Who would you rather have: Rick Vaughn or Willie Mays Hayes?

Publish date: 2024-05-02

Every Tuesday, The Athletic MLB will answer a different variant on a simple question: Who would you rather have? We’ve debated the merits of mascots, managers, prospects, pitchers and more. This week, it’s a pair of fictional Cleveland rookies from the 1989 movie “Major League” …

Nobody knew. How could they possibly fathom what was about to take place?

The year was 1989 and the local nine from Cleveland was set to begin the 89th season in franchise history.

The team was entrenched in a hideous postseason drought, one that was 34 seasons old.

Expectations were extremely low. Cynicism was high. And all fans knew was that Cleveland’s Opening Day roster, one that featured Ricky Vaughn and Willie Mays Hayes, was a collection of stiffs.

The reactions of fans, media and the grounds crew were strikingly similar, a veritable collection of expletives and memorable one-liners from the gentleman raking the mound and that one guy who played the janitor on “Scrubs.”

Unbeknownst to the fan base, Cleveland general manager Charlie Donovan, manager Lou Brown and pitching coach Pepper Leach kept a watchful eye on the team’s spring training invitees. Even those who hadn’t been summoned to camp were given a chance. Mixed in among a plethora of below-replacement-level players in camp that spring was a handful of gems, led by Hayes and Vaughn.

Both were considered long shots at the start. They were raw as can be. But each had an elite attribute that made him stand out from the rest: Hayes’s lightning-quick speed and Vaughn’s lively arm, which had last been seen in the California Penal League.

An almost unheard-of practice at the time, Cleveland was actively trying to tank.

But it wasn’t so the franchise could get the first overall draft pick. Instead, Cleveland owner Rachel Phelps sought to move the club to Miami, which had promised a brand-new stadium and perks galore. Therefore, Phelps needed her team to lose in spectacular fashion, thus driving down attendance and affording ownership a chance to break its stadium lease with the city.

What Phelps failed to recognize was that her plan created exceedingly fertile grounds for a talented group of rookies. With almost every other team in the league, the rookies might have headed to the minors for additional seasoning, but Hayes and Vaughn earned spots on the Opening Day roster.

Eventually, they began to flourish and Cleveland began to win.

The rest is movie magic.

More than 30 years later, The Athletic MLB is diving into a hard-hitting question you’ve all surely spent far too many hours quibbling over: Who would you rather have, Willie Mays Hayes or Ricky “Wild Thing” Vaughn?

While many of The Athletic’s previous Who Would You Rather Have? stories are based on seasons full of data accumulated over entire playing careers, our sample size is extremely limited and analysis is likely full of holes.

There are no Baseball-Reference pages to review. Nor could we find anything on FanGraphs or Baseball Savant.

We discovered one season simulated by Out Of The Park Baseball that gives us a rough idea of what Hayes and Vaughn might have accomplished for Cleveland in 1989. But even that is troubled.

As it is, there are only two recorded seasons of data to collect on Hayes and Vaughn. With all that said, we’ve decided to say screw “Major League 2.” We’re not counting it. Though we actually enjoyed the movie, we’re sticking with the original cast.

There will be no Right Guard commercials directed by Toby Ziegler or “Black Hammer, White Lightning” trailers with Jesse Ventura to distract us.

And with that, we’re off.

The case for Rick Vaughn

Short of a few juvenile judges, correctional officers and probably a distant aunt he occasionally called for bail money, few people knew of Ricky Vaughn was when he arrived in Tucson, Ariz., that February.

But it didn’t take long for Vaughn, who pulled up to camp on the back of a Harley, his clothes stashed in a garbage bag, to catch Brown’s eye. While Vaughn didn’t own any sleeves and wore a haircut that earned him the nickname “Veg Head,” he also brought with him what Brown described as “one of the best arms” he’d ever seen.

With a fastball that sat at 96 mph and — as we learned in the one-game playoff, could reach 100 mph — Vaughn possessed an arm that clearly would have been considered a huge asset in 1989, a time when hard throwers weren’t as plentiful and pitchability was sought after.

Combine that with his nonconformist ways and you had all the ingredients for a future superstar if he could just find some semblance of control.

Though Vaughn’s disbelief upon discovering that veteran pitcher Eddie Harris rubbed snot on the ball to get additional movement would suggest an inability to adapt to new ideas, the right-hander ultimately came around to wearing glasses after Brown discovered his career was being hampered by vision issues.

From that point on, Vaughn’s performance ticked up in a hurry. The control issues that dogged him early in the season were reduced, and his production improved dramatically.

Not only did Vaughn display a fierce loyalty to his teammates (he offered to remove Jake Taylor’s romantic nemesis Tom from the French restaurant and beat him up), the rookie righty showed moxie in earning his complete-game victory over Oakland by escaping a jam with less-than-stellar stuff. Vaughn was a workhorse and a strikeout machine, and the OOTP simulation credited him with 222 strikeouts in 232 2/3 innings pitched.

Sure, he’d made his share of bad decisions — he served time for boosting cars and unwittingly hooked up with a teammate’s wife — and was prone to outbursts (poor Roger Dorn) and was susceptible to the long ball.

But he had that song.

Who else could get 75,000 Cleveland fans singing “Wild Thing” in unison? Vaughn’s marketability clearly was off the charts, which we discovered in the sequel. He also was an avid reader and spent time on team flights reading the classics alongside Hayes and Taylor. And Vaughn brought prestige.

Who among us forgets where we were the night Vaughn made a Milwaukee broadcast’s Hall of Shame after recording four wild pitches in the same inning?

Lastly, Vaughn developed from the pitcher who served up a grand slam in his first inning into the guy who delivered a strikeout in the clutch.

OOTP credited Vaughn with a strong rookie season — 14-11 with a 3.95 ERA and 2.8 Wins Above Replacement.

The case for Willie Mays Hayes

Imagine believing in yourself enough to arrive at spring training without an invitation and essentially talk your way into a tryout? You’re so confident you’d not only make the team but also could also talk your way past security that you gas up your Volkswagen Beetle disguised as a Rolls-Royce and drive to Arizona.

And thus began the fascinating career of Willie Mays Hayes.

In Hayes, Cleveland discovered a multidimensional player who brought a combination of intelligence and tools to his club. An avid reader similar to Vaughn, Hayes wasn’t afraid to show his penchant for innovation off the field, whether with his dressed-up vehicle or by placing the boat motor in the clubhouse whirlpool.

On the field, Hayes was gifted with game-changing speed and elite defense. He also had an outstanding sliding technique.

After a slow start — the movie suggested he had only 16 stolen bases at the 121-game mark — Hayes caught fire and Cleveland took off.

By the season’s end, Hayes had roughly 75 black gloves hammered to his bedroom wall, each representing a base he had stolen. Harry Doyle listed Mays as hitting .291 when he stepped to the plate in the ninth inning of Game 163, ahead of scoring the game-winning run.

OOTP’s simulator suggested that Hayes batted .279/.350/.336 and finished with 59 stolen bases in 74 attempts and scored 81 runs. He also won a Gold Glove and was valued at 5.2 WAR.

Hayes not only could change the game with his speed but also had unwavering confidence — “Excuse me while I take my first step toward the Hall of Fame” — and he was an outstanding spokesperson.

Sure, Hayes had his foibles.

At times, he had a horrible swing path. Early in the season, he proved prone to distraction — remember the Opening Day pickoff? — and also was a poor communicator on fly balls to shallow center field.

But Hayes was an extremely hard worker, an adaptable player in that he was willing to learn to hit the ball on the ground, and he was not afraid to share his opinions with his teammates when something needed to be said.

The verdict

It would be extremely easy to be swayed by the shared experience fans had whenever Vaughn pitched in relief, with everyone hammered and belting out the lyrics to “Wild Thing.” What a time to be alive.

It’s also easy to fall in love with Vaughn’s big arm and his ability to blow fastballs past the best hitters in the league. Everybody loves an ace, especially one who can adapt from his starting role and shut down a contested game with a ninth-inning relief appearance.

But this is 2020, and the ability to throw 100 mph just ain’t as impressive as it used to be.

While the game is no longer influenced by speed, either, Hayes’s skills translate much easier to the modern game. Hayes clearly wanted to be a home run hitter early in his career and again in Year 2. The Launch Angle Revolution would have been right up his alley.

Beyond that, Hayes plays one of the most important positions and he plays it well on a daily basis versus Vaughn, who is involved only in every fifth game. Therefore, if we were picking a Cleveland team from scratch, we’d start with Hayes.

(Photos: Getty Images)

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