The 10 most under-appreciated players of the 1980s: #7 Mark Eichhorn

I love Mark Eichhorn so much that last year, I wrote a post at B-R.com entitled "I love Mark Eichhorn."

It turns out that this top-10 list is a little Blue Jays-heavy, since this is already our second guy from Toronto just 4 players in.

Anyway, if you go read that post I wrote, you'll see that the crux of my argument about Eichhorn is that he was an amazing middle reliever, probably one of the top 5 from the last 30 years. Since he was never a full-time closer, he simply wasn't on the radar of a lot of people.

But since this post is specifically about the 1980s, let's take a quick look at what he did in that decade.


Other than 7 games in 1982, Eichhorn didn't get going in the majors until 1986, giving him just 4 full seasons in the 1980s. And two of those seasons, 1988 and 1989, were the worst of his career. But 1986 and 1987 were a good look at what he would later do in the 1990s.

Here are the top pitchers in total WAR over 1986-1987:

Rk	Player	WAR	G	GS	ERA+
1	Roger Clemens	16.3	69	69	160
2	Teddy Higuera	14.5	69	69	135
3	Mike Scott	13.5	73	73	139
4	Jimmy Key	11.2	72	71	140
5	Bob Welch	11.1	68	68	115
6	Fernando Valenzuela	10.0	68	68	105
7	Frank Viola	10.0	73	73	120
8	Jack Morris	9.6	69	69	126
9	Rick Rhoden	9.0	64	63	125
10	Orel Hershiser	9.0	72	70	110
11	Doyle Alexander	8.8	61	61	117
12	Bret Saberhagen	8.8	63	58	121
13	Mark Eichhorn	8.6	158	0	185
14	Charlie Leibrandt	8.6	70	69	118
15	Dwight Gooden	8.2	58	58	123
16	Nolan Ryan	8.0	64	64	125
17	Mike Witt	8.0	70	70	125
18	Jim Clancy	7.9	71	71	118
19	Bert Blyleven	7.9	73	73	111
20	Mark Gubicza	7.9	70	59	115
21	Rick Sutcliffe	7.9	62	61	102

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 1/10/2012.

Notice something? Eichhorn is the only guy in this group who was not a starting pitcher, and he had the best ERA+ as well.

Over that same period, here are pitchers who relieved 90% or more of the time but had no more than 20 total saves, again ranked by WAR:

Rk	Player	WAR	SV	G	GS	ERA+
1	Mark Eichhorn	8.6	14	158	0	185
2	Kent Tekulve	4.5	7	163	0	145
3	Rob Murphy	4.0	4	121	0	182
4	Mitch Williams	3.5	14	165	1	131
5	Frank Williams	3.4	3	121	0	207
6	Dan Quisenberry	3.2	20	109	0	158
7	Calvin Schiraldi	2.8	15	87	1	136
8	Jerry Reed	2.7	7	50	5	139
9	Steve Farr	2.5	9	103	0	122
10	Chuck Crim	2.3	12	53	5	126

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 1/10/2012.

Ummm, that's a pretty sizable lead. Only the late Frank Williams bested Eichhorn's ERA+ out of this group.

That's about all we can say about Eichhorn's 1980s achievements, but he went on to post a number of excellent seasons in the 1990s as well.

The card above is from the 1986 Donruss "The Rookies" set, similar to Topps' Traded sets but featuring only rookies as opposed to established major leaguers who switched teams. The design is very similar to the regular 1986 Donruss release, except with a background color that is more green than blue and the "The Rookies" logo placed on each card.

I couldn't find an image of the back of the card--sorry!