What, you didn't think our all-time team would have a DH? Who should it be?
| Harold Baines |  2 (1.29%) |
| Don Baylor | 0 (0.00%) |
| Chili Davis | 0 (0.00%) |
| Edgar Martinez | 72 (46.45%) |
| Hal McRae | 0 (0.00%) |
| Paul Molitor | 45 (29.03%) |
| David Ortiz | 26 (16.77%) |
| Andre Thornton | 0 (0.00%) |
| Ken Phelps | 1 (0.65%) |
| Other (who?) | 9 (5.81%) |
The only men on that list not to make ours were #10 Brian Downing and #11 Cliff Johnson -- sorry, Jay fans of Clifford The Big Blue Dog ...
Anyone voting for someone other than Edgar Martinez should be made to run windsprints on disintegrating knees. :)
(Seriously, I guess I would also accept Papi Ortiz...)
Edgar's DH line : .314/.428/.532. Not bad, not bad at all. Top 50 all time in OPS+ is pretty impressive.
I voted for Edgar, though not quite as stridently as Craig, but admit surprise that Molitor is not doing better here in Jay-world. I think my second choice would be McRae, who I seem to recall getting a hit just about every time the Royals needed one in 1976-77.
He nearly won the '76 AL MVP, and as much as it pains me to say it, may have deserved it more than Munson, who did win it.
I voted for Edgar because he was essentially a career DH after tearing up his knee in Vancouver during a Jays - Mariners spring training game. I remember the Mariners being really angry about the field conditions at BC Place Stadium after he tripped over second. In the end though it probably was a boost to his career.
Edgar Martinez deserves the vote, but Frank Thomas, who is 8 homers shy of tying Martinez for most career homers as a DH (243), should get, at least a mention.
Yes, Thomas deserves a mention. Apologies!
Near as I can tell, the page we took the candidates from only considered players who DH'd more than anything else -- for instance, Molitor didn't play more than half his career games as a DH, but he did appear there more than anywhere else.
That was not true of Thomas until shortly into the '06 season, so he may not have been added for that reason. No excuse for me to miss him, though. He'd still be behind Edgar, I think, though, and maybe behind Molitor, too!
Molitor did most of his DHing at the end of his career, and generally his worst full seasons came as a DH (1995, 1997, 1998). The Brewers, as everyone know, bounced him around like a ping-pong ball for much of his career. (He came up as a shortstop as Robin Yount considered pro golf; he moved over to second when Yount reconsidered. He got hurt and while he was out the Brewers came up with Jim Gantner. So he moved to centre, but Gorman Thomas sulked and Molitor got hurt again. Finally he settled in at 3b for most of the 1980s, but injuries took a big bite of his 1984, 86, and 87 seasons. So in 1990, they figured they'd move their injury-prone infielder to second base.
I'm not kidding.
Later that season, they moved him over to first base and finally, in 1991, they started playing him at DH and 1B. He didn't play much first base in his career - never until 1990, and most of it in his last two years in Milwaukee (46 and 48 games at first, almost half his career total), both of which were outstanding seasons for him.