It was Griffey\u2019s acquisition that, in part, ended up dictating where Collins would, or in this case wouldn\u2019t, play as a Yankee. Before moving to the Bronx, Collins had almost exclusively played the outfield \u2026 but the Yankees had one of the best outfields in the bigs with Dave Winfield<\/a>, Jerry Mumphrey, and the aforementioned Griffey joining the group. Despite being under six feet, first base was really the only plausible spot for Collins as a regular starter\u2014where he had only appeared 10 times in 775 career games, mind you\u2014and even that never came to pass. At the time, Collins touched on playing time assurances as a key factor in his signing with the Yankees, but surely he didn\u2019t have a case to start over any of the Yankees\u2019 top three outfielders.<\/p>\n So who was Dave Collins anyway? Going back to his minor-league days in the early-\u201970s, the South Dakota native\u2019s strengths had always been speed and contact. Indeed, his last full season before making The Show, he hit .349\/.420\/.458 with 131 singles and 61 stolen bases across 121 games at High-A Salinas and Double-A El Paso. Similar success followed at Triple-A to start \u201875 and in short order, he was ready. Collins had a 106 OPS+ in his rookie year for the Angels and established his bona fides in a hurry, swiping 24 bags in 93 games to finish second among all rookies in steals despite not debuting until June (easily leading in swipes per game).<\/p>\n Collins\u2019 bat could put him in funks though and he spent his next few years bouncing around from the Halos to the Mariners to those Reds, where after bottoming out with an ugly \u201878, he rebounded quite nicely with a .318\/.364\/.402, 109 OPS+ campaign in \u201879. The Reds won the NL West and though they were swept by the Pirates in the NLCS, Collins hit .357 with a pair of steals across the three games.<\/p>\n Collins\u2019 bat stayed around that 1979 level (albeit while never topping his career-high five homers with Seattle in \u201877), and he brought his basestealing ability to new heights by swiping a whopping 105 bags across his final two seasons with the Reds, including 79 in \u201880. That 105 figure ranked fifth in the majors from 1980-81 and trailed only Pittsburgh\u2019s Omar Moreno among National Leaguers.<\/p>\n That brings us to the Yankees. In 1981, they won their fourth pennant in six seasons and over that span from 1976-81, they\u2019d easily won more games than anyone in baseball with 548 \u2014 a dozen ahead of the second-place Orioles and 21 more than the third-place Reds. But that wasn\u2019t enough for the insatiable Steinbrenner. Since winning back-to-back titles in 1977-78, the Yankees had missed the playoffs in \u201879, got swept by the Royals in the \u201880 ALCS, and then upon returning to the Fall Classic in \u201881, they blew a 2-0 series lead and dropped four in a row, including the Game 6 clincher at Yankee Stadium.<\/p>\n All the other recent success notwithstanding, Steinbrenner decided that the Yankees were too reliant on power needed to change their approach on offense. Most notably, that meant swapping out a slugger like Reggie for a speed-focused player like Collins \u2014 never mind that this was especially ill-considered from the start since again, they never had a clear opening on the field for Collins. Thus, the dreaded \u201c\u2018Bronx Burners\u201d was born.<\/p>\n BALTIMORE, MD \u2013 CIRCA 1982: Dave Collins (L) of the New York Yankees gets batting tips from teammate Lou Piniella (R) pregame against the Baltimore Orioles at Memorial Stadium circa 1982 in Baltimore, Maryland. (Photo by Owen C. Shaw\/Getty Images) Getty Images<\/p>\n Despite the fact that he was then signed to a three-year deal and promised a significant role, the Yankees only started Collins in 85 games that year, as the left-handed hitter struggled heavily\u2014Collins also wasn\u2019t shy about voicing his displeasure in a diminished role. Had the former Red played at his best level as a hitter with a .299 average across his last three seasons in Cincinnati, the Yankees had room to give him regular at-bats at first, if for nothing else, due to a lack of options since John Mayberry and others were also quite poor in 1982.<\/p>\n However, given Collins\u2019 own woes, there was no incentive to make a big push for him as an everyday bat. He hit .253\/.315\/.330 with an underwhelming 81 wRC+ in 393 plate appearances. Collins couldn\u2019t fulfill the baserunning expectations either, stealing just 13 bases with an unsightly 61.9-percent success rate.<\/p>\n With a full outfield and a bat that didn\u2019t even come close to justifying regular starts at first, Collins moved around and lost playing time as the year went on, especially after the Yankees acquired Lee Mazzilli in early August and he hit well enough to cover the cold corner. As for the Yanks as a team? They couldn\u2019t live up to the promise of 1981 and finished the \u201882 campaign with a losing record, burning their way through multiple managerial changes. Bob Lemon had taken over in midseason \u201881 but his second tenure ended at just 14 games into \u201882 at 6-8 (he had, of course, been promised<\/a> that he\u2019d manage the full campaign). The man he had replaced the previous year, expert scout Gene Michael, stepped right back into the role and went 44-42 before the ever-implacable Steinbrenner canned him again. Longtime advisor Clyde King skippered the final 62 games, going 29-33; the Yanks finished in fifth.*<\/p>\n *It\u2019s almost as though the actual manager wasn\u2019t the problem!<\/p>\n Regrettably for Collins, the most memorable aspect of his Yankee tenure is not even the negative impact of his dismal \u201882 campaign, since that team had bigger problems. The first baseman\/outfielder was signed to a three-year deal, which meant that moving on from him required a trade, and boy, was it a bad one.<\/p>\n In order to acquire reliever Dale Murray, who was coming off one of his best seasons with the Blue Jays, the Yankees had to build a package around Collins, which meant shipping out a couple of other players: Mike Morgan, a starter with pedestrian numbers in 1982, and a prospect by the name of Fred McGriff<\/a>, a future Hall of Famer and a first baseman of a quality the Yankees farm hasn\u2019t produced since Don Mattingly. Mattingly, of course, had only just debuted in \u201882 and had his full prime ahead of him, somewhat easing the blow of the McGriff loss \u2014 though the ascent of the \u201cCrime Dog\u201d did come as Mattingly began to battle serious injuries. Back to the Collins trade though, it\u2019s worth noting that Tom Dodd also came over to the Bronx in that deal but never reached the majors in pinstripes. For Collins\u2019 part, he got his career back on track for at least a little while in Toronto, so honestly, good for him.<\/p>\n While one could lament Morgan\u2019s departure, as he also became a pretty notable pitcher, his true success didn\u2019t come until years later with the Dodgers, multiple teams removed from his Blue Jays period. It\u2019s the McGriff loss that truly stinks, all in large part because the Yankees decided they needed more speed and added a player they didn\u2019t really have room for. The Collins contract was a mistake in the first place, and it was only compounded by the trade they felt they had to make to (in part) remedy the error. From start to finish, Collins was an unfortunate symbol of everything that Steinbrenner could do wrong when he fancied himself too much of a baseball expert.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Dave-Collins-SB.gif\"\/)
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