525 doubles). By just about any advanced metric, the title of best hitter of all time comes down to Teddy versus Babe Ruth, and if he hadn't missed almost five full seasons to military service (three in WWII and two in Korea), Williams' career totals would be historic. He was cantankerous, even as a young player, and he was an indifferent fielder. A perfectionist, he carried on running feuds with fans and reporters, and he had little use for any teammate who didn't share his intensely focused approach to the game. Williams made extensive studies of every pitcher he faced, and he famously kept charts that broke his batting average down into individual squares representing different parts of the strike zone so that he would know which pitches to swing at on any given count. When he died in 2002, his remains were at the center of an unseemly and very public battle between his kids, which ended with Teddy being cryogenically frozen - only to have his head snap off of the petrified corpse. Tilly Walker (1911-23) holds down center field. A skinny guy country boy from Tennessee, he was a good hitter who took advantage of the arrival of the "live ball era" to hit 37 home runs at age 34 for the A's in 1922 - he was just the third batter in history to hit 30 home runs, following Ruth and Ken Williams. This didn't impress manager Connie Mack, who decided that Walker had become a defensive liability; he slashed Walker's playing time in '23 and then released him. Walker went back to the minors and batted .300 with power until finally retiring in his early 40s. Right fielder Taffy Wright (1938-49) was an outstanding contact hitter who batted .311 for his career. He missed three seasons in his early 30s to World War II. He never won a batting title but finished in the top 10 three times. (Actually, he sort of won a batting title - he hit .350 as a rookie in 1938, and he appeared in 100 games, which at the time was the qualifying standard. But it was a joke, because he had fewer than 300 at-bats, and the Senators had used him as a pinch-hitter in the final weeks of the season to push him to 100 games, so the league overruled and gave the batting title to Jimmie Foxx, who batted .349 as a full-time player.)
Catcher: Tub Welch (1890-95), all 5-11 and 230 pounds of him, played in 1890 and 1895, but not in between. Total of 82 games. He batted .261 in the majors, and in between those two seasons he batted .313 in the minors.
Rotation: Tim Wakefield (1992- ) washed out as a shortstop, learned to throw the knuckler and he'll probably end up with 200 career wins. He has been a respected and popular member of the Red Sox staff for almost two decades now. Trevor Wilson (1988-98) looked like he was on his way to a pretty good career until an elbow surgery that didn't go as planned. He won 13 games for the Giants with a 3.56 ERA in 1991 at age 25, but it was downhill from there. You know how after a player has surgery, the doctors always come out and say the surgery went well? Well, Wilson had a surgery that didn't go well. His elbow swelled up and never got back to where it was. He finished with a 41-46 record. Todd Wellemeyer (2003- ) went 13-9 for the Cardinals in 2008; for the rest of his career, he has gone 19-25. He looked competent sometimes, but less so at other times. Tom Walker (1902-05) was one of those turn-of-the-century guys who looked really good for a couple of years and then just disappeared. He was 24-16 with a 2.70 ERA, and he was done at age 23. Ted Wingfield (1923-27) had a brief fling with the Red Sox in the mid-1920s.
Bullpen: Closer Todd Worrell (1985-97) had 256 saves in his career. He led the NL in saves in 1986 and in 1996 but not in between. He was Rookie of the Year for the Cardinals in '86, but by that time he was already famous - he had established himself as the St. Louis closer during a late call-up in 1985, and he was the pitcher who took the toss at first base on umpire Don Denkinger's infamous blown call in Game 6 of the World Series. He and his brother Tim Worrell (1993-2006) are the only two major-leaguers in history to come out of Biola University. Tim Worrell wasn't quite as good as his brother, but he was more durable and had a longer career. He won 48 games and saved 71 in his career. Ted "Cork" Wilks (1944-53) came up as a wartime fill-in but hung around for years after the big stars came back. He went 17-4 as a 28-year-old rookie for the Cardinals. He later led the league twice in appearances and twice in (retroactively figured) saves. He had a fine career for a guy who got off to a late start. Tyler Walker (2002- ) is a solid enough contemporary guy. He has bounced around the majors a bit but is still pitching well in his mid-30s. Turk Wendell (1993-2004) was a good pitcher overshadowed by his own eccentricities. He arrived as a rookie flamethrower with the Cubs who drew attention to himself with various antics and superstitions such as chewing licorice during the game and brushing his teeth in the dugout. He eventually toned down the weirdness and was an effective pitcher for several years. He still had a lot of personality, and when his career was winding down he expressed a desire to play his last season for no salary, just to make a point, even offering to quit the players' union in order to do so. No player in history has ever worn a triple-digit number on his uniform, but Wendell wore 99. Todd Williams (1995-2007) was a decent pitcher in the majors for several years, and he had a lengthy career in the minors in which he saved more than 200 games. Tom Wilhelmsen (2011- ) took a roundabout path to the majors. He was drafted in the seventh round out of high school and got off to a decent start in the minors, but after the 2003 season he tested positive for marijuana, and by all accounts, he tested very, very positive. He sat out a suspension and then drifted out of baseball, tending bar and pitching a bit in a low-level indie league. But he is 6-foot-6 and throws smoke (no pun intended), so he caught on with the Mariners in 2011 and quite improbably, he was their major-league closer by the middle of 2012.
Bench: Terry Whitfield (1974-86) and Turner Ward (1990-2001) are fine reserve outfielders who will see some playing time. Whitfield hit for a good average but had no power or speed to speak of. Ward was a fine defensive outfielder and could hit OK. Tracy Woodson (1987-93) and Long Tom Winsett (1930-38) are solid bench players. Neither one can really play middle infield, but Woodson can be stretched if needed. Woodson and Winsett were both very good minor league hitters - Winsett was a pretty big star - but neither one put up enough production to earn regular playing time in the majors. During World War II, Winsett was Joe DiMaggio's commanding officer in the Army Air Corps. Tom Wilson (2001-04) will share time behind the plate with the Tub.
Manager: Teddy did a pretty good job managing the Washington Senators for a few years, but he we're guessing that given the choice here, he would want to focus solely on his playing (which is to say, his hitting). So Ty Waller (former Padres first-base coach) will get a shot at the top job.
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