The Curious Case of Brant Alyea and 1970

[powrwrap]

Anybody else remember Brant Alyea? On opening day of 1970 he hit 2 HRs and drove in 7 runs as the Twins beat the White Sox 12-0. He kept hitting throughout April and when the month was over he was batting .415/.483/.774. He started to cool off but then got hot again in September raising his OPS from .842 to .897. He was platooned with Jim Holt in (primarily) LF.

 

He ended up batting .291/.366/.531 in 1970. It was a statistical freak year for him as he batted .177/.282/.241 in 1971. He was .247/.326/.421 lifetime.

 

Brant also hit a HR on the first pitch in his first AB in the major leagues in 1965.

 

Can anyone think of another player with such an incredible dropoff in batting production than going from a .897 OPS one year to a .523 OPS the next year? I wonder if he was injured in 1971?

[Thrylos]

Shane Spencer

 

1.321 OPS to less than half that

[Craig Arko]

Ok, that's so weird. I was just thinking about Brant Alyea, Bobby Darwin, Paul Ray Powell, Eric Soderholm and some of the other next big thing power hitters for the Twins. I know Darwin was up and down a lot.

[Guest USAFChief]

Anybody else remember Brant Alyea?

 

I sure do.

[70charger]

Not as dramatic, but Adam Dunn was OPSing about 900 with the Nats in 2010. He then went to the Sux and went down to about 550.

[gil4]

Zoilo Versalles took two seasons to go from .781 to .531; his OPS+ went from 115 to 51.

 

I guess that's not quite at the same level. The MVP award just makes it seem worse,

 

(Alyea's OPS+ went from 142 to 48 - he must have lost his HGH source in the off-season.)