Baseball Refence Daily Deep Dive 2/18

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/OAK/OAK198705170.shtml

Another random , another game. This time it looks like a snoozer of a time. A pitching duel this time. Combined 8 hits and game took just over 2 hours. Imagine an AL East game being under 3 hours let alone close to 2.

Nice Blue Jays lineup with Fred McGriff and Jesse Barfield but the A's trotting out the bash brothers with Canseco and McGwire takes the cake easily for more fun lineup. Unfortunately this was before pitch counts in at bats so some of the information we are used to seeing is not there.

We did see Canseco getting picked off second, while Dave Stewart pitched a complete game shutout, taking a no hitter into the 6th inning. I am baffled by this double play in the 7th and I wish there was more information to tell me more. "Double Play: Flyball: LF-SS-2B-3B"

There was a man on second and then fly out? Canseco threw it in for a run down? That would be my best guess.

Athletics designated hitter Ron Cey was the biggest win probability added so he sees as good as any to start a deep dive. This was Cey's age 39th season. A 6 time all star. A world series MVP. Pretty impressive career for someone I had never heard of. A real masher with over 300 home runs while only batting .261. Fitting right in with the rest of the bash brothers. Finishing 6th in Rookie of the Year at age his 25 season with an 80 RBI season. More impressively on this ballot is that Steve Rogers did not win Rookie of the year despite going 10-5 with a 1.54 ERA and 1.060 WHIP to Gary Matthews .300 batting average with 58 RBI.

Cey went to 3 World Series with the Dodgers (74, 78, 81). Winning World Series MVP in 81 while going 7-20 with 1 HR and 6 RBI. Lasting only one year on the Hall of Fame ballot, receiving only 1.9% of the vote. According the JAWS (Hall of Fame calculator) Cey's 7 year peak is better then the average Hall of Famer, however his non peak brought his numbers down fairly far. His similarity score is close to that of Robin Ventura.