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Who Is Twins Best LF of All Time - Reopened with 3 new choices!!!


Greglw3

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Top Twins LF of all time?  

22 members have voted

  1. 1. Who is the best Twins LF of them all?

    • Shane Mack
      2
    • Shannon Stewart
      1
    • Eddie Rosario
      2
    • Bob Allison
      16
    • Lyman Bostock
      1
    • Larry Hisle
      3
    • Dan Gladden
      2
    • Gary Ward
      0
    • Jacque Jones
      0

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Who do you think is the best left fielder in Twins history? Although I didn’t add anybody based on their listing, credit to Twinstrivia.com for their top 10 list.

Edited by Greglw3
Add more choices and reopen poll due to heavy interest. Inform readers it’s reopened with 3 new entries.

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I have to take Allison though several may never have seen him play. Bostock was a very good hitter with limited power. Mack, Hisle and Rosario are close. Sorry but I don't know much about Stewart's time with us. I must have been sleeping.

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I think Allison is the right choice although Bostock was brilliant, hitting .323 and .336  in his last two years with the Twins with something like 36 doubles, 12 triples and 14 HR in 1977 alone!

 

 

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I don’t think of several of these guys as Twins ‘left fielders’. Turns out, for good reason. I went back and checked...Shane Mack and Larry Hisle, neither put in more than one season where they played LF in even half of the games. They both moved all over the outfield (they both had big-time arm-strength issues)...and put in time at DH. Meanwhile, Bostock played considerably more CF and RF than LF for the Twins.

So, to me it comes down to Allison, Rosario, and Gladden (Stewart was good for 2 seasons)

Bob Allison was pretty clearly the best player in this list, offensively and defensively. Gladden gets consideration for the 800+ OPS across two WS wins. He’d be my number 2.

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LF is probably the thinnest position in Twins history. Either had guys cycle through for a season or two or longer tenured players just never being stars. On this list, I'd probably take Bob Allison, even if his best seasons weren't in left. 

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2 minutes ago, ashbury said:

No love for Gary Ward?

Ashbury Yes! I thought about him but thought his output limited by leaving for Texas. However, I’m a big Gary Ward fan! I lived in Toledo, OH when the Twins were the parent club and saw him play extensively along with Ron Washington (maybe the best 3B I ever saw on a regular basis as a Mud Hen - regular diving stops at 3rd!), Dave Engle, Jesus Vega and Ray Smith, the catcher. 

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1 hour ago, Greglw3 said:

Ashbury Yes! I thought about him but thought his output limited by leaving for Texas. However, I’m a big Gary Ward fan! I lived in Toledo, OH when the Twins were the parent club and saw him play extensively along with Ron Washington (maybe the best 3B I ever saw on a regular basis as a Mud Hen - regular diving stops at 3rd!), Dave Engle, Jesus Vega and Ray Smith, the catcher. 

If you limit consideration to those who played anything other than LF less than, say, 35% of their innings while with the Twins, Ward deserves some attention.  Guys like Allison played a lot of RF.  OTOH Allison played a lot, period, so maybe his contributions in Left still outweigh Ward's.

Left really isn't chock full of top candidates.  And Ward is pretty underrated by now - never any great shakes on defense but he got the job done, and he could hit.

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19 hours ago, mnfireman said:

Twins won 2 WS with Dazzle Man Dan Gladden in LF.....

And if you go back in time HOF Goose Goslin manned LF for the Senators.

Goslin was a triples machine and an RBI machine. Very impressive career!

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Good research! It looks like those 3 years were the only time when he was a regular LF. I had thought of Harmon as a 3B/1B but there it is in black and white! 

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If I had to chose one player from your graph for my team it would be Bostock.  A tragic end to his life does not diminish what he could do with the bat and in the field.  He and Larry Hisle were a great tandem.  Four years 

  13.1 WAR

 

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Yep. Bostock is my sentimental favorite as well. He played 60 games in LF in his banner 1977 season, one of the best offensive seasons in Twins history. His two full seasons were .323 and .336 with mega extra base hits.

I wish Calvin had not been so penurious and I wish he had lived. I think he was so talented that he would have likely been a Hall of Famer. 

I’m a big time Lyman Bostock fan and a huge fan of that 1977 team. I have a memory of the first time I saw Bostock play with the Twins, in person, probably in Detroit - he hit a scorching liner down the third base line between the third baseman and the bag. I think it was the first at bat I ever saw him in person and I was stunned, thinking or saying, "Wow!".

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22 hours ago, Brandon said:

Dan Gladden was the LF on 2 World Series Winning teams. hard not to include him in the conversation.

 

Gladden had batting averages in the upper .240s and OPS of .673 and .662 for 1987 and 1991 respectively. I was comparing that to Lyman Bostock w .323 and .336 in ’76 and ’77. However, despite the substandard offense, Gladden was a very strong defensive player, a gritty player and like you mentioned, he did win 2 WS. So, I agree, he deserves to be in the conversation for those reasons.

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Allison only played more than 115 games in left 3 seasons. MAYBE SPENT 8 TOTAL, BUT MOST OF HIS TIME WAS IN RIGHT FIELD SINCE HIS CALLUP BY THE SENATORS.

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8 hours ago, Greglw3 said:

Gladden had batting averages in the upper .240s and OPS of .673 and .662 for 1987 and 1991 respectively. I was comparing that to Lyman Bostock w .323 and .336 in ’76 and ’77. However, despite the substandard offense, Gladden was a very strong defensive player, a gritty player and like you mentioned, he did win 2 WS. So, I agree, he deserves to be in the conversation for those reasons.

Plus Gladden scored the World Series winning run in 91.  and if you can remember Gladden did catch a HR in Cleveland and turned a triple play out of it getting the runners at both first and second out as they were way out front.  

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