Slightly Better than Replacement Level
The history of Earl Naylor as a two-way player is neither long or impressive. He qualified in one season as a two-way player and spent the rest of his career mainly serving as a positional player with the occasional minor league appearance as a pitcher. Based upon how hs lone two-way effort went it’s not […]
If not for a 1922 demotion to the A-level New Haven ball club (As a reminder, I don’t use racist team names on this site so if you want to know the actual name you will need to look it up yourself) Johnny Cooney may never have spread his two-way wings. Though he spent his […]
Harry Howell had been in the major leagues for three seasons as a pitcher before he jumped on the two-way train. His OPS+ of 114 in 49 plate appearances with the Brooklyn Superbas may have been a small sample but it still gave the Baltimore Orioles the ammunition they needed to take a decent pitcher […]
Geroge Cunningham was 2 seasons into his professional career when he became more than just a pitcher. It’s unclear as to why Detroit Tigers manager Hughie Jennings thought to spend the 1918 season trying Cunningham out in a two-way role. He had been decent with the bat in 2016, putting up an OPS+ of 137 […]
Johnny Lush began his professional career in 1904 with the National League’s Philadelphia Phillies. Right out of the gate he played both sides of the ball. He didn’t play enough on both sides of the ball to qualify as a true two-way player until 1906, but in 1905 he dabbled in pitching while playing first […]