Best Of The Oakland Athletics: Top 10 Seasons At Designated Hitter
By Phil Watson
Golden Gate Sports resumes its recap of some of the best single-season performances in the history of the Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants as we anticipate Opening Day.
Today, we look at the 10 best seasons by designated hitters in the history of the Athletics, dating back to the implementation of the DH rule in the American League in 1973.
This is the 12th and final installment in the series on the A’s and will conclude with the best players by position in the history of each franchise. So far, we’ve featured the 10 best seasons for the A’s at shortstop, catcher, left field, second base, center field, third base, right field, first base and for utility players, starting pitchers and relief pitchers.
To qualify for this list, the player needed a minimum of 100 games at the position in question and this requirement was not prorated for the strike-shortened seasons of 1981 or 1994.
Before you turn the page, here are the five seasons that just missed the cut:
15. Jeff Burroughs, 1983
14. Dave Parker, 1989
13. Hideki Matsui, 2011
12. Dave Kingman, 1985
11. Harold Baines, 1992