ESPN graphic: "The Could Have Beens"

How about Pete Incaviglia? Arguably the best power hitter in college baseball history and had a decent major league career but didn't come close to the stardom in the bigs that he had in college.
And I can't believe no one had mentioned Tim Couch or David Carr yet.

 

Sidd Finch.

EDIT: fuck, Rip beat me to him.

 

I blame Ralph's demise on his knees and the Rockets passing on Michael Jordan and selecting Olajuwon instead. Colossal fuck up. Passing on MJ to get a local favorite and creating the Twin Towers instead of getting the future face of the NBA and sneakers.

 

Kournikova.

 

Hell, if we're going that route, let's put Mickey Mantle on there.

 

Selena Roberts

 

Half the population of ESPN The Magazine's debut edition (1998). The expectations of Eric Lindros and Kordell Stewart never approached what A-Rod and Kobe achieved.

 

NHL, circa 1996: "Expansion teams. Moves to the Sun Belt. FOX , ESPN TV deals. Glowing pucks. We could be huge."
NHL, 2016: "We're good with just appealing to hockey fans."

 

In Babe Ruth's age 23 through age 26 seasons, he hit 11, 29, 54 and 59 homers. Normally you'd expect a player with that kind of numbers to keep on hitting 40-55 homers a year for about 4-6 more seasons.

Instead, over the next 6 seasons, Ruth averaged 37 homers a year, which was still pretty awesome for the era, bye a significant drop from his level of production.

And, of course in that tune period, Ruth went from a linebacker-type build of 6-2, 215 to a load bag of 6-2, 275.

He did, of course, hit 60 in 1927, but there was every indication he should have been hitting 50-60 homers a year all those seasons in between.

Then, after 1927, his dropoff was steady at first and then drastic after 1930.

So it's pretty realistic to think he might have had 50-70 or so more career homers if he had gotten -- and stayed -- in decent shape.

 

I hate to break it to you and ruin your hypothesis, but Ruth hit 40+ home runs in nine of the ensuing 11 seasons. The only two he didn't reach that mark, he missed 40-50 games (and had 35 and 25 HRs).

 

Well, according to many contemporary accounts, those major stretches of missed time for Ruth were very probably related to injuries brought on by poor conditioning.

 

Yeah.
Kordell Stewart was a late second round pick. I'd say he performed about as well as expectations. Fucking AFC Championship game meltdown aside.
Damn it!