What can we say? Friday Funday is here for entertainment, and today we take on the career of longtime MLB shortstop Greg Gagne. He was the starter on two World Series championship teams with the Minnesota Twins, and overall, he compiled 19.1 dWAR in his 15-year baseball career—yet he never won a Gold Glove, a fact we noted awhile ago in our analyses of those misguided awards. Playing in small TV markets can mute your achievements, for sure, and the opposite is true as well, right?

We have seen some very overrated players thrive in big television markets, when it comes to adulation and awards. Alas, baseball is all about the TV markets, as we have shown. Gagne was a victim of playing in Minnesota (1983-1992) and Kansas City (1993-1995), before finishing his career with the Los Angeles Dodgers (1996-1997) when he was in his late 30s. Too little, too late, really, and those Dodgers were not the Dodgers we know today, either. In fact, we think he’s pretty lucky to have two title rings.

Gagne broke into the majors in 1983, but across 1983-1984 combined, he managed just 12 games played. His official rookie season (1985) saw him get action in 114 games and compile 0.7 WAR for the Twins: he hit just .225 with an OPS under .600, although he stole 10 bases and posted 1.3 dWAR. This provided a preview of what was to come in his career, and it’s entirely possible his weak bat (.684 career OPS) hurt his Gold Glove chances, obviously, even though that has never made sense to us.

In 1986, at age 24, Gagne began a seven-year stint as the Minnesota starting shortstop, and it’s hard to argue with the overall team results: the Twins won the World Series in both 1987 and 1991 by winning home games only. Their defense on the artificial turf of the Metrodome certainly played a big role in the franchise’s successes, and Gagne was the spearhead, really: three times, he put up at least 2.2 dWAR while with the Twins, and overall in his 1,140 regular-season games with Minnesota, he earned 12.4 dWAR.

His bat wasn’t that bad, either, as he compiled 12.7 oWAR in the same time frame. In fact, from 1987-1991, during his best seasons, Gagne contributed 15.9 total WAR to the Minnesota cause. He certainly wasn’t an offensive powerhouse, but with his glove, anything positive he did at the plate and on the base paths would have been considered a bonus. Gagne wasn’t fast or powerful, but he did manage to hit 69 home runs as a Twin. His best WAR seasons (4.1) came in 1989 at age 27 … makes sense.

By the end of 1992, he had completed his age-30 season having never made more than the $1.9M he earned that final year with Minnesota. The Twins let him walk, and the Royals signed him to a three-year, $10.7M deal he richly deserved from his original ballclub. In his early 30s, Gagne still was solidly productive for Kansas City in that trio of seasons (6.5 WAR), although he only managed to see action in 227 games across the final two years of the deal. Age and injuries were catching up to him finally, eh?

Gagne spent his final two campaigns with the Dodgers after they inked him to a two-year, $5.6M before the 1996 season, when he was entering his age-34 season. Los Angeles got 2.2 WAR out of him in 1996 before he petered out during the 1997 year. Still, he was durable for the Dodgers: 272 games in the two seasons combined isn’t bad for a shortstop in his mid-30s at the time. Gagne still was a positive defender (0.4 dWAR) in his final MLB season, as well, showing that his glove work remained solid.

He never made an All-Star team; only once (1993) did he earn MVP votes. His 3.2 WAR that year helped the Royals finish third in the AL West Division, unexpectedly, and that was one of the rewards as Gagne finished 22nd in the MVP balloting—the only Royals position player that year to earn votes. He had been reunited in Kansas City with third baseman Gary Gaetti, his longtime teammate with the Twins, and the duo had a positive effect on the team, obviously. Yet his career trended downward from there on.

We highlight him today as guys like Gagne help teams win championships, even if they’re not recognized properly for their contributions. Not everyone can be an All Star, and not everyone can win a Gold Glove—even if they deserved to win one. It’s a weird world in MLB, as we know, but he earned over $22M in his major-league playing days, and most baseball fans would gladly take a career like Gagne’s over their own employment situation(s). And he did win those two Series, too, playing with the Twins.

His postseason efforts? He hit just .213 in 24 playoff games with Minnesota, although he did contribute 4 HRs and 10 RBI in the process, despite a mediocre .675 OPS in 89 ABs. In fact, he walked just five times (plus two additional HBPs) in those postseason contests, while striking out a whopping 27 times. Still, we bet every one of his teammates from those two championship clubs would attest to the fact that they would not have won it all without Gagne. He was a glue guy, and that’s not a bad thing to be, yo.