He was only a Braves for one season, but Jimmy "The Toy Cannon" Wynn passed away last Thursday. He came to the Braves from the Dodgers in the Dusty Baker trade during the 1975-76 off-season and was only a shadow of what he had been statistically. But look at those walk numbers!!! A lot of power packed into that 5-9/160# frame.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/p...wynnji01.shtml
jpx7 (03-31-2020), Metaphysicist (03-31-2020), The Chosen One (03-31-2020)
One of Bill James' early crusades, as I remember.
Wynn is one of the strongest examples of the value of isoOBP when looking at player value. Clearly shows how misleading batting average can be as a stand-alone.
You sound like a proud coach.Originally Posted by 50PoundHead
Did you coach him in little league back in the day?
Forever Fredi
The Toy Cannon is a little older than me (more than a decade in fact). I just remember being excited about him when the Braves acquired him and then I realized Dusty Baker was seven years younger and the Toy Cannon was on his way to the military museum.
Just saw that Al Kaline has passed away. One of my fondest memories of my youth was meeting the 1956 Tigers in their club house. Al didn't make much of an impression like my namesake here but nevertheless a notable human being. RIP Mr Tiger.
50PoundHead (04-07-2020)
Great player. Another quiet superstar who flew a little bit below the radar because he wasn't that flashy. But he was really, really good.
PawPay wove Al Kaline into the Toy Cannon thread (no complaints here), and I came across this article from The New York Times by the great Ira Berkow on Kaline. Really wonderful column: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/s...-outfield.html
PawPawMaxwell (04-12-2020)
Just for clarification if there is such a thing with this subject. I maybe spent 20 seconds with Mr Tiger. He was probably 21 or 22 and here I was a 15 year old kid with dreams that he had already reached. To me, he seemed stand offish and not really interested in talking to us kids. That's all my opinion is based on. Jim Bunning OTOH didn't even stand up or put his newspaper down when we went around the locker room for introductions. Harvey Kuenn IIRC offered us each a cigarette or cigar (significant of nothing) Reno Bertoia spoke to each of us individually and emphasized that we should stay in school. PawPaw Maxwell OTOH being an OFer took all four of us OFers out on the field and had someone hit shags out and tried to show us how to catch the ball off our throwing shoulders. Probably spent 20-30 minutes with us. Anyway that is all I can recall here almost 65 years later.
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