Lee Tinsley

From SoSH

Owen Lee Tinsley is a former Major League Baseball player and is the current first base coach for the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Contents 1 Playing Career 2 Coaching Career 3 Trivia 4 Transactions 5 External links

Playing Career

After being a high draft pick of the Oakland Athletics (11th overall in 1987), Tinsley played for 3 teams in his 5-year major league career, once for the Phillies and two stops each with the Red Sox and the Mariners. He collected his first of 210 Major League hits on April 11, 1993 with a ninth inning pinch-hit single off of Baltimore Orioles's Gregg Olson, eventually scoring the tying run to send the game into extra-innings, as a member of the Mariners.

Before the 1994 season, Tinsley was traded to Boston for a minor leaguer. As fourth outfielder (he spelled Mike Greenwell, and Otis Nixon about evenly, and played 11 games in right), he hit .222/.315/.292 while setting a Red Sox rookie record by being perfect in his 13 stolen base attempts.

In 1995, he opened as the club's starting center fielder. He started the year with a 14 game hitting streak (while continuing his SB streak to 15 before having it snapped against the Chicago White Sox the 3rd game of the year). Lee had another double-digit hitting streak later in the summer, 15 games from June 10th to June 25th. Though he would float around the .300 mark for most of the season, by the time the division winning Red Sox started their playoff series against the Cleveland Indians, he was splitting time with Dwayne Hosey, and Troy O'Leary. He finished the campaign with a .284/.359/.402 line.

After the season (possibly with the actual emergence of O'Leary, or the smoke-and-mirrors emergence of Hosey), Tinsley was sent to the Philadelphia Phillies with Glenn Murray, and Ken Ryan for "closer" Heathcliff Slocumb and two minor leaguers that never saw the majors. Tinsley saw parts of 31 games in 2 months before being traded back to the Red Sox for a minor leaguer. In the remaining part of the season, he hit .245/.298/.279 while sucking up 192 at bats.

Tinsley was sent to the Seattle Mariners for the always vaulable future considerations. Starting as Seattle's left fielder on a team with Ken Griffey, Jay Buhner, Edgar Martinezand pre-Yankee Alex Rodriguez, Tinsley lasted 19 games before injuring his right elbow, leading to a hoorah from the Seattle faithful. Their joy turned to sorrow in a stunning series of events, as the Mariners traded Jose Cruz Jr. to the Toronto Blue Jays for Paul Spoljaric and Mike Timlin, received Heathcliff Slocumb from the Red Sox for Derek Lowe and Jason Varitek, and Tinlsey came off the DL in the span of 28 hours.

Part of the horror was lessoned in 3 weeks, when Tinsley went back on the DL, effectively ending his Major League playing career.

Coaching Career

Tinsley started a coaching career for the El Paso Diablos, the Arizona Diamondbacks AA affiliate in 2001, as the hitting coach. After the season, he served as the roving outfield instructor for the Anaheim Angels system for a season. He then accepted the same position for the Diamondbacks from 2003 until this season, when he was named Bob Melvin's first base coach.

Trivia

• Tinsley was traded by Sandy Alderson, John Hart, Woody Woodward (once in, once out), Dan Duquette (twice in, twice out), and Lee Thomas (once in, once out).
• If you add up his two longest hitting streaks (14 and 15 games), he is more than half way to Joe DiMaggio's 56 game streak.

Transactions

• Jul 26, 1991 - Traded by the Athletics with Apoliner Garcia (minors) to the Cleveland Indians for Brook Jacoby
• Sep 22, 1992 - Claimed off waivers by Seattle
• Mar 22, 1994 - Traded by the Mariners to the Red Sox for a player to be named later. The Red Sox sent minor leaguer Jim Smith to Seattle on Sep 15, 1994.
• Jan 29, 1996 - Traded by the Red Sox with Glenn Murray and Ken Ryan to Philadelphia for Heathcliff Slocumb, Larry Wimberly, and Rick Holyfield.
• Jun 9, 1996 - Traded by the Phillies to Boston for Scott Bakkum
• Nov 25, 1996 - Traded by the Red Sox to Seattle for future considerations
• Dec 15, 1997 - Released by the Mariners

External links

• Baseball-Reference.com - Career Statistics and Analysis