Young, but talented
Recently, 19-year-old Juan Soto had one heckuva rookie year for the division rivals Washington Nationals. He had a WAR of 3.0, pretty remarkable indeed for one so young.
Bryce Harper (5.2) and Ken Griffey Jr (3.3) were pretty sensational WAR-riors as teenagers, and no slouches after their teen years, either.
Enough about other team's teenagers.
Talented teenage Mets?
Well they had none other than teenager Eddie Kranepool, who at age 19 hit .257 with a .393 slugging %, and had a 1.2 WAR. Heck, Mickey Mantle was only a 1.5 WAR at age 19.
Pretty auspicious company. But Eddie couldn’t keep pace with the crosstown golden boy’s subsequent accomplishments.
Sadly and somewhat surprisingly, Eddie only had two of his many subsequent seasons with higher WAR. Musta lost a step or two.
One might have thought that such an amazing hitting season at age 19 would have projected to real star potential down the road, but it wasn’t meant to be.
One might have thought that such an amazing hitting season at age 19 would have projected to real star potential down the road, but it wasn’t meant to be.
On the pitcher’s side, the 19 year old Mets phenom was, of course, the flamethrower with a Lord Charles hook, Dwight Gooden. Clocking in at a remarkable rookie 5.5 WAR.
Only the Reds’ Gary Nolan, to my knowledge, did better WAR-wise at age 19, and sadly for that talented righty, his last good season was at age 28. In 1977, at age 29, he was 4-4, ERA over 6.00, as he started to do his best Matt Harvey-in-decline imitation, and Nolan never made it to age 30 in the bigs.
To digress a bit, the Reds, at the same time Nolan was big for the Reds, Cindy brought up someone much older - 21 year old fire baller Wayne Simpson - who went 14-3, mostly by the All Star break of his rookie year, including 13-1, 2.27 thru the Big Red Machine’s first 80 games.
But Simpson damaged his elbow, and ended up going just 22-28 over the rest of his career after 1970.
Pitchers can sure be fragile.
Where was Dr. Tommy John when Simpson needed him?
As a final note:
As we fawn over our top draft picks, keep in mind another talented young feller...Bob Feller, who put up appreciable WAR numbers at age 19...and at age 18, too.
No wonder that feller’s in the Hall of Fame.
And of course, speaking of young, who can forget a former Met of renown...Anthony Young.
Lastly, one Met teenager averaged 18 Ks/9 in his age 19 year...Nolan Ryan.
Sure, he fanned only 6 in just 3 innings, but that was after fanning 307 in 202 minor league innings that year (1966) - of course, he also walked 139 in those 202 innings as well. One can only imagine his teenage pitch counts.
3 comments:
baseball will forever have 15 year old Joe Nuxhall.
Nuxhall at 15? Now THAT is insane.
In hoops, I think Lebron James could have been a benchwarmer in the NBA at 15. But really, no human is ready for baseball at 15. Even Nuxhall. To his credit, while he allowed 7 runners, he actually retired two guys.
Mack, Nuxhall was in that game in 1944. His next MLB game? 1952.
But he was good when he really arrived.
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