Lost Sox Drawer

Lost Sox Drawer

Monday, October 5, 2015

1975 Topps Fred Lynn


So I heard this guy had a pretty decent rookie year in '75? Despite his awesomeness, he's stuck in a four-in-one rookie card with Ed "Interference, My Ass" Armbrister, Tom "Traded to Boston for George Scott" Poquette and Terry "Can't Think of a Snarky Nickname" Whitfield.

I admit to cheating with this one. A proper '75 Topps card would show the Red Sox in the previous year's uniforms, which used blue hats instead of the red ones they adopted for '75. Unfortunately, it's easier to find photos of Bernie Sanders smiling than color photos of Fred Lynn from '74, so I took a later Lynn photo at Gimped his hat blue.

One of the misconceptions about Lynn's career is that his numbers were helped by Fenway, and had he stayed with the Red Sox his whole career, he could have piled up stats that would have put him in Cooperstown. Not that WAR is the end-all, be-all of baseball stats, but a quick check to baseball-reference shows that five of Lynn's top six WARs came with the Red Sox. Wanna try OPS+ (OPS adjusted to the ballpark)? Lynn's top three came with the Sox. That his best numbers were in Boston was no ballpark illusion.

No comments:

Post a Comment