Originally a Tiger since the 4th pick of the ’72 Amateur draft, Dan was taken from Detroit by Seattle as the 9th pick in the expansion draft four years later. This makes him the 5th Mariner ever.

Sometimes I think about how cool it might’ve been if Meyer had become Seattle’s first star. I mean, look at the Mariners logo at the time… it’s a big ‘M’ with a star behind it, and Dan’s last name starts with ‘M’. I’m sure some smart marketer could’ve used that to promote the Mariners in the early days.

By the end of 1981 though, he’d only built up a .298 OBP and 89 OPS+ for his career. His only seasons hitting better than the average player were ’77 & ’79, but it still wasn’t much better than average.

In December ’81, he was traded to Oakland but didn’t hit much better there than he did in Seattle over the years. 1982 was the last time Dan would play in more than 83 games in a season, as he played multiple positions and pinch hit for Billy Martin’s A’s in 120 games.

Dan got to witness some history though, as he was the first baseman for the Athletics in the game where Rickey Henderson broke the single season steals record in Milwaukee.

Oddly, Dan went hitless in that game. I say “oddly”, because he smacked the Brewers around quite well that season. In 7 games, he hit .400 and slugged .600.

The highlight of his season was probably not against the Harvey’s Wallbangers though. On April 13, he smacked 2 home runs against the Twins. That would be the final time he’d ever have a 2 HR game.

Which brings me to what’s so curious about Dan Meyer. He wasn’t a power hitter (tho he twice posted 20 HR seasons), posting a career .379 slugging percentage, but that completely changed when he’d face the Brewers, Red Sox, or Twins. 1/3 of his 89 career HR’s came against those 3 teams. Every one of his 2 HR games came against them too.

1. In ’74: against the Brewers (County Stadium)
2. In ’77: against the Twins (Metropolitan Stadium)
3. In ’80: against the Red Sox (Fenway Park)
4. In ’82: against the Twins (Metrodome)

It wasn’t a ballpark effect either, as each of those games took place in a different stadium.

Brian’s a mystery to me. Originally in the Texas Rangers organization, he was part of an 11 player trade in December 1980 with the Seattle Mariners. His first start for the Mariners was awful, giving up 8 ER’s in 6 1/3 against the visiting Brewers.

After that it’s puzzling. See, May 9 – June 10, he goes on this tear— 3-1, 2.59 ERA, 1 CG, holding batters to a mere .286 OBP, & allowing just 2 HR’s in 41 2/3 IP; then he never pitches in the majors again.

Seriously.

The Mariners never had him on the mound in the 2nd half of the 1981 season. He goes on this month long tear to finish off the first half of the 1981 season, sits around during the strike like everyone else, but doesn’t come back and doesn’t go to AAA. He just never made another appearance in a major league game.

He pops up in AAA in 1982 and posts a 9.12 ERA that summer. That’s in AAA. IN ’80 & ’81, he had a 3.14 & 1.29 ERA in AAA. Now he suddenly can’t pitch in AAA anymore?

Was he injured? I don’t know, I can’t find any record of a stint on the DL. Did the Mariners just not see he was starting to pitch well consistently? I don’t know. Why didn’t he pitch well in AAA anymore? I don’t know… but if he didn’t pitch for nearly a year, that could have affected his pitching mechanics and he might’ve been out of shape. I just don’t know about that either though.

Why? Because this photo is definitely in Yankee Stadium, and the Mariners made only 1 trip to New York that season. I wish I could know exactly which day it was, because Larry Andersen pitched 2 scoreless innings to finish the May 16th game. That would be pretty cool.

1981 was a good year for Larry. He’d played bits of 3 seasons in Cleveland during the late 1970′s, but finally became a major league regular in 1981 with Seattle. He posted a 2.66 ERA and a 1.108 WHIP out of the Mariners bullpen, so 1982 looked pretty promising.

His first 3 appearances in 1982 were very good; he didn’t allow a single run. Then he hit a real bad stretch from April 17 – May 19, where he earned a 7.62 ERA and allowed baserunners a .398 OBP and a 1.006 OPS. Then he returned to what you’d expect from him for about a month, earning a slim 1.80 ERA and allowing a .243 OBP. The rest of the season he was inconsistent and mostly bad. From June 26 – September 23, 1982, he posted a 6.81 ERA and allowed 1 HR per 3.8 IP over 19 appearances. His season as a whole, was the 19th worst ERA of the 1980′s for anyone tossing 75+ IP, at 5.99.

The Kingdome killed him that year, where he pitched to the tune of an 8.06 ERA there. On the road, he was pretty normal with a 3.34 ERA. It was like this in 1981 too, but not nearly as extreme… 3.86 in the Kingdome but 1.69 away from Seattle.

The ’82 season proved to be the worst of his career. The next season his ERA was down to just 2.39, and he pitched for the Phillies in the World Series! How ’bout that for a turn around? He did well too, earning a 2.25 ERA against the Orioles in that series. A few years later, pitching for Houston, he pitched well in the 1986 playoffs against another eventual World Champion, the Mets. He didn’t let the Mets score on him in that National League Championship Series.

And you’ve probably heard all about that Jeff Bagwell trade before. If I ever meet Larry Andersen, I’d ask him “how does it feel to be traded straight up for a Hall of Famer?”.

Somehow, Andersen eventually found his way back to the Phillies in time to make it to the World Series with them again in 1993. Even though his ERA for that season was 2.90, his stuff just wasn’t quite good enough in the playoffs. What can you expect from a 40 year old pitcher though? Not too many still have playoff calibre stuff at age 40.

Overall in his career, he was far better when he pitched in the NL than when he was an AL pitcher. In the senior circuit, he was 2 games over .500 and had a 2.85 ERA, good for a 129 ERA+. His days in the AL left him as a 3-4, 4.28 ERA pitcher. Yeah, there’s some ballpark factors in the differences between those numbers, but I like that it does show he had his moment in the sun, even if it was on astroturf.

A few interesting Larry Andersen career stats—

• 6.36 ERA in the Kingdome, worst of any place where he threw more than 2 innings.
• 2.09 ERA in the Astrodome, over 228 1/3 innings.
• Faced 506 batters when Craig Biggio was his catcher, only allowing hitters to slug .265
• 120 ERA+
• vs Expos, 6-1, 1.36 ERA
• vs Dodgers, 6-3, 1.87 ERA
• Only started 1 game in the majors (note: May 19, 1982 in Boston).
• 2.90 ERA in September/October.