Remember Leon Durham?
In June of 2020, the Cardinals selected third baseman Jordan Walker out of high school. After that pick, I started a historical series on how Cardinal high school position player draftees fared in their careers. In Part One of this series here, I discussed Leron Lee, Ted Simmons, James Hairston and Ed Kurpiel. In Part Two here, I gave a treatment of Joe Edelen and Garry Templeton. In this Part, I will examine Leon Durham.
1976: 1B/OF Leon Durham: 12.2 Career WARP, 1.7 Cardinal WARP
The Cardinals drafted the 18-year old Durham #15 overall in the June 1976 draft out of a Cincinnati, Ohio high school. After he signed his contract, he played out the year with the Sarasota Cardinals in the Gulf Coast League. He started the 1977 season with the Class A Gastonia club, a full season club in the old Western Carolinas league that would eventually become the South Atlantic (Sally) League. After 63 games and a .368/.419/.519 slash line, the Cards promoted Durham to the St. Petersburg club, which was the most advanced Class A club out of three the Cards had at the time. He finished the year there, and while his power was sapped in the pitcher-friendly league, he still walked almost as much as he struck out.
After observing Durham in the Florida Instructional League (a precursor to the Arizona Fall League) in 1977, Ted Simmons predicted that he would hit 30 home runs a year in the majors. He missed about a month of the 1978 season with a broken hand, but the 20-year old Durham still slashed .316/.404/.499 at AA Arkansas. The Cards added Durham to the 40-man roster at the end of October 1978 to protect him from the Rule 5 draft. Knowing that Keith Hernandez was going to be the Cardinal first baseman for a long while, Cardinal manager Ken Boyer ordered that Durham be shifted to the outfield for 1979. The position switch didn’t bother Durham at the plate. Upon being optioned to AAA Springfield in spring he played mostly right field and busted out with a .310/.400/.555 slash line with 23 homers, walked more than he struck out, and was named the American Association Rookie of the Year. Hal Lanier, who managed Durham at both Class A Gastonia and AAA Springfield, said that Durham had the potential to be a Dave Parker or Willie Stargell type of hitter. Despite that strong season, he did not get a September callup in 1979, with Boyer saying Durham wouldn’t be used because the Cards were in a pennant race. Instead, Durham took some time off after the AAA season to prepare for winter ball in the Dominican Republic.
Cardinal great Lou Brock retired after the 1979 season, which raised the question of how the Cards were going to handle left field for 1980. Tony Scott and George Hendrick were entrenched in center field and right field, respectively. There were rumblings that the club was going to have prospect Terry Kennedy catch and move Ted Simmons to left field to replace Brock. If that didn’t happen, long-time backup Jerry Mumphrey seemed to have an inside track on the job. When Mumphrey was traded along with starting pitcher John Denny to the Cleveland Indians for Bobby Bonds on December 7th, 1979, that ended that discussion and Bonds was ticketed for left. That move raised the next question, which constantly confronts managers and general managers to this day. Is it better for a strong prospect to play every day in the minor leagues or only occasionally in the majors? Back then, Durham was a 6’1”, 170 pound, fast man with power, but he only had one year of outfield experience and his arm was only considered adequate for left field. Would Durham open the 1980 season with the Cardinals on the bench or play every day in AAA to further refine his skills? Cards manager Ken Boyer and general manager John Claiborne were divided over the issue.
In the abbreviated spring training of 1980, Durham hit .447, and led the club in homers and RBIs, but Claiborne’s view carried the day, and Durham was optioned to AAA so the club could keep Bernie Carbo and his guaranteed contract around. One thing going against Durham was that the club’s bench, especially the outfield, was heavily left-handed. The Cards opened the 1980 season with a bench consisting of catchers Terry Kennedy and Steve Swisher, infielders Tom Herr and Mike Phillips, and outfielders Bernie Carbo, Dane Iorg and Jim Lentine. Lentine and Swisher were the only righties and Herr was a switch-hitter.
In the 7th game of the 1980 season on April 17th, Pirates reliever Eddie Solomon hit Bobby Bonds on the right hand with a pitch. Although his hand bothered him, Bonds tried to play through the injury, and by May 27th, he he was slashing only .228/.295/.347 in 112 PA. In the interim 33 games since being hit, Dane Iorg had played 11 games in left to Bonds’s 20. Not only was Bonds not hitting, but Bernie Carbo had barely been used. Manager Ken Boyer didn’t put Carbo in the field at all, and in only 13 trips to the plate as a pinch hitter, he went 2 for 11 with two singles, a walk and a sacrifice bunt. In the meantime, Carbo had time to introduce Keith Hernandez to cocaine. Starting center fielder Tony Scott wasn’t hitting either, only slashing .218/.275/.265 by May 27th. The Cards decided to release Carbo and promote Durham from AAA Springfield, where he had hit .258/.336/.492 in 32 games. On the first night of his recall, Boyer moved George Hendrick from right field to center field, installed Durham in right field and put Ted Simmons in left field, with Terry Kennedy catching.
As some remember, that 1980 club was unusually terrible. They had some of the highest paid players in the game and several players had good offensive seasons. But they couldn’t find a way to win. The club had a 10-game losing streak before snapping it on May 26. The Cards had lost 15 out of 17 games, scoring only 27 runs in the first 12 of those games. In one 9-game road trip to the West Coast, the Cards lost 8 games in which the bullpen allowed 26 runs in 30 innings. Manager Ken Boyer was fired between games of a doubleheader with the club in the basement of the NL East at 18-33.
After Whitey Herzog took over, he started to platoon Bonds with Durham and put Durham in left against right-handed pitching. At that point, Bonds was batting .190 and only .127 against righties. Eddie Solomon of the Pirates hit Bonds in the wrist with a pitch in the seventh game of the season, and Bonds never did get anything going with the bat. The wrist never was right, and he finally went on the injured list on July 20. He would only come to the plate in four more games after that date, with two starts. Bonds did come off of the injured list for about a week, but he slashed a finger on a room service tray and became baseball’s most expensive pinch-runner.
Bonds being out of pocket for a lengthy period opened up playing time for Durham, who came to bat in 96 games and started 36 games in right, 30 in left, 5 at first and 2 in center. He held is own alright, with a ,271/.309/.426, with 8 homers, a 102 wRC+ and 1.6 fWAR. But Whitey Herzog wanted Bruce Sutter of the Cubs like he wanted to breathe. He was convinced that the lack of a proper closer cost him multiple losses to the Yankees in the ALCS when he managed the Royals.
Whitey wanted to trade third baseman Ken Reitz, who had a sure glove at third, but didn’t run very well. But Reitz had signed a 5-year, $1.2 million deal in 1980, that contained a no-trade clause, and at first, he was unwilling to waive it. But after 5 days of negotiations, he was persuaded to take $150,000 with the Cubs and Cards each paying half. Although Whitey wanted the Cubs to take Keith Hernandez, the Cubs refused, and the Sutter trade was made on December 9, 1980 for Durham, Reitz and a player to be named later, who ended up being 40-man roster reserve infielder Ty Waller.
Durham was the primary right fielder for the 1981 Cubs, despite hyperextending an elbow and bruising a foot in spring training and pulling a hamstring before the strike. In 1982, the Cubs benched Gary Woods, moved Keith Moreland from catcher to right field, moved Durham from RF to CF and put Jody Davis at catcher. Durham would start an equal number of games in center and right that year, but by 1984, he was a full-time first baseman. 1987 was the 5th straight season that Durham hit at least 20 homers, with the last Cub to do it being Billy Williams, a Hall of Famer, who did it 13 straight years, ending in 1973. Durham had a 4.5 WAR season in 1982 and a 3.5 WAR season in 1984. He was always strong offensively in those years, with his WAR totals being drug down by poor defense.
After that stretch however, Durham fell off of the table dramatically. By 1988, the Cubs shopping Durham and his $1,383,333 salary because they were convinced that Mark Grace could make the jump from AA to the majors. Although Grace didn’t initially make the club, he was recalled in early May, and the 30-year old Durham had only batted 73 times in the club’s first 36 games. Manager Don Zimmer would later tell the press that he was disappointed in Durham from the moment he walked in because he came to camp fat and out of shape. It appeared to Zimmer that Durham wasn’t ready to compete and was coasting on the last year of his contract. Benched after 22 games, On May 19th, Durham found himself traded along with $900,000 in cash to the Reds for lefty reliever Pat Perry. Five days later, he was put on the 15-day DL for back spasms. Then, shortly after the All-Star break, Durham entered a treatment center for substance abuse. He missed a workout on July 13th, the day after the All-Star game, then missed a team flight to Montreal that night. The Reds’ general manager spoke to Durham the next day, and he agreed to appear for the club’s next game on July 15th. But when he showed up, he gave reporters a disjointed account of his whereabouts and family problems. The next morning he told Reds’ management that he wasn’t emotionally ready to play baseball and face his teammates, and returned home to Cincinnati. Durham Went on the DL on July 15th and was reinstated on September 16th. Had been assigned to the Reds’ Florida Instructional League team. He didn’t play the rest of the year, and had no plate appearances after July 9th. Although eligible for free agency, he didn’t file for it, and the Reds released him in November.
In an interesting twist, the Cards signed Durham to a minor league deal for 1989 with AAA Louisville, the club’s AAA affiliate in those days. Whitey optioned pitcher Cris Carpenter to AAA Louisville and purchased Durham’s contract on June 23rd. According to Rick Hummel, while Whitey would have preferred a right-handed hitter, Durham’s left-handed bat would allow Whitey to use anyone he wanted to pinch hit and still have Durham available to replace Pedro Guerrero on defense in the late innings. It didn’t work out. Durham had to go on the 21-day DL for a sprained ankle on August 10th. Although he returned on September 2nd, the Commissioner’s Office announced on September 22nd that Durham was suspended for 60 games for violating the drug policy as a repeat offender. Although Durham had been tested multiple times in both the majors and minors up to that point, he was tested again in the club’s last road series in Chicago, his old haunt and that’s where he was caught.
Durham filed for free agency, and although General Manager Dal Maxvill said Durham was originally in the club’s plans for 1990, the club no longer had interest, given that Durham’s 60-game suspension would carry over for the first 50 games of the upcoming season. Durham only got one hit, a double in 22 trips to the plate, with two walks and four strikeouts. Just like that, Durham was out of the majors for good at age 31.