Thursday, May 28, 2009

1989 Topps Major League Debut #108: Deion Sanders



Deion Sanders

PHOTO: I like the photo well enough, especially how the bat is almost end-on facing the camera. If you ignore the fact that Sanders is playing baseball, it almost looks like he's dropping a water balloon.

STAT: Sanders had 2 games with 3 extra-base hits, including one job with two triples.

CAREER: 3/10

It's tough to evaluate Sanders career because we need to look past all the hoopla around him being a 2-sport player. In the end, Sanders was like a lot of other fast guys: not too much extra-base pop and trouble getting on base. His career .319 OBP tells pretty much the whole story. His stolen base success rate of 75% was good enough and his speed allowed him to rack up a fair number of triples (though oddly a low number of doubles.) In the end, his career OPS+ was just 89 and he played only the equivalent of about 4 full seasons thanks to his football commitments.