It sounds like a Disney movie.
A short, stocky, balding, hockey player from New Brunswick decides he would be better at baseball and ends up setting a major league home run record. He marries a girl from his hometown, they have three daughters, and he retires back to New Brunswick where he gets his dream job of coaching hockey at his old high school.
You can practically see Michael Chiklis in the role now, can’t you?
Well, that’s Matt Stairs’ actual life.
Born in St. John, Stairs went to high school in Fredricton, where he played both hockey and baseball. He was a bit better at baseball, though, so he worked his way through Canada’s National Baseball Institute on the other side of the country in Vancouver, and played for Canada in both the World Amateur Championships and the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.
Despite doing well for Team Canada, Stairs still didn’t attract much major league interest. He stood only 5’9”, was sort of pudgy, and didn’t really have a defensive position. Eventually, about a month before his twenty-first birthday, the Expos decided to take a chance on a Canadian kid and signed him to play at their Low-A affiliate in Jamestown, New York.
The nomadic nature of his professional career had its roots in that first season. Stairs played for three different teams - Jamestown, Rockford, and West Palm Beach - in three different A-ball leagues, and played three different infield positions. Overall, he hit just .244 with four home runs in over 300 plate appearances, which was not exactly an auspicious beginning.
Still, the Expos stuck with him, and after he batted .339 in a second stint at High-A West Palm Beach, they promoted him to Double-A Jacksonville. All of 1991 was spent at their new Double-A team in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where he tied for the league lead in triples (of all things) and batted .333. That earned him a place on the roster of Montreal’s Triple-A affiliate in Indianapolis in 1992, and a cup of coffee with the Expos in the middle of that season as a replacement for the injured Iván Calderón. He didn’t play well enough to stay, batting just .167 in thirteen games, but it was enough to become just the seventh Canadian to play for the Expos.
By now Stairs was a full-time outfielder, with a decent arm that let him record eleven outfield assists for Indianapolis, but the Expos had a full outfield with Moisés Alou, Marquis Grissom, and Larry Walker. They didn’t have much use for him because of his limited range and inability to play anywhere else on the field, so he was sold to the Chunichi Dragons of the Japan Central League in the middle of the 1993 season. He was twenty-five years old, had less than 50 big league plate appearances to his credit, and now would be playing on the other side of the world. The prospects of a real major league career appeared to be pretty dim, especially after he posted an OPS of just .721 in Japan and was released.
The Expos decided to re-sign him that offseason, but promptly sold him to the Red Sox, where he was assigned to Double-A New Britain. Stairs was just organizational depth for Boston, a twenty-six year old corner outfielder with no wheels, but he hit pretty well, and they promoted him to Triple-A Pawtucket in 1995. He hit well there, too, and the Sox called him up in June of that season when he was leading the International League with 12 homers and 48 RBI. The Red Sox were fighting for the division title and decided that veteran Mark Whiten wasn’t working out.
Stairs was the beneficiary, and took advantage of the opportunity. Through his first fifteen games, playing mostly left field, he hit .333 and slugged .500. He hit his first major league home run on July 5th in Kansas City. After that he was largely relegated to pinch-hitting duties, and was briefly sent back to Pawtucket in August, but he finished the year in Boston and was kept on their playoff roster. He made enough of an impression that when his contract expired after the season ended, he was quickly signed by the Oakland A’s, who valued his power and patience at the plate.
Stairs made his first Opening Day roster in 1996 for Oakland. He struggled a bit, was sent down to Triple-A Edmonton for a couple of months, but hit the ball so well there (.344/.401/.578) that he was recalled to Oakland in July. Other than a brief rehab assignment in 2003, he would never again play in the minor leagues. He didn’t get regular time in the A’s lineup for the rest of the season, but he made the most of the chances he got. In 89 plate appearances from July to the end of the year, Stairs posted an OPS of .893. For the year, he totaled 10 homers in just 158 plate appearances, posted an OPS+ of 127, and earned himself a regular job in the A’s lineup for 1997.
That year he finally surpassed 400 plate appearances in a big league season for the first time at the age of twenty-nine. He belted 27 homers and had an OPS+ of 153. He terrorized right-handed pitchers, batting .311/.399/.588 against them. As Oakland steadily improved each season in the late 1990s, Stairs was a major reason for their success. In four full seasons he averaged 28 homers and 90 RBI. He had 100 RBI twice, and hit as many as 38 homers. His OPS+ was 125. He was a productive major league hitter, even though his didn’t get more than 500 plate appearances in a season until he was thirty.
To this point in his career, Stairs had played for four professional organizations, three in the major leagues and one in Japan. He’d made stops in fourteen different cities across three countries. But his really nomadic days in the big leagues were just about to start.
After the 2000 season, he was traded to the Cubs.
After the 2001 season, he signed with the Brewers.
After the 2002 season, he signed with the Pirates.
During the 2003 season, he had a minor-league rehab stint in Nashville.
After the 2003 season, he signed with the Royals.
In the middle of the 2006 season, he was traded to the Rangers.
Later in the 2006 season, he was waived and selected by the Tigers.
After the 2006 season, he signed with the Blue Jays.
After the 2007 season, he re-signed with the Blue Jays.
During the 2008 season, he was traded to the Phillies.
After the 2009 season, he was signed by the Padres.
After the 2010 season, he was signed by the Nationals, his original franchise, which had moved from Montreal to Washington since he left them.
Eleven seasons, ten franchises plus one minor league rehab assignment. Stairs ended up playing for twelve different major league franchises, the most of any hitter in major league history. And the reason he had that many opportunities was because he never lost his ability to hit a fastball, particularly against right-handed pitching.
2001: 115 OPS+, .848 OPS against righties.
2002: 118 OPS+, .850 OPS against righties.
2003: 142 OPS+, .984 OPS against righties.
2004: 105 OPS+, .822 OPS against righties.
2005: 118 OPS+, .822 OPS against righties.
2006: 92 OPS+, but still a .771 OPS against righties.
2007: 138 OPS+, .931 OPS against righties.
2008: 101 OPS+, .762 OPS against righties.
After that he slacked off a bit, which is understandable since he was forty-years old by that point. During his career, Stairs was a particularly dangerous pinch-hitter. It was as if the role didn’t impact his approach at the plate at all. For his career, his overall batting line was .263/.356/.477. As a pinch-hitter, he batting line was a nearly-identical .252/.357/.476.
Stairs hit his first pinch-hit home run in 1996, a three-run shot off the Tigers’ Mike Christopher in the 8th inning of a 13-2 Oakland win. Later that year, he hit another.
And then another the next season.
And another the next.
Matt Stairs kept hitting pinch-hit homers, at an accelerated rate, for the rest of his career. By the time he arrived in Philadelphia in the middle of the 2008 season, he had blasted 12 career pinch-hit homers, a figure that would have put him close to the top-10 all-time. But then he really got busy.
He hit two more for the Phillies during their pennant race, and another in Game 4 of the NLCS that helped propel them to their World Series title. In 2009, he hit five more pinch-hit homers, then hit four more for the Padres in 2010 when he was forty-two years old. Poor Matt Capps was victimized by Stairs in 2009 when Stairs played in Philly and Capps pitched for Pittsburgh. Then Stairs got him against the next season when he was playing in San Diego and Capps was pitching for Washington.
By the time he was done, Stairs had blasted 23 pinch-hit homers in the regular season, three more than anyone else in major league history.
Then he and his wife, Lisa, went home to Fredricton, raised their three girls, and he coached baseball and hockey in his hometown. He’s there to this day.
If that’s not a Disney ending, what is?
Gotta love the Gator!
The 15 yo me will never believe anyone was ever a better pinch hitter than than the 1968 version of Gates Brown