Ken Landreaux

Kenneth Francis Landreaux

• Bats Left, Throws Right
• Height 5' 10", Weight 165 lb.
• School Arizona State University
• High School Dominguez High School
• Debut September 11, 1977
• Final Game October 4, 1987
• Born December 22, 1954 in Los Angeles, CA USA

BR page

Biographical Information

Ken Landreaux played eleven seasons in the major leagues, mostly with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He was on their 1981 World Series championship team as well as their division-winning teams in 1983 and 1985 but retired just before their 1988 championship season.

He was at Arizona State University from 1974 to 1976, at the same time as quite a few other future major leaguers, including Floyd Bannister, Bump Wills, Ken Phelps, and Bob Horner. Bannister was the #1 pick in the 1976 amateur draft, while Landreaux was the 6th overall pick, selected by the California Angels; Phelps didn't go until the 15th round (Wills was a first-round pick in 1975 while Horner was a first-round pick in 1978).

Ken played only two seasons in the minor leagues, 1976 and 1977, before becoming a major league regular after he hit .357 with 27 home runs for two minor league teams in 1977 and was named the Minor League Player of the Year by The Sporting News. He came up to the big leagues originally in September 1977 and then appeared in 93 games for the Angels in 1978, hitting .223.

After his rookie season, he was acquired by the Minnesota Twins in the Rod Carew trade and hit .305 for them in 1979. On July 3rd that year, he hit two doubles in one inning, then exactly one year later, he hit three triples in one game. After a bit of a drop-off in 1980, when he still made the All-Star team for the only time of his career, he was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers in a deal which brought Mickey Hatcher to the Twins. Hatcher would spend six years with the Twins before returning to the Dodgers in 1987, where he became a teammate of Landreaux, who spent the rest of his career with the Dodgers after the trade. Landreaux's best season with the Dodgers came in 1983 when he batted .281 with 17 homers and 66 RBIs in 141 games for a division-winning team; his OPS+ of 115 was the highest of his career. He was a regular for most of his seven seasons, but in 1987 his batting average fell to .203 and his OPS+ to 57, and he lost his starting job. His decline was one of the reasons which pushed the Dodgers to sign free agent CF Kirk Gibson in 1988, in spite of the ongoing collusion, as they were unable to come up with a decent outfielder from within their own system.

In 1989, Landreaux played for the Orlando Juice and St. Petersburg Pelicans of the Senior Professional Baseball Association. He hit .307 for the clubs. In 1990, Landreaux again played for the St. Petersburg Pelicans and in 15 games he batted .333 with 1 home run and 11 RBI before the league folded. He was a coach for the Hagerstown Suns in 1999-2000 and Syracuse SkyChiefs in 2001-2004.

Landreaux is a cousin of Dick Davis and a distant cousin of Enos Cabell.

Notable Achievements

• 1977 Minor League Player of the Year, El Paso Diablos, Texas League & Salt Lake City Gulls, Pacific Coast League
• AL All-Star (1980)
• Won a World Series with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1981