It's funny how a bunch of these ultra-hyped rookies of the '80s kind of flamed out and then ended up having pretty good careers. Rob mentioned Andy Benes. I remember, as other posters have mentioned, the incredible hype machines for Mark Grace, Todd Zeile, and Gregg Jefferies in 1988. They all seemed to not live up to the hype, but in retrospect were pretty good, especially Grace, who had an excellent career. Someone told me he had the most hits in the 1990s and he finished with almost 2450 hits. Zeile had over 2000 career hits and Jefferies had two excellent seasons with the Cardinals (two top 20 MVP finishes).
But I guess when it comes to hyped rookies in the late 1980s, for every Mark Grace, there were 10 Ricky Jordans.
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