Baltimore Orioles: Brady Anderson from leadoff hitter to… home run hitter?

In ’96, Baltimore Orioles OF Brady Anderson hit the weight room (and the HGH aisle?) and hit baseballs out of every MLB park he came within 100 miles of.

Now, why did Baltimore Orioles outfielder Brady Anderson go and get mad before the 1996 season? Did he forget he was a leadoff hitter who was paid to slap singles and steal bases?

Prior to the 1996 season, Anderson had carved out a nice eight-year baseball career up to that point. He’d been an All-Star and he’d stolen an amazing 53 bases one year.

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I kind of feel bad calling him a slap singles hitter as he was kind of a gap doubles hitter who could leg out a few triples. Then he up and got greedy, by adding hitting home runs to his arsenal.

Anderson, a self-proclaimed fitness fanatic, beefed up even more than he was and took a new perspective to the plate in 1996. Confidence in his abilities. His mental game caught up to his physical attributes and he began to smash home runs. At an unprecedented pace for a leadoff hitter.

It was 1996. Balls were juiced. Arms were juiced. Expansion had diluted down the pitching talent (I mean Anthony Young and his 15-48 record was still pitching).

Prior to then, Anderson had a career-high of home runs in a season of 21 and in the previous three seasons had hit 41 total. Solid power numbers for a leadoff hitter.

In 1996 Brady Anderson hit 50 home runs. He drove in 110 runs. He hit a career-high 37 doubles. He hit a career-high .297. His OPS was 200 points higher than it had ever been before.

Crazy numbers from a leadoff hitter. His 50 home runs were second in the league to Mark McGwire.

What did Anderson and McGwire have in common? Sure wasn’t a history of power hitting.

If you put the guys in a lineup who had the top five OPS of players in 1996 who received MVP votes, Anderson would stick out like a sore thumb. McGwire (tied to steroids), Frank Thomas (a behemoth from day one), Jim Thome (also a Paul Bunyon type from good stock), Alex Rodriguez (tied to steroids), and Anderson, which one does not belong?

Whatever the reason for Brady Anderson putting up the numbers he did in ’96, he couldn’t replicate them again. He never hit .297 or better again. He never drove in close to 110 runs again. His top home run total after that was the 24 he popped in 1999.

I won’t go as far as to say Anderson was on the juice and that propelled him to such great power feats. What I will say is whatever he did to hit those home runs that year, karma came back to get him when Jeffrey Maier aided that Yankees home run ball crushing the Baltimore Orioles World Series hopes.