Cardboard and Random Facts From 1996 Part 2

If you missed Part 1, you can find it here.  

Gus Kennedy- Led the 1996 Bulls with 20 home runs 

Kerry Ligtenberg- Saved 30 games for the 1998 Braves 

Ray Nunez- Played parts of two seasons with the Bulls and never hit below .300 

Chris Schmitt- According to Baseball Reference, he actually went by the name Jo Jo 

Marc Lewis- Was traded to the Braves from the Red Sox for Mike Stanton 

Wes Helms- Played over 1,200 games for the Braves, Brewers, Phillies, and Marlins

Tony Wood- 1996 was his final season as a professional baseball player, he never hit a home run in three years in the Minors.  

Mike Mahoney- Has one career Major League home run, which he hit off of Mark Prior as a member of the 2005 Cardinals.  

Coaches Card- Had no idea that Max Venable worked for the Bulls.  

Luis Brito- Played for the Durham Bulls and Carolina Mudcats

Pascual Matos- Played six career games in the Majors for the Braves, and got his lone hit in his last game against Doug Henry.  The hit drove in Andruw Jones, who was his teammate on the 1996 Bulls.

Sean Smith- He is from Oconomowoc, Wisconsin.  Sounds like a cool place, but apparently it's just outside of Milwaukee.

Danny Magee- Was picked one spot ahead of Scott Speizio in the 1993 MLB Draft

Edward Cordero- In his first full season in the Minor Leagues, 1995, he had has many stolen bases as he had RBIs.  Sounds like a stat that a 1980s Cardinals player would have.  

Mike Eaglin- Still works in baseball for New Balance, the shoe company.  He has also worked as a scout for the Twins

Ron Wright- Went back to college after his baseball career and now works as a dentist.

Project Durham Bulls #17: Wes Helms

1996 Durham Bulls 

Background- 

Wes Helms is a North Carolina native, from Gastonia which is near Charlotte, and ended up on the Durham Bulls two years after being drafted out of high school by the Atlanta Braves.  Helms had a pretty good year in 1995 while playing for the Macon Braves in the South Atlantic League, but his real breakout year in the Minors took place in Durham during 1996.  He started the year with the Bulls in the Carolina League and only stayed for a total of 67 games.  He posted a .322/.367/.562 slash line with 13 home runs, 19 doubles, and 54 RBIs.  Pretty impressive line over basically half of a season.  Helms reached the Majors for the first time in 1998, but only stayed for 7 games.  He returned again for 6 games in 2000 before he stuck with Atlanta for good in 2001.  Helms ended up playing a total of 13 seasons in the Majors with most of his time coming with the Braves and Marlins.    He also had stops with the Brewers and Phillies.  

Card-

This is the second Best autograph that I have posted in my Project Durham Bulls posts.  The first being a Randall Simon autograph a few weeks ago.  While there are a bunch of these 1990s Minor League sets with a lot of no frills autographs, that are kind of dumpster dives at this point, they are great if you are trying to find cards of a particular team.  I am spreading out my Durham Bulls posts a bit, I am not going to do one everyday and miss out on talking about other cards, but in trying to assemble cards for my collection, these have been really helpful sets.  While you can find these cards in the fifty-cent bin at card shows, there are actually a surprising number of players who are in these sets who actually made it the Majors and were there for awhile.  Wes Helms was never an All-Star or anything, but he stuck around for 13 years and played in more than 1200 games.  

Friday 5: Top 5 Durham Bulls Third Basemen

5.  Evan Longoria 

Longoria gets the nod onto my top 5 Durham Bulls third basemen list based on his impact at the next level.  Longo for 31 games in 2007 and 7 games in 2008.  He also made an appearance in Durham in 2012 for an injury rehab assignment.  All totaled Longoria has only played 48 games in Triple A and has 197 plate appearances.  His line is a lackluster .245/.381/.390 with 5 home runs, 8 doubles, and 23 RBIs.  His original appearance in 2007, .269/.398/.490, was weighed down by the two smaller appearances.  Despite the lack of numbers, there can be no doubt that Longoria has been the face of the Rays franchise during the past 7 years and should end up leading the franchise in almost every offensive category before his career is finished in Tampa.  Longo is already the franchise's all-time leader in oWAR, dWAR, slugging, home runs, and RBIs.  Many of the other counting number statistics are just a matter of time.  Although Carl Crawford's 409 steals look pretty safe.

4.  Wes Helms 

Helms also had a brief stay in Durham, but had a little bit more of an impact playing for the Bulls.  The Gastonia, North Carolina native played 67 games for the Carolina League affiliate in the summer of 1996 and posted a .322/.367/.562 line with 13 home runs, 19 doubles, and 54 RBIs.  Pretty impressive offensive numbers for just 278 plate appearances.  The success in Durham propelled Helms status from a solid prospect to a Baseball America Top 100 Prospect entering the 1997 season.  The numbers were not quite as good for the third baseman through Double and Triple A, but Helms did end up enjoying a solid 13 year Major League career spent mainly with the Braves, Phillies, and Marlins.

3.  Steve Demeter 

The only International League Hall of Famer on my list of great Durham Bulls third basemen is right here.  Demeter was a Durham Bulls player, in the Tigers farm system during the summer of 1954.  That summer the Bulls third baseman hit .307/.333/.545 with 23 home runs, 111 RBIs, 48 doubles, and 7 triples.  Easily one of the best individual efforts turned in by a third baseman in Bulls history.  However, the Tigers decided to use the great numbers posted by Demeter in the minors to help them land Cleveland Indians slugger Norm Cash.  Demeter spent most of his career in the Minors, but did appear in the Majors for four games.  Meanwhile, Cash went on the win a batting crown and hit 377 home runs in his career.  One of the more one-sided trades in baseball history, but Demeter had a great minor league career, hitting 272 home runs, primarily with the Rochester Red Wings and later as a coach in the Pittsburgh Pirates managing both the Charleston Charlies and the Buffalo Bisons.  He is also the grandfather of Marlins infielder Derek Dietrich.

2.  Aubrey Huff 

Huff played for the Durham Bulls during the 2000, 2001, and 2002 seasons.  The majority of his time spent in Durham occurred during the 200 season when he posted a .316/.394/.566 line with 20 home runs, 36 doubles, and 76 RBIs in just 108 games.  His later trips to Durham were not only a small number of games, but Huff spent a fair amount of time playing first base during those appearances.  Similar to Helms, Huff's excellent 2000 season posted his status with the Baseball America rankings moving from 98th before 2000 all the way up to 43rd before the 2001 season.  Huff Daddy went on to enjoy a 13 year Major League career with the Rays, Astros, Orioles, Tigers, and Giants.  His stop with the Giants netted him two World Series rings, winning one in each 2010 and 2012.  Aubrey Huff ended his career with 242 home runs, 360 doubles, 1699 hits, and 904 RBIs.

1.  Scott McClain 

Scott McClain was a great Minor League third baseman in the late 90s into the 2000s before his career ended with the Fresno Giants in 2009.  I am giving McClain the top spot on my list because he had two great years for the Durham Bulls.  McClain set the Durham Bulls Triple A career home run record which he owned until 1999 when Chris Richard passed him by at 63.   His best year as a Bull took place in 1998 when he hit 34 home runs, 35 doubles, 109 RBIs with a .299/.385/.589 line.  Those are excellent numbers most years and would at least get you in the conversation for the MVP.  McClain actually ended up finishing in the International League that season in OPS.  Reds farm hand Roberto Petagine ended up taking home the award that season.  In 1999 McClain's numbers slide down to .251/.341/.475 with 28 home runs, 33 doubles, and 104 RBIs.  While he did not duplicate his 1998 season, those numbers are still really good and separate him out from the other players on my list of Top 5 Durham Bulls Third Basemen.