1992 Score Doug Piatt (#422) - Card of the Day
Be honest now — how many copies of the Doug Piatt rookie card did you stash away in 1992?
By then, I was only sorta kinda paying attention to baseball and the new issues, and I was pretty much over any Score hype that might have sucked me in back in 1988. So I don’t really even remember Piatt’s 1992 Score “Rookie Prospect” card.
But if he had debuted in 1986 instead of 1991 and landed on a Donruss Rated Rookie, I can assure you I would have hoarded every copy I could get my grubby, chubby little fingers on. Just ask Juan Nieves or Rick Surhoff.
And in the case of Piatt, there was at least some reason to think he’d stick around for a while.
First selected by the Cardinals in the third round of the January 1984 draft, Piatt decided to play baseball at Gulf Coast State College instead. Four years later, he signed as an amateur free agent with the Indians, who then flipped him to the Montreal Expos in 1989 for Rick Carriger.
Two years later, Piatt had climbed to Triple-A Indianapolis as a multi-innings right-handed reliever (and left-handed batter!) who struck out more than a batter per inning.
With the big league Expos fighting to stay out of the National League East cellar, they called Piatt up in June of 1991. From then until the end of the season, Piatt made 21 appearances for Montreal, posting a 2.60 ERA in 34.2 innings while striking out 29 and walking 17.
In modern parlance, that performance was worth 0.6 WAR according to Baseball Reference — not bad for a middle reliever on a last-place team.
The card companies noticed his performance, with Topps including him in their 1991 Traded set and 1992 base and Stadium Club sets, Donruss finding a 1992 slot for him, and, of course, Score giving him “prospect” status.
They’re all fine cards, but the Score feels especially period to me, with a design that screams early 1990s and a great shot of the Expos’ powder blues in action.
But all the low-key cardboard attention that Piatt garnered in 1992 didn’t amount to a hill of beans when it came to catching the attention he needed most. To wit, he spent the entire 1992 season in the minors, split between Double A and Triple A.
Granted, he made five starts for Harrisburg at the lower level, so maybe the Expos thought he was worthy of a conversion project.
Must not have worked out how they hoped because the Expos traded Piatt and Mark Gardner to the Royals for Jeff Shaw and Tim Spehr that December.
After two more minor league seasons — and zero starts — for Kansas City, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco, Piatt hopped over to independent ball and tormented hitters for another two summers.
He pitched his last pro game for the Waterbury Spirit in 1997.
And today, Doug Piatt turns 59 years old.
Spuds Safe…and Out…and Safe at Home
Piatt made his major league debut against my Reds on June 11, 1991. He came on to pitch the sixth inning with the Expos trailing 6-1, replacing Delino DeShields in the lineup and Bill Sampen on the mound (DeShields pinch hit for Sampen in the fifth).
Piatt struck out Joe Oliver and Norm Charlton, then coaxed Barry Larkin into a groundout for a 1-2-3 inning. The rookie stayed in the game in the seventh, again retiring the first two batters.
The third batter was Chris Sabo, though, and Spuds singled over the middle infielders…only to be thrown out trying to stretch a cheapo single into a double.
It was the first hit against Piatt, who nevertheless faced the minimum six batters in his two-inning debut.
Sabo would stay in Cincinnati through 1993, then swing through three other big league cities before landing back on the Riverfront to finish out his career in 1996.
As has been the case for many moments in Reds’ history, Kahn’s (yes, the hot dog people) was there to commemorate Sabo’s homecoming.
Read all about it right here.
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Piatt’s strikeout profile would look right at home in today’s game. You have to wonder if we’d have seen a lot more of him if his parents could have held him in reserve for another 25 or 30 years.
And Sabo’s walk-ability would play pretty well today, too. Who knows: maybe the two can reunite in an obscure old-timers game somewhere along the way.
You know, for old (and new) times’ sake.
Thanks for reading.
—Adam
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