Remember 1969 - Remember's Ramblings

 

Remember 1969: Remember's Ramblings

 

 Remember's Reminiscing – Volume 1, Article 7

November 26, 2024

Birthday Spotlight

Today’s birthday spotlight is on a player that played for the Mets 45 years ago, but one I remember quite well for some reason.   Richie Hebner is turning 77 years old today.   In looking through the list of November 26 birthdays, neither Brian Schneider nor Josh Smoker instilled much interest – so Mr. Hebner was it.   

I did a little research and was quite surprised to see that he only played for the Mets for one season – 1979.  

Richie Hebner was acquired by the Mets late in Spring Training in March 1979, two days before releasing Lenny Randle.   Hebner was another attempt to find a good third baseman, with Randle being their 1978 failed experiment.   Pitcher Nino Espinosa was sent to the Phillies in exchange for the 31 year old Hebner who had a pretty good start of a career at that point with his first eight years with the Pirates and a couple with the Phils.  Unfortunately, as many of Mack’s good readers know, building a team with players over 30 years old is not the best way to find the winning ways and Hebner was not the exception to that rule.   

He actually did not have a terrible year at the plate with a .268 BA and a .354 on base percentage.   He struck out just 59 times in his 550 plate appearances while walking the exact same 59 times.   His .393 slugging percentage gave him a .747 OPS for the year which is passable.  

Where he did not help was on the field where his 22 errors at the hot corner produced a .940 fielding percentage.   He even had an error among his 29 chances at first base while playing only 25 innings on the right side. 

Even the late 70’s Mets decided that he wasn’t the long term winning answer and traded him to the Tigers for Phil Mankowski, another poor fielding third baseman that was nowhere near the hitter Hebner was, along with outfielder Jerry Morales who didn’t make up for Mankowski’s weaknesses.   Hebner went on to become a part-time player with Detroit for two and a half years before returning to Pittsburgh in mid-year 1982.   He finished his career with the Cubs in 1984 and 85.    

Overall, Hebner put together a better than normal final stat sheet with 32.9 bWAR, built from almost 1700 hits and over 200 home runs.   His final career line was .276/.352/.438 for an OPS if .790, mostly accrued prior to his Mets tenure.   He went on to become a longtime minor league coach and manager.

While I don’t have any specific Richie Hebner stories, I do remember him as a hard-nosed throw-back type player.   This is total conjecture, but my suspicion is that he did not do anything to keep himself as a New York Met.   His hitting line alone was better than most third baseman they had employed previously – the likes of Wayne Garrett, Joe Foy, Ed Charles, Jim Fregosi, and the aforementioned Lenny Randle to name a few that passed through the hot corner turnstile. 

I did remember that his off-season job (ballplayers still needed them in the early 70’s) was digging graves.  His websites show his nickname as ‘Gravedigger’, although I never heard that applied to him as a baseball player. 

My memories of his intense level of play were confirmed when I found this Richie Hebner quote that was published in Baseball Digest in January 1980:  "Hockey is my kind of sport. You can get your feelings out on the ice. Baseball is you and the pitcher. Strike out and you gotta go back to the dugout and wait until the next time up. I can't stand those feelings inside me. That's the trouble with ball, there's no outlet in the game."      Somehow I feel like he didn’t always keep those feelings in the dugout, but I have nothing specific, other than remember how he played the game 45 years ago.             

 Remember’s Ramblings for the week

We have had some recent discussions recently about prospects – the age old game of “Keep ‘em or Trade ‘em”.   My personal opinion is generally “Keep ‘em” if they are true prospects.  

It was interesting that with all the gnawing and mashing of the teeth at the time of the Jarred Kelenic for Edwin Diaz trade, I was actually in favor of that one at the time.    I was not happy with the Pete Crow-Armstrong for Javier Baez trade.   Those two statements are really backwards because my real belief is that prospects for relief pitching is a solid no.    I did, however, feel Diaz at that time was that good that it was worth a shot to get one of the top closers in baseball, but do not trade for filler set-up guys with the higher level draft choices. 

For the specific trade that has been discussed – that of Garrett Crochet, he does not have a good or long enough track record to trade any top 5 prospects. 

My untouchable of prospects at this point is actually quite short.  On the position side, I am keeping Jett Williams, Carson Benge and Nick Morabito this off-season at all costs.   As far as the pitchers, I definitely keep Brandon Sproat and Jonah Tong, and Blade Tidwell probably gets another chance.  

Drew Gilbert is a player that I would generally think should be a keeper, but he is now older than my typical keeper prospect at 24 years old now.   I’d like to see if he can come back with a strong 2025 to really prove his #1 pick from three years ago, but if he is included in the right trade to improve the big club, I will not complain much. 

Guys a little farther down the line that I am interested to see more development in the Mets chain before being cast off are Boston Baro and Nolan McLean.     

Perhaps my approach is a bit conservative, but I’d really like to see the Mets get some home-grown talent developed and on the field at Citi.    Unfortunately, there is a lot of ‘trade too late’ built into this approach, such as the case of Kevin Parada and AlexRamirez.   It is difficult to see these top guys not develop completely and not provide value for either the major league team or as a trade chip. 

Foot Note:   I don’t have much issue trading hitters that have the words ‘swing and miss’ and pitchers who have ‘not fully harnessed command’ in their respective profiles.  Hitters at lower levels that strike out a lot typically do not fix that as they move up and pitchers that cannot find the strike zone don’t suddenly wake up with great control.   Those are the ones that I say “trade ‘em” (RyanClifford and Parada, among others).

 

That’s all for now – Have a great Thanksgiving!