RECENT UPDATES

BLOG

BASEBALL PROSPECTUS Author Page

BP Hit List

BP Hit and Run
ESPN Insider Archive

SI.com Archive

Facebook Page

 

SEAT LICENSE RENEWALS
It's almost spring
when a young man's thoughts turn to... those expensive
seat licenses. An online cash advance can help relieve the anxiety.

Attending baseball games can be expensive. You could get a cash advance onine to pay for tickets.

 

All contents of this web site © Jay Jaffe, 2001-2011 except where indicated. Please contact me for any questions or comments regarding this site.

      W A L L   O F   F A M E

JUNE 13, 2001
 

Pedro Guerrero
"The best hitter God has made in a long time."

THE ERA IN DODGER HISTORY framed by Tommy Lasorda's two World Championships belonged to two players, Pedro Guerrero and Fernando Valenzuela. Coming into their own in 1981, the duo provided the missing ingredients to help the boys in blue conquer the Yankee menace. Throughout most of the decade, the team's fortunes mirrored their own; an injury to either one doomed them to fall from contention. Both were part of the Dodger blueprints for 1988, but got lost along the way, forcing the team to retool on the fly and setting the stage for some unlikely heroes in their championship run.

Fernando, of course, was the team's pitching sensation, bursting on the scene like no other pitcher before him. Pedro, on the other hand, gradually inherited the mantle of offensive responsibility from the team's aging core. As the infield of Steve Garvey, Davey Lopes, Ron Cey and Bill Russell, intact from 1973-1981, was dismantled, it sometimes seemed as though Guerrero were the only weapon the Dodgers had.

But what a weapon. At the height of Guerrero's prowess, writer Bill James called him "the best hitter God has made in a long time." Excepting only the '86 season in which he was limited to 31 games, Guerrero batted over .300 six times and .298 once in an 8 year span. During this time the Dodgers shuttled him from first base to the outfield, to the infield, to the outfield and back to third, and he fought off major injuries several times. Despite this, Guerrero found a way not just to hit but to carry the team, averaging just under 30 HRs per 162 games when that figure meant something, especially in a pitcher's park such as Dodger Stadium. He was murder in odd-numbered years — World Series co-MVP in '81, an All-Star in '83, '85, '87, and '89. He tied a major league record with 15 home runs in June 1985, carrying the Dodgers to the NL West crown that year.

Guerrero's offensive skills were special. His defense was another story. Bill James described Pedro's tenure in the infield as "Guerrero's long war with third base." Though versatile and athletic enough, his throws were erratic. This fit right in with Steve Sax, who suffered an extended lapse in his own ability to make the routine throw from second base. A popular story has Lasorda quizzing Guerrero on his thinking in a late-inning defensive situation:

"Okay, Pedro," Lasorda said, "the tying run's on, one out in the ninth. What are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking, don't hit the ball to me," Guerrero said.
"C'mon, Pete," Lasorda chided, "what else are you thinking?"
"You really want to know?"
"Yes."
"I'm thinking," Guerrero said, "don't hit the ball to Sax either."

(Eliot Cohen, El Punto de Béisbol)

The defensive problems they could overcome, but it was Pedro's difficulty in remaining healthy (nine trips to the DL) which limited him and the Dodgers. Despite a .303 average in 1984, shoulder problems curtailed his power and the team finished four games below .500. A knee injury cost him (and the Dodgers) the 1986 season, and most of his speed as well. After another trip to the DL in 1988, Guerrero was traded to St. Louis in August of '88.

The trade brought the Dodgers pitcher John Tudor, who won four games down the stretch but was tagged hard in his postseason appearances. It's tough to quibble with the season's outcome, in which a scrappy Dodger bunch, led by pitching sensation Orel Hershiser (and one very timely swing by Kirk Gibson), upset the heavily favored Oakland A's in the World Series. But for those of us who lived and died with Guerrero's every harrowing play at third, every mighty month of carrying the entire team on his back, and every trip to the DL, the championship would have been all the sweeter had he been a part of it.

Pedro was done at 36, after one good year in St. Louis and a few mediocre ones. He ran into trouble off the field, and at last report had been acquitted of drug conspiracy charges because his attorney argued that Guerrero's low IQ prevented him from understanding that he had agreed to a drug deal.

But man, could that guy hit. If ever one needed the proof to Professer Yogi Berra's theorem, "You can't hit and think at the same time," Pedro was the guy.