Arlett started his career as a right-handed spitball pitcher with the hometown Oakland Oaks in 1918 and went on to win
108 games, twice going over 25 wins in a season. The Detroit Tigers looked at him, but without the spitball, which he
wouldn't be able to use in the majors, they did not consider him a prospect. After suffering arm trouble early in 1923,
Buzz switched to the outfield. Although he had been nothing more than a fair-hitting pitcher, once becoming a regular he
annually averaged nearly .360 with 30 homers and 140 RBIs through the rest of the 1920s, but early in his career as an
outfielder a Cardinal scout labeled him "good hit, no field," and it stuck. Finally in 1931 he was purchased by the Phillies.
The thirty-two-year-old switch-hitter batted .313 with 18 homers and 73 RBIs in a season when the National League
introduced a "dead ball" in reaction to the hitting orgies of 1929-1930. However, at the end of the year Arlett was sent
to Baltimore, where in 1932 he hit 4 homers in a game twice within a five-week period and led the league with 54 homers
for the season, but he would never return to the majors. He spent another year with Baltimore, when he again won the
home run title, a little over a month with Birmingham, and nearly three years with Minneapolis, where he had another
home run championship. After a few games with Syracuse in 1937, Arlett's career was over.
In addition to his 108 wins, he hit 432 homers, a minor league record that held up until Hector Espino topped it in 1977.
Arlett walked a lot, didn't strike out much, ran pretty well early in his career, had a .341 lifetime batting average--.350
after he became an outfielder--and was the only player to finish in the top five in home runs and slugging percentage in his
only season in the majors. In addition, modern statistical analysis, including range factors, suggests he was nowhere near the
defensive liability he was portrayed as being. He was big (6-4, 230) and gave the appearance of being lackadaisical,
which apparently irritated some of his managers, but the evidence is strong that Arlett, despite nearly two decades
spent in the minors, was a major-league-caliber player.
Taken from Total Baseball by John Thorn and Pete Palmer.
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