Don Sutton Forum

Another hit to the Dodgers and announcer family

Source?

Bleacher Report among others..  RIP to another HOF'er

I had to really dig to find it on ESPN's site, and no mention on MLB (?) yet.

He was such a talent, and funny guy (very entertaining on the original Match Game shows!)

Daron Sutton on Twitter: "Saddened to share that my dad passed away in his sleep last night. He worked as hard as anyone I’ve ever known and he treated those he encountered with great respect...and he took me to work a lot. For all these things, I am very grateful. Rest In Peace. https://t.co/cvlDRRdVXa" / Twitter

Tom Seaver, Whitey Ford, Bob Gibson, Phil Niekro and Don Sutton in five months, that's quite a rotation.

Bummer! Don was underrated and was a solid starter for many years here in L.A. Once, when I was in high school, he opened his home for a tour to raise money for a charity and I got to go inside and see all of his memorabilia. Very cool. He's probably shooting the breeze with Tommy Lasorda right about now.

This sucks.  I was at Dodger Stadium when Don Sutton pitched his last game in the majors in 1988.  The Dodgers soon after released him.  RIP Don Sutton.  He will be missed.

I had forgotten that the '88 Dodgers had cut him late in the season, which really stunk since they went on to win the W.S., a career accomplishment that eluded Sutton.  I looked up an article from the Oxnard Press-Courier (8/11/88) .. Dodgers said they cut him to make room for prospect Ramon Martinez, whose stats were no better than Sutton's at year-end.  By any objective measurement, Sutton was pitching better than Fernando V., but a mob would have stormed the stadium had they cut Fernando instead.

Don is the classic case of a compiler or accumulator (according to critics) ... the description of players who have watered down the baseball HOF by playing forever.  It's impossible keep out a 300+ game winner, but his career was strange because he was almost always was NOT the best pitcher on his teams.  Look it up:  Koufax, Drysdale, Singer, Osteen, Downing, Messersmith, Hooton, John and Sutcliffe all had better seasons at least once compared to Sutton during 1966-80, but only the first two are in the HOF.  Even when he topped the NL in ERA in 1980, three teammates (Reuss, Welch and Hooton) had more wins.

I wonder whatever happened to all those scuffed Sutton balls Sparky Anderson was collecting ... Ebay?!  How can anyone talk bad about '70s baseball?

They had Mario Soto on their roster as well, but he was still on the mend, and never actually played a game for the Dodgers.

Imagine in say 1983, you'd told a Dodger fan that you'd get Sutton back, and add Soto to go alongside Fernando in 1988, they'd agree that that is a World Series winning front end of a rotation!  But probably laugh if you'd suggest none of those three would be on the postseason roster for the run!