MLB: The travails of Trot Nixon

Here’s a piece of advice for any young ballplayers dreaming of the millions that go with being selected in the first round of baseball’s amateur draft: if you don’t have what it takes to be the new Pedro Martinez, get into a nightclub fight and become the new Brien Taylor instead. You see, if you actually have outstanding talent that’s great – you’ll be meeting everyone’s expectations and make megamillions to boot. Similarly, if you bomb out quickly the fans won’t get the chance to boo you and 24 is plenty young enough to build a rewarding career in the computer maintenance biz.

What stinks is when a first rounder becomes a solid but unspectacular player. At once too good to dump but still no better than the 25th rounder who signed for an autographed picture of Rob Deer, the mediocre #1 pick becomes a team’s ceremonial voodoo doll – at once a symbol of wasted talent and front office incompetence. The fact that the kid CAN actually help the team is lost in a tidal wave of complaints about what he (like everybody else in the draft not named Mantle) isn’t capable of.

Case in point: Boston Red Sox outfielder Trot Nixon.

Back in the days when the Red Sox were actually spending money on American amateur prospects, Nixon received a princely (at that time) $890,000 to forgo fame and glory on the collegiate gridiron. His smooth left-handed swing was reminiscent of Will Clark, his intensity of Lenny Dykstra, and his Red Soxness of Carl Yastrzemski. With a strong arm and good wheels… well, how could he miss?

First off, the pain from a fractured vertebrae suffered during Nixon’s first pro season coupled with undiagnosed vision problems corrupted the fluid swing. Then, the Dykstra-like drive to excel metamorphisized into a mental pressure cooker every time Trot steeped to the plate. Throw an inordinately large platoon differential into the mix and what resulted was a series of OK but nothing special seasons that were just good enough to make unbecoming-for-a-big-shot-prospect one rung at a time-style headway.

In most organizations, such a player is about 99% certain to get trampled by a succeeding draft’s Flavor of the Month. Nixon, however, was blessed/cursed by the fact that:

1. the Red Sox were pumping the big time money into pitching prospects – preferably ones who spoke some Oriental language, AND

2. the few Grade A outfield prospects they had were coming down with behavioral (Michael Coleman) and mobility (Dernell Stenson) problems

Thus, Nixon and the inflated expectations that go with a top pick who’s been hyped to the heavens for five years made it to the Show more or less by default. Since arriving for good in 1999 he’s been… well, just about what you could have expected: a medium power platoon player with good speed, a willingness to take ball four, and above average defensive skills. That’s a useful player, especially for a team that ran the burned out hulk that used to be Troy O’Leary out there 138 times last season. Still,

1. it isn’t quite enough to deep six the Red Sox’ $9 million investment in O’Leary so long as Troy has a pulse

2. it certainly isn’t enough to divert GM Dan Duquette’s quest to corner the universal supply of big buck outfielders with attitude problems (Dante Bichette, Carl Everett, Manny Ramirez), AND

3. he sure as heck isn’t Clark, Dykstra, or Yaz … and given the fact that Nixon hasn’t gotten a hit against a lefty yet this season he’s never likely to be either.

Clearly, the Red Sox have prepared themselves in triplicate for Trot’s eventual flop, and in the way that such prophesies have of fulfilling themselves Nixon is obliging them by hitting .208 as a leadoff hitter thus far in 2001. Sure the man is doing other things quite well, but he’s 27, arbitration eligible, AND NOT WHAT WE WANTED HIM TO BE. Best to palm him off on someone else and get the constant embarrassment out of our faces…

All of which is just fine, since leaving Boston is probably in Nixon’s best interests as well. There are plenty of teams out there that could use a strong defensive outfielder with leadoff potential: the A’s, Mariners, and Mets come immediately to mind. Maybe he’ll never hit lefties (Jimy Williams has certainly done everything he can to see to that), but a league minimum salary and a broken down pitching prospect will net you any one of 20 potential platoon partners languishing in AAA. What’s more, once out of the third degree-style spotlight you never know: perhaps Nixon could become the new Brian Giles.

At a minimum, it should be a more enjoyable life for a decent, hardworking player miscast as a coming star by an organization that would accept nothing less.

Potential young phenoms of the world, take heed of Trot Nixon’s story and either make it big or bomb out fast. You’ll be happy you did…