There is unhappy news for fans, and baseball generally, on Tuesday morning. Guillermo “Willie” Hernandez, legendary reliever for the 1984 World Series champion Tigers has passed away at the age of 69. MLB Insider reporter Hector Gomez was first with the sad news.
Hernandez is best remembered for his incredible 1984 campaign. With the right-handed Aurelio Lopez as his superb setup man, Hernandez was Sparky Anderson’s weapon to close out games, throwing 140 1⁄3 innings of relief with a 1.92 ERA and putting up a 3.2 fWAR season out of the bullpen to help lead the Tigers to their last World Series title.