Worst careers after winning ROY award?

[ThatSeventiesGuy]

Sometimes, Rookie of the Year award winners go on to Hall of Fame careers...and other times, well...you get your Joe Charboneau types.

Here's a couple of the worst flameouts so far in my league:

MARIO MORAN was the league's top rookie in the USBL's inaugural 1980 season. He put up .288/34/106 numbers, and with 30 steals, had an impressive 30/30 campaign. Moran even won a Great Glove award! He slumped to .227/9/31 with a mere 3 steals in his sophomore year, however. An early-season 1982 trade to Boston did him little good. He returned to New Mexico in 1984, but never played in the majors again after that. After languishing in the minors for a few more years, he retired after the 1989 season.





STEVE BREWER won the ROY in 1988 with an outstanding season as the closer for the Chicago Wind Sox. He set a USBL record for saves in a season with 59, which still stands. Only all time great, 400-plus save closers Julian Perez and Cesar Farias have come close to that mark. Unfortunately, so far, those are the only 59 saves Brewer has. After flaming out in Chicago and Iowa, he's now back with the Sox, hoping to recapture past glories. Barring a free agent signing, the team has no true closer, so perhaps Steve can still get his old job back. His stats the last few years don't look good, though.



Anybody else have guys fall off the face of the Earth after winning the ROY?

[The Game]

Here are just 3 from the NA ROY winners. I didnt even finish looking at the NA or start in on the AA.
Hendrickson was obviously not a very good ROY to begin with but never did anything after that.

Perry was ROY in '55 along with winning GG's in 1955 & '56. Didnt seem to have a major injury just sucked after '56.

Harvey was also very good his 1st 2 seasons then just fell off.

[Bub13]

Originally Posted by ThatSeventiesGuy

Sometimes, Rookie of the Year award winners go on to Hall of Fame careers...and other times, well...you get your Joe Charboneau types.

Here's a couple of the worst flameouts so far in my league:

MARIO MORAN

[snip]

Anybody else have guys fall off the face of the Earth after winning the ROY?

Love that Moran pic. He looks both surprised and sad. Kind of like his career.

In my current league, I drafted Matthew McKeown with a pretty high pick iirc. (No screenshot b/c I'm at work, but I can post one later if you like.) After a few years in my system, he comes to the end of his minor league deal and wants a contract worth a couple million. I look at his stats...meh. I look at his ratings (1-20 scale)...something like 8/8/18/7/5. No thanks, I say, and release him.

Cubs sign him to a minor league deal (of course they do), whereupon he hits .280 with 30 home runs and wins the ROY.

The next year they send him down. Year after that, he's starting again, but not very good. Then, back to the farm. Currently, he's back with the Cubs as a part-time 3B, but not hitting well. I don't think he's had 30 HR total since that ROY season, and we're four or five years along since then.

[RubeBaker]

Mario Moran looks like the love child of Rick Reuschel & Will Clark.

[Honorable_Pawn]

Burly Tom Braun





C Tom Braun was a big ole burly outdoors-man that enjoyed playing baseball before his weight became a problem. Growing up just outside of New York City was very hard on him because he didn't like cities and although he liked people he saw deeply how phony most of them really are. When he was a kid most of the other kids remembered him as that big hairy kid that had a full beard at the age of 13.

As a teenager his favorite book was "My Side of the Mountain." He always wanted to get away somewhere quiet, somewhere free. It was on the baseball field in the wide-open air that he first tasted that freedom that he so longed for. In high school he swung that bat like a lumberjack. He also secretly enjoyed the fact that the other kids began to look up to him instead of making fun of him. Since he had absolutely no ambitions in life he embarked upon a professional baseball career.

Although he was a very hard worker and loved the game of baseball he was more interested in fishing, hunting, and drinking Busch beer. To him baseball was just a fun little game that people cared way too much about. To him the best thing about baseball was that he was able to buy a log cabin deep in the woods outside of Asheville, North Carolina. You can call him a hermit but he doesn't care. To him people are so caught up in themselves that they entirely miss the point of life.

Anyhow, in his first professional season of baseball, he was elected to the Continental Baseball Union (AAA) All-Star game hitting .333 34 115. The Dallas Stars were so impressed by his power and enormous girth that they called him up the very next season. He did not disappoint. He instantly became a household name. Every baseball fan knew all about the big ole brawny guy on Dallas.

That offseason, after winning The Rookie of the Year Award, he bought that log cabin. The next spring training he came into camp completely out-of-shape so Dallas withheld him from game-action and put him on an intense training regime. Braun did everything they told him to do when it came to exercise but, um, when it came to food and drink...well, that was a different story.

He kept on packing on the pounds and eventually Dallas was forced to send him down to AAA where he kept on smacking moonshots. One day he came to the conclusion that baseball was no longer a fun game to play. It had become a business. Although he never sustained an injury beyond a mild calf strain or sore shoulder he played it off that he was in pain from time to time. He didn't want to play every day...just on the weekends or something like that.

Eventually the organization cut his playing time and he finally lost all interest. For years the only reason he stuck around was because of his deep sense of loyalty to the league. But one day he just didn't show up anymore. Later on it was discovered that he had snuck-off home retiring to his quiet little paradise in Asheville.

People all around the league just smiled and were very happy for him.