Donruss Rated Rookies 1984-1989

Being 9 years old in 1984, I was playing Little League and living and breathing baseball.  My Chicago Cubs were enroute to the NLCS and Donruss had introduced a new subset, the Rated Rookie.  I started baseball cards heavily in 1986 and the Jose Canseco was card every kid chased.  As a member of the bash brothers, Canseco and McGwire were at the core of my colelctions.



Recently I was thinking about the Donruss Rated Rookies from the 80's.   I am sure that there is a future blog of Rated Rookies that should have been like Will Clark, Barry Bonds, Barry Larkin and even Don Mattingky.  But for this blog, I focised on the 118 players who were Rated Rookies from 1984-1989.

Here are some stats of these cards/players.

• 118 Rated Rookies (not counting Danny Tartabull twice)
• Career WAR 1633.8 (13.84 average per player)
• 43 players with a career WAR 10 or higher
• 43 players with a career WAR of less than 1 (26 are negative WAR)
• Greg Maddux had the highest WAR with 106.6 (27th all time)
• Gary Thurman had the worst WAR with a -2.4
• Only 4 Hall of Famers

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What was the best crop of Rated Rookies?  1987 which has the highest total WAR, highest individual player WAR and most players with WAR of 10 or higher.  1985 was the worst.

Year	Player	WAR	Total War	# over 10 WAR
1987	Greg Maddux	106.6	459.3	11
1989	Randy Johnson	101.1	427.1	9
1988	Roberto Alomar	67	250.9	6
1986	Fred McGriff	52.6	226.3	7
1984	Tony Fernandez	45.8	215.8	7
1985	Danny Tartabull	23.3	54.4	2

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Considering only those players with a career WAR of 10 or higher

The Cubs lead  with the most players finishing with a career WAR of 10+ as well as the highest combined WAR.

# Of Players	Team	Combined WAR
5	Cubs	256
4	Padres	138.2
2	Expos	132.8
3	A's	132.6
3	Blue Jays	108
2	Mariners	105.9
2	Brewers	94.9
3	Angels	83.5
3	Cardinals	71.5
2	Royals	58.3
3	Mets	54.5
2	Twins	41.6
2	Rangers	26.6

The Tigers, Pirates, Phillies, Giants, Astros and the Braves did not have any Rated Rookies from 1984-1989 with a career WAR of 10 or higher.

Looking by position of the players with a career WAR of 10 or more, most of them were infielders and they had the highest combined and average WAR.  But considering that 44% of players on the field are infielders, there were a higher percentage of pitchers, given there is only 1 on the field at t time.

#	Position	Combined WAR	Average
16	Infield	571.8	35.7375
15	Pitchers	523.2	34.88
8	Outfielders	311.7	38.9625
4	Catchers	103.5	25.875

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Was there a certain card number that had more success than others?  Given there were roughly 6 Rated Rookies for card numbers 28-47 (3 for 47 and 2 for 27) there were 8 card numbers that had a total WAR of 100+.  Card #34 ranked the highest with a 134.4.

Card #	WAR	Player 1	Player 2	Player 3
34	134.4	Roberto Alomar	Kevin McReynolds	Terry Steinbach
43	129.4	Rafael Palmeiro	Al Leiter	Todd Worrell
33	120.8	Ken Griffey Jr.	Andres Galarraga	Daryl Boston
39	120.3	Jose Canseco	Cris Carpenter	Greg Gagne
31	119.9	Gary Sheffield	Benito Santiago	Lance Johnson
36	112.7	Greg Maddux	Brad Komminsk	Larry Sheets
42	112.1	Randy Johnson	John Farrell	Chris James
28	105.2	Fred McGriff	B.J. Surhoff	Sandy Alomar Jr.

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Who were the biggest surprises on the list?  Clearly I had not been paying attention to Angels or Cardinals baseball because I had no idea these 5 guys had such productive careers.

9 - Devon White 47.3
17 - Cris Carpenter 34.2
25 - Lance Johnson 26.4
33 - Dick Schofield 18.8
34 - Mark McLemore 17.4




Note that stats for Cris Carpenter are actually for Chris Carpenter.  This changes rankings throughout the blog. 

Who were the guys that I knew were sneaky good that most people would forget about because they did not have flashy careers? Lead by Sid Fernandez, this list of low key guys amassed solid careers after starting off as Rated Rookies.

18 - Sid Fernandez 32.8
20 - Greg Swindell 30.5
21 - Kevin McReynolds 30.1
23 - Jack McDowell 27.8
26 - Greg Gagne 26.3

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Here is the full list of every Rated Rookie from 1984-1989 ranked by career WAR.

Rank	Year	Card #	Player	WAR
1	1987	36	Greg Maddux	106.6
2	1989	42	Randy Johnson	101.1
3	1989	33	Ken Griffey Jr.	83.8
4	1987	43	Rafael Palmeiro	71.9
5	1988	34	Roberto Alomar	67
6	1987	46	Mark McGwire	62.2
7	1989	31	Gary Sheffield	60.5
8	1986	28	Fred McGriff	52.6
9	1987	38	Devon White	47.3
10	1988	40	Mark Grace	46.4
11	1984	32	Tony Fernandez	45.3
12	1986	39	Jose Canseco	42.4
13	1988	43	Al Leiter	40
14	1986	37	Paul O'Neill	38.8
15	1989	45	Tom Gordon	35
16	1987	28	B.J. Surhoff	34.4
17	1989	39	Cris Carpenter	34.2
18	1984	44	Sid Fernandez	32.8
19	1986	33	Andres Galarraga	31.7
20	1987	32	Greg Swindell	30.5
21	1984	34	Kevin McReynolds	30.1
22	1987	34	Terry Steinbach	28
23	1988	47	Jack McDowell	27.8
24	1987	31	Benito Santiago	27.4
25	1988	31	Lance Johnson	26.4
26	1984	39	Greg Gagne	26.3
27	1985	27	Danny Tartabull	23.3
28	1989	32	Erik Hanson	22.1
29	1989	44	Pete Harnisch	20.6
30	1984	30	Ron Darling	19.6
31	1984	41	Joe Carter	19.6
32	1989	35	Gregg Jefferies	19.6
33	1984	35	Dick Schofield	18.8
34	1986	35	Mark McLemore	17.4
35	1986	30	Jose Guzman	16.6
36	1984	37	Tim Teufel	15.3
37	1987	29	Randy Myers	15.3
38	1988	41	Jody Reed	15
39	1989	28	Sandy Alomar Jr.	13.7
40	1985	39	Shawon Dunston	11.5
41	1986	43	Todd Worrell	10.9
42	1987	41	Jerry Browne	10.3
43	1987	45	Duane Ward	10.1
44	1989	46	Gregg Olson	9.8
45	1989	34	Greg Harris	9
46	1987	35	Bo Jackson	8.3
47	1989	38	Felix Jose	7.1
48	1988	42	John Farrell	6.3
49	1984	31	Dion James	6.2
50	1988	37	Kevin Elster	6.2
51	1986	45	John Habyan	6.1
52	1988	29	Jeff Treadway	6.1
53	1985	28	Mike Bielecki	5.9
54	1986	40	Juan Nieves	5.4
55	1988	39	Kirt Manwaring	5.2
56	1989	43	Mike Harkey	4.8
57	1985	30	Jeff Reed	4.4
58	1985	33	Daryl Boston	4.3
59	1985	41	Billy Hatcher	3.9
60	1988	38	Jose Lind	3.9
61	1987	42	Chris James	3.8
62	1985	38	Calvin Schiraldi	3.5
63	1986	41	Lance McCullers	3
64	1987	33	Mike Birkbeck	3
65	1984	43	Mike Jeffcoat	2.8
66	1989	37	Carlos Quintana	2.8
67	1984	36	Brad Komminsk	2.2
68	1989	41	David West	2.1
69	1985	29	Steve Lyons	1.9
70	1985	36	Larry Sheets	1.9
71	1986	36	Marty Clary	1.8
72	1988	35	Shawn Hillegas	1.7
73	1989	40	Ron Jones	1.5
74	1988	32	Nelson Liriano	1.4
75	1988	45	Vicente Palacios	1.1
76	1984	42	Mike C. Brown	0.9
77	1986	29	Cory Snyder	0.7
78	1987	39	Eric Bell	0.7
79	1984	45	Brian Dayett	0.6
80	1985	46	Doug Loman	0.4
81	1986	34	Dave Shipanoff	0.4
82	1987	37	Jim Lindeman	0.4
83	1987	40	Willie Fraser	0.4
84	1988	28	Mackey Sasser	0.2
85	1988	36	Joey Meyer	0.2
86	1984	40	Mike Fuentes	0.1
87	1984	46	Chris Smith	0.1
88	1986	32	Johnny Abrego	0.1
89	1984	27	Joel Skinner	0
90	1985	42	Russ Stephans	0
91	1986	42	Rick Surhoff	0
92	1989	30	Cameron Drew	0
93	1989	36	Luis Medina	0
94	1985	34	Alfonso Pulido	-0.1
95	1985	40	Charlie Mitchell	-0.1
96	1986	31	Ty Gainey	-0.1
97	1988	30	Mike Campbell	-0.1
98	1987	47	Bruce Fields	-0.2
99	1989	47	Alex Sanchez	-0.2
100	1985	44	Steve Jeltz	-0.3
101	1988	46	Eddie Williams	-0.3
102	1989	29	Steve Searcy	-0.4
103	1985	31	Tony Brewer	-0.5
104	1987	44	Pat Dodson	-0.5
105	1985	32	John Morris	-0.6
106	1986	46	Mike Woodard	-0.6
107	1987	30	Ken Gerhart	-0.6
108	1984	33	Angel Salazar	-0.8
109	1985	45	Jim Traber	-0.9
110	1986	44	Bob Kipper	-0.9
111	1985	43	Alejandro Sanchez	-1
112	1984	38	Doug Frobel	-1.1
113	1988	33	Shawn Abner	-1.2
114	1984	29	Mike Stenhouse	-1.4
115	1985	37	Scott Bradley	-1.5
116	1984	28	Tommy Dunbar	-1.6
117	1985	35	Steve Kiefer	-1.6
118	1988	44	Gary Thurman	-2.4