Top 100 Angels: Mickey RIVERS #47
by Rev Halofan
on Jan 9, 2009 12:15 AM PST
in 100 Top Angels
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In hindsight, we can all say that building an offense around Mickey Rivers and the belief in the stolen base and running game over walks and power was not probably a bad idea but a terrible idea. But, like the belief in 1975 that all-natural cocaine was good for you ... EVERYONE was doing it! Bill James had yet to publish his stripping bare of the notion that privileging unslumping speed centered on batting average as an offensive strategy was a recipe for 72 Wins, tops.
Earl Weaver had hunches, everyone else had speedsters and Mickey Rivers was OUR very good Centerfielder who set the single season franchise mark of 70 Stolen Bases in 1975.
The problem - or perhaps better yet THE PROOF that speed is not the end all be all offensive weapon... Rivers scored exactly 70 Runs that season. He is 4th all-time in Angel Triples (and has the highest rate of Triples per AB of any Angel by far) with 32 and 6th all time Stolen Base franchise leader with 126.
Mickey Rivers was traded (along with Ed Figueroa) to the Yankees for Bobby Bonds and helped the 77 and 78 Yankee teams win the World Championship.
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Mickey Rivers certainly wasn't the problem
It was more like the team of Mike Mileys and Morris Nettleses he was playing with. Like many retarded experiments (and poorly run organizations) the Angels blamed & shipped the best two players from that offense — Rivers and Bruce Bochte, a genuinely good hitter — and then neglected to protect the 22-year-old, already contributing Dave Collins in the expansion draft.
It turned out okay, what with flipping Bobby Bonds for Brian Downing. But it’s striking how few of the genuinely talented young Angels of the 1970s (a list that also includes Andy Messersmith and Ed Figueroa) ended up doing their best work away from Anaheim, while the team they left behind mostly stank.
by mattwelch on
Jan 9, 2009 1:30 AM PST
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