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Hall of Merit— A Look at Baseball's All-Time Best
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
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1. John (You Can Call Me Grandma) Murphy Posted: March 28, 2007 at 06:49 PM (#2319698)all thought he was (mainly because he never walked), maybe it was some nose candy or something.
I still remember all the hubbub over his 100 hits/both ways year.
He had the ability to be legitimately special. He didn't "want" to for lack of a better explanation. I think the fact that he could keep a job for another dozen years without really exerting himself is testimony to the talent base that existed.
Just as there are players who make themselves average or good by sheer force of will there exists the counterpart. The "drifters" who meander through a major league career because they can and it beats working at Sears.
George Foster is another who used to get the rap of letting his talent go to seed, but maybe people are equally wrong about Foster. It's just hard to tell from the outside.
200/15 in 1977
he also had 211/18 in 79
Foster had the double whammy of moving to a poor hitter's park at the precise time
when he started his decline phase. Not quite the same thing; his case is more
common than Temp's, who declined when he should have been improving.
when he started his decline phase. Not quite the same thing; his case is more
common than Temp's, who declined when he should have been improving.
Even with park adjustments, Fosters decline in 1982-83 was quite precipitous... from a string of 130-165 OPS+ seasons to 90 & 95. baseballlibrary.com says there was a hole in his swing -- that he couldn't lay off breaking balls in the dirt. Seems like an odd time for pitchers to figure something like that out... that seems like thats the first thing a pitcher would try (or even discover by accident).
Then he went up to 111 & 122 in 84/85 (ages 35 & 36) arguably where he "should" have been at thiose ages- so really the problem was his age 33 & 34 seasons-
draw a straight line from 1981 to 1985 and Met fans wouldn't have hated him...
Looking at his 84/85 seasons and his "collapse" in 1982 looks more like just back to back bad years- that happens some times.
"The switch hitter batted strictly right-handed in his last nine games to aid his own cause in setting the record."
This seems like it should be an eyes, injuries, or reflexes issue.
Scenario 1: his eyesight deteriorated or changed, and he didn't figure it out or address it for a year or two. But once he changed his prescription he resumed the normal shape of his decline. (Didn't he wear glasses in his later years?)
Scenario 2: he had some kind of nagging back, wrist, or leg injury that sapped his ability to drive the ball or to rotate through the ball or generate bat speed. Maybe he didn't reveal it, and by the time it healed, two years had passed. Strained ligaments in his wrist or something like that?
Scearnio 3: He had some other sort of issue that could slow down his response times: insomnia, depression, a persistent infection, a messy divorce. We'd probably never know.
If he was a Milwaukee guy, I'd just ask Harveys! Then again, he might know anyway.
I'm of the opinion that if you have any question, it doesn't hurt to ask Harvey. :-)
A Mr. G. Bush asks of Harveys, "What should I do about Iraq?"
Good point, maybe we should switch topics here. Harveys, is there a God?
Maybe politics isn't so bad after all. ;-)
Mr. G. Bush has another question of Harveys; "What does God want me to do about Irag?"
Templeton came up with great 'tools', he hit similar to Vlad Guerrero, but with less power. He came up when the turf in St. Louis was "rock hard" and in need of replacing, and that certainly helped his line-drive/ground ball style of hitting. Then he went to San Diego, which may have had one of the softer infields around, and was a generally tougher place to hit in.
Templeton peaked early, in his early 20's. Hundreds of ballplayers have peaked early, for dozens of different reasons; Templeton's career arc is far from unique. Once you examine it carefully with the tools we have, making appropriate allowances for the tremendous number of outs he was making, his peak turns out not to have been so high, after all. As KJOK mentioned, a portion of his apparent decline was a park illusion.
Sure, it would have been nice if he'd grown up earlier than he did. But maybe he had the career that he could have had.
So the game must still be in him.
He played 87-91% of team games in seven of nine full seasons with San Diego, about 80% and 70% in the other two. In 1977-81, five full seasons with St Louis, he played roughly 95-95-95-75-75% of team games. Did he suffer some injury in '80-81?
In 1984 he started getting intentional walks, at rate greater than his previous all-walks rate. That because SD gave up on him as an offensive force and dropped him to 8 in the batting order. He batted 3rd, mainly 6th, 8th during his first three seasons there.
In 1980, there was I think some injury that kept him out for a little while.
In 1981, there was of course the strike, then the 'incident' on August 26th, where Templeton was suspended indefinitely and fined $5,000 for making obscene gestures (crotch-grabbing and bird-flipping) after fans booed him for his failure to run to first after a dropped 3rd strike. Herzog literally pulled him into the dugout, and the two apparently almost came to blows.
Templeton was subsequently admitted to a hospital for psychiatric examination.
For another take on the Herzog-Templeton relationship, go here:
Herzon on Templeton
Yeah, well we all know how you feel about Cincinnati shortstops. Can we get a neutral opinion? :-)
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