Andrés Galarraga

Andrés José Padovani Galarraga
Galarraga in 2002
First baseman
Born on: June 18, 1961
Strikes: right	Throws: right
Debut in Major League Baseball
August 23,  1985  at the  Montreal Expos
Last MLB assignment
October 3,  2004  at the  Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
MLB statistics (until end of career)
Batting average	, 288
Hits	2,333
Home runs	399
RBI	1,425
Teams
Montreal Expos (1985-1991) St. Louis Cardinals (1992) Colorado Rockies (1993-1997) Atlanta Braves (1998, 2000) Texas Rangers (2001) San Francisco Giants (2001) Montreal Expos (2002) San Francisco Giants (2003) Anaheim Angels (2004)
Awards
All-Star Game 1988, 1993, 1997, 1998, 2000 Gold Glove 1989, 1990 Silver Slugger Award 1988, 1996 MLB Comeback Player of the Year 2000

Andrés José Padovani Galarraga (born June 18, 1961 in Caracas , Venezuela ) is a former major league baseball player . During his active career in one of the two US American premier leagues, he played for the Montreal Expos (1985-1991 and 2002), St. Louis Cardinals (1992), Colorado Rockies (1993-1997), Atlanta Braves (1998-2000) , Texas Rangers (2001), San Francisco Giants (2001 and 2003) and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (2004), where he always played the position of first baseman . He hit and threw with his right hand.

Galarraga began his career as a professional baseball player in Venezuela at the age of 16. With a height of 1.91 m and a weight of 117 kg, he was nicknamed El Gato ( translated by his American teammates as The Big Cat ), which indicates one in particular Unusual agility for his height and mass was due to his playing position. He was appointed during his career five times in an All-Star team and won the National League twice the Gold Glove Award and twice the Silver Slugger Award . After successfully undergoing treatment for cancer , he won the MLB Comeback Player of the Year award .

Career

The beginnings in Venezuela

Galarraga began in the 1978-1979 season with the Leones del Caracas as a catcher and third baseman . On the recommendation of the manager Felipe Alou, he was signed by the Montreal Expos in 1979 . Previously, some MLB scouts had expressed doubts as to whether Galarraga was suitable for a professional career given his body weight.

Minor Leagues

In the minor leagues Galarraga was in West Palm Beach (1979, 1982-1983), Calgary (1979-1980), Jamestown (1981), Jacksonville (1984) and Indianapolis (1985) for use.

He got his ticket as an MLB player after the 1984 season as a Double-A-Southern-League-Most-Valuable-Player with a batting average of .289, 27 home runs and 87 RBIs . During this time he also led the league in the categories total bases (271), slugging percentage (.508), intentional base on balls (10), hit by pitches (9), double plays (130) and total chances (1428) in first place. Before starting his game at the Montreal Expos, he completed his final minor league season in Indianapolis as Rookie of the Year in the Triple-A International League .

Montreal Expos 1985-1991

Galarraga made his game debut on August 23, 1985. The season was mixed with a batting average of .187, two home runs and four RBIs in 24 games. The following season got off to a better start. Galarraga topped the list of National League rookies with 25 RBIs when a knee injury forced him to sit out. After a successful operation, he returned to the current game, only to have to sit on the bench again injured in the first game after the injury break. He finished the season with a batting average of .271 on 10 home runs and 42 RBIs in 105 games.

The 1987 season went much better, he achieved a batting average of .305, 13 home runs, 90 RBIs and finished the season as second best in the doubles category (40). Despite his size, he showed solid defensive performance, the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals Whitey Herzog commented on his defensive game with the words "the best right-handed fielder on first base that I have seen since Gil Hodges ".

In the 1988 season Galarraga was able to increase his performance and rose to the best player of the Expos. He finished the season as the Montreal Expos Player of the Year with a batting average of .302, 99 runs, 92 RBIs and 29 home runs. He also led the league in the hits (184) and doubles (42) categories and was appointed to an all-star team for the first time.

Despite the success of the preseason, Galarraga was often the target of frustration among fans of the Montreal Expos during the 1989 season. That season he led the league in strikeouts (158), pushing his batting average to .257 with 23 home runs and 85 RBIs. If he had just told five more RBIs, he would have been the first Expos player to have 90 or more RBIs in three consecutive seasons. Despite these unsatisfactory performances, Galarraga achieved his first Grand Slam homerun this season , reached the home base for the first time with a steal and was awarded the Gold Glove Award for his game as first baseman .

The 1990 season was similar for Galarraga, with a batting average of .256 on 20 home runs and 87 RBIs. For the third season in a row, he led the league after strikeouts, the pitchers of the opposing teams had figured out how to use his impatience when striking in their favor. Despite the unsatisfactory values ​​in the offensive game, Galarraga showed an excellent game on the defensive, caught numerous unclean throws by his teammates, often started 3-6-3 plays ( double play ) and won his second Gold Glove Award. He also reached a six-RBI game, two four-RBI games and hit his first inside-the-park home run.

Due to injuries, the 1991 season was Galarraga's worst offensive season. Due to his injury breaks, the defensive game of the Expos also suffered considerably with 43 infield errors in 53 games without him. Galarraga ended the season with a batting average of .219 on nine home runs and 33 RBIs and was sold to the St. Louis Cardinals in exchange for starting pitcher Ken Hill.

St. Louis Cardinals 1992

In St. Louis, Galarraga got another chance. Early in the season, however, he broke his wrist from a pitch that he couldn't avoid in time. Convalescence lasted well into July. Still, he reached a batting average of .296 after the All-Star hiatus and ended the season with a batting average of .243 on ten home runs and 39 RBIs. These performances left an impression on the batting coach and later Rockies manager Don Baylor, who recommended the Colorado Rockies to sign the contractless Galarraga.

Colorado Rockies 1993-1997

In the 1993 season, Galarraga was able to demonstrate his playfulness again and closed the season with a batting average of .370 after being just below the .400 mark for a large part of the season. He led the National League statistics in the batting average category and showed the highest value for a right-handed batter since Joe DiMaggio in 1939.

Despite 42 missed games due to injury, he had 56 games with more than one hit, 22 home runs, 98 RBIs, 71 runs, 35 doubles, four triples, an on-base percentage of .403 and a slugging percentage of .602, the second best Value of this category in the league.

The significant improvement in Galarraga's offensive game resulted from a strong change in his standing by the manager Baylor in order to be able to react more quickly to inside pitches. The changed stance also enabled him to carry more force on the ball, while also being able to see the pitcher with both eyes, which led to significantly fewer strikeouts and gave his game more consistency. Galarrage finished tenth in the MVP selection and won The Sportin News magazine's Comeback Player of the Year award. After the season, he had to undergo knee surgery for the third time.

In the 1994 season shortened due to the strike, Galarraga set a record in the National League by scoring 30 RBIs in one month. It looked like he was going to have a glamorous season when he broke his right hand on July 28th. Until this injury, the Rockies held second place with only a minimal gap to the leading Los Angeles Dodgers . Without him, however, these successes could not continue. Galarraga ended the season with a batting average of .319 on 31 home runs and 85 RBIs.

On June 25, 1995 Galarraga got three home runs in three consecutive innings , which he set an existing MLB record. He ended the season with a batting average of .280 on 31 home runs and 106 RBIs, helped by the fact that he was able to play an injury-free season for the first time in four years. That season, four Rockies players scored 30 or more home runs each, breaking the 1977 Los Angeles Dodgers record . On August 29 of this season, Galarraga prevented a no-hitter from pitcher Paul Wagner by scoring a single in the ninth inning with two outs.

In the years that followed, Galarraga developed into one of the best players in the RBIs category, bringing home a total of 396 runs in the 1996–1998 seasons (150, 140, 121), with a batting average of .279,. 303 and .318 on 31, 47 and 41 home runs. Critics believed that the thin air and high altitude of Coors Field , where the Rockies play their games, would have favored these performances. Nonetheless, Galarraga achieved numerous successes as a batter in foreign stadiums, including a Grand Slam home run twenty rows deep into the top tier of the Marlins ' Pro Player Stadium in Miami in the 1997 season .

Towards the end of the 1998 season, the Rockies let Galarraga move to make way for up-and-coming player Todd Helton on the position of first baseman . By the time he left the Rockies, he had scored the most home runs (172) and RBIs (579) in the club's history. As a free agent , Galarraga signed a three-year contract with the Atlanta Braves .

Atlanta Braves 1998-2000

During the 1998 season, Galarraga silenced his critics by proving that he could play his strength at the lower level of turner field, averaging a batting average of .305 on 44 home runs and 121 RBIs. Galarraga became the first player in Major League history to score 40 or more home runs for two different clubs in consecutive seasons.

During Spring Training in 1999, Galarraga complained of persistent back pain. These were treated with massages, stretching exercises and other measures, but did not disappear. An oncological examination with an MRI finally led to the diagnosis that non-Hodgkin lymphoma had formed in the lower back . As a result, Galarraga had to undergo chemotherapy and was out for the entire 1999 season. His former teammate Vinny Castilla of the Colorado Rockies changed his shirt number from 9 to 14 during therapy to give Galarraga moral support.

Galarraga returned to the Spring Training 2000 in good physical and mental health. On the first day of the regular season he scored a home run in his third at-bat , which also meant his team's victory. By the end of the season, Galarraga had a batting average of .302 on 28 home runs and 100 RBIs. For the second time, he received the National League Comeback Player of the Year Award from The Sporting News magazine.

At the end of the season, Galarraga asked the owners of the Braves for a two-year contract, but there was only a willingness to sign him for another year. Because of this, Galarraga signed a two-year contract with the Texas Rangers as a free agent and moved to the American League .

Texas Rangers, San Francisco Giants, and return to the Montreal Expos 2001-2003

The move to the other major league had a strong effect on the morale and skill level of the former high performer. At the age of 40 he found himself in a different league with unknown pitchers and as a reserve player for the star in his position Rafael Palmeiro . After Galarraga was used mainly as a designated hitter and pinch-hitter and only occasionally as a starter against left-handed pitchers, the Rangers sold him in the middle of the season with a batting average of .235 on ten home runs and 34 RBIs in view of disappointing game performance in 72 games to the San Francisco Giants .

In 2002 Galarraga signed a contract with the Montreal Expos and returned to the Giants for the 2003 season. As a sporadic player in the major league, he achieved a batting average of .301 on twelve home runs and 42 RBIs.

Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim 2004

In the 2004 season, Galarraga's cancer relapsed, which is why he had to undergo two three-week chemotherapy and another 23-day inpatient hospital stay. For the second time he was able to defeat the disease and began to play again for the triple AAA minor league team of the Angels Salt Lake Bees in Salt Lake City . In September he made the jump back to the Major Leagues, where he was rarely used. He again managed a home run to his 399 scores over his career.

New York Mets 2005

When Galarraga again did not have a contract for a professional team, the New York Mets invited him to spring training for the 2005 season to examine the 43-year-old's performance. Galarraga demonstrated his offensive playing power with three home runs, but was much more cautious in the defensive game. On March 29, 2005, during spring practice, Galarraga announced that the time had come "to give a younger player a chance to play" and closed his career with a batting average of .288 on 399 home runs and 1,425 RBIs. With only one missing home run on the 400, Galarraga took 36th place on the all-time best list at the time of his retirement.

Personal

Galarraga has been married to Eneyda Rodriguez since 1984. The couple has three daughters. Galarraga currently lives in West Palm Beach , Florida .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ August 29, 1995 Colorado Rockies at Pittsburgh Pirates Box Score and Play by Play | Baseball-Reference.com. In: Baseball-Reference.com. Retrieved October 24, 2016 . 
2. ↑ MLB: COL @ MIA: Galarraga's tape-measure grand slam. April 28, 2013, accessed October 24, 2016 . 
3. ↑ TonyAlmeyda: Whatever happened to ... Andres Galarraga? In: Talking Chop. April 4, 2016. Retrieved October 24, 2016 . 
4. ↑ Andres Galarraga Stats, Fantasy & News. In: Major League Baseball. Retrieved October 24, 2016 .