Arizona's Baseball All-Time Dream Team
What would a dream team roster look like for major league players born in Arizona?
Issue #163
This is the 44th article in a series where I am creating all-time dream teams for players born in each of the fifty US states. I’m publishing each write-up on the anniversary date that the particular state joined the union. So far I’ve covered Maryland, Louisiana, Minnesota, South Carolina, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, West Virginia, New Hampshire, Virginia, Idaho, Wyoming, New York, Colorado, Missouri, Hawaii, California, Nevada, North and South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Illinois, Delaware, Mississippi, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Alabama, New Jersey, Iowa, Texas, Georgia, Alaska, Utah, New Mexico, Connecticut, Michigan, Kansas, Massachusetts, and Oregon.
Next up is Arizona (the second of two states to join the union on Valentine’s Day), which became the 48th US State on February 14th, 1912 (according to Wikipedia).
Important caveat to what follows: I’m creating these all-time dream teams based on the birthplace data available at baseball-reference.com. I realize this might mean some players will appear for a state’s all-time dream that seems odd, e.g., a player who was born in one state but lived there only briefly, while then spending most of his youth, or especially critical years playing baseball in high school in another state. So that is an important caveat to the below dream team roster—and I’ll discuss the players that I know went to high school in a state other than Arizona towards the end of this article (and vice-versa, those born elsewhere but who went to high school in Arizona.)
Here is the all-time dream team I came up with for players born in Arizona:
This all-time dream team doesn’t have any Hall of Famers, but does have players who were stars for at least parts of their careers, such as NL Rookie of the Year, MVP, and two-time All-Star CF/1B Cody Bellinger, four-time All-Star 2B Ian Kinsler, two-time All-Star RF Andre Ethier, two-time All-Star SS J.J. Hardy, and two-time All-Star 1B/3B Shea Hillenbrand.
Two position players that some readers might be less familiar with are SS Solly Hemus (1949-1959) and CF Hank Leiber (1933-1942). Hemus only played 100+ games in four seasons, but led the NL with 105 runs in 1952 and had a knack for both getting walked and getting hit by pitch, leading the NL three times in the latter category. He retired with a solid .273/.390/.411 slash line and 115 OPS+.
And Hank Leiber played mostly for the New York Giants and was an All-Star three times. His best season was his first full year in the majors in 1935 when he hit 22 HR and 37 doubles, scored 110 runs with 107 RBI, and slashed .331/.389/.512. He retired with .288/.356/.462 percentages and a 122 OPS+.
Starting lineups for this all-time dream team could look like this:
Against RHP:
Ian Kinsler 2B (R)
Alex Verdugo LF (L)
Andre Ethier RF (L)
Cody Bellinger CF (L)
Shea Hillenbrand 1B (R)
Solly Hemus SS (L)
Jack Howell 3B (L)
Kole Calhoun DH (L) / J.J. Hardy DH (R) / Hank Leiber DH (R)
Ron Hassey C (L)
Against LHP:
Billy Hatcher LF (R)
Ian Kinsler 2B (R)
Hank Leiber CF (R)
Shea Hillenbrand 3B (R)
Cody Bellnger 1B (L)
J.J. Hardy SS (R)
Andre Ethier / Kole Calhoun / Alex Verdugo RF (L)
Andre Ethier / Kole Calhoun / Alex Verdugo / Solly Hemus DH (L)
Tom Pagnozzi C (R)
I found several platoon options for this roster, including LF with Alex Verdugo and Billy Hatcher, SS with Solly Hemus and J.J. Hardy, and C with Ron Hassey and Tom Pagnozzi.
There are some left-handed hitters above, such as Jack Howell at 3B and Andre Ethier in RF, that have rather extreme splits. So in the case of Howell, this means shifting Shea Hillenbrand across the diamond from 1B to 3B against LHP. Bellinger in turn shifts from CF to 1B, which means Hank Leiber gets some CF playing time and bats third against LHP.
In the case of Ethier in RF, and for the DH spot as well, this roster has mostly lefties available. So I just listed Ethier, Calhoun, and Verdugo as splitting RF against LHP, and those same three, plus Hemus, as also sharing the DH duties.
As for the pitching staff, the ace is John Denny (1974-1986) who was generally speaking a league-average starting pitcher, with two seasons as exceptions. Early in his career, in 1976 for the Cardinals, he paced the NL with a 2.52 ERA. Then in 1983, the year the Phillies went to the World Series, Denny busted out to lead the NL in wins with a 19-6 record, which coupled with a career-best 2.37 ERA, earned him the NL Cy Young Award. He never was chosen as an All-Star, including in 1983, because although effective during the first half—2.13 ERA and 1.185 WHIP over 17 starts—his record was only 6-4 and he hadn’t pitched that well in a long time. In the second half his ERA was higher at 2.57, but he went 13-2 over 19 starts, and that impressed Cy Young Award voters in what was a relatively thin field composed of Mario Soto, Steve Rogers, Larry McWilliams, and Craig McMurtry, plus relievers Jesse Orosco, Al Holland, and Lee Smith. Overall, Denny retired with a 123-108 record, 3.59 ERA, and 105 ERA+.
You could debate how to rank the other pitchers I included on this dream team roster, but for the second spot I went with Bert Hunter (1931-1936) who was a star for several years in the Negro Leagues, before playing for many more seasons in the Mexican leagues. In 1932 he led the East-West League in wins with a 10-2 record, and then did so again in 1933 in the Negro National League with an 11-3 record. According to the numbers we have available at baseball-reference.com, for his career he posted a 42-21 record with a 3.98 ERA and 113 ERA+.
Alex Kellner (1948-1959) had his best season in 1949 when he was runner-up to Roy Sievers for the AL Rookie of the Year Award. That year he went 20-12 with a 3.75 ERA for the Philadelphia A’s, the franchise he would spend most of his career with.
And Gary Gentry (1969-1975) similarly had his most important major league season as a rookie. At the age of 22 he was a key member of the World Champion 1969 Mets, starting 35 games, pitching 233.2 IP, and going 13-12 with a 3.43 ERA.
The bullpen here lacks any modern, dominant closers, so how you rank the guys I included above could be debated. I listed Bob Howry (1998-2010) first, as he had a career 3.84 ERA and 120 ERA+. He posted 28 saves in his second season in 1999. but otherwise never again had double-digit saves in a season.
Lefty Jeremy Affeldt (2002-2015) pitched mostly for the Royals and Giants, and posted a 3.97 ERA and 110 ERA+ for his career. He had several seasons late in his career with ERAs below 3.00, including in 2009 when he posted a 1.73 ERA across 74 games.
And Tom “The Bartender” Wilhelmsen (2011-2017) had a shorter major league career, perhaps in part to testing positive for Marijuana while pitching in the minors, serving a suspension, and quitting the game for a few years after that. During that time he served as a bartender at a tiki hut in his hometown, but then made a comeback and reached the majors for the Mariners in his age-27 season in 2011, and then locked down 29 and 24 saves the following two years. He retired with a 3.53 ERA and 110 ERA+.
What about players who went to High School in Arizona?
As noted at the outset of this article, and as I’ve done for my other US State dream team write-ups, what if you change the criteria from players who were born in the state of Arizona to players who grew up—which we’ll define as going to high school—in the state of Arizona?
First off, there were a few players on the above roster who were born in Arizona but went to high school elsewhere:
SS/2B Solly Hemus – California
2B/LF Red Hudler – California
RP Jeremy Affeldt – Washington
RP D.J. Carrasco – California
The loss of Hemus is the most significant here, though the team still has J.J. Hardy at SS, and utility man Eric Sogard to backup Kinsler at 2B.
On the other hand, I found numerous players who were born elsewhere but went to high school in the state of Arizona:
1B Paul Konerko – Rhode Island
1B C.J. Cron – California
2B/1B George Grantham – Kansas
3B/1B Bob Horner – Kansas
C Paul Lo Duca – New York
C Ozzie Virgil Jr. – Puerto Rico
RF Tim Salmon – California
CF/LF Chad Curtis – Indiana
LF/DH Khris Davis – California
SP Jim Palmer – New York
SP Curt Schilling – Alaska
SP Justin Speier – California
SP Merrill Kelly – Texas
SP Zach Davies – Washington
SP/RP Andy Hassler – Texas
RP Danny Coulombe – Missouri
RP Mike MacDougal – Nevada
RP Aaron Bummer – California
Using this alternate dream team criterion, an Arizona dream team roster would look very different. Not all of the above players would necessarily be included, but they’d all need to be considered. Konerko would become the starter at either 1B or DH. Grantham would become a solid backup to Kinsler at 2B, and at 1B also. Bob Horner would become the starter at 3B, and Paul Lo Duca, at least from a hitting perspective, would be the top catcher.
In the outfield, Tim Salmon would take over as the top RF, and Khris Davis would be in the mix in LF and DH.
But the biggest improvement to this roster would be felt in the starting rotation, where Hall of Famer Jim Palmer would now be the ace, and Curt Schilling would slot as a very strong number two.
All data is from Baseball-Reference.com, and also their subscription service Stathead.com. If you are a big sports fan, be sure to check out the latest features at Stathead and the Sports Reference family of sites. The state map, flag, flower, and bird images are from Wikipedia.
Did you know? I wrote a book with the same title as this Substack newsletter / blog: Now Taking the Field: Baseball’s All-Time Dream Teams for All 30 Franchises. It was published in early 2019, by ACTA Sports, the publisher of the annual Bill James Handbook and other popular titles. You can learn more about it at www.NowTakingTheField.com, or buy directly at Amazon and other booksellers.
