Dodgers: 3 players who resurrected their careers in Los Angeles

Los Angeles has turned out to be a place of resurrection for several Dodgers players who proved their careers had second life.

Whether you celebrate Easter Sunday, or not, it is a good day to think about second chances, redemption, resurrection. Which is to say, if you’re a baseball fan, it is a good day to think about players who were once counted out, only to return, and prove they still could get the job done.

The Dodgers have been blessed with a long history of players who have rejuvenated their careers in Los Angeles. Ten players have won Comeback Player of the Year for the Boys in Blue. From Phil Regan in 1966 to Jerry Reuss in 1980 to Orel Hershiser in 1991, comeback stories span all decades.

Perhaps the most famous return being from Tommy John, whose name has become synonymous with elbow surgery. After winning 29 games in 1973 and 1974 for the Dodgers, the left-hander underwent a revolutionary surgery to repair the ulnar collateral ligament in his pitching arm.

After missing the entire 1975 season, he proved the surgical technique to be successful when he returned to the mound in 1976, winning ten games over 31 starts, with a 3.09 ERA. He would go on to pitch 14 more seasons in the Majors. In 1977, he won 20 games for the Dodgers, finishing second in Cy Young voting.

In thinking about the list of players to include in this article, I wanted to focus on players who had made their careers somewhere else, lost their mojo, before arriving in Los Angeles, where things suddenly returned to form, as if there is something special in the water at Chavez Ravine.

Let’s breakdown three players who found second life in Los Angeles.

Rich Hill

In July of 2015, Rich Hill, 35-years-old, was out of Major League Baseball, hoping to make a comeback with the Long Island Ducks. After pitching for seven different teams in the majors, the calls for a Big League chance had dried up. It seemed as if he would become another player who had made it to the show, only to have his health and skillset fail him at the highest level.

Nobody, including Hill, himself, could have guessed he would end up signing a multi-year million dollar contract with the Dodgers only two years later.

Hill’s resurrection started in Oakland in 2016, where he pitched effective enough to convince the Dodgers to acquire him in a mid-season deal, along with Josh Reddick. At 36, finding himself on the DL again, this time for a finger blister, it was anyone’s guess whether the left-hander would prove able to pitch consistently over a full season.

But Hill’s comeback story was just getting started. Over the final weeks of the 2016 season, the southpaw helped the Dodgers win the National League West. He went 3-2 with a sparkling 1.83 ERA, striking out 39 batters while walking only 5 in six starts. After a rough outing against the Nationals in the NLDS, he was superb in a loss to the Cubs in the NLCS, pitching six shoutout innings, allowing only two hits.

The Dodgers rewarded his comeback in the offseason with a three-year, $48 million contract. Hill would pitch two more effective seasons in Los Angeles, before injuries interrupted the final year of his new contract.

After being marked for early retirement, Hill pitched three plus seasons with the Dodgers, going 30-16 with a 3.16 ERA and impressive 10.6 K/9 and 2.8 BB/9 ratios.

Tim Wallach

For those who don’t remember Tim Wallach, before he was a coach for the Dodgers, he was an All-Star hitter.

The third baseman from Huntington Beach appeared in five All-Star games over his career, won three Gold Gloves, and two Silver Slugger Awards. Playing the majority of his career with the Montreal Expos, Wallach had his best season in 1987, when he finished fourth in MVP voting, batting .298/.343/.514 while hitting 26 home runs, driving in 123 runs, and leading the league with 42 doubles.

Wallach was a hitting machine over the first eleven seasons of his career, before his production started to decline as a 33-year-old in 1991. He hit a career-worst .225 that season, struggling to get on base with an anemic .292 on-base percentage. In his final two seasons with the Expos, he played in plenty of games, 283, but batted only .223 and was limited to 21 home runs and 121 RBIs, numbers he was accustom to producing in a single season.

In the 1992 offseason, he was traded to the Dodgers for Tim Barker.

Playing in a new city for the first time in his career, Wallach continued to struggle, before finding new life in the strike-shortened 1994 season.

Over 113 games, Wallach, who hadn’t hit better than .250 from the plate for three consecutive seasons, slashed .280/.356/.502 in 1994. He found his power again, smacking 23 home runs, while driving in 78 baserunners. He was voted National League Comeback Player of the Year.

By 1995, Wallach, now 37-years-old, regressed a bit, but still showed some sneaky power before finishing his career between the Angels and Dodgers in his last season.