Card
thoughts: The aging, leather-faced fifth
outfielder/pinch hitter. A staple in this set (Although Wohlford looks run down
on many of his 70s
cards too).
The
player: Tim McCarver once said that Jim
Wohlford was too intense to be an everyday player. This was in 1983, which
shows the McCarver’s “wisdom” is not new news.
The real reason that Wohlford wasn’t an everyday
player was that he wasn’t very good. A beneficiary of the 1970s, when hitting
above .250 with no power was considered good enough for a starting player,
Wohlford got his first big break with
the Royals. As the primary left fielder in 1974, he played in 143 games and had
career highs in just about every offensive category. In a telling statement of
the times, he had a meager .343 slugging percentage in what is considered a
power position. And Wohlford didn’t supplement that lack of power with speed,
which would have been acceptable, given the times. Sure, he stole 16 bases bus
he was caught 13 times.
Wohlford remained the starting left fielder in 1975,
primarily because of his excellent defense, certainly not because of his
offense (.255/.317/.312 was his triple slash line. Yes, his OPB outranked his
slugging percentage). Eventually, a better hitter was installed in left, and
Wohlford almost all of his remaining years as a reserve outfielder.
He did get another chance to start, however, when he
was sent to the Brewers in 1976 with Jaime Quirk and Bob McClure in
exchange for Darrell Porter and Jim Colborn. Both of the latter players would
propel the Royals to a division win in 1977, while Wohlford was worse than
replacement level in left. Once again, Wohlford struggled to put good wood on
the ball, and he was still sent on suicide missions to second, despite the fact
that it was obvious wasn’t a base stealer (17 steals, caught 16 times).
Wohlford became a more valuable player, once his playing
time was limited. In 46 games the following season, he would hit .297, a career
high (he also slugged over .400). Having found his niche, Wohlford settled in
as a defensive backup in the outfield, interspersed with occasional pinch
hitting duties. A highlight from this era in Wohlford’s career include driving
in 5 runs against the Pirates late in 1984 while with the Expos, which
improbably sent his confidence sky high, as he declared that he was a late
bloomer. However, the rest of the league didn’t think so, and Wohlford would
end his career 2 years later as an Expo backup left fielder.
Rear guard: Yawn. I guess we can talk about Wohlford's 1985 season highlights. Of which there is one. On April 19, against the Cubs, he hit a pinch three run home run in the sixth inning to give the Expos a 5-3 lead they would not relinquish.
1 comment:
ah, very nice work! As a young baseball-obsessed Montrealer during the early-to-mid-80s, I was fascinated by Wohlford's "play me or trade me" saga after that confidence-boosting 1984 campaign.
This sad article, in particular, always stuck with me:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=82UxAAAAIBAJ&sjid=oqUFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1178,2626586&dq=jim-wohlford+gazette&hl=en
This blog is great!
Dave
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