Dodgers Dugout: The 25 greatest Dodgers of all time, No. 20: Mike Piazza

Hi, and welcome to another edition of Dodgers Dugout. My name is Houston Mitchell as we continue the top 25 countdown. We will discuss the Dodgers-Braves series in Tuesday’s newsletter, after everyone has had a chance to let their emotions settle. (Spoiler: Losing three of four doesn’t mean the end of the world like some fans think.)

Readers voted in droves, submitting 15,212 ballots by email, Twitter and Facebook. Voters were asked for their top 10 Dodgers in order from 1 to 10, with first place receiving 12 points, second place nine points, third place eight, all the way down to one point for 10th place.

The last time we did this was in 2018, and there were some changes in the rankings.

So, without further ado:

The 25 greatest Dodgers, No. 20: MIKE PIAZZA (7,321 points)
2018 rank: 19th

The Dodgers chose Mike Piazza in the 62nd round of the 1988 draft, the 1,390th player picked overall. No one picked that low has had a career like Piazza’s, but it’s a bittersweet one for Dodgers fans.

Piazza made his major league debut near the end of the 1992 season and won Rookie of the Year in 1993 after hitting .318 with 35 home runs and 112 RBIs.

Amazingly enough, Piazza played only five full seasons with the Dodgers, but what seasons they were. After his 1993 season, he hit .319, .346, .336 and .362 and finished in the top 10 in MVP voting in each of those seasons. His best season was his final full season, 1997, when he hit .362 with 40 homers and 124 RBIs.

Piazza’s contract was scheduled to run out after the 1998 season, and he was due a large increase in salary. Negotiations turned ugly, and the Dodgers, then owned by Fox, wanted to make a statement. So, on May 15, 1998, they traded the best-hitting catcher in history to the Florida Marlins, along with Todd Zeile, for Gary Sheffield, Charles Johnson, Bobby Bonilla, Jim Eisenreich and Manuel Barrios.

Piazza’s final Dodgers numbers: a .331 average, 177 home runs and a .572 slugging percentage.

The Dodgers and Piazza had a strained relationship for years, but that melted some when Piazza thanked the Dodgers during his Hall of Fame induction speech in 2016, when he said, “It truly was an honor and privilege to be drafted, signed and developed by the Los Angeles Dodgers. Mr. Peter O’Malley was a wonderful owner, was a tremendous family man who prided himself in the best possible atmosphere to play baseball in an otherwise quiet town of Vero Beach. I will always be eternally grateful for the opportunity.”

Of course, Piazza did go into the Hall as a Met, which proves that nobody is perfect.

There seems to be a misconception about Piazza, that he wasn’t really very good and that’s why he wasn’t drafted until the 62nd round in 1989 (and even then as a favor the Tommy Lasorda, who was a friend of Vince Piazza).

Baseball dominated Piazza’s thoughts when he was a child growing up. He constantly hit baseballs off a tee in the basement of the house he grew up in, hitting them into a mattress set up by his dad, Vince. He seemed to be a natural hitter. Vince once arranged for Ted Williams to visit Mike, when Mike was 13. Williams watched him hit for a few minutes and said “I guarantee you, this kid will hit the ball. I never saw anyone who looked better at his age.” He gave Mike a copy of his book, “The Science of Hitting.” It wasn’t until after he left the Mike noticed the inscription: “To Mike, follow this book. As good as you look now, I’ll be asking you for tickets.”

Piazza hit .442 in high school, but drew little interest from scouts because he was a terrible fielder. He went to a community college in Florida and hit .364. He was mainly a first baseman, but Lasorda convinced him he needed to focus on catching to make it to the majors. Lasorda told the Dodger scout who signed him that he was a catcher. Piazza volunteered to go to the Dodgers’ baseball academy in the Dominican Republic to improve as a catcher. He was the first U.S.-born player to attend the academy.

He quickly moved through the minors because, while he was never more than average behind the plate, he was the best hitter in the system. He was a September callup in 1992 and went three for three in his first start. It looked like the beginning of a lengthy Dodgers career. But it wasn’t. It was long enough to make him the 20th greatest Dodger of all time though.

Previously

No. 21: Don Newcombe

No. 22: Mookie Betts

No. 23 Dazzy Vance

No. 24: Kirk Gibson

No. 25: Eric Gagne

And finally

Mike Piazza hits a homer out of Dodger Stadium. Watch and listen here.