The Ballot: Oliver, Pierre, Young

Posted on by Joe Posnanski

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Darren Oliver Pitching: 30 points LOOGY bonus: 25 points Darren and his father Bob played for 13 different teams combined (they only overlapped on one, the Angels, though Bob played for the California Angels, Darren for the L.A. Angels): 5 points. Hall of Famers George Brett, Dave Winfield, Wade Boggs,...
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5 thoughts on “The Ballot: Oliver, Pierre, Young”

  1. I was interested to find out that Bob Oliver was Darren Oliver’s Dad. We had season tickets for the Angels in the sad sack 60s and 70s. The Angels were generally terrible. I remember Oliver had a black bat and swung for the fences, usually unsuccessfully. He struck out a lot, rarely walked and didn’t connect enough on his wild swings to be of much value. But the Angels always seemed to have someone like him. Rick Reichart and Mike Epstein (later career) come to mind. But somehow Oliver managed to stay in the league and START. The 70s were definitely a different animal.

  2. I was at the game where Juan Pierre passed Joe DiMaggio in the all time hits leaders list. He hit a double and they tossed him the ball, for which he gave to the coach to put in the dugout. No announcement or anything over the loud speakers, but it caught my eye and I realized that “something” had happened. I looked it up when I got home that night.

    To say you passed DiMaggio in hits has to be a pretty special feeling as a professional.

  3. Recently, baseball-reference tweaked their WAR formula slightly. It had a disastrous result: until that tweak, Juan Pierre and Adam Dunn – two more dissimilar players playing at the same time are not possible – had accounted for exactly the same number of WAR. They are now separated by 0.3 bWAR, darnit.
    /
    While their WARs were virtually the same, their compensation for that was pretty significantly different. For their careers, Dunn was paid $112M compared to Pierre’s $57M. Who was the old slugger (Kiner maybe) who said that home run hitters drive Cadillacs?
    /
    I have a tiny one-step removed personal connection to Pierre. I played – very, very, very badly – high school baseball. My coach (not sure why they aren’t called managers) went on to have a long career as the head coach at the University of South Alabama where one of his stars was Juan Pierre. Chatting with my former coach some years later, he said that Pierre was one of the best *people* he had ever dealt with. I know he doesn’t belong in the Hall of Fame, but am glad to be reminded of him and his career one more time.

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