#126T Walt Weiss

IMPACT FACTOR 3/10: Weiss won the 1988 AL Rookie of the Year award, but was the best of a pretty weak pool of candidates. Although he was a capable shortstop, he was pretty poor on the offensive side of the ball and hit terribly in 5 out of 6 post-season series he appeared in with Oakland. In his entire career, Weiss ended up playing in 13 post-season series with Oakland, Colorado, and Atlanta and hit .190 with a .270 OBP. Oops.

#125T Ron Washington

Wow, Wash has some serious bed-head in this photo.

IMPACT FACTOR 1/10: Washington played one partial season with the Indians toward the end of his playing career before beginning a successful coaching career in the majors. He's now the manager of the Texas Rangers.

#121T Dickie Thon

IMPACT FACTOR 3/10: Thon played just one year with the Padres, but he was about league average, which was pretty impressive considering that he was still recovering from the horrible beaning he suffered in 1984. Thon's return to productivity was an inspiration for many people.

#115T Kurt Stillwell

Even after being traded to the Royals, Kurt still, well, sucked. (HA HA, SEE WHAT I DID THERE? 'still well sucked'?)

IMPACT FACTOR 3/10: Stillwell was a decent shortstop for the Royals for 4 years although he came over in that expensive trade.

#107T Dave Silvestri

IMPACT FACTOR 1/10: Silvestri didn't appear in the majors with Houston, although they did pick up Orlando Miller from the Yankees for him.

#94T Luis Rivera

IMPACT FACTOR 2/10: Rivera was a no-hit shortstop for Montreal who wasn't terribly great with his glove either. They did pick up Spike Owen in a trade for Rivera, and Owen did some good things with Montreal.

#93T Earnie Riles

IMPACT FACTOR 5/10: Riles gets a pretty high score thanks in pat to playing well in 3 part-time seasons with the Giants. He was then traded for Darren Lewis, who patrolled center field for the Giants for 5 years. The biggest knock against Riles for his Giants career was his 0-fer in the 1989 post-season.

#90T Rafael Ramirez

This is a pretty cool card. For starters, they actually put a light on Ramirez's face so he wouldn't be in the shadows. Plus they got some nice spring training action in the background. The only odd thing is that they apparently told Ramirez to look out of the corner of his eyes at something way off camera. I can't think of another baseball card with a player looking so far askance.

Does anybody know what's up with Ramirez' odd 1987 Donruss card? See this post at A Pack a Day for a scan of it.

IMPACT FACTOR 3/10: Ramirez had one good year with the Astros in 1988, managing a 97 OPS+ over a full season, which was very nice for a middle infielder back then. He had 4 more decidedly mediocre (and that's being charitable) years after that with Houston.

#43T Alfredo Griffin

IMPACT FACTOR 2/10: Griffin, a bad offensive player, had some of his worst offensive seasons among his 4 years with the Dodgers. They gave up Bob Welch and Matt Young to get Griffin and Orosco, who himself was terrible in the 1988 post-season. At least he's in the necklace club.

#19T Jeff Branson

IMPACT FACTOR 4/10: Branson took a while to get to the big leagues. He was a decent part-time player for the Reds and then got packaged with John Smiley to pick up 4 players, including Danny Graves and Damian Jackson. Graves was a very effective reliever for the Reds and Jackson ended up being part of a trade that brought Greg Vaughn.

#787 Bill Almon

Why this card is awesome: Because as much as we make fun of Jay Baller, Almon's actually got some good chest hair going in this photo too.

Cool stat: Almon stole 2 bases in a game 10 different times, and his team won 8 of those 10 games. Oddly, though, with those 20 stoles bases, he scored only 6 runs.

#733 Spike Owen

Why this card is awesome: Because this is yet another BoSox card taken at Comiskey with the catcher's mitt sticking in the photo. Whoever the catcher was that day (either Fisk or Karkovice one would assume) is probably on the most cards in this set.

Cool stat: If you check back on Mike Schmidt's card, you can see the link showing how Owen was one of a handful of players to have a truly terrible first year in MLB. Owen is one of just 6 guys to have a homer and a triple every season from 1983 to 1995. The others, including Wade Boggs, Tony Gwynn, and Tim Raines, were all much better players.

#726 Alfredo Griffin

Why this card is awesome: Because what in the hell is Griffin looking at? I'll cut him some slack and suggest it's a batting-practice homer being launched into the upper deck by Canseco or McGwire. Hopefully he's not just staring at a cloud.

Cool stat: Griffin was a bad base stealer. He's very high on the list of most seasons with at least 11 CS while having no more than 33 SB. Note that for players in the early part of the 20th century, CS totals are often wrong or absent, so this search doesn't count those guys very well. Griffin's career SB% of 58% is really lousy and he shouldn't have been allowed to run. His career OPS+ of 67 suggests that he shouldn't have been allowed to bat, either.

#722 Manny Lee

Why this card is awesome: Because, again, that ridiculous abbreviation "S. P. DE-M., D. R." kills me. It's a tad disrespectful, I think. You don't see "W. D. C., U. S." on any of these cards.

Cool stat: Lee remains the only guy to ever strike out 100 times in a season with no homers. Another way you can look at this is like this, which shows others who got close. Oh Gary Pettis!

Lee, who usually was called Manuel (not Manny) later in his career, was an abysmal offensive player, finishing with a career OPS+ of (gulp!) 73.

#708 Gus Polidor

Why this card is awesome: Because is it my imagination, or are there stacks and stacks of Angels caps in this photo?

Cool stat: Polidor never had more than 4 total bases in any single game.

Deceased players and managers: 18

Two dead players in a span of just 3 cards.

#702 Mike Gallego

Why this card is awesome: Because although his card says he's 5'8", I swear that in this photo, Gallego doesn't look an inch over 4 feet tall. Of course, if that were the case, he probably would have walked more like this guy.

Gallego's name is pronounced "Guy-a-go" with a long "a" sound in the middle (as in Oakland A's). Hence, the awesome Bermanism of Mike "Leggo" Gallego.

Cool stat: Gallego is better remembered than he actually was, thanks to being on the great A's teams of 1988-1990. In fact, among second baseman with at least 3000 PAs between 1980 and present, he had one of the lowest OPS+.

#695 Shawon Dunston

Why this card is awesome: Because, heck, here is another great-looking Cubs card from this set. The only think better than red, white, and blue is when you add a sea of green from an impeccably maintained grassy area. It might sound like I am being sarcastic, but truly I love this card.

Toward the end of Dunston's career, I learned that his first name is actually pronounced like it's spelled, i.e. "Sha-WAN", not "Shawn" like we all thought for years and years. I thought that was pretty cool because it's a much more African American-sounding name than plain old "Shawn."

Cool stat: What with his .296 career OBP, Dunston was, shall we say, offensively challenged. But he was damned versatile, making the top 10 in career homers for guys who played at least 10 career games at 1B, SS, 3B, OF, and DH.

#683 Julio Franco

Why this card is awesome: Because let's take a guy with one of the coolest unique batting stances ever, and put him in a blurry photo with his mouth hanging open. Suuure.

Cool stat: I love Julio Franco. Check out some stuff I wrote about him here. Franco makes the top 10 all time for most hits from Age 40 season on.

#673 Tony Phillips

Why this card is awesome: Because Phillips is a pretty underrated player, mainly because he was much better in the second half of his career. From 1982 to 1991, he had an OPS+ just under 100, and an OBP under .360. From 1993 to 1999, his OPS+ was well over 100 and his OBP was something like .390. Superstar, no, but a quality hitter. Factor in that he could play both infield and outfield, and he was a pretty valuable player.

Steve at White Sox Cards recently wrote a little piece about Tony Phillps.

Cool stat: Phillips' increase in OBP can be seen in his career batting splits. A quick analysis suggests that his managers used him pretty well. Note that he had a career .386 OBP batting 1st, and a career .335 OBP batting 9th. If you click on "Batting 9th" you can get it year-by-year, and discover that most of those ABs came early in his career, when he wasn't as good at getting on base. Now click on "Batting 1st" and see that most of those ABs came in the second half of his career, when he was getting on base a lot more often.

#667 Luis Quinones

Why this card is awesome: Because, boy oh boy, Quinones sure does not look very confident is this photo. If I had to guess, I'd say that in the last half-inning, he made a bad error that allowed 2 runs to score, and he's nervous about going out on to the field in the next half-inning.

True dat, his fielding stats, at least as far as errors and range factor, were quite poor in the major leagues.

Cool stat: In his last year in the big leagues, 1992, Quinones had a .200 BA but only a .167 OBP. How did he do that? Sacrifice flies count against OBP but not BA. He had 1 hit in 5 AB that year, but also 1 SF, giving him 1-for-6 when calculating OBP. Only 5 guys have ever had a seasonal BA as high as .200 and an OBP as low as .167. Quinones, and 4 pitchers.