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From: john smith on 15 Sep 2009 20:46
Who were the sweetest swingers you ever saw? That beautiful swing that
lacked holes in it

IMO George Brett had the best swing I ever saw. He was the greatest
player I have ever seen growing up as a kid in the 70s. Anybody that
could turn around a Goose Gossage fastball in a playoff game late is
awesome. He hit 30 homers a year in Kansas City. He almost hit .400. He
never looked bad when he swung his bat.

Other beautiful swings include Mark Grace, Will Clark and Tony Gwynn. I
love guys who swing with such fluidity. Guys with absolutely no holes at
the plate.....

Speaking of Will Clark, he started out like a house on fire but quickly
fizzled. He was heading to the HOF but fell off the tracks. What other
players have done this?

Ugly swings: Willy T. has to take the cake there. It appears he is
swatting flies up there. Encarnacion was a wood chopper. These 2 guys
were in the Reds starting line-up............





From: David Short on 17 Sep 2009 09:41
john smith wrote:
> Speaking of Will Clark, he started out like a house on fire but quickly
> fizzled. He was heading to the HOF but fell off the tracks. What other
> players have done this?

Tons of pitchers come to mind.

Clark had 7 seasons where he established that he was 150 OPS+ type
player which is spectacular. Over the rest of his career he was down
around 125 which is still darn good, but not amazing for a first
baseman. I have no clue what happened.

.....after some thinking...Ernie Banks comes to mind. During his years as
a shortstop he was truly an elite player. When he moved to first, he was
a bit above ordinary.

The career isn't as long, but Don Mattingly fits.

Of course both those guys had known physical problems that separate
their career into two chunks. I have never heard that physical ills are
what caused Clark's decline.

Was it the American League? Was it being traded? I don't know.

dfs
From: john smith on 17 Sep 2009 18:31
I think a bad back killed Clark. His body was really a weird looking
specimen. I will always remember the great playoff series he had one
year. I think him and Mark Grace went toe to toe, hit for hit, if I
recall right. Sort of like Dominique vs. Larry Legend type battle..

From: Ron Johnson on 18 Sep 2009 16:11
On Sep 15, 8:46 pm, eddyg...(a)msn.com (john smith) wrote:
>
> Speaking of Will Clark, he started out like a house on fire but quickly
> fizzled. He was heading to the HOF but fell off the tracks. What other
> players have done this?

(In addition to the guys David mentioned:)

Ted Kluszewski, Cesar Cedeno, arguably Dale Alexander,
Hal Trosky, Charlie Keller, Jimmy Sheckard (who had
one of the strangest career arcs of all time. Did
pretty much everything really well at some stage
of his career. Just never at the same time), Stuffy
McInnis (who peaked at 22), Ruben Sierra

Cecil Travis might have lost a HOF career to WWII.
I mean his 1941 was almost certainly a fluke but
even so he was a pretty good hitter for a SS and was
just entering his prime. And unlike a lot of
players he saw front-line service and came back
a different person.

Others like Austin McHenry, Dickie Thon, Ray Chapman,
Jim Creighton and Tony Conigliaro were derailed in a
more obvious way. Paul Blair wasn't an obvious HOFer
before his beaning but he was a really good player
who dropped to the status of useful role player.
(and Blair would have been a fringe HOFer if he'd
aged exceptionally well)

If Tom Brunansky had developed in a "normal" manner
he'd have been a likely HOFer. By that I mean his
1982 is perfectly in line with the MLE for his 1981.
Guys who are good major league hitters at 21 turn
into HOFers at a pretty fair rate if they don't get
hurt. He just peaked at 21.

George Sisler is another guy with a career arc
like Banks. Jimmy Foxx had a great career but
he was done at 33.
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