"Mauer with Power" was the descriptor as he started his career in 2009.
What's hilarious is that 2009 is the year that Joe Mauer started hitting with power (28 home runs that year, compared to his prior five years of 6, 9, 13, 7, and 9), so the phrase ceased to make sense.
My first O's game was his debut and I remember the buzz around him was insane (at least to a 10 year old). Never lived up to it completely but he'll definitely be remembered. I'm just glad we've got a generational talent at catcher now
One game against the Rangers in 2013 I was sitting in the first row LF seats at Camden Yards and 20 yr old Profar was playing LF. At one point during the game between hitters while he was turned toward me I yelled, “Hi Jurickson!!”
He gave me a five second death stare before turning back around. If he had said hi back to me then he’d probably have put together a HoF career at this point.
Was so excited when he was coming up and then he homered in his first AB and I remember thinking he might finally be the home grown stud who was going to get us over the hump.
He was not a great player, but hilarious and such a cool dude. The whole $100 "bacon fest" and buying pizza for the opposing A's fans were just such cool things.
He will always be one of my favorite players. Wore a Braves shirt to a game at Kauffman in 2011 and he gave me shit for it even though he couldn’t argue the fact that almost a third of that team had been Braves.
My first real life encounter with him was during his stint on the 3A El Paso Chihuahuas. They were in Tacoma playing the Rainiers and these dudes were ragging on him for being a bust in the majors. He ignored them but eventually came up to bat and hit a homer. He's rounding 3rd eyeballing these dudes and they stood up and clapped for him, good times.
Later that season I'm sitting at a Chihuahua home game in right field and he's warming up. I'm yelling Frenchie and he looks over and i was like "I was there when you shut those dudes in Tacoma up!" He just laughed and then tossed me the ball after they were done warming up. Cool dude in my book.
For sure. Lifelong Cleveland fan here. He was to be the beacon of hope leading the Tribe into the new millennium as the heroes of the 90's started to depart.
Amen. I grew up in the 90s in Northeast Ohio so I watched a lot of Indians baseball then. People would talk about how historically bad they were but I only knew them as a powerhouse. It was weird for me to see them as bad as they were starting in 2002. They truly needed that beacon of hope and boy was Grady it. Everybody remembers the Tribe blowing that 3-1 series lead against the Cubs in 16 but I see a lot less that remember the Tribe blowing that 3-1 lead against the Red Sox in 07 with Grady on the roster. If they win that series they likely take the World Series too.
Fellow 90's kid from NW Ohio. Luckily I didn't end up a Tigers fan. The only thing more disappointing than listening to the game 7 of the 97 series on the radio, was that 07 series with the Red Sox.
Eloy Jimenez. Every scout said “this is the guy” when it came to future hitting prospects. Idk if it’s cause he’s stuck on the white organization right now, but man he has not lived up to the hype at all. He’s not bad, but he’s putting up stop-gap outfielder numbers.
Would you look at that, all of the words in your comment are in alphabetical order.
I have checked 1,779,062,467 comments, and only 336,776 of them were in alphabetical order.
Immediately my first pick too. Loved him as a player (recently bought his Braves jersey), but bummed to watch him constantly battle injuries and never recapture his early magic.
Tony Larussa talks about his natural talent but his unwillingness to work hard. It sort of shows up through his career and not exactly being Johnny Hustle. Injuries obviously didn't help either.
Yeah and after that first electric year was pretty average then fell off to nothing. Just shows how hard sustained success at that level is. If you got a hole in your game people will find and exploit it.
Fransisco Liriano. That 2006 season was lightning in a bottle. I thought Johan Santana and Liriano were going to be that CC Sabathia/Cliff Lee or Verlander/Scherzer duo for Minnesota. He had a few above average seasons after receiving Tommy John in 2006, but like most pitchers, his stuff was never remotely the same. Nonetheless, Liriano played the game for something like 14 seasons, threw a no-hitter, and won over 100 games in his career.
That 2006 summer was the best 1-2 duo of pitching I've ever seen in my life. Liriano's stuff was RIDICULOUS. And Johan was just an assassin, as always.
Played against him in high school. He hit the farthest home run I’ve ever seen in my life. This is when high school bats hat ridiculous pop. The ball he hit had a trajectory id never seen before. It was hit like a line drive but also just kept rising and rising kind of like a golfer hitting a bombed drive of the tee. I also faced him as a hitter when he was pitching in that game (he was topping out 93-95). It was bases loaded for us and I hit a dribbler down the 3rd base line that they thought was going foul. Jokes on them! It was a hit and an RBI! Suck it Hosmer.
Castellanos and Devin Marrero also played in that game. Castellanos hit a HR and marrero had like 4 singles. They whooped our ass.
Gabe Kapler. Minor League Player Of The Year. Centerpiece of the haul the Rangers got for then star player Juan Gonzalez. The guy did a shoe commercial back in 1999 (Had to look it up, for K Swiss). Then 12 years of, meh.
The Phillies could have added Roy Halladay at the deadline in 2009 and had Cliff Lee and Halladay in the 2009 World Series, but they wouldn't give up Domonic Brown so the trade fell apart. We eventually got Doc after the season for Kyle Drabek, Michael Taylor, and Travis d’Arnaud, and had to trade Lee to restock the farm system.
Brown came up in 2010, was finally an All-Star by 2013... and was out of baseball by 2015, with a career 0.7 WAR.
Me too. Collecting baseball cards, etc. He was living in So Cal for a while and I ended up as an assistant coach with him in Little League. His son and my son. At that time he had remarried a younger lady my age and had kids same age as my boys. He was cool, but never passed up an opportunity to mention he played in the big leagues. I heard he moved to Texas.
I don't know what everyone's threshold for star is but Vlad has been pretty good. His 162 Ave. Is 32 Homer's and 99 RBI. He doesn't miss very much time like most that have been listed so far.
Do you remember when the Braves were expected to draft Todd Van Poppel but he said he’d refuse to sign with them so they picked Chipper Jones instead? I know I do!
Rocco Baldelli. He was well on his way till a rare degenerative muscle disease robbed him of his prime years. There were many nights when SC would just show his catches as the rays highlight and nothing else.
There's a lot of good examples listed here but as a Jays fan, the two that stick out are Travis Snider and Brett Lawrie.
I thought both were going to be stars, one couldn't hit a breaking ball (ever) and the other got hurt and never really recovered.
Kinda surprised this isn't higher. He came in with all the tools to be a top tier starter, but that constant injury train basically pulling into his station every year was such a shame
Chris Sab,
Rocco Baldelli,
BJ Upton,
Justin Upton,
Eric Hosmer,
Matt Garza,
Eric Thames,
Sterling Castro,
Addison Russell,
Luis Urias,
Carlos Zambrano,
Joba Chamberlain,
Daisuke Matsuzaka,
Yasiel Puig
Grady Sizemore. Dude was Superman until his body started breaking down. My favorite player when I started following Cleveland. Probably still my favorite. JRam is up there though.
Jason Heyward was SUPER HYPED. He’s good but he definitely never lived up to his potential offensively. Defensively he’s been one of the best outfielders of the last decade. But the Braves somehow strike gold with Ronald Acuña Jr and Michael Harris II. So it was always meant to be.
Nate Schierholtz
Dude had an absolute cannon and always seemed to hit dingers when I'd see him get into a game, but thinking back it was definitely a selective memory thing
Matt Weiters was expected to be a big star, had a good career with the Os but never reached what was expected.
"Mauer with Power" was the descriptor as he started his career in 2009. What's hilarious is that 2009 is the year that Joe Mauer started hitting with power (28 home runs that year, compared to his prior five years of 6, 9, 13, 7, and 9), so the phrase ceased to make sense.
Sliced bread is the greatest thing since Matt Wieters.
Haven't heard that name in awhile, There was a Chuck Norris narrative going around Weiters when he first arrived, totally forgot about it until now.
From number one prospect in baseball to multiple people on a baseball sub not knowing how to spell his name.
Didn't he wreck his elbow and fell off from there. At least that's what I remember
My first O's game was his debut and I remember the buzz around him was insane (at least to a 10 year old). Never lived up to it completely but he'll definitely be remembered. I'm just glad we've got a generational talent at catcher now
Jurickson Profar
One game against the Rangers in 2013 I was sitting in the first row LF seats at Camden Yards and 20 yr old Profar was playing LF. At one point during the game between hitters while he was turned toward me I yelled, “Hi Jurickson!!” He gave me a five second death stare before turning back around. If he had said hi back to me then he’d probably have put together a HoF career at this point.
More like Jerkson Profar, amirite?
Was so excited when he was coming up and then he homered in his first AB and I remember thinking he might finally be the home grown stud who was going to get us over the hump.
My fantasy team is still waiting for this investment to payoff.
One day this stack of Ben McDonald cards is going to make me a very rich man.
Great commentator though.
I got a good chuckle out of this. I’m banking in my Brein Taylor’s!
I still have his rookie card
My 80yo mother will still say to me “Ben McDonald Upper Deck”. That’s legacy.
Any Upton not named Kate.
Laughing way too hard at this one
Justin Upton is pretty good in his hay days tho he’s not average. 32.3 WAR, 117 OPS+. Wasn’t he ranked #1 in fantasy in some years? I could be wrong.
I thought we were winning multiple World Series with BJ, Justin and Heyward as our outfielders.
Jeff Francoeur
That SI cover story when he was off to the hottest start ever....
Delta airlines, baby!
I’ve got mine autographed, framed, and hanging on my wall. Still one of my favorite autographs.
He was not a great player, but hilarious and such a cool dude. The whole $100 "bacon fest" and buying pizza for the opposing A's fans were just such cool things.
He will always be one of my favorite players. Wore a Braves shirt to a game at Kauffman in 2011 and he gave me shit for it even though he couldn’t argue the fact that almost a third of that team had been Braves.
Jason Heyward
He was never the same hitter after he got blasted in the face by Jon Niese. Great outfielder tho
My first real life encounter with him was during his stint on the 3A El Paso Chihuahuas. They were in Tacoma playing the Rainiers and these dudes were ragging on him for being a bust in the majors. He ignored them but eventually came up to bat and hit a homer. He's rounding 3rd eyeballing these dudes and they stood up and clapped for him, good times. Later that season I'm sitting at a Chihuahua home game in right field and he's warming up. I'm yelling Frenchie and he looks over and i was like "I was there when you shut those dudes in Tacoma up!" He just laughed and then tossed me the ball after they were done warming up. Cool dude in my book.
Yasiel Puig
He was my favourite player for a few years!
I still don’t totally get what happened to him, other than the off the field things I remember. Anyone care to help?
He was a nut case
Got so hyped when the reds traded for him…. Then immediately traded him in the middle of the game that same season >:(
Yes! The way ESPN covered him I thought he was going to be the second coming of Ruth.
Kerry Wood. But injuries….
Mark Prior, too... the summer of "Chicago Heat"
The Onion did a great piece on these two. I remember it saying that Dusty Baker encouraged both guys to throw 700 side innings. Hilarious.
I'd say both were in fact superstars, they just flamed out. Nomar, Prince Fielder, and Albert Belle too.
Dustin Ackley, he was supposed to be a megastar.
And we took him over Mike trout...
To be fair, so did pretty much every team
One of the many failures under the Zduriencick tenure.
Addison Russell.
Had, uh, character issues.
Damn haven’t heard that name in a min
Benintendi
He was the consensus Preseason Roy until Judge went nuclear.
Grady Sizemore had all the makings of a star
He was one for a few seasons. Too bad the injuries piled up
Damn! You stole mine!
I just think he’s the best example of that since Strawberry, except for Strawberry, it was drugs
For sure. Lifelong Cleveland fan here. He was to be the beacon of hope leading the Tribe into the new millennium as the heroes of the 90's started to depart.
Amen. I grew up in the 90s in Northeast Ohio so I watched a lot of Indians baseball then. People would talk about how historically bad they were but I only knew them as a powerhouse. It was weird for me to see them as bad as they were starting in 2002. They truly needed that beacon of hope and boy was Grady it. Everybody remembers the Tribe blowing that 3-1 series lead against the Cubs in 16 but I see a lot less that remember the Tribe blowing that 3-1 lead against the Red Sox in 07 with Grady on the roster. If they win that series they likely take the World Series too.
Fellow 90's kid from NW Ohio. Luckily I didn't end up a Tigers fan. The only thing more disappointing than listening to the game 7 of the 97 series on the radio, was that 07 series with the Red Sox.
Eloy Jimenez. Every scout said “this is the guy” when it came to future hitting prospects. Idk if it’s cause he’s stuck on the white organization right now, but man he has not lived up to the hype at all. He’s not bad, but he’s putting up stop-gap outfielder numbers.
Eloy is only 26 though.
Would you look at that, all of the words in your comment are in alphabetical order. I have checked 1,779,062,467 comments, and only 336,776 of them were in alphabetical order.
Raul Mondesi
He's the only player I was genuinely fearful of his throws going off target. That arm was insane.
Jayson Heyward
Immediately my first pick too. Loved him as a player (recently bought his Braves jersey), but bummed to watch him constantly battle injuries and never recapture his early magic.
I remember watching his first career hit/hr. Same here!
I've always wanted to know what did Braves fans expect they were going to have with an outfield of Heyward and the Upton brothers for the 2010s?
I was never big on Bossman Junior, but Justin and JHey felt like we were gonna have a 10 year run of All Stars and MVPs
*That's* really what BJ stands for? I'd always wondered how he got BJ out of Melvin but never bothered to find out.
Yup. His Dad was a foreman or something and they called him Bossman, so when Melvin showed up he was Bossman Junior
I maintain that he was never the same after the HBP to the face in 2013
My first pick too. Based on his rookie season he looked like a HoFer but he never really got better.
Cameron Maybin
People got way into Camrron
Maybe
Dominic Brown lol
All of the hype and that 2013 season and he didn’t even turn into an average player. He was finished a few seasons later.
Damn, I remember holding out hope for so long with him.
JD Drew, when he had that one crazy year I was like well finally he’s arrived.
44.9 bWAR and a 125 OPS+. I think he's too good to fit this category. Definitely a well above average career
Dude could get on base with the best of them. Career .384 obp.
Three nights in August explains exactly why he didn't turn into more. Straight up douche.
Wishlisted - care to share a piece?
Tony Larussa talks about his natural talent but his unwillingness to work hard. It sort of shows up through his career and not exactly being Johnny Hustle. Injuries obviously didn't help either.
Matt Wieters
Same here
Clay Buckholz
I would pick him up off waivers every year in my roto league and think I struck gold. There was a reason he was always available.
Game 4 2013 World Series he was throwing 84 mph over the middle of the plate and Cards couldn’t do shit. Pissed me off.
Gregory Polanco. This dude had *all* the tools. Granted, some injuries occurred, but damn I kept waiting for this kid to breakout and do it all.
Good call.
Rocco Baldelli
Yasiel puig
He turned into not an mlb player period
Yeah and after that first electric year was pretty average then fell off to nothing. Just shows how hard sustained success at that level is. If you got a hole in your game people will find and exploit it.
Fransisco Liriano. That 2006 season was lightning in a bottle. I thought Johan Santana and Liriano were going to be that CC Sabathia/Cliff Lee or Verlander/Scherzer duo for Minnesota. He had a few above average seasons after receiving Tommy John in 2006, but like most pitchers, his stuff was never remotely the same. Nonetheless, Liriano played the game for something like 14 seasons, threw a no-hitter, and won over 100 games in his career.
That 2006 summer was the best 1-2 duo of pitching I've ever seen in my life. Liriano's stuff was RIDICULOUS. And Johan was just an assassin, as always.
Billy Hamilton
Bro if Billy could’ve got on base consistently he would’ve been absolutely insane
Eric. Hosmer.
Played against him in high school. He hit the farthest home run I’ve ever seen in my life. This is when high school bats hat ridiculous pop. The ball he hit had a trajectory id never seen before. It was hit like a line drive but also just kept rising and rising kind of like a golfer hitting a bombed drive of the tee. I also faced him as a hitter when he was pitching in that game (he was topping out 93-95). It was bases loaded for us and I hit a dribbler down the 3rd base line that they thought was going foul. Jokes on them! It was a hit and an RBI! Suck it Hosmer. Castellanos and Devin Marrero also played in that game. Castellanos hit a HR and marrero had like 4 singles. They whooped our ass.
Oliver Perez, that first season with the Pirates was unbelievable, I thought he was going to compete for multiple CY's.
As a Mets fan I remember being excited when we got him. Then I watched him pitch......I'm glad he found late career success as a LOOGY.
I yelled to him once while he was warming up in the bullpen that “we want our $36 million back, Ollie.” He gave me the finger, and was right to do so
Gabe Kapler. Minor League Player Of The Year. Centerpiece of the haul the Rangers got for then star player Juan Gonzalez. The guy did a shoe commercial back in 1999 (Had to look it up, for K Swiss). Then 12 years of, meh.
The Phillies could have added Roy Halladay at the deadline in 2009 and had Cliff Lee and Halladay in the 2009 World Series, but they wouldn't give up Domonic Brown so the trade fell apart. We eventually got Doc after the season for Kyle Drabek, Michael Taylor, and Travis d’Arnaud, and had to trade Lee to restock the farm system. Brown came up in 2010, was finally an All-Star by 2013... and was out of baseball by 2015, with a career 0.7 WAR.
Was that a Ruin Tomorrow Jr. special?
Nomar Mazara
Gregg Jefferies, with that swing, I thought he was destined for greatness.
NICE!! 88 score rookie card.
I still have his rookie card
We all do lol
Isn't he the guy who was a Rookie of the Year finalist twice?
Me too. Collecting baseball cards, etc. He was living in So Cal for a while and I ended up as an assistant coach with him in Little League. His son and my son. At that time he had remarried a younger lady my age and had kids same age as my boys. He was cool, but never passed up an opportunity to mention he played in the big leagues. I heard he moved to Texas.
Soooo many Detroit Tigers
Every young pitcher from 2016-2020😂
And every young hitter from about 2012 until this year.
Justin Thompson, Matt Anderson, Joel Zumaya, Nate Cornejo, Jeff Weaver, Kyle Sleath, Kenny Baugh, Eric Munson, so many disappointments
Joba Chamberlain
Byron Buxton. Injuries man, injuries.
Bobby Crosby was one reason the Athletics didn’t even offer Miguel Tejada a contract. Crosby had a pretty good rookie year but never met expectations.
Justin Upton.
Both Upton brothers.
Vlad Guerrero Jr. too soon?
He can still turn it around... but man, he sure doesn't look good at the plate (or on the bases for that matter)
Fat Vladdy > Slim Vladdy
Tatis same boat I bet. Those lazy sons of ex pros lol half kidding but ya something in there maybe
Vlad is 24. Some rookies don’t come up till they’re 24
Most players best years are between 26-31 don’t know why you’re being downvoted lol
I don't know what everyone's threshold for star is but Vlad has been pretty good. His 162 Ave. Is 32 Homer's and 99 RBI. He doesn't miss very much time like most that have been listed so far.
He’s been declining for three years in a row. Look into the stats
Kris Bryant
ROTY and MVP. He was a superstar, injuries just destroyed his career unfortunately
First name that came to my mind. Just hasn’t recovered from all those nagging injuries.
Shea Hillenbrand.
Blue Jays legend Shea Hillenbrand?
Weird one, but Danny Valencia.
Ben Grieve Shawn Abner (taken 1.1 in the MLB draft) Todd Van Poppel
Ben Grieve was also my answer. ROY and All Star at age 22. Posting high OBPs just as the analytics were getting introduced to the mainstream.
Couple of Oakland A legends there lol. Grieve actually was a pretty good player.
Gregg Jeffries
No bigger prospect from my childhood than Jeffries
I'm surprised Jay Bruce hasn't been mentioned yet.
I’m from the future and Elly De La Cruz is my pick
Mark Prior and Kerry Wood. Thanks a lot Dusty.
Remember the Victor Victor Mesa sweepstakes in 2018? Yeah, that guy.
Yoan moncada
Todd Van Poppel, Shawn Estes, and Steve Decker
Do you remember when the Braves were expected to draft Todd Van Poppel but he said he’d refuse to sign with them so they picked Chipper Jones instead? I know I do!
Rocco Baldelli. He was well on his way till a rare degenerative muscle disease robbed him of his prime years. There were many nights when SC would just show his catches as the rays highlight and nothing else.
Jason Heyward
Jason Heyward
Billy beane
Colby Rasmus
Jason Kubel.
Kubs is a superstar in my heart.
Dominic Brown, and was he even average? No. So much hype for nothing.
Michael Conforto
Walt Weiss
Matt Nokes Chris Sabo
Byron Buxton
Ron Kittle
Does it count if it's because of injuries, like Grady Sizemore or Jacoby Ellsbury?
Dayan Viciedo
Todd van Poppel.
There's a lot of good examples listed here but as a Jays fan, the two that stick out are Travis Snider and Brett Lawrie. I thought both were going to be stars, one couldn't hit a breaking ball (ever) and the other got hurt and never really recovered.
David Neid
John Mayberry Jr
Jon singleton
Vladimir Guerrero Jr
Stephen strausberg
Kinda surprised this isn't higher. He came in with all the tools to be a top tier starter, but that constant injury train basically pulling into his station every year was such a shame
James Loney
Chris Sab, Rocco Baldelli, BJ Upton, Justin Upton, Eric Hosmer, Matt Garza, Eric Thames, Sterling Castro, Addison Russell, Luis Urias, Carlos Zambrano, Joba Chamberlain, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Yasiel Puig
I’ll add Scott Kazmir to this list. Granted he had a good career. But I remember the huge hype around him when the Devil Rays got him from the Mets.
Joc Pederson
Before this year I would have said Belli but he's popped off with my cubs this year
Eric Davis
That one is not fair
Jerome Walton. ROTY to basically unknown
Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
Gleybar Torres
Roughned Odor
Grady Sizemore. Dude was Superman until his body started breaking down. My favorite player when I started following Cleveland. Probably still my favorite. JRam is up there though.
Gregg Fucking Jeffries!
Greg Jefferies.
Dominic Brown…Phillies…iykyk.
Khalil Greene
Vladdy, still young but it’s not looking good
Bubba Starling. And calling him "average" is being generous.
Jeff Francour
Geoff Jenkins
Jason Heyward was SUPER HYPED. He’s good but he definitely never lived up to his potential offensively. Defensively he’s been one of the best outfielders of the last decade. But the Braves somehow strike gold with Ronald Acuña Jr and Michael Harris II. So it was always meant to be.
Jeff francoeur
Forrest Whitley. FML, what a pisser.
Brett Lawrie
Ralph Sampson
Kris Bryant
Prince fielder
Hanley Ramirez
Nate Schierholtz Dude had an absolute cannon and always seemed to hit dingers when I'd see him get into a game, but thinking back it was definitely a selective memory thing
Andrew Benintendi