One Year Wonder?

You often hear the term one hit wonder used for musical acts that only seem to have one popular song.  I remember when I was a senior in college Tubthumping by Chumbawamba was all the rage.  If you forgot how annoying that song was, or you want to relive some of your glory days, here you go:

I don't know how many times I heard clips of that song during home football games.  A short video from the previous game would be played to it.  Not everyone gets knocked down and gets back up.

Baseball players can suffer the same fate.  A rookie comes up, dazzles the league and wins Rookie of the Year, only to have the league figure them out the following season.  Jerome Walton and Kevin Maas come to mind as players from my early collecting years who faded quickly after their first season.  One current Cardinals player may be following that same path.

The Cardinals signed Aledmys Diaz to a four year $8 million contract back in 2014.  He was a highly touted Cuban at one time, but did not have a great showcase so the Cardinals signed him to a fairly cheap contract.  He bounced around the minor leagues for a couple of seasons, even being DFA in 2015.  This may have served as a wake up call, because after no other team signed him he finished 2015 strong and played in the Arizona Fall League.  He was set to open 2016 in Triple A before Jhonny Peralta was injured in spring training.  Diaz would go on to have a great first half and be named to the All Star team as a replacement for Matt Carpenter.  Things would start to tail off in early August after he was hit by a pitch and suffered a broken thumb.  He missed 6 weeks, but did return to hit his first grand slam shortly after his childhood friend Jose Fernandez died. 

Fast forward to this year and Diaz has seemed to lose his batting eye.  He struggled to hit in the mid .250s before being demoted to Triple A at the end of June.  He has not fared much better since.  I am not sure if he will ever get back to his All Star form, but I would like to see him get another chance.  I doubt it will be as the Cardinals shortstop unless Paul DeJong suffers a similar fate.  He has been playing all over the infield in the minors, so maybe he can become a super utility guy.  About the only positive thing out of his slump is how cheap is autos have become.  I won the pictured 2017 Topps Tier One card for $4.98 delivered.  Before the start of this season his autos were going for $15-$20.