Impressive Rookie Cohorts: 1977 Tigers

[barking_iguana]

Well, most of these folks were officially rookies in 1978, but baseball-reference.com lets me search easily by debut year, so that's what we'll go by. Listed by career Wins Above Replacement (baseball-reference.com version) here are the top players who broke into the majors in 1977 and the team the broke in with:

Player	Team	WAR
Lou Whitaker	Tigers	69.7
Alan Trammell	Tigers	66.9
Eddie Murray	Orioles	66.7
Jack Morris	Tigers	39.3
Lance Parrish	Tigers	35.7
Terry Puhl	Astros	26.1
Mario Soto	Reds	25.8
Floyd Bannister	Astros	24.2
Bob Stanley	Red Sox	21.5
Rick Honeycutt	Mariners	19.4
Ken Oberkfell	Cardinals	19.1
Jim Clancy	Blue Jays	18.6
Ed Whitson	Pirates	18.4
Gene Richards	Padres	17.4
Steve Kemp	Tigers	17.0
Bump Wills	Rangers	15.1
Dave Rozema	Tigers	14.8

Comments

[gwendally.livejournal.com]

One of my favorite memories of my childhood is falling asleep at night to the sound of Tiger baseball on WJR. I was 12 in 1977 and every one of those guys was my hero.

(Now, of course, I'm a Red Sox fan. But I wouldn't have grown up to be a woman that loves baseball if it weren't for the Tigers in the 70's.)