Random Twin of the Week: Ron Coomer

OK, the Coom-dog selection isn’t entirely random. I have a couple of posts I’m working on that attempt to rank the best and worst teams in franchise history, and naturally Ron Coomer’s name came up whilst researching the latter list. That isn’t necessarily the Coom-dawg’s fault; he was easily the best hitter on a ton of offensively inept teams. I guess the Ron Coomer Story serves as a reminder of how spoiled we’ve been in Twins Territory lately. Coomer, with his career .318 wOBA, wouldn’t be anything more than a bench player on any Twins team past 2007, but he manned both first and third base as a starter for four seasons between 1997-2000. He was also the Twins’ lone All-Star representative in 1999, though he batted just .263/.307/.424/.731 with a .318 wOBA and 82 wRC+ at first base. I think that says everything that ever needs to be said about that team (though, naturally, there will be much more about the ’99 squad coming up). More about COOOOOM-DAWG, after the jump.

Ron Coomer was drafted by Oakland in the 4th round of the 1987 draft, and bounced around between three teams before he ever reached the major leagues. He was signed by the White Sox as a minor-league free agent in 1991. He hung around in the Pale Hosers’ system for a couple of years, then got traded to the Dodgers for Isidro Marquez in 1993. He spent a couple of seasons in the Dodgers’ minor league system, then came over to Minnesota as part of the vaunted Kevin Tapani trade in 1995. Coomer actually had his best seasons with the Twins, batting .296/.340/.511/.851 with a .365 wOBA and .215 ISO in 1996, and .298/.324/.438/.761, .328 wOBA, .140 ISO in 1997. He was granted free agency in 2000, then signed with the Cubs. He wasn’t too impressive with the Northsiders, batting .261/.316/.390/.706 with 8 home runs and an 88 wRC+ in 386 plate appearances. He was granted free agency again in 2002 and signed with the Yankees, where he saw the only postseason action of his career. I think we all know how this story ends: Coom-dog’s Yankees were eliminated by the Angels in the ALDS in four games, while his former team beat Oakland in five games to advance, but eventually lost to the Angels in the ALCS in…four games. He signed with the Dodgers as a free agent in January of 2003, but batted just .240/.299/.368/.667 in 69 games. And thus concluded a long and barely replacement-level career.

Coomer is currently employed as an analyst of some sort with FSNorth. He looks like a hedgehog.

Erin is a contributing writer for Twinkie Talk. You can email her at erinm725 [at] gmail [dot] com.