Mlb Rookieof the Yearthat Never Played Again

10 Rookie Baseball Players Who Peaked…When They Were Rookies

Promising careers looked to be alee for these players who surged in their showtime yr in the majors, merely they never came close to replicating their freshman feel.

When a major leaguer wins the Rookie of the Twelvemonth laurels, it'southward frequently thought that the best is still all the same to come. That's been proven again and again thanks to past recipients Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, Frank Robinson, Pete Rose, Tom Seaver, Cal Ripken Jr., Derek Jeter and Albert Pujols. But not all such honorees managed to ride the magic carpet all-time sailed to Cooperstown; in fact, more than a few speedily faded out and ultimately were never heard from again, until they started actualization on lists like this one, which reveals our choices for the ten biggest post-Rookie of the Year busts baseball has forgotten.

Bobby Crosby, 2004

The Californian native's first go-around in the majors with Oakland wasn't a spectacular endeavour—he did smack 22 homers but too hitting just .239 with 141 strikeouts—yet the competition for top rookie honors was even weaker; the only other player to receive a first place vote that year was Chicago reliever Shingo Takatsu. (Who, you make ask? Exactly.) Yet once upon a time, Jose Canseco started his career with similar numbers, and the A'southward were hoping that Crosby would take a like fast runway towards MVP ownership. Maybe had he doped upwardly like Canseco, he would gotten to that promised state.

A decent sophomore entrada was muted by injuries, the first of several that would beset Crosby for the balance of his career; in the years to follow, he would never recapture the magic of his initial taste of the bigs, constantly mired in the .220s (if not worse) while unable to display his early on power stroke. Subsequently half-dozen years in Oakland, a change of scenery—moving to last-place Pittsburgh—fabricated things merely worse; later 61 games of function-time activeness with the Pirates, he was sent to Arizona where he was chewed upwards and spit out quickly, never to play again in the majors.

Ken Hubbs, 1962

This may be the nearly controversial insertion on the listing, considering Hubbs really never got the take a chance to testify his worth beyond his rookie flavor. He didn't necessarily take OMG written all over him when he debuted with a .260 average and five homers playing 160 games for the Chicago Cubs in 1962, only it was his defense force at second—which included a then-tape 78 straight games without committing an mistake—that got him the National League's rookie laurels. He regressed in his second season, hitting just .235.

And then came February thirteen, 1964. For some reason, Hubbs—a pilot with relatively scant flying experience—idea information technology was a good idea to take himself and ii others up in a Cesena aircraft during a Utah blizzard. It proved tragic; the plane crashed into a lake, killing all on board. Though it might be a stretch to presume superstardom lay ahead for Hubbs had he non died, the loss of his rock-like presence in the middle infield is often bemoaned by long-time Cubs fans who believed he could have lifted the team in the standings—and, in particular, might have given Chicago that extra push to overcome the rampaging New York Mets and win the 1969 NL pennant.

Jerome Walton, 1989

Afterward Hubbs, the speedy Walton was the next Cub to win acme rookie honors—and forth with Dwight Smith (who finished 2nd in the vote) put a dynamic spark into the 1989 squad that won the NL East, hitting .293, stealing 24 bases and setting a franchise record by striking safely in 30 straight games. That's every bit good every bit information technology got for the Georgia native; he batted .263 in 1990, only .219 in a part-time role in 1991, so got off to a horrid .127 outset through the outset two-plus months of 1992 when he finally gave into tense back pain that would end his tenure at Wrigley Field.

Over the next six years, Walton would bounce though five organizations, splitting his time between the parent club and the minors; a renaissance seemed to exist in the cards when he hit .290 with eight homers over 162 at-bats playing role-time for the NL Key-winning Cincinnati Reds in 1995, but he failed to build upon that and found himself largely riding the demote again until he was forced to retire from the game in 1998.

Bob Hamelin, 1994

A twelvemonth after George Brett retired, the Kansas City Royals idea they had the side by side big thing in tow when big Bob Hamelin stepped to the plate and walloped 24 homers with 65 RBIs and a .282 average in a strike-shortened rookie campaign; had the work stoppage not intervened, his homer total might accept reached 35. It all came crashing down the next year; he hit but .168 in 72 games (with just seven homers) and was demoted to the minors. By 1996, he couldn't even go a baseball card right; his Pinnacle menu from that year shows him staring soullessly past the photographic camera while property a card with his name merely under his chin, all in what appears to exist an errant outtake that somehow fabricated it to the printer.

Hamelin muscled up something of a 2nd wind in 1997 when he belted 18 homers in 110 games with a decent .270 marker for the Detroit Tigers, but he establish himself a twelvemonth afterward in Milwaukee, once again unable to sustain the momentum. He had to settle for the minors once more in 1998 and, while hitting a paltry .221 midway through, asked the director to be removed from a game. He never played again.

Joe Black, 1952

The Brooklyn Dodgers had cornered the early market on black ballplayers with the arrival of Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella and Don Newcombe—and they idea they had another Hall of Fame-quotient African-American in the fold after the tiptop 1952 debut of the aptly named Joe Black, who led the team in both wins and saves (xv each) with a 2.fifteen ERA equally a full-fourth dimension reliever; converted to a starter for that year'southward Globe Series against the New York Yankees, he threw ii complete games in three appearances and produced a fine 2.56 ERA. Blackness's fastball was instantly hailed every bit one of the game's liveliest, and the heaven seemed to be the limit for the 28-year quondam.

The following spring, the Dodgers tried to expand his pitching armory beyond the bread-and-butter fastball, with disastrous results. Blackness's ERA jumped to 5.33—and a year after found himself playing the bulk of the season in the minors later on 5 miserable outings in Brooklyn. Cincinnati gave Black a attempt from 1955-56 and he managed to stick and settle down, but his ordinary results (4.34 ERA) showed no sign of a render to rookie greatness. Later on a brief stint with the Washington Senators in 1957, he ran out of gas and retired.

Chris Coghlan, 2009

The Florida native won the pinnacle rookie award on the strength of a terrific second half in which he led the majors in hitting (.372) and hits (113) for the Marlins; After an atrocious beginning to his sophomore season, the team hoped for a similar burst of belated free energy—and he was doing merely that, hitting .320 after May. But after the Marlins won a late July game in walk-off fashion, an over-exuberant Coghlan tried to surprise teammate Wes Helms—who delivered the winning hit—with a shaving cream pie. He ended up wrecking his knee—and perhaps his career—with information technology.

Multiple operations followed over the adjacent few years, and Coghlan bottomed out with a lousy 2012 campaign in which he hitting just .140 in 39 games before playing out the rest of the flavor in Triple-A. The only active player on this list, Coghlan is notwithstanding slipping gears trying to escape common player status and retain his rookie glory; he'll accept to do it with the Chicago White Sox afterwards the Marlins gave upwards on him following the 2013 season.

Harry Byrd, 1952

The correct-hander copped meridian rookie honors by pitching his way to a xv-15 tape and 3.31 ERA for the Philadelphia A's in what would be their last winning flavour (79-75) earlier embarking on an American League-tape 15 direct losing campaigns. Byrd would be no stranger to the newfound losing bug when he led the league the next year with 20 losses and a wretched 5.51 ERA; after he institute himself lost in some massive trades—get-go, an 11-man deal between the A's and the Yankees and, a twelvemonth later, as part of a record-setting 17-player merchandise between the Yankees and Baltimore Orioles.

From at that place, Byrd was a journeyman bullpen, but the journeying was short; he saw his last major league action in 1957. Similar his career earlier him, Byrd's post-career fame started large and shrank; after having a highway named after him in his hometown of Darlington, South Carolina, part of the route would later exist renamed afterward some other ex-ballplayer, pitcher Bobo Newsom.

Pat Listach, 1992

The speedy Louisianan lucked into his impressive rookie experience when incumbent Milwaukee shortstop Bill Spiers got injure in spring training; he made the almost of his opportunity, hitting .290 with 54 steals while condign the image of an ambitious baserunning philosophy that resulted in a major league team-high 256 swipes and a 92-seventy record that would be the Brewers' concluding above the .500 mark until 2007.

Listach'due south legs made him a star, but such condition would be brusk-lived when, the following twelvemonth, when ane of those legs got banged upward; more injuries would follow in the aforementioned region, depriving him of the one asset that made him tick: Speed. It didn't stop him from trying to steal bases and, all things considered, he was fairly successful when he tried. The new problem became just getting to base, as his boilerplate struggled to stick above .200. His lack of power only made matters worse, with slugging percentages constantly lower than his on-base of operations marks. The Brewers gave up on him later on 1996; he failed to impress the Houston Astros in what would go a one-and-done experience in 1997, and he was through as a thespian later striking .219 in 1998 for Triple-A clubs split between two organizations (Cleveland and Philadelphia).

Listach would turn to coaching, managing the Cubs' Triple-A team to minor success in the mid-2000s earlier becoming taking on assistant duties for a number of major league teams.

Mark Fidrych, 1976

The most storied and (in a baseball sense) tragic of i-year wonders on this list, Fidrych became a national awareness in Detroit with his long, curly blonde locks and fascination for talking to the ball, sometimes with great emotion, on the mound. There was a quirky innocence about him that attracted fans both young and old, hardcore and casual.

The theatrics lonely would have been enough to generate sizeable P.R. for the Tigers, simply Fidrych backed it upwardly with terrific numbers; added to the rotation in mid-May, he started 29 games and finished 24 of them—with five outings of ten or more than innings pitched—and finished with a nineteen-ix tape and a ii.34 ERA skillful enough to be the AL's all-time. Fidrychmania hit total step by July every bit fans began flooding ballparks every time he took the mound.

A knee injury delayed the kickoff to Fidrych's 1977 campaign, but he looked no less brilliant in one case he returned in late May—going the distance in seven of his first eight games with a 6-2 record and 1.83 ERA. Then his arm died; he struggled in his next 3 starts and never pitched once again that year. His 1978 campaign was an even shorter microcosm of his 1977 experience with 2 solid consummate game wins followed past a shortened outing that suggested all was non well. Brief and painful attempts followed over the next two years, but all Fidrych could muster was a ii-half-dozen record in 13 starts with a 6.86 ERA.

Later on 1980, Fidrych institute himself discarded to the minors, where he toiled unsuccessfully for iii years before giving upwardly. Information technology was merely then that he finally saw Dr. James Andrews, who detected a torn rotator cuff and successfully repaired it. But Fidrych never pitched again; he retired to his farm in Massachusetts, where he lived until an untimely, accidental expiry in 2009 at the historic period of 54.

Joe Charboneau, 1980

Both the Cleveland Indians and the urban center they played in had hit rock bottom by 1980, with the Tribe buried in their losing ways in a rust-covered town beset by law-breaking, depression and rivers catching fire. Then along came Joe Charboneau. The 23-year-old rookie savage into the starting lineup when veteran slugger Andre Thornton suffered a season-ending injury before Opening Day; he homered in his first game and never looked dorsum, launching 23 bombs—including one of the longest ever hit at old Yankee Stadium—and added 87 RBIs with a sharp .289 boilerplate.

Although Charboneau wouldn't capture the nation's imagination like Fidrych, he was instantly idolized in Cleveland, which needed a feel-practiced story the way a newborn needed milk. Similar Fidrych, Charboneau seemed to come well equipped with eccentricity; stories spread of him opening beer bottles with his eyelids and drinking through his nose. (Charboneau later scoffed at such tales as pure exaggerations.) A band penned the local hit song Become Super Joe, and information technology seemed that for once Cleveland had finally institute itself a baseball star.

The frenzy lasted all of one season. Charboneau hurt his back the post-obit spring and he played hurt all year long—that is, when he got the chance, equally his numbers shrank to a miserable .210 average with simply four homers in 48 games. He underwent back surgery following the season, but it didn't help; he spent the majority of the 1982 flavor in the minors earlier going nether the knife once more. Despite that, Charboneau would never see the majors again; he toiled for two more than years in organized small-scale league ball, making his terminal bit of news in 1984 by playing a teammate of Roy Hobbs (Robert Redford) in The Natural and, while playing Triple-A for Buffalo, responding to booing fans by flipping them off.

From there, Charboneau aimed for a comeback anyplace he could—independent leagues, semipro outfits, fifty-fifty Europe. Super Joe never found his star back, and he finally gave up on his quest in 2000, 20 years after a memorable wink-in-the-pan experience.

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Source: https://thisgreatgame.com/baseball-lists-rookies-of-year-failures/

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