No team has introduced more Rookies of the Year than the Dodgers: 16. They boast the man the award is named after—Jackie Robinson—cherished figures from Brooklyn like Don Newcombe and Jim Gilliam, early Los Angeles prodigies like Frank Howard, as well as more contemporary names like Fernando Valenzuela, Eric Karros, Mike Piazza, and Hideo Nomo.
Here are the remaining Rookies of the Year—memorable in their own right but at risk of slipping through the cracks.
Rook in his prime: Joe Black (1952) was a 28-year-old veteran of the Negro Leagues when he made his Dodgers debut on the first day of May. By the end of the season, he had won 15 games and saved 15 more, posting a 2.15 ERA (168 ERA+) in 1421/3 innings, enough to legitimately beat out New York Giants pitcher Hoyt Wilhelm. But Black, who was never a strikeout pitcher, was already at his peak. His career in the majors lasted only another 2712/3 mostly subpar innings, and he was traded midway through the Dodgers’ championship season in ’55.
Quick peak: Another player whose rookie season was his best was Todd Hollandsworth (1996). The longest last name in Dodgers history rode a strong second half (.808 OPS) to overcome the reluctance to give Los Angeles an unprecedented five ROYs in a row. But Hollandsworth would play 100 games in a season only four more times in his 12-year career, stretched across eight major league teams.
Hall of Famer tamer: Jim Lefebvre (1965) denied Joe Morgan top rookie honors despite posting offensive numbers, even adjusted for Dodger Stadium, nowhere near those of the future Hall of Famer. Lefebvre did belt 24 homers in 1966 and was an offensive asset for most of his career before it ended abruptly following the 1972 season, when he was 30.
Trade bait: After knocking 160 hits in 159 games to win the vote over, among others, an arguably more deserving Al Oliver of Pittsburgh, Ted Sizemore (1969) lasted 12 years in the bigs, providing competent defense though not once generating an OPS+ over 100. He was the player so nice the Dodgers traded him twice, in 1970 with Bob Stinson for Dick Allen and in 1976 for Johnny Oates.
Better early and late than never: The Dodgers used Rick Sutcliffe (1979) so sparingly at the outset of his career that he didn’t allow a major league run for more than two years after his 1976 debut. Finally, in his first full season, he pitched 242 innings with a 3.46 ERA (106 ERA+) and easily started a four-year run on the award for the Dodgers. Sutcliffe then almost completely lost it in 1980, his ERA swelling to 5.56 (64 ERA+), and the Dodgers dumped him to the Indians in December 1981. But the 6'7" righty ended up winning the 1984 NL Cy Young Award after becoming one of the greatest midseason acquisitions of all time, going 16–1 (144 ERA+) with the Cubs.
Heir apparent: The first to break into the Dodgers’ long-running infield, Steve Sax (1982) weathered the pressure and competition from Johnny Ray, Willie McGee, and Chili Davis to win top rookie honors. Though some remember him mainly for his temporary mental meltdown with regards to throwing to first, Sax would go on to reach base more than 2,500 times in his career. Like his predecessor, Davey Lopes, Sax left the Dodgers right after celebrating a World Series title, in 1988.
Supernovas: As eyepopping an athlete as ever wore a Los Angeles Dodgers uniform, the speedy, powerful, laser-armed Raul Mondesi (1994) broke out with Hall of Fame potential. Slugging .516 (123 OPS+) in the strike-shortened 1994 season, Mondesi was a unanimous pick for the ROY award. An inability to master the down-and-away pitch separated him from his apparent destiny and washed him out of the game before his 35th birthday, but he still finished his career with 271 homers and 229 stolen bases.
Mondesi was preceded by 1980 Rookie of the Year Steve Howe, whose remarkable effectiveness (2.35 ERA in 3282/3 innings as a Dodger from 1980–84) foundered upon an unending battle with drug addiction. Howe would come back from numerous suspensions to pitch in nearly 500 games for four teams with a 129 ERA+. He died in a single-car accident in 2006, at age 48.
Sax Recovers
Steve Sax had already established himself as a big leaguer, winning the 1982 Rookie of the Year award, when he made throwing errors in two consecutive games in April 1983. “Pretty soon it just stuck in my head,” Sax later told Steve Delsohn in True Blue. “I lost my confidence. I’d wake up in the night sweating. It was the worst thing I ever went through in my life besides losing my parents.”
By the All-Star break, Sax made 18 errors, some on simple throws so outrageously awry that Sax’s own Dodgers teammates couldn’t resist mocking him (at one point, some drafted a phony memo proclaiming Batting Helmet Day for the fans behind the first-base dugout). And then at the All-Star Game, before its national television audience, he made another error on a routine throw. No one was more frustrated than Tommy Lasorda, who also had to contend with the scattershot fielding of Pedro Guerrero at third base, but the Dodgers manager didn’t bench Sax. He did offer plenty of tough love, in vintage Lasorda style.
Amid all the teasing, the concerted effort to rebuild Sax’s self-assurance ultimately succeeded—much faster than people might remember. During the final two months of the 1983 season, Sax’s throws found their target without fail.