Players who fell off a cliff
 

Has anyone had a worse dropoff than Norm Cash from .361 in 1961 to .243 the following year?

cliff
 

What about that Tito Francona in early 60s... ? very high .300's...then low next year ?

As a Marlins fan, Chris Coghlan came to mind. ROY in 2009 with a .321 average and 162 hits in 128 games.

Then he dropped off a cliff. Never the same hitter.

Jason Bay comes to mind: Redsox to Mets free agent

2009 36 Hrs 119 Rbi

2010 6 Hrs 47 Rbi

Fall
 

Sadly, Ed Delehanty........wait, that was a bridge.

Bob "Hurricane" Hazle. .403 in 1957. .211 in 1958.

If memory serves, Steve Stone followed his Cy Young 25-7 season with a 4-7 season. Doing this without looking it up.

Bryce Harper. 10.0 WAR in 2015. 1.5 WAR in 2016.

Mark Fydrich had a great rookie year, then nothing.

Zoilo Versalles. MVP at 25 to .249 to .200 to .196 to .236 and out of the league at 29.

Sidd Finch had a lot of hype in spring training, never delivered.

Dave Ferriss won 50 games in his first two seasons, then had arm troubles and was never the same.

Gary Sanchez--.278 in 2017 to .186 in 2018, with less power. On the other hand, he did increase his number of passed balls.

No Roids? : )

Super Joe Charboneau!

Curious, Are We Talkin' jus Hitting?

or can someone like General Custer Count?

Nice.

Chris Davis by far. Went from an MVP candidate to the worst season by a batter in history. His defense has also fallen off

Brady Anderson 50 hr's in 1996, 18 in 1997.

Shoeless Joe Jackson...
1920 Batted .382 120 RBIs, 105 Runs, 20 triples...
1921 nothing!

Joshua

Brady Anderson comes to mind. I mean, he was a respectable player before and after 1996. But his 1996 stats of .297/.396/.637 with 50 home runs are so crazily better than anything else he ever did in any season it's a true oddity.

Luis Gonzalez 2001 is similar. 57 homers and a .688 slg.? Just.... how? To go from a doubles slap hitter with the Astros to THAT with the Diamondbacks.

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Well, it would be odd if not for steroids....

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Nice one!

Norm Cash used a corked bat for the whole year, guess in 1962, the cork came out

Better that than the table leg he took to the plate as the final out in a Nolan Ryan no-hitter, saying it would be as good as anything else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEboSkPUgUo

Nick Esasky had 30 HR (5th in AL) and 108 RBI (3rd in AL) in 1989 with Boston. Ended up getting struck with vertigo, played in 9 games in 1990 and his career was over.

Grady Sizemore was a 30-30 player at age 25. Couldn't stay on the field after.

Well, Roy Campanella never dropped off of a cliff, but the last six or so years of his career were more like a rollercoaster with 100 point jumps/dips in batting averages. Mickey Vernon...the guy would hit .260, win a batting title, then hit .260 again. And these were people who could really play.

Chuck Klein, like Campy a HOFer, went from being this astounding hitter for six years to being a, what?... nice hitter (this isn't a complement) with no power after he left the Phillies. Of course, leaving Baker Bowl didn't help much.

Norm Cash? He put up those good numbers the first year of expansion in the AL. Tiger Stadium was built for left-handed power hitters (jeez, Lou Whitaker could hit homers in Detroit). I always figured the ball club wanted Cash to sacrifice average for power.

lumberjack

Steve Blass Disease

I know that we're talking baseball here........

But NFL player Junior Seau immediately comes to mind.

How about Denny McLain:

31-6
24-9

AL Cy Young both years, also MVP in 1968.

Then...

3-5
10-22

and then another year or so of playing then out of baseball at 28 yrs old....and a criminal...

I don't understand this comment at all. Seau had a long productive career.

Way too many Tigers on this list! But, sadly, I'd add Dave Rozema. Rookie pitcher of the year in '78, went 15-7 with 3.09 ERA, pitched 218 innings with 16 complete games and 5.7 WAR, 8th in Cy Young voting. Then, boom! Played through '86 but never came close to his rookie year.

Little before my time, but Tommy Bond. Best player in baseball in the late 1870s. Worse than replacement level in the early 1880s (had trouble getting his pitches to the plate from 50' away). Retired at age 28.

A couple of years before he committed suicide, Seau once drove his car off a cliff. In retrospect, it was probably an attempted suicide.

Roberto Alomar is still a HOFer but man did he fall off a cliff as soon as he left Cleveland. Hit 336, finished 4th in MVP voting and was out of the game three years later.

Too soon?

How about Rick Ankiel? 2nd in ROY to not being to throw the ball over the plate.

Another "rule change" victim: Ross Barnes:

1876 (fair/foul rule last year) -- .404 (lead NL)

1877 (fair/foul rule abolished) -- .272

Tony Horton comes to mind as well.

Haha! That's awesome! Will never forget that one...

As a kid, I remember Dale Murphy went from THE BEST to he can’t make contact with the ball seemingly overnight. I was confused. From 87-88 there was a huge drop off and never GREAT again.

Also Donny Baseball... but prob can’t include him due to back Injuries being the reason.

Ps: to PS- not sure why i quoted you... thought i was just responding tinthread on phone. Ooops

Can’t forget The Bird. 19-9 record as a rookie. 29-19 career.

In Barnes defense, he also had the ague in 1877 and was never physically the same in his remaining career.

Yes, Gary, when you get the ague it really takes the Pl out of you. :)

David

George Foster was somewhat similar to Anderson, and no talk of steroids.

I don't think that's valid. George was a power hitter who had one especially amazing year. Anderson was a doubles hitter who hit 50 and only had two other seasons over 20 (and barely at that, 21 and 24) His 50 was bookended by 16 and 18. George had seasons of 52, 40, 34, 29 and 6 other seasons over 20. and hit about 140 more for his career in nearly identical plate appearances. Some anomalies are a little more anomalous than others!

You've got other guys who hit 40 and never hit 20 like Dave Johnson and Rico Petrocelli. You even have Yaz who had 3 seasons over 40 and NONE in the 30's which is just weird. Strange things happen but it's pretty commonly accepted that Brady and Luis Gonzalez (despite his protestations) juiced.

More of a downhill slope than a cliff.

What about Buzz Arlett? Hit over .300 and slugged away. Never played in the majors again. Of course he was hung over most of the time and really wasn't very interested in playing in the field.

The wags had a poem for him:

Buzz Arlett weighs half a ton,

He cannot field, he cannot run!

But when he swings his trusty wood,

The pellet leaves the neighborhood.

He was out in the field after a night of celebrating and Walter Boom Boom Beck was having a rough day on the mound. Hit after hit shot into the outfield with Arlett misplaying many of them. Finally Beck could take it no longer. He fired a ball that hit the right field boards and caromed back to Arlett, who surprisingly fielded the ball cleanly and fired a strike into second.

How about a guy who jumped UP a cliff. Puckett -- first two full seasons, 0 and 4 HR, third year, 31.

Yoenis Céspedes.
In 2015, he basically singlehandedly got the Mets into the World Series, as his half a season with them was superhuman, but that cliff came quickly in Game 1 of The Series and he's been pulling a Thelma & Louise ever since.

And he hit leadoff the entire year. Never drew walks but hit for power, and the Twins batted him leadoff. :rolleyes:

Or Davey Johnson who jumped up the cliff then fell right back off

1972- 5 HR
1973- 43 HR
1974- 15 HR

In fairness to Davey, he was in Baltimore in 72 and the Braves moved the fences back in 74 as Aaron was breaking Ruth's HR record. Darrell Evans also had a pretty big drop off from 41 to 25 then 22 with the fences moved back.

Hank went from 40 to 20. Part of that I guess was age.

I think our newest member, Owner 3, might fall off of a cliff soon.

Give him a little nudge Leon!:D

I am getting a bit exasperated. On this case much more time will be given, people have lives. (well, not me, but others)

edited to add, after phone tag with the member mentioned, we are all good for now. Please carry on....

Mark Davis went from Cy Young to sayonara.

Eddie Gaedel. Luckily, it was a short drop, and he was fine.

Mark Davis was exclusively a reliever that year. The next year long-man/spot starter....

Please refer to the "Poll: is Mariano Rivera one of the top 10 pitchers of all time?" thread.

I think you should first refer to Mark Davis' stat page. He never threw more innings after the award than the season he won the award. He also started a combined 14 games out of his next 208 appearances.

Steve Stone lost 7 games in each of 1980 and 1981. Only difference was, he won 25 one year and 4 the next. And after that, he literally was gone. A very good example of Cy Young to Sayonara.

Maris didn't do much after 61.

He was a long reliever and spot starter in 1990 because he bombed as the closer. In his first 15 appearances, he was 0-2 with four blown saves and a 7.24 ERA. He had just one more save in 1990 after that.

KC didn't pay $10m to a Cy Young Award-winning closer to bring him in as a long reliever and spot starter.

33/100 the next year not exactly nothing.

Physical and emotional toll of that season has to be taken into account too. Maris is only 30 years old here in 1965. He looks withered beyond his years to me:

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/894/4...177e08158e.jpg

Yea still a big drop. And he never got close to even those numbers in 62 again.

I know Maris fell apart quickly and his career numbers are short. But with 2 mvp and 3 ws and the 61 season I think he belongs in the HOF for the same reason Koufax is in. A short and powerful career.

Albert Belle's case is infinitely stronger on the short and sweet theory. 8 or so years as an elite slugger.

Joey has better numbers but Roger has 2 mvp, 3 ws and 61. Belle has none of those. Advantage: Roger.

The WS are irrelevant IMO. Billy Martin played in a lot of WS too, and Gene Woodling.

I'm sitting on a minor nest egg if Joey ever DOES get elected:

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4712/...f8fa35f47a.jpg

Agree, personalities aside, Belle was the much better hitter than Maris.

Hey if Harold Baines can get in...:D

Albert Belle blows away Harold Baines. Look at his stats for the 1990s.

He only has 1726 hits. It is going to be hard to get elected to the HOF with that few. Maris is even worse with 1325. If those guys had played long enough to get 2000, I think they would both be in.

Belle's stats are due to injury though. He should have enough merit in what he did while he could play to get in. He was a much better hitter than Jim Rice or Andre Dawson, who are probably the most similar to him in terms of why they got in.

Oh I agree, especially given his unpopularity Belle will never get in, I was mostly just responding to the notion that a few good years qualified Maris somehow. But I do think if guys like Baines who were pretty good for a very long time are in, one needs to consider guys who were superstars for 6-7-8 years just didn't have much of a career beyond that. The Belles and Mattinglys of the world.