Remembering Jose DeLeon - a Cardinal Anomoly.

by glamboomer on Nov 23, 2007 6:15 PM EST

My friends / co-workers were just playing a baseball trivia guessing game thing that we do all the time & the question I posed was:
"Who led the National League in strikeouts in 1989?"

The answer, of course, is our own Jose DeLeon with 201 K's!
http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/SO_p_leagues.shtml
If you look closely, he's the last Cardinal pitcher to lead the league in strikeouts & was the first one since Gibby in '68 to do so..

I remember how much I liked DeLeon at the time; how he had that deliberate, low-leg lift and slinged the ball towards home plate, definately a Latin thing. If I recall correctly, he had a low-mid 90's tailing fastball & a killer forkball, as well as a lollipop curve & a slider that would flatten out sometimes to obviously bad results..

In digging a little deeper, I found out DeLeon's line while with the Redbirds over 4 3/4 years:
43 W / 57 L / 3.59 ERA / 7.5 K per 9 / 3.5 BB per 9 / .65 HR per 9 / 7.63 H per 9 / 1.24 WHIP
(Geez.. here's the link...)
http://www.baseballmusings.com/cgi-bin/PitcherInfo.py?StartDate=07%2F23%2F1983&EndDate=09%2F18%2 F1995&GameType=all&PlayedFor=28&PlayedVs=0&Park=0&PlayerID=100684

Looking at his peripherals, he looks like exactly the sort of pitcher that the Cardinals never ever have, which might explain why he stands out so much in my memory. He struck guys out; he didn't give up many hits & he didn't give up many home runs, while also walking maybe a few too many guys.. Sort of the anti-Tewksbury, if you will.. More like a Kelvim Escobar guy...

Whitey pulled off the trade to get him, sending Lance Johnson & Rick Horton to the White Sox before the '88 pennant defense..

Another oddity about DeLeon was that he was a Latin starting pitcher for the Cardinals, something that we haven't really had around these parts for a long time, if memory serves me correctly. Other than Andujar, can you remember the last good Latin stater we had? I can't.. The only thing I remember is Jose Jimenez's no-hitter..

I guess this diary is a comment on a few things:

Just how bad / non-existant our Latin programs were in the 80's / 90's..

How the Cardinals have failed to really produce anyone like DeLeon, other than Ankiel.. And we didn't even produce DeLeon!

Pitchers like DeLeon haven't really been targeted by the Cardinals in free agency or through trades for some reason... We seem to have had a policy of "pitching to contact" since Steve Carlton was let go 35 years ago...

I don't know. I just saw his name & all sorts of good memories came back to me...
Share some good Jose memories if you want or tell me that my glasses are certainly too rose-covered..

http://www.baseball-reference.com/d/deleojo01.shtml

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/dt/deleojo01.php

Boomer.

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Minor trivia

Anyone notice something unusal about the year 1991 on this page?:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/STL/

The St. Louis Cardinals- 11 time World Champions!

by Zubin on Nov 23, 2007 6:13 PM EST reply actions

1991

Yeah, Felix Jose led the team in OPS that year while DeLeon lead the team in ERA. The two names next to each other came out 'Jose DeLeon'. Wouldn't have notice if you had not pointed it out.

by jjray on Nov 23, 2007 6:20 PM EST reply actions

DeLeon

My memories of Jose, perhaps blurred over time, are of a fairly decent pitcher who had an uncanny ability to lose games.

Perhaps the bullpen was so bad that he was never protected but my memories of him are of frustration.

by Hinkster on Nov 24, 2007 8:31 AM EST reply actions

I remember

the same thing.

The King of the 1 run loss.

He could lose 1-0 or 2-1

and just to mix things up he could lose 3-2 and 4-3 but that would require the Cards to score 3 runs and that didn't happen all that often...at least that's how I remember it.

by Harknights on Nov 24, 2007 1:07 PM EST up reply actions

DeLeon

He pitched a game against Cincinnati in late August---he went eleven innings, gave up one hit, no walks, and the base runner was erased on a double play, so DeLeon faced 33 batters--and he left with the score tied 0-0.

What a memorable game.

by juggler on Nov 27, 2007 11:25 PM EST up reply actions