by Paul Semendinger
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Milwaukee, Wisconsin. April 10, 1976. Ken Brett came in relief of Dave Pagan. It was the bottom of the 9th. Darrell Porter was batting. Porter grounded out to second base. Ballgame over. The Yankees won 9-7. It was their first win of the season.
New York, New York. May 16, 1976. Ken Brett again came out of the bullpen, again to relieve Dave Pagan who had pitched the sixth inning in relief of Tippy Martinez who had come in relief of the starting pitcher Dock Ellis. Ken Brett pitched the seventh allowing just one hit – a double to Andres Mora but he retired the other three batters. Then came the eighth inning. He again got three outs allowing only one hit – this time a double to Brooks Robinson. Dick Tidrow then came on to pitch the ninth in a game the Yankees lost 9-0.
And that was that.
That was Ken Brett’s Yankees career.
Ken Brett – a Yankees pitcher in 1976, for all of two games.
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Two days after he pitched in the 9-0 loss to the Orioles, Ken Brett was traded by the Yankees to the Chicago White Sox (along with Rich Coggins) in exchange for Carlos May.
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Ken Brett had come to the Yankees with Dock Ellis and Willie Randolph in a trade for Doc Medich. The key to the deal was Willie Randolph. He’s the guy the Yankees really wanted.
And they were right – Willie Randolph was a Yankees star for more than the next decade.
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In his 14-year career, Ken Brett played for ten different clubs. He was an effective pitcher who was also one of the best hitting pitchers of all time.
He wasn’t a Yankee very long, but Ken Brett had an interesting Major League career.
Carlos May was a good player, 113 OPS+, and the second-best OBP in '76 behind Roy White and a shade ahead of Randolph, but Brett was a 4.1 WAR pitcher (May was 1.4 WAR with NY as a platoon DH). The Yankees had a glut of starters: Hunter, Figueroa, Ellis, and Holtzman and Alexander (part of the Baltimore exchange with Rudy May going to the O's). Unfortunately, they were none of them nearly as good as Brett. The Yankees would have been better off not doing the O's deal (as folks here have repeatedly noted) and instead traded May for May.