The Spider-man Meme

Or, How I Learned to Tell Baines, Franco, & Samuel Apart

Are my Canva skills on-point or what? Believe it or not, no AI was used to produce this image. Jokes aside, I can’t even tell you how irrationally happy this stupid graphic makes me.

Before we get started on this week’s article, I want to thank everyone who took the time to read and respond to last week’s questionnaire. I worried you all might ignore me, but the response was fantastic. I had a lot of fun reading about the experiences that shape your baseball fanhood, and enjoyed talking baseball with my readers more directly. And if you missed it, don’t worry, it’s not too late to check it out and fill it out. Just make sure you come back here when you’re done!

In case you don’t know the meme I’m referencing in the title, I included it above. It’s the go-to online method for pointing out that two or more things are the same, which is why I’m bringing it up. Hopefully, by the time we’re done here you’ll get where I’m coming from, even if I fail to convince you of my overall premise.

Here’s the deal, if you’re new here. I try to do something a little different than the usual baseball newsletter. Aside from the general emphasis on history, I normally avoid basic recaps and laying on stats. I mean, there’s definitely some of that, it is a baseball blog after all, but it’s not the focal point. Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with that approach, and there are plenty of publications out there to scratch that itch, but in an effort to both set myself apart and fulfill my own personal creative interests, I come at baseball from a different angle.

The history is very much from a personal perspective, but even if I don’t have a strong connection to a particular subject, I usually try to focus on the stories of the “characters” involved, rather than their statistical exploits, and if I can connect it all back to some fundamental, broader element of the human experience, I’m going to do it. That’s how you get my recent treatise on love and baseball. It’s not for everybody, but I was quite proud of it, and if you’ve stuck with me this long, I thank you for indulging me.

But why am I going over all this? If you’re still here, I assume this isn’t news to you. So here’s why. I’m going to go a bit off-brand on this one. I don’t have any grand ideas to tie this one together, and the stories of the players I’m going to talk about aren’t really relevant to what I’m getting at here. In fact, this piece might boil down to little more than statistical profiles of Harold Baines, Julio Franco, and Juan Samuel.

Why those three players? It’s simple, really. Throughout my childhood, I could have sworn those three players were basically the same guy, and I confused them constantly. Nor I was the only one. My cousin Scott feels the same way, but we grew up together, so it’s possible we influenced each other on this particular quirk.

There are lots of reasons people confuse players. They might have similar names, play for the same team, or maybe they even look alike. More often than not, they have a similar profile as players. They play the same position, excel at the same aspects of the game, share the same weaknesses, that sort of thing.

I’m not sure that’s the case with Baines, Franco, and Samuel. But before we get into the nitty-gritty, let’s set a baseline. Here are their career stats.

Baines: 22 seasons, .289/.356/.465, 384 HR, 1,628 RBI, 2,866 H, 1,299 R, 488 Doubles, 49 Triples, 34 SB, .820 OPS, 121 OPS+, 38.8 bWAR

Franco: 23 seasons, .298/.365/.417, 173 HR, 1,194 RBI, 2,586 H, 1,285 R, 407 Doubles, 54 Triples, 281 SB, .782 OPS, 111 OPS+, 43.6 BWAR

Samuel: 16 seasons, .259/.315/.420, 161 HR, 703 RBI, 1,578 H, 873 R, 287 Doubles, 102 Triples, 396 SB, .735 OPS, 101 OPS+, 17.0 bWAR

At first glance, a few things are obvious. First of all, WAR clearly favors Baines and Franco over Samuel. I think WAR can be a useful tool for evaluating and comparing players, but I also believe it’s a flawed stat, and I don’t rely on it personally. This is one of those instances where I feel validated in that position. WAR is partially a counting stat, and the fact that Samuel played fewer seasons certainly contributed to the gap between him and the others, but it fails to account for the obvious advantage his speed gave him.

There isn’t a giant gap between any of their hitting numbers, though Samuel obviously had the lowest batting average and on-base percentage. He hit nearly as many dingers as Franco, but in significantly fewer games, he doubled at a higher clip, and racked up way more triples and stolen bases. Aside from that, the thing that separates them the most is Baines’s power.

Harold Baines is one of the most controversial players in the Hall of Fame. Not because he did anything unsavory off the field or because he was accused of dabbling in PEDs. No, on the internet, which is filled with people who live to complain about who is or isn’t in Cooperstown,* his crime is either that his numbers aren’t quite good enough or he wasn’t enough of a unicorn to warrant induction.

*Over and over again, on a daily basis. Seriously, people, get some new material.

On the last point, I can’t argue. I am, after all, writing about how I constantly confused him with Franco and Samuel. Of the three of them, Franco is probably the one who should stand out the most, though obviously not enough to single him out in my mind. He had by far the most iconic and unusual batting stance, one I emulated many times in the yard.* In terms of power and speed, he was sort of the middle ground of the three, but the thing that set him apart the most was his complete devotion to the game. All three of them had long, successful careers, but Franco was something else.

*Even if I sometimes mistakenly credited it to Baines or Samuel.

In terms of their MLB careers, he played only one more season than Baines, but that isn’t the full story. During his MLB run, he also played three seasons (1995, 1998, 2000) in Japan, before earning another shot in the states, and after he retired from the Braves following the 2007 season, he played in Mexico, before eventually becoming a manager. He spent some time as a player-manager too, and wherever he is now, it must be a temptation every time he fills out a lineup card to scribble in his own name. He was the oldest player in the major leagues for his final four seasons, and the last active MLB player to be born in the ‘50s.

They all accomplished impressive individual accolades. On top of his Hall of Fame inclusion, Baines was a six-time All-Star, won a Silver Slugger, and he held a number of records for designated hitters at the time of his retirement.* Baines, Franco, and Samuel all spent time at DH in their careers, and I tend to consider it the primary position of the first two, at least based on my experience watching them. Baines started out in RF, Franco played all over the infield, especially at second base, and Samuel was the most versatile of the three, bouncing primarily between centerfield, second base, and first.

*Most of them have since been broken by either Edgar Martinez or David Ortiz.

Baines has a statue outside of whatever they’re calling the White Sox’s stadium these days, and his number has been retired by the White Sox. He’s also a member of Baltimore’s team Hall of Fame. He played for both of those teams three different times in his long career, and mixed in stops at Texas, Oakland, and Cleveland for good measure.

Samuel, a three-time All-Star who also won a Silver Slugger, doesn’t have a statue, but he is in the Phillies Hall of Fame, after playing for them from 1983-89. They’re the team I most associate him with, but he played for seven different teams over the course of his career, including two stints with my Royals that didn’t make much of an impression on me.

Franco, on the other hand, played for so many teams that he never stuck around long enough to be properly honored by any of them, though I primarily remember him playing for Cleveland and Texas. In addition to them and the stops in Japan and Mexico I mentioned, he also squeezed in stints at Philadelphia, the White Sox, Milwaukee, Tampa Bay, Atlanta, and the Mets. Whoo, that’s one hell of a jersey collection, but that shouldn’t lead anyone to believe he didn’t earn his spot. He was a three-time All-Star, collected five Silver Sluggers, and won the 1991 AL batting title.

Now that I look at them, I think it was their mobility that made them so interchangeable in my mind. They had a fair share of overlap in their stats and how they played the game, but it was their constant movement that they most had in common. The three of them were always coming and going, never staying in one place for long, true baseball nomads. That made it difficult to form a solid impression of any of them, and over time they melded into interconnected versions of the same prototype in my head.

No wonder I could never keep them straight. Mystery solved.

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Thanks for reading Powder Blue Nostalgia. Did any of you have a similar problem with these guys, or am I the only one? And if it wasn’t these three players, I have to believe that most of you have at least one example of players you regularly mix up. Let’s hear about them in the comments.