Sievers Passes

I’m sorry I missed this the other day, but Roy Sievers died at the age of 90:

Roy Sievers, who won the American League’s first Rookie of the Year Award playing for the 1949 St. Louis Browns and became one of baseball’s leading power hitters of the 1950s with the original Washington Senators, died on Monday at his home in Spanish Lake, Mo. He was 90.

…

Playing in the outfield and at first base for 17 major league seasons, Sievers hit 318 home runs. His best season came in 1957, when he had a league-leading 42 homers and 114 runs batted in while hitting .301 for the last-place Senators. The right-handed-batting Sievers also hit home runs in six consecutive games at the Senators’ Griffith Stadium that summer, conquering its cavernous left field in matching an American League record that has since been broken.

My thoughts go out to his family and friends.

Sievers walked about as much as he struck out. While his strike out rates were low for today, looking at the leader board from 1951-1960, Sievers ranks 14 with 552 strikeouts. Ryan Howard ranked 14th between 2001 and 2010 with 1035 K, and he came up in 2004.

Sievers was also unusual due to his late and long prime years. His productive years start at seasonal age 27 and last until seasonal age 35. His ability to get on base and hit for power deteriorated slowly.

from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/2nQfZl3