#7/8 Seeded Teams
#7 1959 Detroit Tigers
Original Season Record: 76-78, .494, 4th place, AL
Star Attractions: OF Harvey Kuenn won the batting title with a .353 mark, while 3B Eddie Yost led the league in three categories with 115 R, 135 BB, and a .435 on base percentage. The biggest star, however, was five tool CF Al Kaline who led the league with a .530 slugging percentage and .940 OPS, not to mention that the 10-time gold glove winner anchored the defence.
Also Featuring: LF Charlie Maxwell led the team with 31 HR, taking full advantage of the friendliest park in the league for home run hitters. Jim Bunning led the league in strikeouts with 201, while Don Mossi was the best pitcher on the staff with a 17-9 record and 3.36 ERA and one of the top southpaw pitchers in the league.
Potential Pitfalls: Unsurprisingly, given their home park, the Tigers pitchers were susceptible to the long ball, giving up more home runs than any other team in the league that season. Bunning led all pitchers with 37 homers allowed. While Detroit was a good offensive team, they were far from great with four of the other 15 teams scoring more runs than them. While they had star hitters at or near the top of the stats leader boards depth was lacking, meaning pitchers could navigate the bottom half of the batting order with some success.
#8 1959 Baltimore Orioles
Original Season Record: 74-80, .481, 6th place, AL
Star Attractions: Unquestionably, it is all about the pitchers on this team who had the second best ERA in the league at 3.56. Knuckleballer Hoyt Wilhelm led the league with a 2.19 mark, allowing just 178 hits in 226 innings. Milt Pappas was the toughest pitcher to get a HR against that year with an incredibly miniscule 0.13 HR/9 IP (8 in 209.3 IP). Two other starting pitchers registered ERAs of below 3.
Also Featuring: LF Bob Nieman hit for an .895 OPS and 146 OPS+ (runaway team leader in both categories) while OF Gene Woodling hit .300 with a .402 on base percentage, leading the team with 77 RBI.
Potential Pitfalls: As good as the pitching was, the offence was way worse, Not only were the Orioles dead last in runs scored, but their 468 runs was a whopping 83 fewer than the second worst Phillies. Three of the regular starting position players had batting averages of .216, .217 and .223 respectively. It is also fair to say that Baltimore was the slowest team in the league with nobody in double digits in steals, and a lot of regulars who were double plays waiting to happen - in those rare instances that they had runners on base in the first place. They just barely edged out the Senators to avoid the worst batting average and on base percentage in the league (.238 and .310) but whereas Washington had the second most homers to compensate somewhat, the Orioles hit the second fewest long balls.
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