By Paul Semendinger
January 31, 2024
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Over the last few weeks, we have created some fun lists of players by positions...
Here's another list that it original to our site and one that took a lot of thought to create - a list of prospects or non-stars who were Yankees who I hoped would be great Yankees, but never quite made it.
This is a list of players who didn't achieve stardom as Yankees. It's a list of players who I hoped had bright futures, but who, in the end, didn't. This list doesn't include prospects like Willie McGee or Fred McGriff who became stars elsewhere nor does it list players like Jack Clark who came to the Yankees and weren't as great as I hoped.
These were some of the players I dreamed on, and imaged stardom for, but who, for various reasons, never reached the heights I had hoped for...
C- Jesus Montero
1B- Greg Bird, Kevin Maas
2B- Homer Bush
SS- Andre Robertson, Bobby Meacham
3B- Hensley Meulens/ Miguel Andujar
LF- Dan Pasqua
CF- Gerald Williams
RF- Ruben Rivera
DH- Steve Balboni
P- Charles Hudson, Chuck Cary, Adrian Hernandez, Ted Lilly, Ray Fontenot, Justus Sheffield
RP- Bob Shirley, Phil Coke, Cecilio Guante
As with all these lists, I'm sure there are other players who I forgot. As the readers share their lists, I'll probably update my own. (These have been added to the above and are in italics.)
ENJOY!
for me there are two that standout above and beyond any others:
I know he does not qualify because he did have a total of about two successful years, but Gary Sanchez broke my heart. I thought he was gonna be a combination of jorge posada and mickey mantle
also, Andujar!! he came up for that game the year before the big rookie year. i am pretty sure he had a double and two singles in his first real shot. just loved his attitude and the way he handled everything. loved the way he handled the yankees trading for the guy from the Dbacks at the end of spring training
just seemed like he had such a mature mental approach…
How about Sam Militello?
Sonny Gray, Joey Gallo, Josh Donaldson, the lefty starter with "filthy stuff" we got from the White Sox (whose name escapes me)
Eric Jagielo?
The first name that comes to my mind is Shane Spencer. I had SUCH high hopes for him! He got off to an amazing start hitting 10 home runs in just the month of September when he was first called up to the majors including 3 grand slams in a 10 day span.
It is not unusual for players making their major league debut to make an immediate impact as soon as they reach the big leagues because other team's advance scouts haven't seen him yet, and they don't have a book on him yet on how and what to throw him and what his hitting tendencies and weaknesses are. So the pitchers have to GUESS a lot in regar…