One True Rookie: Joe Carter

This is the second installment of a feature focusing on a player for whom only one major card company issued a rookie card.

Joe Carter and Fred McGriff are linked together in the minds of many baseball fans. The sluggers were essentially traded for each other (with Roberto Alomar and Tony Fernandez also being traded for each other concurrently). In addition to suiting up for the Blue Jays and Padres (as result of that trade), Carter and McGriff both played some for the Cubs, too. Each guy ended his career tantalizingly close to a home run milestone, with Joe winding up at 396 and Fred at 493.

And for a baseball card collector, a big similarity is that each player only has one true rookie card, both being Donruss "Rated Rookie" cards. Since McGriff's 1986 card was the subject of the first post in the series, I figured Carter would make a good follow-up.

From their debut in 1981 through 1983, Donruss put out a respectable-- yet unremarkable-- design. Their first notable subset, "Diamond Kings", was introduced in 1982, which featured oil paintings of star players (one from each team) done by noted baseball artist Dick Perez.

While the addition of Diamond King cards was a good start for the company to develop a unique identity in the baseball card market, it wasn't until the 1984 Donruss set that card collectors really seemed to be impressed. That year, their set featured a fresh pseudo-borderless "wavy" design (breaking away from the similarity of the company's "boxy" designs up to that point), lower production numbers than other sets of the era, and the introduction of an intriguing new subset, Rated Rookies.

A "rookie" designation on a baseball card was nothing new; Topps had many past sets with "star rookies" (etc.) and multiplayer rookie cards, not to mention the All-Star Rookie cups commemorating a player who had a good rookie season the year before. But the company was never very consistent about having a distinct rookie subset. For a while, they even did away with rookie cups (in 1979) and multiplayer rookie cards (in 1983), leaving no cards that screamed out ROOKIE! to the mid-80s collector.

Donruss smartly filled that void in 1984. New York Daily News writer Bill Madden selected 20 young prospects to have their cards graced by a Rated Rookie banner where the team name typically went (it wasn't until the next year that the iconic blue RR logo first appeared). Obviously, betting on prospects will yield mixed results. Many Rated Rookies never did squat in the bigs, whereas future top stars (such as Don Mattingly and Darryl Strawberry) apparently weren't rated high enough in Mr. Madden's eyes to get the RR distinction. The website Mental Floss has a great article looking back at the 1984 class called How the Original Donruss Rated Rookies Turned Out.

In 1985, Fleer would get into the Rookie-promoting game by including 2-on-1 "Major League Prospects" cards. Topps brought back the All-Star Rookie cups in 1987, as well as reintroducing the "Future Stars" subset that year, previously used for 3-on-1 rookie cards in 1980 through 1982, but now they were on individual player cards and had a nifty shooting star logo. You can easily imagine the meeting of Topps executives.. "Kids love that Rated Rookie stuff.. we need to come up with something like that!"

But anyways, this post is focusing on Joe Carter's Rated Rookie.

minor league cards

Carter had a great collegiate career at Wichita State, I'm assuming, since he was drafted #1 by the Cubs, the 2nd player chosen overall in the 1981 amateur draft, just behind Mike Moore (P, Mariners). He put up some impressive numbers in the minors and got called up to Chicago for a cup of coffee near the end of the 1983 season, but struggled against major league pitching. Take a look for yourself:

Despite the weak MLB debut, he still had a lot of promise. Topps and Fleer left him out of their 1984 sets-- he didn't even make it into the Traded/Update sets-- so Donruss was the only game in town for a Joe Carter card till '85 rolled around. It was a great looking card, too, featuring a close-up of determined young Joe posed in a batting stance at Wrigley with the ivy in the background.

Joe started 1984 back in AAA, and his minor league success continued (.310 and 14 HR in 61 games). The Cubs, however, didn't see him as essential in their future plans, and shipped him off in a big mid-season trade. He was sent with Mel Hall, Don Schulze, and Darryl Banks to Cleveland for George Frazier, Ron Hassey, and Rick Sutcliffe. I suppose the trade worked out well for both teams, as Sutcliffe went 16-1 for Chicago, winning the Cy and helping the Cubs reach the playoffs that year for the first time in since 1945.

first Fleer card

Carter, however, would have to wait a while for a taste of October baseball. But he was able to blossom as a solid major leaguer in the Indians' outfield. In 6 years in Cleveland, he batted .269 with 151 homers. Highlights included 1987, when he joined the 30/30 Club (31 HR, 32 SB). He won the AL RBI crown in '86 (121), and later led the league in games (all 162) and at-bats (651) in '89. While not known as much of a contact hitter, he did a great job getting wood on the ball in 1986, collecting 200 hits with a .302 average (both marks he wouldn't come anywhere close to matching again). For his career, he wasn't picky with what he swung at, typically striking out about 3 times as often as he walked. In the field, he saw time at all 3 outfield positions, occasionally playing at first or DH-ing, and was known as a less-than-stellar fielder.

first Topps card

After the 1989 season, he was traded to San Diego in exchange for Sandy Alomar, Carlos Baerga, and Chris James. The deal was a bust for the Padres, as Joe delivered a down year for them in 1990, batting just .232 with his power dipping. For the Indians, Sandy Alomar would go on to win Rookie of the Year that year, and despite being injury-prone for much of his career, became one of the game's best catchers for many years. Baerga also had a few real nice years.

Maybe it's because 1990 was the year my love for baseball first exploded and I lived in the San Diego area, but I always mistakenly remember Joe Carter as being a long-time Padre. Truth is, they shipped him off after only one season, in the aforementioned Fred McGriff deal with the Blue Jays.

The pieces really fell into place for those early-90s Toronto teams, culminating in back-to-back championships in 1992 and 1993, with Carter being a big part of their success with many clutch hits. He of course carved himself a permanent place in baseball history when he cracked a dramatic walk-off homer to end the 1993 World Series.

After a few more years with the Jays, Joe wrapped up his career in 1998, splitting that final year with the Orioles and Giants. Since retiring, he's done some broadcasting and started a celebrity golf tournament that benefits the Children's Aid Foundation.

Players with similar career stats include Dale Murphy and Ruben Sierra. When he was eligible for the Hall of Fame, Carter received just 3.8% of the vote and was dropped from future ballots. Unlike McGriff, there aren't many baseball fans clamoring for his induction. In fact, sabermetric advanced-stat minded types are quick to call him overrated, pointing to his poor defense and lackluster slugging and on-base percentages despite good home run and RBI numbers.

But still, the guy put together a solid career. And of course that World Series home run is one of the most memorable moments ever in the sport. And he only has one true rookie. Score another point for Donruss for being the only major brand to give him cardboard when he came up. They took a risk, and he proved them right, arguably having the most successful career out of the original 20 Rated Rookies in that Class of '84.

One True Rookie: Fred McGriff

Welcome to the first of a new series here at Baseball Card Breakdown! One True Rookie™ posts will feature a guy who only had one actual rookie card during the time of multiple card companies.

(Disclaimer: Hopefully my post ideas are reasonably fresh. I am somewhat new to the baseball card blogosphere, so forgive me if I retread on ground already covered by other blogs. I assure you I strive for originality, and will never blatantly rip off another blog, but here in 2013, there are few things that haven't already been done, especially in regards to old baseball cards. I'll post about topics/cards I find entertaining, and my apologies if anything I do has been covered before. Thank you.)

To explain the premise a bit more: For a long time, Topps was the only game in town when it came to full-sized baseball cards sets, only briefly given competition by Bowman and Fleer. And so for 99% of players playing in the 50s through 1980, their first Topps card was undeniably their rookie card.

But in 1981, Donruss and Fleer came onto the scene and made things interesting. While all 3 companies gave cards to pretty much the same 500+ players, there were occasionally variances in guys chosen to have a card. Sometimes a journeyman infielder would be snubbed by one or two companies, but given a card in another's set. Sometimes a great player who retired recently after the previous season would be denied a "send-off" final card (Topps being especially infamous for this), while the other companies would be gracious enough to issue a card with complete career stats (Fleer especially).

And of course, the 3 companies would sometimes differ in which prospects they deemed worthy of having a place in their set. Most of the time, they agreed. But from time to time, one company would "guess right" and put out a card of a kid who went on to great things, leaving the other companies caught red-faced, scrambling to include the player in their traded/update sets. And sometimes, it would be a year or two till the prospect in question broke onto the scene, making the sole company who gave him a card way-back-when look like magic fortunetellers.

By 1990, the marketplace had become inflated by Score, Upper Deck, the reintroduction of Bowman, and the revamped Leaf set. Soon thereafter, things really became a mess, what with Stadium Club, Fleer Ultra, Pinnacle, etc.

So for this One True Rookie series, I'm limiting the range from 1981 to 1990, back when there really were just a handful of options for a guy's rookie card.

For the first entry, I've chosen one of my favorites:
1986 Donruss #28 Fred McGriff

The guy in charge of picking Rated Rookies really came through for Donruss in '86. The fact that they were the only game in town with a Jose Canseco rookie card not shared with Eric Plunk (Fleer) must've helped them sell a lot of packs back then. But one slow-burn prospect who turned out to be a brilliant pick for them was Fred McGriff.

When the 1986 season started, McGriff had yet to make his major league debut, and his minor league numbers were promising but not exactly explosive, so it's no shock that Topps and Fleer didn't find a place for the Crime Puppy, as I'm sure he was called back then. But Donruss saw something in him and not only gave him a card, but proudly emblazoned it with the prestigious Rated Rookie logo.

Back then, collectors must've thought he was destined to be another RR dud (the list of Rated Rookies who never amounted to much is probably just as long as those who did go on to have respectable careers, if not longer.. hmm, perhaps that could be researched as a topic for a future post?). Fred's 1986 season came and went with him only popping up for an unimpressive 3-game cup of coffee with the big league club (1 single in 5 at-bats, with 2 strikeouts) after a lukewarm season in AAA (.259 with 19 HR).

When the 1987 baseball card sets came out, Topps and Fleer again looked the other way, with only Donruss standing by their man and giving him another card in their set. His '87 Donruss card is very often mistakenly called his rookie card by collectors. It's hard to blame them when you turn the card over and see he only had 3 games under his belt at the time.

However, that year McGriff made the club out of spring training and didn't look back. He put in a solid rookie campaign, clubbing 20 home runs in under 300 at-bats mainly in a left-handed DH platoon role. Topps finally granted him his own cardboard in their 1987 Traded set, with Fleer following suit in their 1987 Update. Donruss got to gloat, including him in their The Rookies set, and perhaps in a cocky "suck on that, bitches!" gesture to Topps and Fleer, used a picture of Fred spitting while at bat.

The next year, Fred was the Blue Jays' everyday first-baseman, and broke out with a terrific season, batting .282 with 34 home runs and 100 runs scored. He was included in all 3 major 1988 sets (well, 4 counting newcomer Score), with collectors getting their first chance at pulling a McGriff from a pack of Topps or Fleer, as they looked back to check if they had any of his earlier Donruss cards.

1989 saw Crime Dog win his first HR crown with 36. He had similar power numbers in 1990, plus got his average up to .300. At the end of the year, he was involved in a blockbuster trade. Toronto sent him and Tony Fernandez to the Padres for Roberto Alomar and Joe Carter. Speaking as a kid in San Diego at the time deep into my burgeoning love of baseball, this was a huge deal. I was sad to see Robbie and Carter go, but quickly warmed to the new guys. In 2 and a half years for the Friars, Fred hit .281 with 84 home runs (including his 2nd and final HR title in '92 [35]). Sadly for me, San Diego shipped him off to Atlanta in mid 1993 for little in exchange. But the move worked out well for Fred, as he won the World Series with the Braves in '95. This would prove to provide him with his only ring, though he put up excellent lifetime postseason numbers (.303 with 10 HR and 37 RBI in 50 games.)

Oh, Padres, will you ever win?

McGriff spent the next several years consistently putting up good average and power numbers, moving on from Atlanta to Tampa Bay (his hometown) in 1998, and then to the Cubs in 2001.

He signed with the Dodgers for the 2003 season, but his numbers started to slide, batting just .249 with 13 homers in 297 at-bats.

The next year, he tried to rekindle some mojo with Tampa Bay, but after a sub-Mendoza Line start, the Devil Rays released him near the end of July. He lingered on the free agent market for a while, hoping for another opportunity, but wasn't able to catch on with another team for 2005 and had to call it a career. He now works in the Rays' front office and I believe also co-hosts a radio show in Tampa.

Fred McGriff finished with 493 home runs. It's always frustrating as a fan-- especially a stat-minded fan-- to see a guy fall just shy of a landmark number like 500 HR (I'm sure it's frustrating for the player, too). You can't help but to imagine if he had just one more decent season left in him..... [daydreaming]

McGriff also stars in one of the longest-running TV ads ever!

It would definitely have bolstered his Hall of Fame chances to crack the big 5-0-0. So far in HOF voting, he's been polling steadily at about 20%.. so his chances of getting in are not looking great at the moment. But taking a hard look at his numbers, he's right there with other guys who are in or likely to get in when eligible. The very cool mathematical formula-based site Hall of Stats scores McGriff a 95, which is quite good, but falls short of the 100-point threshold for induction to their elite group. Meanwhile, his Baseball-Reference page lists these ballplayers as most-similar:
Willie McCovey (887) *
Willie Stargell (875) *
Jeff Bagwell (865)
Frank Thomas (861)
Carlos Delgado (857)
Billy Williams (851) *
Gary Sheffield (850)
Andres Galarraga (850)
Jason Giambi (832)
Eddie Mathews (827) *
* - Signifies Hall of Famer

Very nice company indeed, with several Hall of Famers and probable future HOFers. It should also be noted that Fred always seems to be described as a genuinely nice guy who always does the right thing, on and off the field. And I've never heard his name brought up with steroid implications. Throughout his career, he was a tall, slender guy with a tight, pretty swing. (Not one of those muscle-bound bruisers whose heads got rounder and rounder over their careers.) Unfortunately, all the juicing going on during his playing years most certainly causes his great power numbers to be diminished when looking at the era as a whole. In 1988, he was 2nd in AL home runs; Who was first? Jose Canseco. So yeah, you can see how roided-up guys stole some of his glory throughout his career. Hopefully HOF voters are eventually able to sort out the legit stats from the bogus, and Crime Dog will be enshrined in Cooperstown before long.

And when he does, that's yet more bragging rights to Donruss for giving the kid a rookie card long before anyone else. His one true rookie.

I've only got 4 or 5 graded cards in my collection, and this was the first one I ever got. Neat.