032 - Rogo: From the Archives
Going back to the future with my middle school MLB scouting report
As you may have heard by now, I like baseball.
While the sport has been a lifelong interest of mine and continues to bring me joy to this day, my enthusiasm clearly reached its pinnacle during middle school — that calm before the hormonal storm that would soon rock my developing brain and irrevocably derail my life’s purpose from “trying to complete the Bowman baseball card set” to “trying to be cool” and its corollary, “trying to get laid.”
In a recent excavation of my childhood home, I was delighted to unearth a box of school papers from that Edenic epoch that included this peculiar report I apparently turned into my 7th grade English class:
I can’t for the life of me recall what my teacher’s assignment was, but I can be sure Ms. Jones had not asked us for our best Tracy Ringolsby impressions. Nevertheless, 12-year-old Rogo deemed it appropriate to submit a scouting report of whom he believed to be Major League Baseball’s Top Prospects heading into the 1998 season.
Reading my teacher’s commentary 27 years later absolutely kills me: “You obviously spend hours reading, writing and thinking about baseball. Why?”
Great question, Ms. Jones. I still don’t have an answer.
But what I can do is evaluate my scouting skills now that nearly three decades have passed since making my predictions…
WHY HE MADE THE CUT: 1) He played for the Florida Marlins, a team whose gaudy teal uniform and ichthyologic logo instantly endeared themselves to me when they flopped onto the scene as an expansion team in ‘93 before putting together the most unlikely Wild Card-to-World Series winning run in ‘97; 2) His isometrically poetic and alliteratively mellifluous combination of first and last names, unrivaled in the history of the sport (in this one very specific regard, the likes of Freddie Freeman, Barry Bonds, and Mickey Mantle couldn’t carry Antonio Alfonseca’s jockstrap); 3) His polydactyly. ‘Nufff said.1
WHAT I GOT WRONG: He didn’t start ‘98 in the minors; he made the Marlins Opening Day roster and got into 58 games with the defending champs (good for fourth among NL rookie hurlers in appearances).
WHAT I GOT RIGHT: He developed into a serviceable reliever for five different teams over an 11-year, Ricky Bottalico-esque career, highlighted by a 45-save Y2K season that earned him both the Rolaids Relief Man Award and The Sporting News’ Fireman of the Year Award for the National League.
PRESENT-DAY PREDICTION: Bending to overwhelming, decades-long demand from baseball fetishists wishing for a more intimate connection with their beloved, twelve-fingered fireballer, Alfonseca launches AntoniOnlyFans with daily photo and video content of his “little guys” aimed at the polydactylcurious community.
WHY HE MADE THE CUT: 1) He was a college pitcher drafted number one overall! They never miss!2 2) He was named after the swinging strikeout, for crying out loud! 3) He had more hype than the Palm Pilot.
WHAT I GOT WRONG: Benson spent the entirety of the 1998 season at Triple-A Nashville, pitching to a rather mediocre 8-10 with a 5.37 ERA and 129 Ks in 156 innings. Still, he opened ‘99 at the big league level, winning his first career start on his way to a promising rookie campaign which saw him lead all first-year NL pitchers in ERA, innings pitched and strikeouts.
WHAT I GOT RIGHT: Much like the Palm Pilot, Benson never lived up to the hype he was tagged with coming out of Clemson, but developed into a decent MLB front of the rotation option, turning in five double-digit win seasons for some rather abysmal Pirates, Mets, and Orioles teams. Also like the Palm Pilot, he retired in 2011.
PRESENT-DAY PREDICTION: Moved by his ex-wife Anna’s rehabilitation from substance abuse and treatment for psychiatric disorders, the two remarry and work together in reuniting every member of the 2004 New York Mets organization for an Internet-breaking live-streamed orgy, available exclusively through AntoniOnly Fans.
WHY HE MADE THE CUT: Honestly, he probably shouldn’t have, as he was practically a veteran at the time I put my prospect list together, having already played parts of three seasons in the bigs, putting up a 4.4 WAR as a rookie in ‘97.
WHAT I GOT WRONG: I was off by one year — Cammy was named to his first (and only) All-Star team in 2001 as Seattle’s everyday centerfielder, where he had been traded the year prior from Cincinnati in a package deal for Ken Griffey, Jr.
WHAT I GOT RIGHT: His power, speed and superlative defense helped ease Mariners fans into a Griffey-less 21st century and made him a solid contributor to eight teams over 17 seasons. Even I couldn’t imagine that he would retire just shy of becoming only the 8th player in MLB history with 300 HRs and 300 SBs.
PRESENT-DAY PREDICTION: Cammy comes out of retirement at age 52 to join his son Daz in the outfield at Triple-A Norfolk, fulfilling his twisted, lifelong ulterior motive of “Single White Femaling” both Ken Griffey Jr. and Sr.
WHY HE MADE THE CUT: Personal bias, plain and simple.
WHAT I GOT WRONG: Nothing. I nailed this one. Angel’s big bopper bat would have thrived in the thin air of Colorado had his path to playing time not been blocked by the established veteran presences of Larry Walker, Dante Bichette, and Ellis Burks in the outfield and Todd Helton establishing his future Hall of Fame career at first base.
WHAT I GOT RIGHT: The potential my 12-year-old self saw in him ultimately panned out overseas where he clubbed 40 homers in 204 games with the 2003-04 Nippon Ham Fighters of the Japan Pacific League.
PRESENT-DAY PREDICTION: Having self-actualized his namesake in February 2020 from a bizarre virus/trip-and-fall combo, Angel will put up his fifth consecutive 30+ homer season in the Field of Dreams League, where he is finally getting regular at-bats reunited with former Rockies teammate Darryl Hamilton and manager Don Baylor.
WHY HE MADE THE CUT: I always had a fascination for the Expos, and for guys who went ding dong in their first at-bat, and for butt-chins…
WHAT I GOT WRONG: Continuing a pattern, I didn’t foresee Fullmer making the team out the gate in ‘98, but he did — starting at 1B and becoming the first Montreal rookie to bat clean-up on Opening Day (going hitless in four ABs).
WHAT I GOT RIGHT: Found streaky success while battling injuries over eight seasons, popping off for 32 HRs and 104 RBI with Toronto in 2000 and contributing an .888 OPS in 130 games for the World Series winning Anaheim team in 2002.
PRESENT-DAY PREDICTION: After years of speculation, Fullmer admits that he was not only a PED user himself but also the president of HGH Club for Men, a steroid procurement company that marketed exclusively to other players you’ve never heard of like Tim Laker, Chad Allen, Larry Bigbie, Howie Clark, F.P. Santangelo, and Adam Piatt.
WHY HE MADE THE CUT: Purely on the size of his nose alone.
WHAT I GOT WRONG: Nada. Nomar rules.
WHAT I GOT RIGHT: Todo. Put him in Cooperstown.
PRESENT-DAY PREDICTION: I happen to stumble upon his son Garrett playing in a Manhattan Beach youth league game, where I happen to coax him into my car and hold him hostage (in a gentle, friendly way!) until Nomar agrees to meet me in an In-N-Out parking lot to exchange Garrett’s safe return for a selfie and a signed jersey.
WHY HE MADE THE CUT: GOOD BLOODLINES!
WHAT I GOT WRONG: Goddammit why did I think all these guys would start the season in Triple-A? Grieve started in right field on Opening Day 1998 where he remained for the entire season, putting up scorching hot first-half numbers to earn his sole All-Star selection en route to adding AL Rookie of the Year honors.
WHAT I GOT RIGHT: Grieve burned bright for his first few seasons in Oakland — capped by a 40 double, 27 homer, 104 RBI tally in 2000 — but his production drastically regressed following a trade to Tampa Bay in 2001, and he was out of baseball before turning 30.
PRESENT-DAY PREDICTION: Following a class-action lawsuit I file on behalf of all late 90s collectors, Ben and his dad are court-ordered to join OnlyFans and donate the proceeds to all of us who busted out on his rookie card investments.
WHY HE MADE THE CUT: I was paid off to include him by my best friend Eli, our school’s biggest Travis Lee booster, in what became the first of many pump-and-dump schemes we would conspire to carry out throughout middle school.
WHAT I GOT WRONG: Nothing, but also somehow, everything? He never measured up to that $10 million bonus baby status, but at least he fared better for the D-Backs than, say, Corey Myers.
WHAT I GOT RIGHT: Lee was the Opening Day first sacker for the inaugural Arizona Diamondbacks team, collecting the first hit and first home run in franchise history in that first game. He finished the year with 151 hits and 22 dingers in a respectable rookie season, coming in third behind Kerry Wood and Todd Helton in NL ROY voting.
PRESENT-DAY PREDICTION: Eli, who has since grown up to become a top executive with one of the world’s largest asset management firms, will hire a team of lawyers to successfully argue that the Minnesota Twins should have in fact retained Lee’s draft rights in 1996, whereby he will then purchase those rights to install Lee as a human ottoman in his new East Hampton mansion.
WHY HE MADE THE CUT: With a name like Bubba, he had to be good.
WHAT I GOT WRONG: The spelling of his surname.
WHAT I GOT RIGHT: He was even better in 1998, slashing .286/.568/.906 for Tampa Bay who plucked him from Detroit in the off-season expansion draft. But by now it should be clear that Tampa is where these turn-of-the-century top prospects went to die, and sadly my dear Bubba was no exception.
PRESENT-DAY PREDICTION: Bubba finds this post via Google Alert, learns that a pre-teen New York City private schooler included him in a 7th grade English class assignment 27 years ago, and considers it a divine sign to convert to Judaism, thereby becoming eligible to play for Team Israel in the 2026 World Baseball Classic where he teams with Zac Gelof, Joc Pederson, and Spencer Horwitz to bring the WBC Trophy home to the Holy Land, triggering the return of the Moshiach and the IPO of Hebrew National.
The extra ‘f’ for the extra finger :)
See: Mark Appel, Luke Hochevar, Bryan Bullington, Matt Anderson, Paul Wilson…