Baseball Busts - But Were They?
 

Sparked by the "All Hail the King" thread, I began to putz around Baseballreference.com to look at some statistics from the '80s. I began thinking about some of my favorite players and teams from the time.

One of my favorite players from that era was Randy Milligan. I know as a minor leaguer, he had the unfortunate label of being the 2nd coming of every great slugger in baseball history (which he obviously never lived up to). However, I remember liking him as an Oriole fan because the guy hit with occasional power - but he was always willing to take a walk. I look at his statistics now, and I wonder whether his career was just an unfortunate example of being in the right place at the wrong time. Mind you, he wasn't a particularly good fielder, and you would usually want someone with more power at the first base position. But, was Randy really as much of a bust as the naysayers would have you believe, especially when taken in the context of today where OBP is "finally" valued?


Year Ag Tm Lg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG TB SH SF IBB HBP GDP
+--------------+---+----+----+----+---+--+---+----+---+--+---+---+-----+-----+-----+----+---+---+---+---+---+
1987 25 NYMNL 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 .000 .500 .000 0 0 0 0 0 0
1988 26 PITNL 40 82 10 18 5 0 3 8 1 2 20 24 .220 .379 .390 32 0 0 0 1 2
1989 27 BALAL 124 365 56 98 23 5 12 45 9 5 74 75 .268 .394 .458 167 0 2 2 3 12
1990 28 BALAL 109 362 64 96 20 1 20 60 6 3 88 68 .265 .408 .492 178 0 4 3 2 11
1991 29 BALAL 141 483 57 127 17 2 16 70 0 5 84 108 .263 .373 .406 196 0 2 4 2 23
1992 30 BALAL 137 462 71 111 21 1 11 53 0 1 106 81 .240 .383 .361 167 0 5 0 4 15
1993 31 CINNL 83 234 30 64 11 1 6 29 0 2 46 49 .274 .394 .406 95 0 1 0 1 3
CLEAL 19 47 7 20 7 0 0 7 0 0 14 4 .426 .557 .574 27 0 0 0 0 0
TOT 102 281 37 84 18 1 6 36 0 2 60 53 .299 .423 .434 122 0 1 0 1 3
1994 32 MONNL 47 82 10 19 2 0 2 12 0 0 14 21 .232 .337 .329 27 0 2 1 0 1
+--------------+---+----+----+----+---+--+---+----+---+--+---+---+-----+-----+-----+----+---+---+---+---+---+
8 Seasons 703 2118 305 553 106 10 70 284 16 18 447 431 .261 .391 .420 889 0 16 10 13 67


Yes, he didn't live up to his Triple Crown predictions, but he wasn't a bad ballplayer.

dola - bah, damn formatting!

It's an interesting question. I'm sure there were plenty like Milligan who had bad BA and great OBP and would have been far more valued today then back then.

A guy who was appreciated (because of the pop in his bat) but would probably be even moreso today is Ken Singleton (another 100 walk a year guy, when it was much less glamorous).

The same can be said for the extreme overvalue of that day as well. Tops in that category for me was all-star Ellis Valentine. His 1979 season he hit .276 with 21 HRs and also walked a grand total of 22 times in 548 atbats (for a sparkling .303 OBP). Of course, at the time, they probably marveled at his "aggressiveness" at the plate :).

Here go down memory lane with Topps All Star Rookies!

http://www.geocities.com/nyjeterfan/trophylist.html

That will give you some fun to check the players out on baseball reference.

Ok, Who is considered the biggest baseball bust ever?

Morganna. Hands down.

Brien Taylor

In one of the yearly Baseball Abstracts in the 1980s, Bill James went on a rant about players who would be amazing producers if only given the chance to play. Chief among them was a guy by the name of Ken Phelps. I just looked over his stats, and teams today would give their eye teeth to have a guy like him. Instead, he only had a few seasons where he got 300 ABs, but still hit 25 HRs and drew 80 BBs in limited time. Teams today would embrace a .240/.400/.520 kind of guy. Back then, they couldn't look past the first number.

He was one of my favorite players (probably the dorky glasses he wore). The knock on him was that he couldn't hit lefties or play defense. Hence, he didn't play every day.

They marveled even more about the gun he had for an arm.

I remember the Braves had a fine young outfielder named Brad Komminsk, who was supposed to be the next Dale Murphy. Of course, you could always name a number of Yankee "prospects" of the early 90's - Hensley Meulens, Oscar Azocar, Kevin Maas, etc.

Well, you learn something new every day :)

Yep. This was around the same era that the M's were giving Edgar Martinez token looks at the MLB level and letting him waste 2+ years in AAA - they simply didn't know how to properly evaluate their own players. Of course, part of Phelps problem was he was Wally Pipp'd by Alvin Davis - Phelps started '84 as the M's starting 1B, got hurt early on and watched call-up Davis hit his way to the AL Rookie of the Year award.

I have a love/hate relationship with Phelps - I always thought he should've gotten more playing time (being an early devotee to Bill James, I recognized right away that his high OBP and SLG needed to be in the lineup) but at least he netted us Jay Buhner; on the other hand, Phelps broke up Brian Holman's bid for a perfect game with 1 out to go by hitting a HR when he played for the A's. Fucker.

Todd Van Poppel

That pitcher the Jays got in a trade for David Cone. I forgot his name.. could've been Marty Janzen or whatever? Probably not the biggest bust ever, but as a big Jays fan at the time, I loved Cone... seeing him go for THAT was horrible.

Eric Anthony

Phil Nevin (if he hadn't started doing 'roids with Cammo in SD, that is)

Edit: Nevermind on Anthony. He was always talked up by the Astros for some reason, but it turns out he was a freakin' 34th round pick, for god's sake...

Double edit: This post is who I think are the Astros biggest busts in my memory.

At least he had a couple of okay seasons--unlike Brien Taylor.

A couple of okay seasons does not equate to the green yours truly dropped on his Gold Leaf Rookie card back in the day. :mad:

Van Poppel just generally sucking, and never developing into a quality pitcher like he should have been is more "bust like" than Taylor who got hurt, and quickly ended his career.

Just for kicks sake, in 1986 the Pirates were the worst team in Baseball, but drafted 2nd due to the year by year alternating first pick. The Mariners draft Ken Griffey JR, the Pirates draft Mark Merchant. Now surely Merchant was a bust, but he also was a "never was," not hyped on a major scale. Imagine, tho, for a second, if the Pirates got Ken Griffey Jr, and added him to their stable of talent in the early 90's.

Darren Driefort, but he's been an inuury prone waste of talent more then anything...

I'd like to think Wilton Guerrero is too....Bastard M's took A-Rod instead of LA

Paul Wilson? Bill Pulsipher?

Dallas Green.

Matt Nokes!

Gary Scott--great glove, but just couldn't hit.

Josh Hamilton

Danny Goodwin has to be a candidate for biggest bust of all time. Twice the No. 1 overall draft pick (1971 and 1975), and had a total of 636 career at-bats, .236 career BA, .301 OBP, and .373 SLG.

Ding!

And I'd have wanted my hands up if I ran into Morganna...

She's got nothing on Cecil Fielder or Terry Forster.

For some reason, this is the only baseball number one pick that I remember.

Brien Taylor, former New York Yankees prospect, facing 40 years in jail - ESPN

The Josh Hamilton response is funny now.

Bob Hamelin?

Nice bit of thread necromancy. I'd throw out Ruben Mateo as one of the big busts. Was projected to be a 5 tool superstar, but flamed out pretty quick after breaking his leg his rookie season.

Anna (don't call be Kris) Benson?

But in all seriousness, I think Matt Bush has to rank right up there, no?

Jeffery Hammonds.

Supposed to be Barry Bonds 2.0, turned out to be Barry Manilow with a tan and a bat.

This is funny now.

fernando martinez- who omar minaya refused to give up in a deal for roy halladay. recently claimed off waivers by the astros

He was coming into the league at a time when I was big time into baseball. I wanted him to be good so bad. My uncle always said he was going to be a bust.

I always felt that if he had actually panned out, the Orioles would have won a WS in the mid-late 90's.

There are a number of Ranger fans who would probably still agree with the initial statement.

LOL...I can relate to this as I was collecting cards around that time but actually was lucky enough to get a couple of his rookie cards in a few random packs.

Errr..."lucky" might not be the right world.

I would question their intelligence in baseball if they did...

In the busts, or were they genre, how about Ben McDonald?

In terms of sheer hype from when I was really into baseball: Shawn Abner.

Can't argue with Brien Taylor, either, though at the time plenty of people warned that anything can happen to a pitcher - especially when one who doesn't know how to fight tries to get into a fight (sorry, Dave Rozema).

Shawn Abner - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Getting your own wikipedia entry is a solid achievement in life, but having it end with the term "King Scump" tarnishes it a bit.

It's funny how a lot of the guys mentioned in this thread had high profile baseball rookie cards during the baseball card boom of the late 80s/early 90s before they had done a thing in MLB, that has to be the only reason so many people remember their names. I remember the local card shop in my town had a deal where if you bought a pack of 1988 DonRuss or whatever it was, they'd offer to immediately buy back any Greg Jefferies rookie for $5 or $10 or $20, I can't remember. I was like, "no way man, that card's going to make me rich someday".

I don't know whether I should be happy or sad that 75% of the players listed in this thread were drafted by the Orioles...

Andy Marte was a big name there for a few years.

As an Oriole fan I'll pile on - Adam Loewen. Oh, and soon-to-be Ex-Oriole Billy Rowell. Yeah, he he was the guy drafted right before Tim Lincecum.

dola

Matt Hobgood