Baseball’s Top Rookies of ’86 Face Tough Opponent in Sophomore Jinx

Seldom has such a large group of players burst into major league baseball with the success achieved by the rookie class of 1986.

Whether Jose Canseco, Todd Worrell, Wally Joyner, Pete Incaviglia and Cory Snyder can proceed to long and distinguished careers is the next question.

Many players, particularly young ones, scoff at the sophomore jinx as a rainy-day invention by some baseball writer in the distant past.

But a look at past rookies of the year suggests it’s impossible to predict how a spectacular rookie will fare the next year. Some will fall victim to the sophomore jinx, while others could go to the Hall of Fame.

The best of the freshman class of 1986 compiled statistics that would be difficult for many seasoned players to repeat. That group will bear watching through 1987.

Oakland’s Canseco, the AL Rookie of the Year, batted .240 but had 33 homers and 117 RBI. Joyner, who replaced Rod Carew at first base for the Angels, hit .290 with 22 home runs and 100 RBI. Joyner may have already suffered through his “jinx” stage. After hitting .313 with 20 homers and 74 RBI before the All-Star break, he managed just .257, two home runs and 28 runs batted in for the rest of the season.

Incaviglia, the Texas outfielder, pounded out 30 homers and 88 RBI while Cleveland’s Snyder hit .272 with 24 home runs in 103 games. Worrell, the Cardinals’ second consecutive NL Rookie of the Year, recorded a league-leading 36 saves in 74 appearances with a 2.08 ERA. Worrell pitched 21 innings for the Cardinals in 1985 but technically was an ’86 rookie.

One freshman class that compares to 1986--in talent but not in depth--came 32 years earlier in 1954. Neither Al Kaline nor Hank Aaron won the Rookie of the Year award, but both fared better than Bob Grim and Wally Moon--the two players who did.

Grim, a 24-year-old right-hander with the New York Yankees, recorded a 20-6 record and 3.26 ERA that year, but dropped to 7-5 and a 4.19 ERA the following season. He never won more than 12 games the remainder of his eight-year career.

Moon, the St. Louis right-fielder, batted .304, drove in 76 runs and scored 106 more in 1954 and slipped to .295 with 86 runs scored and 76 RBI in 1955. He finished his 12-year career with a .289 lifetime average.

Kaline batted .276 with four homers and 42 RBI for the Tigers that season, but in 1955, he led the American League with a .340 average while slugging 27 homers and driving in 102 runs.

Aaron also played his first full season for the Milwaukee Braves, hitting 13 home runs, driving in 69 and batting .280. He pounded ouut 27 home runs the next year to go with 106 RBI and a .314 average.

In more recent history, Ozzie Guillen, the sleek-fielding shortstop of the Chicago White Sox, won AL rookie honors in 1985 by batting .273 and leading all shortstops with a .980 fielding percentage while committing only 12 errors. Last season, his average dropped to .250 and he had 22 errors.

Vince Coleman, who led the Cardinals to the World Series in 1985, hit .267 with 110 stolen bases while copping the NL Rookie of the Year. His average dropped to .232 last season.

Seattle first baseman Alvin Davis was the top AL rookie in 1984 with a .284 average, 27 homers and 116 RBI. The following season, he hit .287 with 18 home runs and 78 RBI. Ron Kittle, then with the White Sox, suffered a similar fate. He pounded 35 homers in 1983 with 100 RBI and a .241 average. One year later, Kittle hit 32 homers with 78 RBI.