One of the most unusual career records for a Major League Baseball player is that of catcher Keith MacDonald, who played a few games for the Cardinals in 2000 and 2001. MacDonald went 3 for 9, with a walk and two strikeouts. ALL THREE of his hits were home runs. That included his first major league at bat, which I watched on television. So MacDonald's stats were as follows:
Batting average: .333
On-base percentage: .400
Slugging percentage: 1.333
OPS: 1.733
And that's it. He never played in MLB again. Hmm ... I looked up his minor league stats, and they are pretty good but not super, so that his performance in the big leagues was a bit of a fluke. But still, what a fluke!
But then there are plenty of players whose careers were derailed, or blunted, or delayed, or ruined by stupid management: Jim Perry, Chuck Taylor, Sal Maglie, Curt Flood, Wilbur Wood, Mike Cuellar ... Mike Cuellar was a curveball pitcher, fun to watch, like Luis Tiant or Juan Marichal. He spent THREE YEARS at Cincinnati's AAA club, all three seasons with an ERA of 2.80 or less. That was in 1957-1959. But he somehow didn't become a regular starter in MLB until 1966, for the awful Astros. The Astros didn't appreciate what they had, so in 1968 they traded him to the Orioles -- it was Cuellar for Curt Blefary, with a couple of add-ins on both sides.
Now, Earl Weaver was a shrewd man, and he had an eye for talent. He DID know what he had, and Mike Cuellar, for Weaver's Orioles, went 125-63 over six seasons, from ages 32-37, winning 20 or more games four times. He shared the Cy Young Award in 1969, with one of baseball's biggest horse's asses of all time, Denny McLain.
Yes, sometimes the experts are blockheads ....
