Three weeks ago, Texas Rangers top prospect Joey Gallo turned his debut into an instant coming-out party. He crushed a massive home run among his three hits.
Two weeks ago, it was Carlos Correa’s turn. Baseball’s top-ranked prospect produced 20 hits, including nine for extra bases, and four steals in his first 14 games with the Houston Astros.
Last week, Minnesota Twins centre fielder Byron Buxton, 21, “finally” arrived, showing off his speed and flashing his defensive skills.
The kids just keep coming.
Baseball’s normal, steady assimilation of youth is, instead, a tsunami of young talent this season.
“You look around the league,” Twins vice president of player personnel Mike Radcliff told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “It seems like every team has a high-end prospect in the line-up right now. Guys are coming up fast.”
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Two years ago, Wil Myers came up to the Tampa Bay Rays in June and finished with 13 home runs, 53 runs batted in (RBI) and a .354 on-base percentage (OBP). He was the American League Rookie of the Year (ROY).
This year, those numbers will look puny alongside those already being built through mid-season by the likes of Los Angeles Dodgers centre fielder Joc Pederson (19 home runs, .393 OBP); Chicago Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant (10 home runs, 40 runs, 42 RBI, .382 OBP); and Tampa Bay outfielder Steven Souza Jr (14 HRs, 10 stolen bases). We haven’t mentioned the pitchers, yet.
Even if Gallo, Correa and Buxton continue to produce and join the ROY chase, they have a lot of catching up to do — to players who first came up in May.
Centre-fielder Billy Burns of the Oakland A’s has 64 hits in his first 47 games, and 15 stolen bases. In 37 games, third baseman Maikel Franco, 22, of the Philadelphia Phillies has 10 homers, 29 RBI and has moved into the No 3 spot in the batting order.
Devon Travis rejoins the Toronto Blue Jays this week after a month on the disabled list, hoping to pick up where he left off. The first-year second baseman had seven home runs and 26 RBI in his first 36 games.
Stellar rookie pitchers are fewer, but also impressive. Chris Heston of the San Francisco Giants (7-5, 3.83 earned run average (ERA) and threw a no-hitter. Nate Karns of Tampa Bay (3.49) and Anthony DeSclafani (3.48) of Cincinnati have been rocks in their rotations.
May arrivals Chi Chi Gonzalez of Texas (2.27 ERA), Lance McCullers of Houston (2.45 ERA) and Eduardo Rodriguez (3.13) of the Boston Red Sox have been quick learners, as well.
With their arrival comes greater scrutiny and expectations. Multiple websites now rank prospects and project their big-league careers, sometimes before they are out of their teens.
The first games of top prospects are media events. When Bryant made his much-publicised debut in mid-April, MLB Network made sure it broadcast each of his at-bats.
"It's almost unfair," veteran Ryan Zimmerman of the Washington Nationals said to USA Today. "Young guys shouldn't have to go through that stuff that early."
Maybe not. But from the looks of it, it doesn’t bother them a bit.
LATEST THORN IN PETE ROSE COMEBACK LIKELY FATAL
Since 1989 when he was banned from working in Major League Baseball and denied a chance to be in the Hall of Fame, Pete Rose periodically shows up to make his case for reinstatement.
He’s like a skunk at a picnic. You hope he’s just passing through.
Rose, of course, earned his suspension by gambling on baseball games. The vice just happens to be, potentially, the most insidious crime imaginable for the sport.
Rose’s supporters always ask simplistically: “What’s wrong with betting on your own team?”
Well, since you ask … baseball was almost destroyed by gamblers and gambling players a century ago.
It culminated in the notorious Black Sox scandal, when Chicago White Sox players conspired to throw the 1919 World Series.
Baseball rightly made gambling on games a zero-tolerance sin for its participants.
Basically, if you care about the integrity of your sport, you keep your people far, far away from gamblers.
Recently, Rose had been cleared to participate in ceremonies at next month’s All-Star Game in Cincinnati. He had approached new commissioner Rob Manfred about reinstatement, again.
Fortuitously, this week, someone leaked sealed law-enforcement documents with evidence that Rose not only bet when he was managing, but when he was a player – something he had always pointedly denied.
It should – hopefully, beggingly, pleadingly – finally kill Rose’s comeback bid, the end to Charlie Hustle’s last hustle.
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