One hit wonders/Freak years
 

In 1993 Phil Plantier hit 34 Home Runs and 100 RBIs. The second most HRs he had in a season was 18, to go along with 41 RBIs.

What are some other one season wonders?

Joe Charboneau.
Pat Listach.
Ron Bryant maybe.
Rick Ankiel as a pitcher.

I see that Listach snd Charboneau had solid Rookie seasons, and that was about it. Good examples of one hit wonders, but I didn’t mean to limit this to hit Rookie Seasons only.

I thought you were going to go with Norm Cash’s monster season in ‘61 when he hit .362 with 40 HR and 132 RBIs. Cash had other good years, but never got close to .300 or reached 100 RBIs again.

Dale Sveum.

Did Sveum actually have a good season?

25/95/.252 was pretty good.

-1910 Jack Coombs pitching for the Philadelphia A's.

9.5 WAR 31 wins 9 losses .775 win % 1.30 ERA no home runs allowed.

Brady Anderson. Jorge Soler. Alfonso Soriano. Steve Stone. Luis Gonzalez. Davey Johnson. Fidrych. Dontrelle Willis maybe? Cito Gaston.

Wally Berger had a monster rookie season in 1930 hitting 38 homers. I always think of him when the question of who had the most potential but didn't pan out as good as they should've comes up. I believe his record for home runs as a rookie stood until Cody Bellinger broke it in 2017 with 39. 87 years holding a record isn't too shabby. (F Robinson also hit 38)

John Denny never made an All Star team his entire career but in 1983 at age 30 he went 19-6 with a 2.37 ERA and a league leading 7.4 WAR en route to winning the Cy Young award. He would retire just three years later.

Cito Gaston might be the biggest one hit wonder with his 1970 season where he hit .318 with 29 HRs and 93 RBIs, leading to 5.1 bWAR. Gaston finished his career with negative bWAR, including 10 seasons of 0 or negative bWAR. His 2nd best season had .4 bWAR.

Brady Anderson’s 50 HR, 110 RBI season in 1996 definitely came out of nowhere. The closest he came to duplicating that feat was 24 HRs and 81 RBIs in ‘99.

Davey Johnson’s 43 HR, 99 RBI season was also an anomaly, more than doubling his 2nd best Home Run output of 18 HRs to go along with 72 RBIs.

But I am not sure about Soriano, as hit over 30 HRs 7x including four 30-30 seasons.

Zolio Versailles won the MVP in 1965 with a 7.2WAR, 115 OPS+ and a league leading 308 total based. His next best year was a 2.6 WAR and 104 OPS+, the only other year he wasn't a below average hitter. He finished with a career 82 OPS+ and 12.6 WAR.

Miguel Andujar 2018 - 2nd to Ohtani in ROY voting. 27HR, 92RBI, .297AVG

Been a negative WAR player ever since.

Kevin Mitchell 1987

Like Norm Cash, he had other pretty good seasons, but this one really stood out.

Led the league in HR's, RBI's, Slugging, OPS, OPS+ and Total Bases on the way to an almost unanimous MVP Award.

Only season he ever led the league in anything and he compiled more Black Ink in that season, then many HOF'ers have in their entire careers.

Lesser extent but Aaron Small won all of 25 games in his entire career but in 2005 at age 33 he went 10-0 for the Yankees and pitched his only complete game and shutout of his career.

He never won another game.

1961 was a good year for these types of seasons.

Jim Gentile had an identical WAR (more then double his 2nd best season) to Roger Maris, led the league in RBI's (tied with Maris), and had a much higher OBP and higher Slugging% and OPS+ then Maris.

It will be difficult to top Kyle Wright, 21-5 in 2022, 3-11 otherwise.

Irv "Young Cy" Young won 20 games as a rookie for a team that only won 51 games and led NL pitchers with 9.9 Pitching WAR. He pitched 5 more seasons and he had an ERA+ below 100 all 5 finishing with a career ERA+ of 88 and 11.6 WAR.

In 1914 Bill James went 26-7 with a 1.90 ERA, ERA+ 150, finished 3rd in MVP voting as he helped the Braves win a World Championship and accumulated 7.9 WAR. He pitched 3 other seasons and went 11-14 and accumulated 0.4 WAR.

Not the same thing but it always freaked me out that Yaz 3 seasons of 40 or more home runs, but none between 30 and 40, and actually only one season between 23 and 40.

Dick Hughes. 16 game winner in 1966, won 4 games otherwise. Ron Bryant won 24 in 1973 and a total of 3 after that.

Angel Berroa, the 2003 Rookie of the Year, never had a good season after. Dave "Boo" Ferriss won 46 games in two years for the Red Sox, then injured his arm and was never the same.

1961 Yankees had John Blanchard and Luis Arroyo. Blanchard, a backup catcher, hit .305 with 21 HRs. Arroyo was 15-5 with 29 saves and a 2.19 ERA. Neither player had another year close to those numbers.

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Harry Krause was 18-8 with a league-leading 1.39 ERA for the A's in 1909 as a 20-year-old rookie. He had arm trouble after that and won only 18 more games in the majors, but had a long successful career in the PCL.

Every thread needs a card:

Irv Young screwed up the E98 & E97 sets forever when they called him Cy Young.

Danny Jackson in 1988

Two more pitchers:

Dick Ellsworth went 22-10 with a 2.11 ERA (league leading 167 ERA+) and an absurd 10.2 bWAR in 1963.

Ellsworth only had one other winning season, and ended up with a 115-137 record with a league average ERA+ of exactly 100.


The year before Ellsworth's monster year, Bobby Schantz led the League with 24 wins to only 7 losses, an ERA of 2.48 (159 ERA+) and a league leading 8.8 bWAR on his way to an MVP. He would never win more than 11 games again.

Evan Gattis had a brief career with a couple productive seasons but his 2015 season was kinda freaky. He had 12 triples in his entire career but hit 11 of them in 2015 as a catcher and finished tied for third while also hitting 27 homers.

John Tudor in 1985 with 10 shutouts, probably the last time a pitcher has at least 10 in a season.

Chase Headley 2012

Jim Hickman in 1970. Superstar year over 1000 OPS.

Bernard Gilkey in 1996

Don Baylor MVP year 1979 .
Baylor was a solid player and played for 19 years but only reached 100 RBI once : 1979 - 139 RBIs .
It was also the only year he was a All-Star

Similar only Different:
 

Slightly off Subject:

How about Isolated Homer Output- like those of Davey Johnson and Brady Anderson...

Bert Campaneris with 22 in 1970

Wade Boggs with 24 in 1987


obviously, both 1970 and 1987 were big power years league-wide, but still...

.

Wade Boggs himself has been quoted as saying that every one of his home runs has been a mistake since he got further under the ball than he intended.

;)

How about Bryan LaHair? He was 29 years old in 2012 and became a first time All Star after hitting 14 homers and batting 286 during the first half of the season. He then hit 202 and added only 2 more homers in the second half and never played another major league game.

That’s a pretty good one - looking at his non-major numbers in 2011-between Iowa ,the Cubs and Venezuela he had 144 rbis - maybe burnt himself out playing winter ball (?)

There were two pitchers named Bill James in the early 20th century. One of them pitched for the 1914 World Series winning Boston Braves and led the NL in wins with 26 vs. just 7 losses, and 1.90 ERA.

This was good for a 3rd place MVP finish behind teammates Johnny Evers and Rabbit Maranville.

Bill James won only 11 other games in his brief career. This does not include the 2 wins he had in 3 days vs. the Athletics in the 1914 World Series, as the Braves swept the defending champion Athletics.

Arm fatigue, most likely caused by the well-over 300 hundred innings he pitched in 1914, after having thrown just 135.2 innings the previous season.

Brady Anderson always stands out in my mind. He hit 50 HR's in 1996. Next highest HR total in his 16 year career is 24 in 1999. He also hit 21 HR's in 1992. Three 20+ HR seasons in his 16 year career.

1890 Hardy Richardson 152 rbis - 58 more than his second best year and 73 more than his third best year

Musta got buff from lifting all those bats. ;)

Or carrying all of those boxes of steroids and needles.

Jim Creighton

As mentioned earlier Bert Campaneris. 22hr 1970. Next highest year he hit 8 and he played forever!

Bob Hazel. Hit .403 as a mid season call up for the world champion Milwaukee Braves in 1957. Finished as a major leaguer in 1958.

For power Davey Johnson's 40 home run season is hard to beat.

Related but not exactly the same thing Yaz hit over 40 HR's 3 times. after those three seasons his next highest totals are:

28
23
21
21
20

Always struck me as really weird.

Wade Boggs hit 24 homeruns in in 1987. His next highest total was 11 and the only other time he hit double digit homeruns.

At age 37 Tony Gwynn had 220 hits, 49 doubles, 17 homeruns, and 324 total bases with all being career highs.

Clay Bryant, 1938 Cubs
 

One year wonder I found doing some other research. 19-11, 3 ShO, led NL in strikeouts (and walks), 5.7 WAR combined as pitcher and hitter (3 hr, 15 rbi), 15th in mvp votes. Rest of career? 2.0 WAR, 13 wins and 137 k’s over 5 years.

Elroy was there

Jose Mesa 1995

Had a 19 year career, mostly middling while pitching 1548 innings as middle reliever, stopper and starter.

Compiled over 34% of his total career WAR in 64 innings in 1995, finishing 2nd in Cy Young voting and 4th in MVP voting (ahead of actual Cy Young winner Randy Johnson, LOL).

Check out his ERA+ of 418. To put that in context, Mariano Rivera's highest ever season was 316. :eek: