Rob Deer!

One of the coolest players of all time is 49 today. (And he once had a Sports Illustrated cover??)  Russ Branyan has arguably supplanted him as the king of the Three True Outcomes, but Rob Deer practically invented them, striking out, walking or homering in almost half of his plate appearances at a time when that was completely unheard of (or at least unfairly disdained).

Take a look at some of the crazy years he had. If I had more time, I could probably turn this into yet another argument about Mark Reynolds, because really, the only real difference in these years is his wildly fluctuating BABIP, but they're interesting just by themselves:

From 1989 to 1991 -- the prime of most baseball players' lives -- Deer hit .199. He averaged 70 walks a year, which kept his OBP "up" at .310 (seventeen points below league average). He slugged .414, just a touch above average despite hitting 25, 26 and 27 home runs (another interesting thing about Deer's career is how well he spread out his HR totals: 21, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 32 and 33. In that way he's like the reverse Adam Dunn, who's still got a shot to hit exactly 40 for a fifth year in a row).

So many unanswered questions. How does one hit 25+ homers -- even 33 -- and not manage to have a few of those deep flies bang off the wall for doubles? How does any player, let alone a powerful one, come up 500+ times and not scratch out 20 doubles? If you're consistently hitting more homers than doubles, isn't it safe to assume you don't run particularly well, so maybe Tom Trebelhorn was crazy to let you try to steal twelve times in 1989? How does one hit 25-33 homers every year for seven years and top out at 86 RBI? How does one play almost an entire season, hit 25 homers, have the patience to walk a career-high 89 times, and still hit only .179?

I have to wonder what Deer would be like if he were playing today. Would he get more playing time, now that people value his skill set more highly? Would he strike out 200, 220, 250 times? Craziness...

Deer's Wikipedia page says he's "currently a roving hitting instructor for the San Diego Padres." Now, I love Rob Deer, and at his best, he was a very productive hitter. And I don't really believe that hitting instructors make that much of a difference anyway. But if you're going to hire a roving hitting instructor to talk to your young'uns, are you going to pick the guy who held the AL single-season strikeout record for 20 years, led the AL four times, and averaged 198 strikeouts per 162 games? I mean, really? Isn't that a little like hiring Dontrelle Willis or Tim Wakefield as a pitching coach? It worked for Deer, but that doesn't mean it's going to work for you...

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