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  • Jim Holt

    Birth Date: 05/27/1944
    Deceased: 03/29/2019

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    Jim Holt played for the Twins from 1968-1974 and was a personal favorite of mine as a good hitter.

    This was my memory and I discovered from looking at Baseball Reference that impression was very likely formed from the fact that 1973 was the season that I discovered, very much surprisingly while scanning the AM dial (hoping I could find the Twins), that I could get the Twins games on my stereo system tuner from WHO in Des Moines Iowa, with Herb Carneal announcing. That just happened to be 1B/OF Jim Holt's best season as a Twin when he slashed .297/.341/.442. He had an (non-existent back then) OPS+ of 116. He also had 25 doubles, 3 triples and 11 homers with 58 RBIs in 1973. It was his biggest output in his Twins career and, indeed, in his career overall, with 476 plate appearances and 441 at bats.

    It's my recollection that Holt was mostly a platoon guy in his other years with the Twins as a left handed hitter. He had two other seasons of 340 and 309 at bats, respectively.

    Jim Holt was traded in 1974 to the Oakland A’s for Pat Bourque, a trade I didn’t like or even understand. Bourque was a really fringe player, posting very low batting averages in his career and was hitting only .229 for the A’s at the time of the trade. In researching this article, I realized that Jim Holt played on a World Series winner, the 1974 Oakland A’s. [RIP Baseball, ripbaseball.com] And maybe, pure speculation on my part, Calvin Griffith was trying to do a favor to Jim Holt by trading him to the A’s. From the A’s perspective, Holt had that .297 season with the Twins in his recent background.

    Jim Holt finished his career with Oakland as a minor role player in 1977. He played for 9 seasons and finished with a career .265 batting average. He was not a power hitter so OPS+ is going to underestimate his value compared to those with even moderate power. This was a time before the massive power booms to come so line drive hitting was of more value than today in 2024. The league leaders in home runs were usually in the 30s, with some exceptions.

    Jim passed away in 2019 at the age of 74.

    Greg Allen aka/ Greglw3

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    Jim Holt Statistics

    Standard Batting
    Year Age Tm Lg G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+ TB GDP HBP SH SF IBB Pos Awards
    1968 24 MIN AL 70 111 106 9 22 2 1 0 8 0 1 4 20 .208 .236 .245 .482 43 26 3 0 1 0 2 H79/83  
    1969 25 MIN AL 12 14 14 3 5 0 0 1 2 0 0 0 4 .357 .357 .571 .929 153 8 0 0 0 0 0 /H937  
    1970 26 MIN AL 142 341 319 37 85 9 3 3 40 3 1 17 32 .266 .300 .342 .642 75 109 9 0 1 4 3 *78H/93  
    1971 27 MIN AL 126 362 340 35 88 11 3 1 29 5 1 16 28 .259 .292 .318 .610 71 108 11 1 2 2 4 8H97/3  
    1972 28 MIN AL 10 28 27 6 12 1 0 1 6 0 0 0 1 .444 .429 .593 1.021 196 16 1 0 0 1 0 /9H73  
    1973 29 MIN AL 132 476 441 52 131 25 3 11 58 0 3 29 43 .297 .341 .442 .783 116 195 12 2 0 3 4 739H/8  
    1974 30 TOT AL 109 260 239 25 56 11 0 0 16 0 0 15 25 .234 .282 .280 .562 61 67 6 2 1 3 2 3H/D97  
    1974 30 MIN AL 79 215 197 24 50 11 0 0 16 0 0 14 16 .254 .302 .310 .612 74 61 6 1 0 3 2 3H/97  
    1974 30 OAK AL 30 45 42 1 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 9 .143 .182 .143 .325 -3 6 0 1 1 0 0 H3/D  
    1975 31 OAK AL 102 137 123 7 27 3 0 2 16 0 0 11 11 .220 .292 .293 .585 68 36 5 2 0 1 2 H3/D72  
    1976 32 OAK AL 4 8 7 0 2 2 0 0 2 0 0 1 2 .286 .375 .571 .946 181 4 0 0 0 0 0 /DH  
    9 Yrs 707 1737 1616 174 428 64 10 19 177 8 6 93 166 .265 .305 .352 .657 84 569 47 7 5 14 17    
    162 Game Avg. 162 398 370 40 98 15 2 4 41 2 1 21 38 .265 .305 .352 .657 84 130 11 2 1 3 4    
                                                         
    MIN (7 yrs) 571 1547 1444 166 393 59 10 17 159 8 6 80 144 .272 .310 .362 .672 87 523 42 4 4 13 15    
    OAK (3 yrs) 136 190 172 8 35 5 0 2 18 0 0 13 22 .203 .270 .267 .537 56 46 5 3 1 1 2    
    Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
    Generated 3/17/2024.

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    Greglw3

    By Greglw3

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    Twins63

    Twins63 48

  • Verified Member

    • Posted

    He was a player I followed if for the only reason that supposedly he was dating one of my elementary school teachers in the early 70s. Also hated when he was traded. Not a lot of players in the 70s for an impressionable kid to follow outside the usual suspects...

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    https://twinsdaily.com/forums/topic/66718-jim-holt/#findComment-1392951
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    Dave Mona

    Dave Mona 21

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    • Posted

    I started covering the Twins as The Minneapolis Tribune beat writer in 1968. One of the first players I met at Tinker Field was Jim Holt. He had been claimed as a Rule 5 pick in the off season. I remember him as being very shy and polite (military background.) The first day the players came out in uniform he was wearing number 45. At the time Pabst had introduced a popular drink named Colt 45 Malt Liquor. I asked PR Director Tom Mee if there was any connection and he said it was an idea advanced by Don Cassidy of the tiny Twins marketing staff and the team thought, "Why not?"

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    https://twinsdaily.com/forums/topic/66718-jim-holt/#findComment-1504122
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