Tom Brennan: Teen Talent Like Kranepool Rarely Seen in Baseball; Farewell, Nimmo

Eddie (in 1962) with Casey. Eddie looked mature at age 17.

It yet have been cool for Eddie to be managed by a Babe Ruth era guy.

Casey was known as a clown-around guy, but hit .355 part time in 2022-23..

Several years ago, 19-year-old Juan Soto (you may have heard of him) 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 17 (that’s right, SEVENTEEN) got six at bats in 1962, ripping a double and fanning just once.   (Jose Siri said, “ONE K? How is that possible?”)

Then, in 1963, at age 18 (an age where many baseball draftees had not yet even been drafted), he hit .209 in 273 at bats, and then at age 19 in 1964 hit .257 in 461 plate appearances, 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 for the Kranepool.  

But Eddie couldn’t keep pace with the crosstown Hall of Fame golden boy Mantle’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.

He did, in 1974, go an amazing 17 for 35 as a pinch hitter. Dang! AND .277 career (90 for 325) while pinch hitting. Slow afoot, he stole just 15 of 44 attempts in his entire career. Daniel Vogelbach, though, admired Kranepool’s relative speediness.

One might have thought that such an amazing hitting season at age 19 would have projected Kranepool to real star potential down the road, but it wasn’t meant to be.  Lifting weights wasn’t a big thing in those days, and I think it would have boosted his career.

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 Gary Nolan was big for the Reds, Cindy brought up someone much older - 21 year old fire baller Wayne Simpson.  

He 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 final notes:

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. His losing got OLD very quickly.  But whose Mets career record was worse, his 5-35, or Paul Seward’s 1-14? Anyway, back to teenagers…

Only one Mets teenager averaged 18 Ks/9 in his age 19 year...

Nolan Ryan.  

Sure, he fanned 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 minors pitch counts.  He somehow went on to fan more batters as an ex-Met than anyone else in baseball history fanned in their entire careers.  

We got Fregosi.  No words.

Anyway…the all time youngest major leaguer?

The Still-In-Diapers award goes to Joe Nuxhall, who in wartime 1944 got to pitch in a MLB game at 15 years, 316 days in 1944 during World War 2.

It was brief and unsuccessful. Just 2/3 of an inning, 2 hits, 5 walks, 5 runs.

His real major league debut came 8 years later in 1952...and he retired in 1966 with 135 wins, too.  

Joe was just happy he had something different to talk about at his Sweet Sixteen party.

So, really…come on…

All real Mets hitting prospects other than Elian Pena are older than 18….

So…what the heck are they all waiting for?

If Ed Kranepool could do it, getting up with the Mets nearly 800 times before he turned 20, what are the heck are they dawdling for? Get ready, already.

BACK TO EDDIE KRANEPOOL:

He lacked the power of Pete Alonso, whacking just 118 HRs in 6,000 PAs.

He looked, by his 1973 stats, to be close to closing up shop when, at age 28, he had 1 HR in 320 PAs and hit just .239, but averaged .300 in his next 4 seasons.

Even in his 761 teenage plate appearances, he fanned just 101 times.

He more than held his own against this formidable foursome:

1) Bob Gibson - 127 PAs, just 4 Ks, .313.

2) Tom Seaver - 4 for 9, .444, 1 K.

3) Sandy Koufax - 3 for 13, .231, 0 Ks.

4) Steve Carlton - 3 for 12, 1 K.

So, against these strikeout-heavy Hall of Fame arms, he hit well, and with just 6 Ks in over 160 PAs.  Pretty remarkable.

He only fanned 10 or more times against 7 pitchers. Three of those, Phil Niekro, Burt Hooton, and Don Sutton, fanned him a combined 44 times in 

206 PAs, not a terrible K rate.

Eddie was special indeed. I just wish he had more power.

He retired at age 34. By then he was so slow, I wonder if he was filmed in Turtle Wax commercials.

Bad pun.   

OK, I am done here.

FAREWELL NIMMO

Brandon Nimmo traded for Marcus Semien?  That ends Brandon’s decade-plus stretch with the Mets organization.

He did mostly well.  I saw he posted this on Instagram:

“There is truly no way I could adequately put into words how much my tenure with the Mets has meant to me. All I can say is thank you. Thank you Mets fans for embracing and welcoming a kid from Cheyenne, Wyoming to the Big Apple. I always aspired to become a big leaguer—I never knew I’d have the opportunity to accomplish that dream in a city so wildly passionate about the game of baseball. The last 14 years have felt like a dream, and it has been an absolute honor to share them with you. You made me feel like family, and I hope you felt the same. I will always be grateful for our time and memories together. With love, always 🧡💙”

Loved ya too, buddy.

I liked Brandon’s grit and hustle.

One of my first posts on Brandon was back in 2014 - see the chart below.

I loved that he swept away my skepticism and over-achieved.  

 “MLB STAR” he was.

I also know he hit 18 points better in his career on the road (.270) than at home (.252), which he was likely well aware of, enough so to warn Juan Soto about the challenging nature of successfully hitting in Citi Field in the season’s early months. As I have postulated so often, when we look at Mets players stats, we have to keep in mind over and over again that their numbers in their career are somewhat deflated by the park and Queens. So I would imagine he must be excited to be hitting in Texas. 

Brandon, I wish you the best.

Name	Pos	B/T	Ht	Wt	DOB	Rd	My Rating	Why So?
Brandon Nimmo	OF	L / R	6' 3"	205	03/27/1993	1	1-2	As much as I am inclined to go along with the crowd, his struggles adjusting to higher levels and his high K rate has me wondering if his ceiling is MLB star, or Matt den Dekker/Kirk. Winter ball struggles.