A's Daily Walkoff: Wally Moses, the underrated hits mahine

Jason Burke | Nov 30, 2024

A's Daily Walkoff 11/30 / Daily Walkoff

Today's Daily Walkoff game included a name that was not familiar: Wally Moses. For A's fans of the modern era, those teams from the mid-to-late 1930's up until they arrived in Oakland in 1968 are little more unknown because they just weren't in the postseason from 1931-1971. It was also during that time that the Athletics traded a number of players to the New York Yankees and were dubbed New York's farm team.

One such trade involved Roger Maris, who was with the A's in Kansas City in 1958 and 1959, and he was an All Star in that second season. He was traded to the Yankees after the '59 campaign, and by 1961 he set the AL home run record with 61 homers in 1961.

But today's star is Wally Moses, because he was mentioned in today's Daily Walkoff trivia. First, here is the fresh board for those that are interested in trying their own knowledge for the franchise.

A's Daily Walkoff 11/30 / Daily Walkoff

The rules of the game are simple. At the top of each column are the four categories that you have to sort the 12 players into. Presumably starting with the first basemen in today's challenge will help put some of the names in the correct places.

If you would like to play for yourself, here is the link to that game.

Now for the spoilers. Well, at least one spoiler until the end. Wally Moses goes in the left column as one of the top-15 hit producers in franchise history. It's not a name you hear much when franchise history is brought up, so let's learn a little bit about him.

Moses was born in 1910 and made his debut with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1935 in his age 24 season, getting into 85 games. In his first full year in the bigs, Moses had his first of two 200+ hit seasons, finishing the year with 202 in 146 games played and 4.1 bWAR, and he finished 14th in MVP voting. He hit .345 that year with a .410 OBP, 35 doubles, 11 triples, and seven home runs.

The WAR leader that year was Lefty Grove with a 10.6 WAR campaign, though he finished right behind Moses in the MVP voting. There was no Cy Young award at this point in baseball history, so Grove left the season without any hardware.

In 1937, Moses compiled his other 200+ hit campaign with 208, though he slugged a career-high 25 homers that season. It would be the only time in a 17 year career that he'd hit over nine dingers. Moses was an All Star that season and finished 11th in the MVP voting, with just one fewer hit than Charlie Gehringer, the winner of the award. Gehringer was more established at that point and ended up hitting .371 to Moses' .320.

Moses would stick with the A's until 1941 when he was traded to the Chicago White Sox for two players that would compile a total of one year with the club. Connie Mack had actually tried to trade Moses in 1939, in a deal with the Detroit Tigers for Benny McCoy, but that deal was voided. McCoy was granted free agency about a month later and ended up signing with the A's anyway.

According to SABR, here is why the deal was voided: "Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis declared 97 players in the Tigers system, including McCoy and pitcher Johnny Sain, free agents because of signing improprieties and a subsequent organizational cover-up."

In 1949, Moses returned to the A's at the age of 38, and would play parts of three more seasons with the club before retiring. In that time he collected an additional 181 hits to his franchise hit total, which is what led to him being one of the answers in today's Daily Walkoff.

Moses finished his career with 1,316 hits with the A's, placing him five ahead of Sal Bando and eight ahead of Eddie Collins. Without those 181 hits, he would have been just behind Terry Steinbach's 1,144 a bit further down the leaderboard.

Moses played for the A's during a period of time when the fortunes of the franchise just weren't that great. Money was always an issue for Connie Mack, and so keeping a roster intact to compete never happened. Moses was a bright spot of those clubs, however, and ranks No. 12 on the all-time franchise hits leaderboard.

As for today's solved puzzle, here it is.

A's solved Daily Walkoff / Daily Walkoff