Every now and then we see certain MLB players put on All-Star performances for a year and seemingly just as fast as they rose …. they fall. This isn’t uncommon though as we see it in every professional sport throughout history. But hey one great year at the professional level is better than none at all.
That’s why we’re gonna show some love to those players and showcase the 10 Biggest One-Year Wonders In MLB History
Marcus Giles
Giles had a seven-year career at a slash line of .277/.353/.429 giving him an OPS of .782. He played only three seasons as an above-average hitter with the best coming in 2003 where he would collect his only All-Star appearance. His career high in home runs, runs batted in, hits, batting average, on-base percentage, slugging, and on-base plus slugging resulted in an OPS+ 136.
In the next four seasons, we would see a gradual decline until 2007 when we would see his final season in MLB.
Joe Charboneau
Charboneau won the 1980 Rookie of the Year award after a season where he had 23 home runs, 131 hits, 87 runs batted in and 76 runs scored. Anytime a player wins Rookie of the Year there are very high hopes for what that player can do for the team in the future. Many Cleveland Indians fans would only experience disappointment as Joe would play only two more seasons in MLB.
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The next two years saw him hit a .211 batting average and six home runs before a back injury he had been dealing with caused him to go into retirement.
Ubaldo Jimenez
In 2010 we saw one of the rarest scenarios in MLB, which was a pitcher representing the Colorado Rockies in the All-Star game. This achievement goes to Ubaldo Jimenez who would put on a gem of a season. He placed third in Cy Young voting and got voted to the sole All-Star game of his career.
2012 saw Jimenez gaining 7.5 WAR which is 35% of his career total which is crazy considering he played twelve years in MLB.
Joe Panik
In 2015 Joe Panik received his first and only All-Star nod in his career. However, it was well deserved slashing .312/.378/.455. With it being just the second year of his eight-year career we would never see a performance near as good as 2015. Panik would have just one more OPS+ over 100 when it was 102 in 2017 but still nowhere near the 129 in 2015.
Other than the Gold Glove in 2016 there’s no denying this is a one-year wonder situation.
Chase Headley
For a decade-long struggling Padres team, Chase Headley was a beam of hope. In 2012 he finished fifth in NL MVP, while also winning a Gold Glove and Silver Slugger. He led the NL in RBIs while launching 31 homerun and finished with a .875 OPS. In no other season would Headley gain over 15 home runs or become within 100 points of his 2012 OPS.
Since Chase never won any more accolades in his 12-year career he is a perfect example of a one-year wonder.
Ricky Romero
With a career4.16 ERA in five years in the majors that statistic would be highly inflated without his amazing 2011 performance. In 225 innings pitched he threw out a 2.92 ERA that awarded him one and only All-Star appearance and landed him tenth in Cy Young voting. In just 2012 he had a 6.4 WAR which means he earned more than half of his 10.1 career WAR in just one season.
Domonic Brown
Brown may have only had a short six-year career but that doesn’t exclude him from being a one-year wonder. In 2013 was selected to his first All-Star game and for good reason because for the only time in his career, he would have an OPS+ over 100 at 124. His 27 home runs certainly didn’t hurt his chances either. But based on this list it’s no surprise he would never hit more than 10 in a season ever again or be an All-Star.
Brown’s 3.3 WAR in 2012 is the craziest statistic about him because, by the end of his career, his WAR totaled 2.8
Zack Cozart
On a contract year in 2017 for the Cincinnati Reds Cozart showed out. In a season that would earn him a 3-year $38 million deal from the Angels, he slashed .297/.385/.548 and had an OPS+ of 140. This performance would earn him his first… and say it with me… only All-Star appearance of his career.
He would never play out his full contract for Los Angeles as by 2020 he was out of the league. By this time he would be 12% worse than the average batter throughout his nine-year career.
R.A. Dickey
Every player on this list seems to have had one All-Star appearance and nothing else in his career, but R.A. Dickey went one further. Other than a 2013 Gold Glove, Dickey won the CyYoung and was named an All-Star in 2012 and that was it for his career. He put up the statistics to deserve it though with a 2.73 ERA and an NL-leading 230 strikeouts.
The rest of his career never saw the same success as his ERA never dipped below 3.50 ever again in a season.
Bob Hamelin
A rookie hitting with over a .900 OPS is almost unheard of but Hamelin achieved it in 1994. In a season that won him, Rookie of the Year, he hit .282/.388/.599 giving him an OPS+ that sat at 147. So in his rookie season, he hit 47% better than the average hitter. Big things seemed to be on the horizon for Hamelin and the Kansas City Royals but they would never come to fruition.
He would never come close to another season like this in his career and ended with a 3.1 WAR and earned 07 of that in just 1994.
