Card #21: Mark Davis
1987 (w/Giants & Padres): 9-8, 3.99 ERA in 63 games (11 starts), 2 saves, 98 Ks, 1.37 WHIP
The first in-season trade involving a player in this set was a good old-fashioned blockbuster that benefited both teams. On July 5, the Giants traded Davis, along with third baseman Chris Davis and and pitchers Mark Grant and Keith Comstock, to the Padres in exchange for pitchers Dave Dravecky and Craig Lefferts and outfielder Kevin Mitchell. In 1989, Mitchell won the NL MVP while leading the Giants to the World Series while Davis won the NL Cy Young Award after racking up a major league-best 44 saves.
Davis’ transformation into a Cy Young Award winner began following the trade. After posting a 4.40 ERA as a swingman in parts of seven big league seasons, the Padres shifted Davis full-time to the bullpen, where he posted a 3.18 ERA and two saves the remainder of 1987 before making the All-Star team in 1988, when he went 5-10 with a 2.01 ERA, 28 saves and 92 strikeouts over 92 2/3 innings.
Davis won the Cy Young Award in his walk year and parlayed it into a four-year, $13 million deal with the Royals — the biggest contract in baseball history. Quaint, huh? But like so many closers, Davis fell as quickly as he rose. He quickly lost the closer’s job in Kansas City in 1990, when he recorded just six saves and a 5.11 ERA and became a popular target for booing fans. The Royals traded Davis during the 1992 season and he managed to bounce around until 1997, despite posting a 5.37 ERA following the award-winning season. Davis is now a minor league coach in the Royals’ organization.
Card #22: Doug DeCinces
1987 (w/Angels & Cardinals): .234, 16 HRs, 64 RBIs, .335 OBP, .392 SLG
Long before Kenny Lofton, there was Doug DeCinces, a very good player doomed to suffer a litany of postseason heartbreaks. DeCinces was a member of the 1979 Baltimore Orioles, who blew a 3-1 lead in the World Series, and the 1982 and 1986 Angels, who squandered 2-0 and 3-1 leads in the ALCS (the LCS was a best-of-five until 1985).
DeCinces finished 11th in the AL MVP voting in 1986, when he popped up with the bases loaded and a chance to send the Angels to the World Series in the fateful Game 5 of the ALCS, but tailed off during his age-37 season in 1987, when the Angels released him in late September. He signed with the playoff-bound Cardinals for the final week of the season, and though he was ineligible for the playoffs, his penchant for agonizing near-misses continued as the Cardinals blew a 3-2 lead against the Twins in the World Series.
DeCinces went to Japan in 1988 but suffered a career-ending back injury midway through the season. Per Wikipedia, which is never wrong, his experiences as an aging American baseball player in Japan served as the inspiration for the Tom Selleck movie Mr. Baseball. DeCinces went into the business world following his playing days but was indicted for insider trading in 2011, a charge he was still fighting as of 2016 (and one which makes this MLB.com story from 2008 sort of cringe-worthy).
Card #23: Lee Smith
1987: 4-10, 3.12 ERA, 36 saves in 62 games, 1.39 WHIP
Man those multiple-of-five cards were hard to get. Smith was firmly established as a top-tier closer by 1986, when he recorded 31 saves. It was the fourth straight season in which he racked up at least 29 saves and the fourth season of a 14-year span in which he’d exceed 29 saves 13 times. Another fine season in 1987 was highlighted by Smith’s role in the best All-Star Game of my youth, a 13-inning affair in which Smith threw three innings (oh the humanity!) and earned the win when Tim Raines delivered the tie-breaking triple in the top of the 13th.
But as for that card number— maybe, once again, Topps knew something we didn’t. Despite retiring as the all-time saves leader (478), Smith has never come close to earning the 75 percent of the vote necessary for induction into the Hall of Fame. This is his last year on the ballot — he’ll be the last player to get 15 years of consideration thanks to this rule change — and barring a miracle surge, he’ll fall short and be relegated to the dustbin of Veteran’s Committee hopefuls that will never get in because the Veteran’s Committee doesn’t want to let in any other players.
Smith, who spent the second half of his career as one of the first one-inning closers, suffered from the devaluation of the save as well as the emergence of Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman, each of whom obliterated his save total and finished with better peripheral stats. Fortunately for Smith, who is now a roving minor league instructor in the Giants chain, he seems to be non-plussed by his near-miss status, as he colorfully told the Portland Press-Herald in the summer of 2015.
Card #24: Tony Walker
1987: Did not play in majors
The great thing about a 792-card set is there are always some guys who were as mysterious to you then as they are now. Not gonna lie, I have no recollection of Walker, whose minor league track record — 190 stolen bases and more walks (347) than strikeouts (325) — suggested someone who could have carved out a pretty good career as a bench player.
But perhaps Walker — signed, according to the back of his baseball card, by the Reds in 1981 as an undrafted free agent out of the Mexican League — was proof that opportunities are harder to earn and maintain for those who don’t receive the big signing bonuses. His big league career consists of the 1986 season in which he filled a reserve role for the NL West champion Astros. Still, a few cups of coffee are better than none at all, and Walker maximized his role by swiping nine of his 11 bases as a pinch-runner. He also played in the epic two-day Astros-Cubs game in which Davey Lopes set a record (that wasn’t really a record) for most stolen bases in a season by a 40-year-old.
Walker spent the 1987 season in the minors with the Astros and Pirates and finished his career in the Mexican League in 1988. A quick Google search did not reveal his current whereabouts.
Card #25: Bert Blyleven
1987: 15-12, 4.01 ERA in 37 starts, 196 Ks, 1.31 WHIP
What would you call a pitcher entering the 2017 season with 229 career wins, a 3.08 ERA and 3,090 strikeouts? Well, you couldn’t call him anything, because he doesn’t exist. But if he did, you’d probably dub him a future Hall of Famer, right?***
Yet Blyleven — who also had 216 complete games and 54 shutouts to his credit entering 1987 — ended up needing 14 years on the Hall of Fame ballot before he finally got inducted in 2011. Part of the reason for the delay is Blyleven was a peer of ten 300-game winners (though Greg Maddux, Roger Clemens, Tom Glavine and Randy Johnson were beginning their careers as Blyleven’s ended) whose average numbers were generally better than his. That 1987 season was uncannily close to his 162-game average (14-12, 3.31 ERA, 34 starts, 183 strikeouts, 1.20 WHIP).
Blyleven also had the rep of a journeyman (five teams) who could be ornery to deal with. But while he demanded trades from the Indians and Pirates, it should also be noted that he liked to fart.
I’ve long believed Blyleven — who went 17-5 with a 2.73 ERA and a league-leading five shutouts as a 38-year-old in 1989 — would have won 300 games and cruised into the Hall of Fame if he didn’t miss the 1991 season due to an shoulder injury. But still. All those wins (287), all those strikeouts (3,701), all those complete games (242), all those shutouts (60), plus two World Series rings. How’d he wait so long? No one is within 50 wins of 287 victories. The 10 active pitchers with the most complete games have combined to go the distance 257 times, while the five active pitchers with the most shutouts have combined for 61 blankings. It’s crazy to think how close Blyleven, who is a broadcaster with the Twins, came to not making the Hall of Fame.
***I bet you CC Sabathia — whose 223 wins, 3.70 ERA and 2,726 strikeouts make him the active pitcher closest to 1986 Blyleven — has an easier path to Cooperstown than Blyleven.
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