The unrealized potential of Oscar Taveras
Two weeks before he died, Oscar Taveras clobbered a game-tying, pinch-hit home run in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series, displaying the swing that caused so many scouts to salivate.
As he trotted around the bases before a hysterical crowd at Busch Stadium, Taveras showed precisely why he was lauded as the game's preeminent offensive prospect as recently as one year ago. It was Taveras, after all, that compelled the Cardinals to trade away a more experienced, more accomplished outfielder in an effort to accommodate their talented youngster, who only four months earlier celebrated his 22nd bithday.
Oscar Taveras will never take another swing in the major leagues. Multiple reports confirmed Sunday evening that Taveras and his girlfriend were killed in a car crash in his native Dominican Republic.
It wasn't supposed to end like this. Nothing ever is, really. Taveras, a 16-year-old when he signed with the Cardinals for $145,000 in 2008, had only just completed his first tour of the major leagues. He had only recently started the turbulent transition from boy to man, a journey no doubt complicated by the exposure and immediate wealth his profession afforded him.
What was supposed to be an illustrious career in professional baseball ended after the prologue, the story unexpectedly and incomprehensibly halted as the Cardinals were busy devising an offseason plan for the young man, who still had much to prove after a tumultuous first season in the majors.
Few prospects evoke the superlatives Taveras did throughout his minor-league career. Blessed with preternatural hitting ability, Taveras hit .321/.380/.572 with 67 extra-base hits as 20-year-old in Double-A back in 2012. Facing pitchers roughly six years his senior, Taveras posted an .803 on-base plus slugging in Triple-A one year later.
"The bat is very special, with electric hands, ferocious bat speed, and contact so easy and natural that it’s conceivable that Taveras shares a genetic relationship with the bat in his hand," Baseball Prospectus's Jason Parks wrote in February.
It was this kind of rare talent that compelled the Cardinals to promote him in May, but Taveras floundered upon arriving in St. Louis. Baseball's most advanced pitchers preyed on Taveras, who hit just .189/.225/.297 with seven strikeouts and two walks through his first 11 games before being demoted back to Triple-A for another two weeks.
Taveras returned for good on July 1, though he started only sporadically and failed to find a rhythm at the plate, managing a .603 on-base plus slugging over his final 69 games of the season. These kind of struggles, however, didn't wield much predictive value. He was bound to break out next year.
When the postseason arrived, Taveras found himself on the bench, something general manager John Mozeliak hoped would serve as a "wakeup" for the rookie whose conditioning had drawn criticism throughout the season. Taveras didn't receive a single start in the playoffs, but his pinch-hit heroics in Game 2 emphatically reminded the Cardinals of the potential sure to be realized in the coming years.
Never again will Taveras pull on that iconic Cardinals jersey. The lows of life as a professional baseball player are typically characterized by extended slumps and contract disputes, not police lights and shrapnel.
Words offer but a pittance of consolation when someone so young and so talented is so hastily taken away. Mozeliak and manager Mike Matheny will no doubt handle Taveras' death with the kind of dignity and grace that have long defined the St. Louis Cardinals, but their words won't mitigate the grief.
Taveras pointed skyward when he crossed the plate in Game 2 after clobbering his game-tying solo shot in the seventh inning, a presumed gesture of recognition for someone who's no longer around. When Matt Adams or Matt Holliday or Jhonny Peralta leave the yard next season, they will surely do the same for Taveras, the 22-year-old whose life ended just as it was starting.
(Courtesy: MLB.com)