Skip to Content, Navigation, or Footer.
The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Friday, April 19, 2024

Out of Left Field: All-MLB weird name team

On April 15, Jackie Robinson Day across MLB, the Oakland A’s started players named Khris Davis, Ryon Healy and Jaff Decker. Weird, right? Inspired by this odd string of names and the Chicago White Sox's all-Garcia (Willy, Leury and Avisaíl) outfield on April 14, I’ve compiled an All-MLB weird name starting nine. No offense to these guys or any readers with these names.

Our starting pitcher is Mat Latos. The hefty righty is currently in the Toronto Blue Jays organization, trying to work his way back up to the majors. After a pretty solid 2012 and 2013 (118 and 120 ERA+, respectively), Latos was plagued with a series of injuries and hasn’t been the same since.

At catcher, we have Welington Castillo. Admittedly not too unconventional a name, but it always trips me up that he only has one ‘l’ in his first name. Now the starting catcher for the Baltimore Orioles, Castillo is enjoying a pretty decent career.

Playing first is Wil Myers. Myers, who is short one letter in his first and last names, is in the middle of one of his best months, batting a slash line of .360/.380/.640 in April. Maybe this is the year he puts it all together and becomes the superstar the Rays traded for.

Up the middle on the right side we have a throwback: Rogers HornsbyOne of the best, if not the best, second basemen of all time also happens to have one of the weirdest spellings of 'Roger' I've seen. Why make it plural? Too many questions and too few answers.

His counterpart in the infield is Jhonny Peralta at short. Despite playing third now for the St. Louis Cardinals, Peralta is historically a shortstop. I’m confident that for the 15 years he’s been active, I have spelled his name right maybe twice. However, according to Peralta, 'Jhonny' is a common spelling in the Dominican Republic, his home country. He went on to say that anyone spelling their name ‘Johnny’ is wrong.

At the hot corner is the A’s Ryon Healy. Honorable mention: Maikel Franco. Despite playing first base now, Healy came up as a third baseman and was expected to play there until the signing of Trevor Plouffe. Healy impressed as a rookie last season, batting .305/.337/.524.The A’s are hoping for continued success in Healy's sophomore season so they can avoid coming in last in the AL West for the third straight year.

Our outfielders are the A’s Jaff Decker and Khristopher Davis as well as the Washington Nationals' Jayson Werth, who has both names spelled 'wrong.'

Decker was recently called up from Triple-A, where he batted .387/.472/.452 early this season. Interesting fact about Jaff Decker: He’s named after his uncle, who was supposed to be named 'Jeff,' but due to a typo on his birth certificate was named 'Jaff.' Jaff, in fact, did not know this story until 2008 and just thought 'Jaff' was German.

Ladies and gentlemen, your 2017 All-MLB weird name squad. Formidable? Not really, especially since Hornsby is dead. Driving sports writers crazy? Yes.