Dodgers Dugout: The 10 best left fielders in Dodger history

Los Angeles Times

3 hours ago

Hi, and welcome to another edition of Dodgers Dugout. My name is Houston Mitchell. On Friday, we'll talk about the maddening descent into second place. But until then, here's a bonus edition of the newsletter.
Here are my picks for the top 10 left fielders in Dodgers history, followed by how all of you voted. Numbers listed are with the Dodgers only. Click on the player's name to be taken to the baseball-reference.com page with all their stats.
1. Zack Wheat (1909-26, .317/.367/.452, 130 OPS+)
One of the things the Dodgers don't do very well is celebrate their rich and diverse history, especially if something happened before 1947. Because of that, Wheat and Dazzy Vance are the two great forgotten Dodgers.
Wheat was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1959. He is still the all-time Dodger leader in games played (2,322), hits (2,804), doubles (464), triples (171) and total bases (4,003).
Wheat's best season might have been 1918, when he led the league with a .335 batting average. Or it might have been 1916, when he hit 32 doubles and 13 triples and led the league in slugging. Or it might have been 1922, when he hit .335 with 29 doubles, 12 triples, 16 homers and 112 RBIs. Or it might have been any number of other seasons.
And don't think he was only a hitting machine. He was a great defensive outfielder.
Baseball Magazine in 1918: 'What Napoloen Lajoie was to infielders, Zack Wheat is to outfielders, the finest mechanical craftsman of them all. He is the easiest, most graceful of outfielders with no close rivals.'
Wheat got married during the 1912 season and his new wife, Daisy, became his agent. In the same Baseball Magazine story, she said, 'I made him hold out each year for seven years and each time he got a raise.'
Other things of note about Wheat:
—To make money during the offseason, Wheat raised mules and sold them to the Army, which used them as pack animals during World War I. It was because of the money he made doing this that he was able to hold out for a better contract each offseason. The most money he earned in one season as a player was $16,000.
—Wheat recommended the Dodgers sign his longtime friend, Casey Stengel. It's unlikely any other team would have signed him, so Wheat is basically responsible for Stengel's career.
—No longer needing Wheat and thinking he was getting too old, the Dodgers released him before the 1927 season so he could negotiate with any club he wanted to, instead of trading him to a team he didn't wish to play for. Wheat signed with the Philadelphia A's and hit .324 in 88 games.
—Wheat was listed as 5-10, 170 pounds, but many thought he was smaller than that. He wore a size 5 shoe and suffered from ankle problems throughout his career. A bruised heel brought an end to his career.
—Wheat didn't stay in baseball when he retired. When asked why years later, he said 'Nobody asked me to.'
—Wheat was 10th all-time in hits when he retired, with 2,884.
—Wheat became a farmer after retiring, then became a policeman in Kansas City after the Depression caused him to sell his farm.
—While on a police call in 1936, Wheat crashed his car and suffered a fractured skull, broken wrist and 15 broken ribs. He spent five months in the hospital and retired as a policeman. He moved with his family to a lakeside house in Sunrise Beach, Mo., and opened a 46-acre hunting and fishing resort.
—Wheat was voted into the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1957. Unfortunately, he wasn't eligible to be voted in by the Veterans Committee because he hadn't been retired long enough. So they elected him again in 1959.
—When told he was finally elected for real, Wheat, 70, said, 'That makes me feel mighty proud. I feel a little younger, too.'
—In 1971, Wheat was asked if he had any advice for boys who wanted to become major leaguers. 'Yes,' he said. 'Tell them to learn to chew tobacco.'
—Wheat was once asked his secret for playing so well for so long. He said: 'I smoke as much as I want and chew tobacco a good deal of the time. I don't pay any attention to the rules for keeping in physical condition. I think they are a lot of bunk. The less you worry about the effect of tea and coffee on the lining of your stomach, the longer you will live and the happier you will be.'
—Wheat died of a heart attack in Missouri on March 11, 1972. He was 83 years old.
2. Dusty Baker (1976-83, .281/.343/.437, 117 OPS+, (2-time All Star)
Baker was a very good player and part of the group of four Dodgers who hit at least 30 homers in 1977, becoming the first team to do that. Baker did it on the final day of the season, homering off of Houston ace and Dodger nemesis J.R. Richard in the sixth inning. That homer also led to the invention of the High Five. Glenn Burke was waiting on deck after the homer and thrust his hand enthusiastically over his head to greet his friend at the plate. Baker, not knowing what to do, smacked it. As Baker says in the documentary, 'The High Five,' 'His hand was up in the air, and he was arching way back. So, I reached up and hit his hand. It seemed like the thing to do.' Baker finished fourth in MVP voting in 1980, when he hit .294 with 29 homers and 97 RBIs. He hit .320 in strike-shortened 1981 and .300 in 1982.
The Dodgers acquired Baker, along with Ed Goodson, from Atlanta before the 1976 season for Lee Lacy, Tom Paciorek, Jerry Royster and Jim Wynn. He had a terrible first season, later saying he put too much pressure on himself to play well for his new team. When Tommy Lasorda was named manager before the 1977 season, one of the first people he talked to was Baker, telling him that he didn't care if Baker went 0 for 40, he was going to be in the lineup every day. Baker said that immediately took the pressure off of him, and he had one of the best seasons of his career.
3. Tommy Davis (1959-66, .304/.338/.441, 117 OPS+, 3-time All Star)
Davis put together one of the greatest seasons in Dodger history in 1962, when he hit .346 (leading the league) with 27 doubles, 27 homers, 120 runs scored and a league-leading 153 RBIs. He followed that up in 1963 by leading the league in hitting again with a .326 average. Those seasons are even more impressive when you consider that Dodger Stadium was an extreme pitcher's park in those days. In 1964, Davis hit only .275 and then his career took a devastating turn. On May 1, 1965, he dislocated and broke his right ankle sliding into second base. He was never really the same after that, with his power and speed evaporating. 'I was running on the inside of the baseline expecting [Orlando] Cepeda to throw to [Jose] Pagan,' Davis said in an interview much later. 'As I approached the bag, I did a crossover step with my left leg and the back spike of my right leg caught in the clay and turned my foot completely around. I was in shock. [Dodger trainer] Wayne Anderson came on the field and snapped my foot back in place right on the basepath. At that point I was feeling pretty good and was thinking maybe it's not broken. Then [in the clubhouse] Dr. [Robert] Kerlan came to see me, popped off the temporary cast and said it felt like a bag of walnuts in my ankle. I said, 'Oh man, don't tell me that.' ' The Dodgers traded Davis along with Derrell Griffith to the New York Mets after the 1966 season for Jim Hickman and Ron Hunt.
4. Augie Galan (1941-46, .301/.416/.438, 143 OPS+, 2-time All Star)
Galan drew walks like crazy, finishing his career with 979 compared with 393 strikeouts. With the Dodgers, he led the league twice in walks in 1943 (103) and 1944 (101) and scored 114 runs for the team in 1945. Galan was acquired near the end of the 1941 season, but was soon stricken with typhoid fever and missed much of 1942. He came back and played well with the Dodgers from 1943-46, and set a Dodger record, later matched, by driving in a run in nine consecutive games. Galan hit over .300 for three straight seasons, but he was reaching his mid-30s and Branch Rickey decided it was time to trade him, so he sent him to Cincinnati for pitcher Ed Heusser, who never appeared in a game with the team. Galan retired after the 1949 season and managed a butcher shop in San Francisco. He died in 1993 at the age of 81.
5. Jimmy Sheckard (1897-1905, .295/.376/.424, 136 OPS+)
Sheckard stole 67 bases in 1903, still eighth on the all-time Dodgers list. His 212 steals are 11th for the Dodgers. He also led the league in triples in 1901 with 19 and in homers in 1903 with nine. Sheckard was traded to the Cubs after the 1905 season and went on to greater fame with Chicago as a key member of two World Series-winning teams. He retired after the 1913 season and lost almost all of his money in the Great Depression. He was working at a gas station in Lancaster, Pa., in 1947 when, while walking to work, he was hit by a car and died three days later. He was 68. There is a monument in his honor in Buchanan Park in Lancaster.
6. Kirk Gibson (1988-90, .264/.353/.433, 125 OPS+, 1988 NL MVP)
If you go by raw numbers, Gibson doesn't belong in the top 10. But, he basically turned the Dodgers from losers to winners in an incredible 1988 season, when he seemed to get every clutch hit the team needed, especially when he hit that amazing pinch-hit home run in Game 1 of the World Series. He left the team as a free agent after the 1990 season, but is responsible for one of the greatest moments in baseball history, so yes, I found a place for him in the top 10.
7. Gary Sheffield (1998-2001, .312/.424/.573, 160 OPS+, 2-time All Star)
A lot of fans disliked Sheffield, partially because he was acquired in the Mike Piazza trade, but he certainly could hit. He spent four seasons with the team and hit .316, .301, .325 and .311. His OB% was over .400 each season and his slugging percentage was over .500, including an amazing .643 in 2000, when he hit .325 with 24 doubles, 43 homers, 109 RBIs to go with 105 runs scored. But, always one to say what he was thinking, Sheffield demanded a trade after the 2001 season because he thought the Dodgers were headed in the wrong direction. So they sent him to Atlanta for Brian Jordan, Odalis Perez and Andrew Brown. He continued to bounce around the majors, playing for eight teams in his career. He was named in the Mitchell Report in 2007 as one of the players who had used steroids in his career.
8. Wally Moon (1959-65, .286/.377/.435, 120 OPS+, 2-time All Star)
Most Dodgers didn't like playing in the Coliseum, but it made Wally Moon's career. He didn't even want to be a Dodger at first. He had bought a house for him and his family in St. Louis when the Cardinals traded him, along with Phil Paine, to the Dodgers for Gino Cimoli. And to think, Dodger Stadium wasn't ready yet, so they were going to have to play in the Coliseum, with its ridiculous dimension of only 251 feet to left field. It was so short, the Dodgers put up a 40-foot screen to make it harder to hit homers to left. And the distance to right was about 12 miles, so a left-handed hitter like Moon had no chance. But he had a thought during the 1959 season. Why not perfect an inside-out swing to take advantage of the left-field fence? Soon, Moon began hitting the ball off the fence or lofting it just over the fence. He hit four homers in seven at-bats. Vin Scully started calling them 'Moon Shots' and a star was born. The Dodgers credited Moon with their 1959 pennant. Moon homered in the World Series, a six-game victory over the White Sox that gave the L.A. Dodgers their first title. In 1961, Moon hit .328 and led the NL with a .434 OB%. But then the Dodgers moved into Dodger Stadium, and that was it for Moon. He never hit higher than .262 after that, and hit 15 total homers in his final four seasons, fewer than the 19 he had hit in the 1959 season alone. Moon was released after the 1965 season and never played in the majors again. He went on to manage the baseball team at John Brown University in Arkansas and later served as a minor-league hitting instructor for the Baltimore Orioles. He died at the age of 87 on Feb. 9, 2018.
9. Chris Taylor (2016-25, .250/.330/.431, 105 OPS+, 1-time All Star)
I've written about Taylor a lot since he joined the team, so no reason to go into great detail here. It's easy to focus on his last, not-so-good seasons and forget he was part of a lot of great moments in Dodgers history, on offense and defense, and earned a spot on this list.
10. Manny Mota (1969-80, 1982, .315/.374/.391, 117 OPS+, 1-time All Star)
When I was a kid, it seemed like Manny Mota was about 100 years old, but he was just in his late 30s, early 40s when he became one of the best pinch-hitters in baseball history. In fact, just to show you how much the game has changed, in the late 1970s, the Dodgers carried two guys on the team, Mota and Vic Davalillo, who mainly served as pinch-hitters and rarely played the field. But to think of Mota as only a pinch-hitter is a mistake. He hit .305 in 124 games with the Dodgers in 1970 and .323 in 118 games with the team in 1972. He made the All-Star team in 1973, when he hit .314. But pinch-hitting is what made him famous. Mota set the record (since surpassed) for most career pinch hits in 1979 when he collected his 145th. He seemed to be able to get a hit whenever he wanted to. He retired after the 1979 season, but came out of retirement at the end of the 1980 and 1982 seasons to serve as a pinch-hitter once again. Eighteen players have at least 100 pinch-hits in their career. Mota is the only one with a .300 average in such situations. After retiring for good as a player, he became a coach for the Dodgers. Since 1967, his Manny Mota Foundation has fed, sheltered and clothed hungry children all around the world. 'I like to live a friendly life,' Mota said in 1979. 'I like to be friendly to everybody because I think that's the way human beings can get to know each other better. To me it doesn't make any difference in the race of people or if he's a kid or an adult. I try to respect all people because I would like all people to respect me. That's the way I grew up and that's the way I'm going to die.'
That concludes the top 10. It was hard to leave guys like Joe Medwick, Manny Ramirez, Lefty O'Doul, Lou Johnson and Bill Buckner off.
1,289 ballots were sent in. First place received 12 points, second place nine, all the way down to one point for 10th place. For those of you who were wondering, I make my choices before I tally your results. Here are your choices:
1. Zack Wheat, 721 first-place votes, 10,967 points2. Tommy Davis, 236 first-place votes, 10,086 points3. Dusty Baker, 209 first-place votes, 9,989 points4. Kirk Gibson, 93 first-place votes, 6,209 points5. Gary Sheffield, 5,473 points6. Wally Moon, 4,568 points7. Manny Mota, 19 first-place votes, 3,596 points8. Bill Buckner, 3,550 points9. Manny Ramirez, 6 first-place votes, 3,008 points10. Joe Medwick, 3 first-place votes, 2,895 points
The next five: Lou Johnson, Chris Taylor, Lefty O'Doul, Sandy Amorós, Jimmy Sheckard.
Who are your top 10 Dodgers center fielders of all time (including Brooklyn)? Email your list to [e-mail] and let me know.
Many of you have asked for a list of players to consider for each position. Here are the strongest center fielder candidates, in alphabetical order.
Cody Bellinger, Milton Bradley, Eddie Brown, Al Burch, Glenn Burke, Brett Butler, John Corkhill, Jack Dalton, Willie Davis, Don Demeter, John Dobbs, Johnny Frederick, Mike Griffin, Kiké Hernández, Len Koenecke, Ken Landreaux, Matt Kemp, Rudy Law, Jim McTamany, Rick Monday, Hi Myers, Bill North, Andy Pages, Joc Pederson, Juan Pierre, Pete Reiser, Dave Roberts, Goody Rosen, John Shelby, Duke Snider, Derrel Thomas, Alex Verdugo, Jim Wynn.
A reminder that players are listed at the position in which they played the most games for the Dodgers, which is why Joc Pederson and Kiké Hernández are listed here and Ron Fairly and Teoscar Hernández, for example, will be listed in right field.
Tommy Davis discusses how Jackie Robinson convinced him to sign with the Dodgers in 1956. Watch and listen here.
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