Apropos of the Kubel discussion in today's Cup of Coffee, when SBG said that an .887 OPS might be the best for a DH in club history (this seems possible to me, too), I figured I would look up the OPS at DH for the Twins in each year they've had a DH. (This will include all of the players at that position, but should give us a good idea of which years were the strongest.)
.782 -- 2008
.737 -- 2007
.676 -- 2006
.710 -- 2005
.780 -- 2004
.777 -- 2003
.742 -- 2002
.799 -- 2001
.728 -- 2000
.754 -- 1999
.712 -- 1998
.752 -- 1997
.856 -- 1996
.793 -- 1995
.731 -- 1994
.742 -- 1993
.762 -- 1992
.898 -- 1991
.730 -- 1990
.736 -- 1989
.776 -- 1988
.760 -- 1987
.799 -- 1986
.756 -- 1985
.645 -- 1984
.757 -- 1983
.681 -- 1982
.545 -- 1981
.720 -- 1980
.672 -- 1979
.695 -- 1978
.701 -- 1977
.707 -- 1976
.692 -- 1975
.691 -- 1974
.727 -- 1973
First off, there are some pathetically bad performances in there. Even with the strike caveat regarding sample size, a .545 OPS from DH is unacceptable. And really, anything worse than the .676 RonDebacle+TynyDH is pretty awful.
As for good performances, we have:
Roy Smalley got the lion's share of DH time in 1986, and posted a .246/.342/.438, for a .780 OPS. League average at DH that year was .762 and the Dome was a slight hitter's park then, so really not a terribly impressive performance.
Chili Davis was the DH in 1991--150 games there--and posted a 141 OPS+. His raw line was .277/.385/.507, for an .892 OPS. League average was about .762 OPS, so that was a pretty studly season, and appears to be the best season by a DH in team history. I guess it's because he played only 2 years as a Twin, but considering how awful our DH's have been in general, it surprises me somewhat that he's not brought up more often by fans.
Paul Molitor hit .341/.390/.468 in 1996 for an .856 OPS. As good as that looks on its surface, that was more or less the peak of offense in baseball, and the league average line at DH was .831 that year. So Molitor's '96 really isn't any more impressive than Smalley's '86, but kudos to Molitor for hitting .341 as a 39-year-old.
In 2001, no one got over half the appearances at DH--Ortiz had the most games with 78, followed by Chad Allen at 22. League average at DH that year was .786, so the team average of .799 wasn't especially impressive.
And then last year, Kubes got most of the DH time, and he hit .272/.335/.471 overall for a .782 OPS against a league DH average of .775.
So really, Chili Davis' 1991 is the only season where the Twins have had a DH hit significantly above average for his position. If Kubel can get up to his career minor league line of .870-.880 OPS while the league average stays around .770-.780, he would essentially have the second good DH season in team history.
I went to look at the 1974 club to see what the story might have been behind that chilly performance. Tony O was the primary DH, hitting 285/325/414 for a 109 OPS+.
as a team, the Twins were first in BA, second in OBP, second in SLG, but only fifth in runs scored in the AL.
If 2008 (.782) and 1986 (.799) are considered good years, then shouldn't 1995 (.793) be as well?
Pedro Munoz led the team with 77 games as the DH, followed by Puckett (28), Chip Hale (27), Matt Merullo (13) and Kevin Maas (12). Munoz was in his final year as a Twin and his penultimate in MLB. As the DH he hit .303/.342/.486 in 310 PA. Kirby supplied a pretty good .336/.403/.439 line in 119 PA (his line in RF was even better - .309/.373/.539 in 464 PA). The other three who saw significant playing time at DH that year were predictably awful over 140 PA.
I just ran the numbers, isolating Munoz and Puckett's performance from the overall line:
If the Twins had just given the remaining PAs to someone capable of posting a (non-position adjusted) league average performance, those numbers would have been considerably better. Then again, that was probably a tall order in 1995.
Matt Merullo Kevin Maas...dang those are some players I totally forgot about