RICK ANKIEL, SP, CARDINALS 2000:
Ankiel’s story is a popular one. As a 20-year-old rookie for the Cardinals the lefty made 30 starts and finished with a 3.50 ERA in 175 innings. He finished second in Rookie of the Year voting and was supposed to be the savior for a staff that had suddenly gotten old and mediocre.
But then the playoffs happened. Ankiel couldn’t throw strikes that postseason and never again regained his pitching form, giving up entirely after a failed comeback in 2004.
BOB HAMELIN, DH, ROYALS, 1994:
George Brett retired in 1993 after a Hall of Fame career and was replaced by Hamelin. Much to everyone’s surprise, Hamelin outdid Brett himself by hitting .282/.388/.599 in 101 games and smacking 24 home runs. He easily won the Rookie of the Year award over another pretty good slugger named Manny Ramirez.
But all Brett comparisons faded after that season. Hamelin struggled to reclaim his former glory and was even sent down to the minors to work on his swing. The Royals eventually gave up on him, and he was out of baseball by 1998 after just six major-league seasons.
BRADY ANDERSON, OF, ORIOLES, 1996
Anderson was a three-time All-Star and one of the best Orioles ever, but absolutely nobody thought the outfielder was capable of what he did in 1996.
After hitting between 12 and 21 home runs in the previous four seasons, Anderson exploded for 50! He hit a career-best .297/.396/.637 and topped 100 RBI (110 to be exact) for the only time in his 15 major-league seasons. In 1997 Anderson went back to hitting 18 home runs with an OPS closer to .800, so how he got so impossibly hot in 1996 is still a matter of debate.
DAISUKE MATSUZAKA, SP, RED SOX, 2008
I hate putting active players on these kinds of lists, as they can always have a comeback year and work their way off. In Dice-K’s case, the experiment seems to be over. The Boston Red Sox signed Daisuke Matsuzaka in 2007, which was considered a great pickup. After a solid first year, he went 18-3 with a 2.90 ERA in 2008 and may have won the Cy Young had it not been for Cliff Lee’s breakout performance.
Since then, he’s had an average season and two bad ones and is now recovering from Tommy John surgery. He had a great career in Japan and may build on it after his contract is done next year, but this slideshow is just on MLB careers.
HIDEKI IRABU, SP, YANKEES, 1998
Irabu was a high-profile pitcher coming out of Japan, and he forced his way onto the Yankees, where he joined a staff that featured Andy Pettitte, David Wells, David Cone and Dwight Gooden. He was impressive in his first full season in New York, as he went 13-9 in 28 starts and finished with a 4.06 ERA in 173 innings, earning a World Series ring despite not pitching in the playoffs that year.
However, that’s as good as it got for “Fat Toad.” He never matched his strikeout totals from Japan and watched his ERA balloon over each of the next four seasons. The Yankees finally dumped him in a trade for Ted Lilly, and Irabu was out of baseball by 2002 at the age of 33. Daisuke Matsuzaka of the Red Sox is followed a very similar career path.
LUIS GONZALEZ, OF, DIAMONDBACKS, 2001
Gonzalez played baseball for 19 seasons and was a five-time All-Star, so it may be a bit of a stretch to call him a “one-hit wonder.” Still, what he did in 2001 so exceeded expectations that it’s impossible to leave him off this list.
Gonzalez smacked a career-best 57 home runs, drove in 142 runs and sported an OPS of 1.117. His previous career highs in those three categories were 31, 114 and .952 respectively. Whatever Gonzalez did to have a career year at the age of 33, it worked.
MARCUS GILES, 2B, BRAVES 2003
Braves fans couldn’t stop drooling at the thought of Giles, Rafael Furcal and Andruw Jones forming the foundation for a team that already had veterans Chipper Jones and Gary Sheffield. Giles was far from the best player on that team, but in 2003 he definitely played like one. The second baseman batted .316/.390/.526 with 21 home runs, 49 doubles and 14 steals (all career highs).
Just 25 years old, Giles was well on his way to becoming a perennial All-Star. But injuries forced him to miss a third of the 2004 season, and after a solid 2005 season he fell off the cliff. He lost any semblance of power as his batting average plummeted well below .300, and he was out of the majors entirely by 2007.
DONTRELLE WILLIS, SP, MARLINS, 2005
It might be slightly unfair to label Willis as a one-hit wonder since his first five major-league seasons were all pretty good, including his Rookie of the Year campaign in 2003. However, he never came even close to what he did in 2005—34 starts, 22-10 record, 223.1 innings, 170 strikeouts, 2.63 ERA, 1.13 WHIP. Those are career highs in every statistical category, and the big lefty did it at the age of 23.
The rest of D-Train’s career, however, is not so impressive. He couldn’t hit the strike zone, he couldn’t get batters out and he definitely couldn’t stay healthy. Willis, believe it or not, is 29 and is still trying to make it back to the big leagues, potentially as a reliever.
MARK PRIOR, SP, CUBS, 2003
Prior can blame it all on Bartman. The former second overall pick of the 2001 draft had a nice rookie season in ’02, but then excelled the following year by striking out 245 batters, notching an 18-6 record with just a 2.43 ERA, which put him third in the voting for the Cy Young Award. But in Game 6 of the NLCS, Prior was on the mound with a three-run lead against Florida when Steve Bartman took away the foul ball from Moises Alou.
The Marlins then scored eight runs in the inning and the Cubs ended up losing the series. Prior spent parts of the next three seasons on the disabled list, and never pitched again in the majors after that.
THE 1997 FLORIDA MARLINS
What can $89 million in free agents buy? A World Series champion. Wayne “Blockbuster” Huizenga spent and spent and spent in the 1996 offseason, and with the newly-acquired Alex Fernandez, Moises Alou and Bobby Bonilla, Florida compiled a 92-70 record, good enough for a wild card berth. Then they beat the Giants in the first round of the playoffs, topped the Braves for the NL flag, and took the Indians in seven games to win the World Series.
Huizinga’s free-spending ways bought a title, but the team lost $30 million, and the owner decided a fire sale would be fun. Exit Kevin Brown, Al Leiter, Moises Alou, Robb Nen, Dennis Cook, and others and in 1998 the Marlins dropped to 54-108, 52 games out of first place.
JIMMIE FOXX, 1B/SP, PHILLIES, 1945
This may be the strangest story of any on the list, and since the Phillies stunk during the year Jimmie Foxx played for them, it’s hard to call this a wonder. The great Hall of Famer had wrapped up a pit stop with the Chicago Cubs in 1942 and 1944 that made his career look like it was done. Nonetheless, the Phillies picked him up for 1945, and he hit .268 in 89 games. That’s not the wonder.
Where the greatness comes in was that he stepped into the pitching rotation due to how bad it was, and in nine games, two of them starts, he went 1-0 with a 1.59 ERA and was arguably the best pitcher on their roster. That’s right—Foxx pulled a Babe Ruth the opposite way, and watching that had to have been a wonder.
MARK FIDRYCH, SP, TIGERS, 1976
Few players ever captured the imagination the way Mark Fidrych did as a rookie for the Detroit Tigers. From his antics like talking to the baseball and grooming the mound with his hands, he was a player like no other. From that point, Fidrych became a phenomenon. He made the All Star Game, and finished the year with a 19-9 record, leading the American League with a 2.34 ERA and 24 complete games. He was second in the Cy Young balloting that year and won the Rookie of the Year award.
A major star, his 18 home starts accounted for half of Detroit’s attendance that year. However, that workload caught up with Fidrych. He felt his arm go dead in the middle of his ninth start the following year, effectively ending his career. Mark Fidrych burned like a comet, only to flame out due to overwork. About a decade later, when his career was over, he was diagnosed with a torn rotator cuff, which had been exacerbated by his heavy workload.
BILL JAMES, SP, BRAVES, 1914
There are three noteworthy figures named Bill James in baseball. There’s the sabermetrician Bill James, there’s Big Bill James, pitcher in the dead-ball era mostly with the Tigers, and there’s Seattle Bill James, whose 1914 season is just what this slideshow is about. James made his debut for the Boston Braves in 1913, going 6-10 in 24 games. In 1914, he went 26-7 with a 1.90 ERA with well over 300 innings pitched en route to a third-place MVP finish (as the top pitcher in the voting, he would likely have won the Cy Young Award had it existed at the time).
Not only that, but he went 2-0 in the World Series en route to a win for Boston. However, he only played 14 more games in his career after his arm went dead. It was likely a torn rotator cuff based on others on the list, but there’s no way of knowing.
BOB OJEDA, SP, METS, 1986
Depending on who you ask, Ojeda is known for two things. To some, he’s known as the survivor of the tragic 1993 boating accident that claimed Steve Olin and Tim Crews. To others, especially Mets fans, he’s known for his amazing 1986 season. He started his career with the Boston Red Sox and had six solid seasons before being traded to the Mets in 1986.
In his first season, he went 18-5 with a 2.57 ERA, was a clear All-Star snub and finished fourth in Cy Young voting. In the playoffs, he went 2-0 in four games and, more importantly, kept his team in it in Game 6. He played eight more seasons and was entirely decent but was unable to recapture his 1986 glory.
MARK WHITEN, OF, CARDINALS, 1993
Whiten was considered a talented player who just had to focus when he was brought to the Cardinals in 1993. He did just that, hitting 25 HR and 97 RBI, and in a game on September 7, he hit four HR with 12 RBI, both tying major-league records.
He was good the following year as well, but after leaving the Cardinals before the 1995 season, he never found his footing and never came close to a 12-RBI performance again.