.400/.535/.916(1.451) Then out of Baseball 2 years later?

[Doug Y]

If a minor leaguer had a .400/.535/.916(1.451) slash line with 72 home runs and 224 RBI in 138 games, everyone would be begging for him to be called up immediately. Anyone know the story of Joe Bauman and why he didn't make it to the majors??

 

Baseball reference says he was playing C level baseball in 1954. Not sure what level that would correlate with today? 

[gunnarthor]

Wikipedia has a bit on him. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Bauman

 

He probably could have been a decent pro but his power numbers in low A ball (that's be class C then) should be taken with a pretty big grain of salt.

[jkcarew]

 

Wikipedia has a bit on him. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Bauman

 

He probably could have been a decent pro but his power numbers in low A ball (that's be class C then) should be taken with a pretty big grain of salt.

Yes to this.   The fundamental reason stuff like this could happen is that the minor leagues of that era functioned differently that the minor leagues of the last 50 years.   Specifically, modern minor leagues function (in terms of players/rosters) 100% as a service to the affiliated major league club.  Today the major league club owns all those decisions.  So today, you would never have a 32-year-old slugger dominating single A.  They player would have long since been forced up the system, or...in the case of failure...up and out of the system.

 

Although the minor leagues were affiliated back in 1954, the minor league team owned the contracts of the players and 'owned' the roster (the major league team had to buy out the contract for a pre-set fee).  So, a class C team (roughly A ball)...if they wanted to...could add a draw to the roster like a huge 32-year-old guy that could hit the ball a mile and half.  Meanwhile, the player himselft didn't have that much incentive to get to the majors because the money in the major leagues was not THAT much different than the money in the minors, especially if you were a 'star' for that minor league team.  The money in the majors was not life-changing for 95% of the players.  That wouldn't start changing until the mid 1970's.

 

FWIW...Bauman had a chance at the higher levels when he was younger, and was only OK...which led to a pay cut.  So again, it's really not something you can even try to wrap your head around in the context of today.  There are many examples of minor league players from the first half of the 20th century that figured to be average (or better) major league players if they had simply wanted to be...(or if the minor league contract had been easier to buy out).

[ashbury]

Here's a pretty good short bio from SABR:

https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/45655983

 

It doesn't definitively state why he didn't get more attention from the big leagues, but this statement probably sums up what scouts of the day knew: "small ballparks, prevailing winds that blew balls toward the outfields, tired-armed six-man pitching staffs and a shortage of left-handed hurlers gave all Longhorn League hitters an advantage."

 

Bauman never had this kind of success in a different league level - it was always the C leagues out West.
 

[jkcarew]

 

Here's a pretty good short bio from SABR:

https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/45655983

 

It doesn't definitively state why he didn't get more attention from the big leagues, but this statement probably sums up what scouts of the day knew: "small ballparks, prevailing winds that blew balls toward the outfields, tired-armed six-man pitching staffs and a shortage of left-handed hurlers gave all Longhorn League hitters an advantage."

 

Bauman never had this kind of success in a different league level - it was always the C leagues out West.
 

Interesting.  Although, IMO this short-changes Bauman slightly.  He hit a ton of home runs every year in that league.  And in the 1954 year, the next leading home-run hitter in that league had less than 40 HR.  The next leading guy on his team had less than 20.  The leading HR-hitting team that year had 157 HR in 139 games (138 game season).  Basically, the rate of HR in that league in that year was lower than it is in the major leagues today.

 

Again...the modern brain wants to ask...."yeah, but if it had been legit, the major-league teams would have been all over him."  But the question to ask is..."all over him with what?"  It was class C and he was into his 30's already...the major league team would have had to buy out his contract...and would have ended up offering him next to nothing by today's standards.  Because that's what almost everyone got offered back then, even the young up-and-coming guys that were succeeding at the higher levels.  Meanwhile, Bauman was getting paid more than (probably) anyone else in the league, and had the all-important off-season job as part of the deal.  In all likelihood, this guy could really hit.

[ashbury]

It was toward the end of a much different era. It hadn't been that long before then that promising players would turn down the chance to work toward major league ball because they couldn't afford it. MLB at the time didn't pay that much more than a good regular job, or a job on a farm, so to take the risk while playing away from home was often not sufficiently attractive. This guy was the class of his league for a time, but it was as much him at age 32 saying "nah, I'm fine", as the scouts collectively saying "meh". He probably knew deep down that he was preying on young inexperienced pitchers and would not make contact often enough against guys with major league stuff.

 

He's an interesting side story, nonetheless.