6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog

Jayson Stark is reporting that the Mets and Dodgers are in trade talks over Andruw Jones. Jones has suffered a 90-point drop in his OPS+ over the last three years, from 126 in 2006 to 34 in 2008.

It's hard to recall a player with such a total collapse; Bob Timmermann, I believe, pointed out that Zoilo Versalles went from a 115 OPS+ in 1965 with the Twins to a 52 with the 1967 Twins. While I don't have direct access to Sean Forman's database, and it's impossible to do joins on the data that is publicly visible, I thought it might be interesting to look at some of the worst two-year dropoffs in baseball history. The criteria I elected to use were

• The raw data comes from the Sean Lahman database.
• My simplified OPS+ was calculated only against league OPS, and included pitchers.
• The dropoff had to occur in two years or less.
• Players had to have a minimum of 500 at-bats in their best year, and 200 in their worst year.

Forthwith, the top (bottom?) 20 list:

+-----------------+--------+------+---------+--------+------+---------+-------+
| name            | yearID | AB   | hi OPS+ | yearID | AB   | lo OPS+ | delta |
+-----------------+--------+------+---------+--------+------+---------+-------+
| Vinny Castilla  |   1998 |  645 | 129     |   2000 |  331 | 71      |    58 | 
| George Scott    |   1967 |  565 | 129     |   1968 |  350 | 75      |    54 | 
| Fred Lynn       |   1979 |  531 | 143     |   1981 |  256 | 92      |    51 | 
| Bernard Gilkey  |   1996 |  571 | 130     |   1998 |  365 | 86      |    44 | 
| Jason Giambi    |   2002 |  560 | 137     |   2004 |  264 | 94      |    43 | 
| Adrian Beltre   |   2004 |  598 | 135     |   2005 |  603 | 95      |    40 | 
| John Olerud     |   1993 |  551 | 144     |   1995 |  492 | 104     |    40 | 
| Sam Bowens      |   1964 |  501 | 112     |   1965 |  203 | 72      |    40 | 
| George Altman   |   1962 |  534 | 126     |   1964 |  422 | 87      |    39 | 
| Jermaine Dye    |   2001 |  599 | 107     |   2003 |  221 | 68      |    39 | 
| George Hendrick |   1983 |  529 | 125     |   1985 |  256 | 86      |    39 | 
| Vinny Castilla  |   2004 |  583 | 115     |   2006 |  275 | 76      |    39 | 
| John Mayberry   |   1975 |  554 | 137     |   1976 |  594 | 98      |    39 | 
| Mark McGwire    |   1999 |  521 | 146     |   2001 |  299 | 107     |    39 | 
| Jeff Cirillo    |   2001 |  528 | 111     |   2003 |  258 | 73      |    38 | 
| Von Hayes       |   1989 |  540 | 124     |   1991 |  284 | 86      |    38 | 
| Carlos May      |   1972 |  523 | 131     |   1974 |  551 | 92      |    39 | 
| George Scott    |   1966 |  601 | 113     |   1968 |  350 | 75      |    38 | 
| Roberto Alomar  |   2001 |  575 | 125     |   2003 |  253 | 87      |    38 | 
| Dale Murphy     |   1987 |  566 | 137     |   1989 |  574 | 99      |    38 | 
+-----------------+--------+------+---------+--------+------+---------+-------+

A bunch of these guys fell apart due to injury, but those who didn't included

• Bernard Gilkey; after five up-and-down seasons with the Cardinals, he was traded to the Mets and had an inexplicable and unrepeatable 1996 as a 29-year-old. Two years later, the Mets traded him to Arizona after an abysmal .233/.320/.315 line.
• Adrian Beltre took a 70-point drop in OPS+ (as reckoned by Forman) changing leagues. He's returned to respectability since.
• John Olerud had a freakishly good 1993 (183 OPS+) that merely fell to very good levels subsequently.
• Sam Bowens was a one-year wonder, whose unrepeatable 1964 with the Baltimore Orioles was followed by an execrable 1965, the product of a beaning that changed his stance forever.
• Tennessee State product George Altman had two 137 OPS+ seasons; during the first (1961) he led the Cubs in RBIs (96) and the league in triples (12), but he came unhinged after a trade to the Cards that eventually led to another trade to the Mets, where he was execrable. He got shipped back to the Cubs as a reserve, where he spent the last four years of his career before becoming one of the first American players to spend time in the Japanese leagues.
• Top 100 Angel George Hendrick had his last good full year with the Cards before collapsing with the Pirates and Angels. A leg injury had partially caused his problems, but by 1987 he had fallen apart totally and wouldn't recover.
• Never a great player, Vinny Castilla had one brilliant 2004 in Colorado's thin air before disappearing again. It took two more years before he vanished.
• A more than 70-point drop in John Mayberry's OPS+ (from 168 in 1975 to 94 in 1976), he was purchased by the Blue Jays as Kansas City ostensibly moved him to make room for a young Clint Hurdle; rumor was Mayberry's drug use had wrecked his skills.
• Yes, Mark McGwire was injured in his last season, but he also never played again after his age 37 season.
• Jeff Cirillo somehow started his long, slow decline into sucktitude following his 2001 season, but he managed a couple relatively good seasons in Milwaukee in 2005 and 2006 before retiring. Part of his problem (though not explanatory for his awful 2003) was a wrist injury with the 2004 Padres.
• Mostly a thumper with the 1980's and early 90's Phillies, Von Hayes fell apart in 1990, ended up an Angel for the final year of his career in 1992. Famously, he was Wally Pipp'd to make room for the greatest offensive player in Angels history, Tim Salmon.
• The great second baseman for the World Series winning Blue Jays teams of the early 90's, Roberto Alomar had a last hurrah with the Indians for three years as a free agent, until he was shipped to the Mets in a multiplayer trade. He only posted one above-average season thereafter, that his partial 2004 with Arizona.
• Dale Murphy was one of the key players on some mediocre to godawful Atlanta Braves teams in the 1980's; mostly, he played center field there, but he also caught and played first base as well as the corner outfield slots. He had an anomalously bad season at 33, recovered the next year, but wasn't nearly as good thereafter.

Update: A late story at dodgers.com claims whatever interest was there, isn't anymore.

... a person familiar with those discussions said Monday "nothing is ongoing, and nothing [no trade] is going to happen."

Labels: dodgers, history, hot stove, mets, rumors