RIP Former Tigers Charlie Maxwell & Gary Sutherland

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Peter Welch

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Dec 29, 2024, 10:45:59 AM12/29/24
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Charlie Maxwell, the popular slugging left fielder for the Detroit Tigers from 1955-62, died on Friday evening at age 97. Maxwell, a two-time All-Star, was the oldest living former Tiger, as well ...
Maxwell hit 40 of his career 148 homers on a Sunday.
Former major league infielder Gary Sutherland passed away on December 16 at age 80. His obituary was provided by a Monrovia, California funeral home. Sutherland was an L.A.-area native who ...
I remember Sutherland was part of a weak-hitting Tigers' middle infield (along with Tom Veryzer) in the mid-70s just before Trammell and Whitaker came up.  The Tigers had Sutherland, Pedro Garcia and Tito Fuentes at 2B during those years before Whitaker took over the job full-time in 1978.

Peter

Paul Meloche

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Dec 29, 2024, 11:01:12 AM12/29/24
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I've looked back occasionally at the stats of those mid-70s Tigers teams and it looked bleak! Glad I'm too young to remember that era, but I suppose some of the early 2000s and late 2010 teams were worse.

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Peter Welch

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Dec 29, 2024, 11:35:25 AM12/29/24
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Those mid-70s teams had some really bad hitters (especially in the infield), prospects who didn't develop, and below-averaging pitching, but they also had some good and interesting players sprinkled in, especially in 1976 and 1977.

The '76 and '77 teams were well below .500 but they were fun teams (Fidrych mania in '76, plus some really good hitters in '77) and we started to see some of the Tigers' top prospects who were the core of the future World Series team.

However, the 1975 team was really awful and as bad as any Tigers' team in history.  Just a miserable and boring team.  1975 was the first year I started following the Tigers.  I'm surprised I stuck with them.  Ha ha!

Peter

From: Paul Meloche <meloc...@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, December 29, 2024 11:00 AM
To: Peter Welch <pw...@hotmail.com>
Cc: detroit...@googlegroups.com <detroit...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: RIP Former Tigers Charlie Maxwell & Gary Sutherland
 

Roger King

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Dec 29, 2024, 11:39:05 AM12/29/24
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1975 was the first full Tigers season I remember following and it was indeed bleak (RIP Gary Sutherland) but then in 1976, despite the team not being that great, you had Mark Fidrych and his unforgettable year getting regular national coverage plus Ron LeFlore starting the year with a 30 game hit streak and making the All-Star team too. There was enough to keep Tiger fans interested and then we knew the young players were coming up soon enough starting with Tram and Whitaker in late 1977.

By 1978, they won 86 games and were clearly on the rise.  It felt like a long period to get back to winning baseball but really they had won the AL East in 1972 so it was only basically a 5 year gap. Vs the 1994-2005 window where there wasn’t a single .500 season. 

Brad Smith

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Dec 29, 2024, 2:18:49 PM12/29/24
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Sutherland was basically a replacement level player, but at a time when the Tigers were really bad, and had a zillion holes to plug, he was one guy that Ralph Houk could just write into the lineup card every day and know what he would get.

Brad Smith

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Peter Welch

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Dec 29, 2024, 6:45:09 PM12/29/24
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The ‘76 team had some fun players: Fidrych, LeFlore, Rusty Staub, who was also in the All-Star game and had a 137 OPS+, plus rookie slugger Jason Thompson, the underrated Ben Oglivie, and even Willie Horton, who put up 117 OPS+.
Even old-timers Bill Freehan and Mickey Stanley were just above league average.  John Hiller was still one of the best workhorse relievers in the league.  Aurelio Rodriguez couldn’t hit a lick but his defense and throwing arm at 3B were fun to watch.  The problem was 2B, SS and 3B had no offensive production and the pitching staff after Fidrych and Hiller was terrible.

The ‘77 team was fun as well, but Fidrych getting injured spoiled the season.  Dave Rozema had a very good rookie season that year so he was able to replace the loss of Fidrych somewhat.  Unfortunately most of the rest of the pitching staff after Rozema and Hiller was pretty bad.
Milt Wilcox pitched ok that year and Jack Morris came up late in the season and pitched well.

Peter 



On Dec 29, 2024, at 11:39 AM, Roger King <pnag...@pnagency.com> wrote:


1975 was the first full Tigers season I remember following and it was indeed bleak (RIP Gary Sutherland) but then in 1976, despite the team not being that great, you had Mark Fidrych and his unforgettable year getting regular national coverage plus Ron LeFlore starting the year with a 30 game hit streak and making the All-Star team too. There was enough to keep Tiger fans interested and then we knew the young players were coming up soon enough starting with Tram and Whitaker in late 1977.

By 1978, they won 86 games and were clearly on the rise.  It felt like a long period to get back to winning baseball but really they had won the AL East in 1972 so it was only basically a 5 year gap. Vs the 1994-2005 window where there wasn’t a single .500 season. 
On Sun, Dec 29, 2024 at 8:01 AM Paul Meloche <meloc...@gmail.com> wrote:
I've looked back occasionally at the stats of those mid-70s Tigers teams and it looked bleak! Glad I'm too young to remember that era, but I suppose some of the early 2000s and late 2010 teams were worse.

On Sun, Dec 29, 2024 at 7:45 AM Peter Welch <pw...@hotmail.com> wrote:
Charlie Maxwell, the popular slugging left fielder for the Detroit Tigers from 1955-62, died on Friday evening at age 97. Maxwell, a two-time All-Star, was the oldest living former Tiger, as well ...
Maxwell hit 40 of his career 148 homers on a Sunday.
Former major league infielder Gary Sutherland passed away on December 16 at age 80. His obituary was provided by a Monrovia, California funeral home. Sutherland was an L.A.-area native who ...
I remember Sutherland was part of a weak-hitting Tigers' middle infield (along with Tom Veryzer) in the mid-70s just before Trammell and Whitaker came up.  The Tigers had Sutherland, Pedro Garcia and Tito Fuentes at 2B during those years before Whitaker took over the job full-time in 1978.

Peter

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Roger King

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Dec 29, 2024, 9:38:52 PM12/29/24
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Rozema couldn’t possibly top Fidrych in terms of either performance or personality… But he gave it a good run! 

The Sporting News used to do an award for rookie pitcher of the year and Rozema won that in 1977. He did get a few votes for actual AL Rookie of the Year as well but Eddie Murray beat him out.  Fidrych obviously won ROTY in 1976 and of course Whitaker did as well in 1978 so it was a nice little run of Tiger rookie performances.

Rozema was a character himself and he & Fidrych were both in that 1977 rotation for a stretch (The Bird went 6-4 in 11 starts). So it was an entertaining season.


Peter Welch

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Dec 30, 2024, 1:43:18 AM12/30/24
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Rozema was 15-7 with a 3.09 ERA in 28 starts and 218.1 IP as a 20-year-old rookie in 1977.  He had 16 complete games.  He had 5.7 WAR.
That's a heck of a rookie season, especially for a 20-year-old.  What was remarkable about Rozema was that he almost never struck anyone out, but still managed to have good ERAs and didn't allow a ton of hits.  He only struck out 92 hitters as a rookie and his career strikeout rate was only 3.6 K/9.  He almost never walked anyone.  He only walked 34 hitters as a rookie and had a career walk rate of only 2.1 BB/9.  Rozema had one of the lowest strikeout rates in major league history for a pitcher with over 1,000 career innings.

Interestingly, Mark Fidrych was almost a clone of Rozema in that he rarely struck out anyone but didn't walk anyone either.  Fidrych's career K rate was 3.7 K/9 and walk rate was 2.2 BB./9.

Both Fidrych and Rozema were sort of the ultimate "pitch to contact" pitchers but they were really good at not getting hit hard and keeping the ball down in the zone.

Rozema had a good season in 1978 as well (3.14 ERA in 28 starts with 4.0 WAR) and was pitching well in 1979 but his arm got hurt and he became more of a long reliever/spot starter after that.  All those complete games at a young age took an early toll on him.

It was interesting that the Tigers in '76 and '77 had 2 top young pitchers come up who almost never struck out anyone or walked anyone.  They weren't kid flamethrowers but pitched more like crafty veterans as 20-year-olds.  You'd think with having such a low K rate they would haven't been able to sustain success, but to be fair to Rozema, he had a solid 10-year-career (he became a decent long reliever after his arm couldn't handle starting anymore) and never really had a bad season.  Fidrych could never stay healthy after his rookie season so we really don't know how he would have turned out over a longer period of time.

As we know, Fidrych was quite a character, but Rozema was as well.  Having those 2 guys in the clubhouse must have been wild.  Trammell and Whitaker had fun as well.

If Fidrych and Rozema had stayed healthy to go along with Jack Morris coming up in 1978 and Dan Petry coming up in 1979 (plus Milt Wilcox being a decent #5 guy for several years) the Tigers might have had one of the better rotations in baseball and might have made the playoffs before 1984.  Fidrych and Rozema getting hurt kind of knocked them back pitching-wise for a few years.  (Plus some of the other Tigers' top pitching prospects back then didn't develop...remember Bob Sykes, Pat Underwood, Kip Young, Steve Baker, Steve Grilli, and Sheldon Burnside?  They were all terrible.  The Tigers had to rely on acquiring crusty veterans to fill out the rotation).

Peter




From: Roger King <pnag...@pnagency.com>
Sent: Sunday, December 29, 2024 9:38 PM

To: Peter Welch <pw...@hotmail.com>
Cc: detroit...@googlegroups.com <detroit...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: RIP Former Tigers Charlie Maxwell & Gary Sutherland

Michael W

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Dec 31, 2024, 1:07:41 PM12/31/24
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>so it was only basically a 5 year gap. Vs the 1994-2005 window where there wasn’t a single .500 season. 

Randy Smith was a generational untalent

Michael

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