Sierra, Sosa, Seriously?

Two veteran outfielders on the downsides of their career are in the news. The New York Times reports that Ruben Sierra and the Mets are working on a minor-league deal. If any team in baseball knows what to do with a 41-year-old outfielder, it’s the Mets, who already have fortysomethings Moises Alou, Julio Franco, and Tom Glavine on their roster.

Sierra has had a fascinating career. After finishing second in the American League MVP Award voting at age 23 (sandwiched between Hall of Famers Robin Yount and Cal Ripken), Sierra never again was able to duplicate that success. He has enjoyed a fine 20-year career, but after the 1989 season, Sierra looked like he might be something special. Here are his top 10 most similar players at that time according to Baseball-Reference:

1. Andruw Jones
2. Jose Canseco
3. Tony Conigliaro
4. Jack Clark
5. Cesar Cedeno
6. Boog Powell
7. Juan Gonzalez
8. Adrian Beltre
9. Vada Pinson
10. Del Ennis

Cesar Cedeno? Man, I always forget how good that guy was — a power hitter in the Astrodome; what a waste. He’s worthy of his own post.

Fast forward 17 years. Here are Sierra’s comps through age 40:

1. Gary Gaetti
2. Steve Finley
3. Andres Galarraga
4. Tony Perez
5. Hal McRae
6. Dave Parker
7. Darrell Evans
8. Brian Downing
9. Graig Nettles
10. Jose Cruz

First off, it’s worth noting that none of the above players had a similarity score of higher than 854 (perfect match is 1000), so there aren’t any real good analogues for Sierra at this stage in his career. Second, I find it amusing that Cruz is on this list. Like Cedeno, he is a fine ballplayer whose offensive abilities were masked by the stifling environment that was the Astrodome. Finally, I’m kind of amazed that the only Hall of Famer on either list is Perez, who shows up in Sierra’s age-40 list. The original point of this rambling piece was to show how far Sierra has fallen since that 1989 season, but reality doesn’t match my assumptions. Truth is, he was a really good young player, not a great young player. Still, the guy has collected more than 2000 hits and 300 home runs in his career. Nothing wrong with that.

Return of the Sosa

Meanwhile, the Dallas Morning News reports that the Texas Rangers are looking to bring back Sammy Sosa to help fill the right-handed side of the DH equation. Sosa, of course, originally reached the big leagues as a 20-year-old for the Rangers in 1989.

Interestingly, Sosa was on a very different path at age 23. Over his first four seasons in the major leagues, Sosa hit .234/.282/.380. Some decent players show up on his list of comps — Chili Davis, Ruppert Jones, Lee Mazzilli, Oscar Gamble. Good hitters, but combine Davis and Gamble, and you’re looking at 38 fewer career home runs than Sosa. (Another excellent hitter who shows up on this list and who might need his own post at some point is Reggie Smith.)

Fast forwarding again to present day, we see that Sosa’s top 10 most similar players list now includes seven current Hall of Famers, one future Hall of Famer (Ken Griffey Jr.), and two guys who are on the bubble but who probably won’t make it (Fred McGriff, Gary Sheffield). Regardless of the methods Sosa may have employed to achieve those results, he clearly is hanging with a different crowd now than he was 15 years ago.

And this, if I had a point, is where I would make it. I guess the best I can say is that a) age 23 is too early to judge most players, b) never let your assumptions get in the way of reality, and c) it’s fun to look back at guys like Cedeno, Cruz, and Smith — really good players in their day who might not be remembered by the average fan.