1989 Topps Major League Debut #145: Paul Wilmet

Paul Wilmet

PHOTO: I've never heard of this guy before, but the first thing I thought when I saw the photo was that he looked awfully old to be a rookie. Indeed, as you can see from the card back, Wilmet was born in late 1958, making him 30 when this photo was taken.

STAT: It's kind of sad to look at this guy's career. He spent 8 years in the minors (missing 1983 for some reason), got bombed in the majors at the end of 1989 and after a lackluster year in the minors in 1990, was done in pro baseball.

ANAGRAM: Paul Wilmet = Will eat ump

CAREER: 1/10

15.43 ERA in 2.1 major league innings

1989 Topps Major League Debut #120: Sammy Sosa

Slammy Sosa

PHOTO: Did Sammy actually have so much hair back then that there simply was no Rangers cap that could fit over it?

STAT: Steroids or not, 243 homers over 4 seasons is pretty amazing.

ANAGRAM: Sammy Sosa = Sassy ammo

CAREER: 8/10

It's tough to score Sosa's career. I wavered over giving him an 8 or a 9. It's tough not to wonder about the steroids stuff and hold that against him, but he really doesn't deserve to be singled out. It's easy to forget what he did in 1998, putting on that tremendous homer show with McGwire that brought the fans back to baseball. This is a guy who had over 100 RBI in 9 straight seasons and is currently 6th all-time with 609 homers. He's also 30th in total bases and 24th in RBI despite being only 78th in plate appearances.

I really wonder about his HOF candidacy, even aside from the steroids issue. It's hard to imagine anybody with 600 HR not getting into the Hall of Fame. Certainly Barry Bonds deserves it based on stats alone as does Ken Griffey. But here's the thing. His Hall of Fame Monitor (which measures only how likely a player is to get in) is 201, with 100 being a likely HOFer, while his Hall of Fame Standards (which measures true merit of getting in) is "only" 51, with an average HOFer being 50. Neither number suggests he shouldn't get in, but the combination of numbers suggests that his reputation is far better than his actual numbers, and that's before we take steroids into account. I'm really curious to see what happens with Slammin' Sammy.

1989 Topps Major League Debut #105: Kenny Rogers

Kenny Rogers

PHOTO: Not much to say about this photo, except that there appears to be a snow-covered log cabin behind Rogers on the left.

STAT: From 1989 to 2008, Rogers was 7th in baseball in wins, ahead of Curt Schilling, John Smoltz, and Jamie Moyer.

ANAGRAM: Kenny Rogers, P, Rangers = Angry sponger Ken errs...

CAREER: 6/10

Boy, it's tough to score Rogers. He's currently a free agent and his career is probably over, but he did a lot of good things. He is often maligned for his poor post-season performances with both the Yankees and Mets, especially given how well he pitched for the Tigers (including the playoffs) later in his career.

The fact of the matter is that this guy was a very good pitcher. He won 219 games with a .584 W-L% although he did benefit tremendously from playing for excellent offensive teams. (His neutralized pitching record is actually under .500, a remarkable drop.) Still, until his last season in 2008, ne never had a losing record in any full season with more than 22 starts.

1989 Topps Major League Debut #95: Dean Palmer

Dean Palmer

PHOTO: Here's another washed-out shot. Too bright.

Interesting that as a rookie he was allowed to wear #16, despite being a September call-up.

Nobody wore #16 for the Rangers in 1988 or 1990 (Palmer was in the minors in 1990.) But Mike Mason wore it in 1987 and Palmer had it again in 1991.

STAT: In the 9 seasons from 1992 to 2000, Palmer had the 4th-most strikeouts in baseball. The good news is that you've got to be fairly productive to get that many strikeouts. Over that same period, Palmer was 17th in homers and 29th in RBI. Fairly productive, at least.

ANAGRAM: Dean Palmer = Re-napalmed = Alarmed pen

CAREER: 4/10

Palmer is another "what if" guy, meaning what if he hadn't gotten injured so much. He was "fairly productive" in most years, often posting an OPS+ between 105 and 120, which is very good. He posted 4 different 30-HR seasons but played in 100 games in a season only 7 times in his career. By age 33, he was finished.

Ordinarily, a guy with 275 career HR would get a higher score than 4, but he simply didn't play enough and didn't make enough All-Star teams to earn a higher score.

1989 Topps Major League Debut #43: Juan Gonzalez

Juan Gonzalez

Starting last card with Girardi, we're in an amazing string of players here, with Gonzalez as the first bona fide superstar of the set but more to come shortly.

PHOTO: Not much to say about this photo. Gonzalez is not an ugly guy but he never looked good in posed head shots. He's also got a crazy gap in his mustache. Sort of the opposite of a unibrow, I guess.

STAT: Only 5 guys including Gonzalez have ever had a season with at least 50 doubles and 150 RBI. The other guys are all super-duper-stars including the underrated Chuck Klein.

CAREER: 8/10

First I need to mention my strongest memory of Gonzalez. It was from the 1996 divisional playoffs against the Yankees. In 4 games, Igor had 4 HR, 9 RBI and 3 walks, for a line of .438/.526/1.375. The dude was on fire.

Gonzalez was one of the very best offensive players of the 1990s. He had an inexplicably bad year with Detroit in 2000, and after a single great bounceback year with Cleveland in 2001, the guy was never healthy again. After the age of 32, he played fewer than 200 career games. There has been lots of speculation that he had steroids-related injuries. I have no idea. What I do know is that if he had played in more like 800 games after the age of 32 and hit closer to his typical production, he would have finished with 550 to 600 HR and would be a Hall of Fame candidate.

It's tough to know what to think of Gonzo these days. The Rangers teams from that era have come under heavy scrutiny as being one of the biggest juicing teams thanks in large part to Jose Canseco. I have no idea if that's true or, even if so, whether it's appropriate to single that team or specific players from that team out. Given that we know that many, perhaps half, of all players were using steroids, it still leaves the fact that Gonzalez was immensely talented. I wish he had remained healthy enough to play several more years. Even now, he is only 39 and could potentially be winding up his career just now.

1989 Topps Major League Debut #25: Scott Coolbaugh

Scott Coolbaugh

PHOTO: Wow, not a great photo. Shadows on the face, caught in a nasty sneer, and a bit blurry to boot. Pretty major suckfest.

STAT: Coolbaugh is the only guy in history to have 2 homers in each of his first 4 seasons. I'm willing to be he's also the only player to hit the same number of homers in every year of his career, for a career of at least 4 seasons and a number of homers above 0 or 1.

CAREER: 2/10

Coolbaugh was a highly-regarded prospect but didn't hit much at the major league level in the relatively few chances he got.

1989 Topps Major League Debut #8: John Barfield

John Barfield

PHOTO: Now this looks for sure like a spring training shot, judging by the light stanchion in the back. But I'm surprised to see him wearing #27 as a spring training rookie.

STAT: John Barfield, known as "Barf" for short, is no relation to Jesse or Josh, as you might have guessed from his appearance. I guess he didn't last too long in the big leagues because none of his 11 career starts earned a game score higher than 60. He was better as a reliever, though, earning a 4.15 ERA over 84 innings.

CAREER: 2/10

Not much to say about a below-average, but certainly not terrible, pitcher.