He came up with so-so Indians teams that basically did very little.
Then he got traded in an infamous deal that earned him the derogatory nickname "Five for One", as he was the one player the Phillies received from the Indians in exchange for Julio Franco, Manny Trillo, George Vukovich, Jay Baller, and Jerry Willard.
The Phillies went to the World Series in Hayes' first year with the team but he barely played that post-season. In the following years, the Phillies were a .500-ish team before finally going in the tank in 1988.
During those mid-to-late 80s Phillies teams, most folks gave a little attention to Mike Schmidt and not any to anybody else on the team.
But Von Hayes was actually a pretty damn good player who never got his due.
From 1984 to 1990, only 17 major leaguers played 100 games with an OPS+ of at least 100 each season:
Rk | |
---|---|
1 | Robin Yount |
2 | Lou Whitaker |
3 | Darryl Strawberry |
4 | Cal Ripken |
5 | Tim Raines |
6 | Eddie Murray |
7 | Kent Hrbek |
8 | Von Hayes |
9 | Tony Gwynn |
10 | Dwight Evans |
11 | Andre Dawson |
12 | Chili Davis |
13 | Alvin Davis |
14 | George Brett |
15 | Wade Boggs |
16 | Jesse Barfield |
17 | Harold Baines |
I'm willing to bet that Hayes has already surpassed your thoughts of him.
Here's the top 20 list for that same time period, minimum 4000 plate appearances, ranked by OPS+:
Rk | Player | PA | 2B | HR | RBI | BB | SO | SB | Pos | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Wade Boggs | 147 | 5018 | 300 | 60 | 468 | 714 | 350 | 10 | *5/D3 |
2 | Darryl Strawberry | 146 | 4076 | 172 | 226 | 659 | 533 | 832 | 172 | *9/87 |
3 | George Brett | 144 | 3940 | 218 | 131 | 602 | 490 | 339 | 53 | 35D/976 |
4 | Rickey Henderson | 144 | 4307 | 192 | 131 | 409 | 659 | 461 | 509 | *78/D |
5 | Pedro Guerrero | 142 | 3510 | 166 | 121 | 520 | 377 | 490 | 37 | 375/98 |
6 | Don Mattingly | 141 | 4532 | 273 | 165 | 726 | 321 | 226 | 9 | *3/D7958 |
7 | Eddie Murray | 138 | 4670 | 194 | 181 | 676 | 586 | 511 | 39 | *3/D5 |
8 | Tim Raines | 137 | 4318 | 196 | 76 | 401 | 552 | 376 | 388 | *78/4 |
9 | Alvin Davis | 135 | 4364 | 197 | 148 | 598 | 616 | 471 | 7 | *3D |
10 | Dwight Evans | 134 | 4576 | 212 | 175 | 676 | 655 | 691 | 28 | *9D3/8 |
11 | Kent Hrbek | 133 | 4099 | 183 | 183 | 620 | 476 | 449 | 17 | *3/D5 |
12 | Kirk Gibson | 132 | 3653 | 152 | 150 | 495 | 420 | 704 | 188 | 978/D |
13 | Tony Gwynn | 132 | 4613 | 197 | 47 | 434 | 389 | 219 | 223 | *98 |
14 | Dave Winfield | 131 | 3790 | 179 | 142 | 600 | 379 | 538 | 45 | *9/D875 |
15 | Brian Downing | 128 | 4164 | 168 | 145 | 522 | 531 | 491 | 17 | *D7 |
16 | Paul Molitor | 127 | 3559 | 190 | 71 | 345 | 337 | 408 | 173 | *5D/437 |
17 | Dale Murphy | 126 | 4735 | 194 | 214 | 643 | 559 | 949 | 67 | *89/7 |
18 | Robin Yount | 125 | 4616 | 202 | 112 | 568 | 458 | 513 | 113 | *86/D73 |
19 | Harold Baines | 124 | 4240 | 195 | 137 | 606 | 387 | 603 | 4 | D9/8 |
20 | Von Hayes | 124 | 4273 | 208 | 118 | 515 | 552 | 580 | 173 | 3897/5 |
Hayes makes the list, and notice how nicely his other numbers stack up: great BB/K ratio, lots of stolen bases, and lots of different positions played.
I chose the 1988 Fleer card (#304) of Hayes because he doesn't have any cards that I think are that good. I do really like the 88 Fleer design, and the Phillies cards in this set look pretty good with their almost-red team color.
The backs of the 1988 Fleer set are similar to the other Fleer issues from the 1980s, but they made some interesting changes. They don't have the little photo that the 83 Fleers had on the back (which were awesome) but they did add some basic splits at the bottom. Those pictures of day, night, home, and road are kind of dumb, and just serve to demonstrate how poorly the space on the back was utilized. But I give Fleer props for including splits at all--this was an early step on the road to good statistical analysis.
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