The Greatest Reds: #60 - #56

60. Bubbles Hargrave

After several years split between major and minor league time as a very weak-hitting catcher, the light turned on as a 26-year-old playing for St. Paul of the American Association. Hargrave proved the worth of his bat there in two consecutive seasons and the Reds snapped him up, and continued his path towards becoming a great-hitting catcher, including two seasons just around a 150 OPS+. Over his eight seasons with the Reds, Hargrave averaged 96 games played, with a 122 OPS+.

59. Ken Raffensberger

In June of 1947, the Phillies and Reds swapped a pair of backup catchers nearing the end of their careers. And the Phils threw in Raffensberger—at that point a 29-year-old journeyman, junkballing pitcher who had a career ERA that was around league average, but a W-L record that was awful—consistent with that of his team. In the ’47 season, Raffensberger had a dreadful first half, so he was shipped off…and became a workhorse #1 pitcher for a team that was also terrible (Raffensberger was a full-time Red in six full seasons…and the Reds never once won as many as 70 games in that stretch). A control pitcher who routinely finished in the top ten in innings pitched, Raffensberger barely topped 500 strikeouts in almost 1500 innings with the Reds. He finished 93 of the 205 games he started as a Red, and despite a 112 ERA+ in Cincy, only had a record of 89-99.

58. Bobby Tolan

After shrewdly trading Vada Pinson for Tolan and Wayne Granger prior to the 1969 season, the Reds had a clear superstar on their hands: a defensive hawk who put up OPS+ seasons of 124 and 126 in 1969 and 1970, respectively—Tolan’s age 23 and 24 years. A Brock2 projection after the 1970 season would have shown rough career estimates of 250 HR, 2700 hits, and 1400 runs scored. Instead, Tolan blew out his achilles tendon in that offseason playing basketball and missed all of 1971. While he came back for a more-than-respectable 1972 season, his ’73 was awful, and his career with the Reds was done—hastened by his own squabbles with management. We’ll never truly know if his career would have looked considerably different had he not missed that crucial age-25 season. We do know that his career was "supposed" to turn out better than 86 HR, 1121 hits, and 572 runs.

57. Arlie Latham

Latham was a volatile personality, known for setting lit firecrackers on the field and letting ground balls run past him as he stood still without making an attempt to catch them. Fortunately for the Reds, Latham was also known for running wild on the bases, totaling 337 steals in just 696 games with Cincy, including a career high of 87 in 1891. That year, despite his pedestrian batting average of .272, Latham finished 9th in the NL in walks—leading to a team high 119 runs scored and an OPS+ of 120.

56. Bob Purkey

A knuckleballer with excellent control, Purkey was a consistent innings-eater (from 1958 to 1962, Purkey averaged over 250 innings per year), who was good enough to be a solid contributor to a pennant winner (#3 starter in 1961), and had one great season in him (1962: 23-5, 288.1 IP, 2.81 ERA, 143 ERA+, 64 BB, 141 K) that netted him a 3rd place finish in the ML Cy Young Award voting (behind some scrub named "Drysdale"). While Purkey was involved with two trades involving the Reds, the timing for Cincy was impeccable (he managed 103 of his 129 career victories with the club).