MLB's biggest one hit wonders: these players had just one sensational season

A flash in the pan. Blink or you’ll miss them. Those clichés are appropriate when looking back on some MLB players who were some of the game’s brightest stars for a very short time. They were able to give fans indelible memories for one season, but were not able to maintain that stellar production over a long period. All statistics are sourced from Baseball Reference.

Anderson is perhaps the player that is most intimately linked to this category. He never hit more than 21 home runs in eight MLB seasons leading up to 1996.

All of a sudden, Anderson crushed 50 home runs for the Baltimore Orioles that campaign. He would never hit more than 24 home runs in any season after that. Medium did a deep dive of this random outlier campaign in 2017.

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2001 was the season of a baseball lifetime for the Arizona Diamondbacks leftfielder. He got the game-winning bloop hit off of New York Yankees closer Mariano Rivera to win the World Series. MLB's website said that it was Gonzalez living out a childhood dream.

Gonzalez also hit 57 home runs during that regular season, which was his career high by a mile. His next highest home run total in one year was 31.

It can take pitchers a little while to get comfortable with their arsenal, but Dickey’s timeline was even more protracted. He became a serviceable starter with the New York Mets at age 35, and won the Cy Young award at age 37 in 2012. NPR chronicled Dickey's long and strange road to success with his knuckleball pitch.

Dickey pitched until he was 42, but would never again reach the same level of success.

With his distinctive high leg kick and unique athleticism for a pitcher, Willis was always entertaining to watch on the mound. He once told The Athletic that his windup was "goofy." Despite the flair he brought to the diamond, his productivity had many highs and lows.

His best season came in 2005, where he pitched to a 2.63 ERA and won 22 games for the Florida Marlins. That would be as good as it got for Willis.

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To be fair, Hentgen had a lot of solid seasons as a starting pitcher with the Toronto Blue Jays. However, he reached a new level of accomplishment in 1996, where he completed 10 games en route to winning the Cy Young.

It was the only time in Hentgen’s career that his home run per nine innings metric dipped under one. In 2023, The Athletic recalled Hentgen's struggles before and after that season in 2023.

Davis was a slugger who wasn’t slugging with the Texas Rangers. When he got to Baltimore, however, his power numbers drastically improved. His high-water mark came in 2013, where he hit 53 home runs while hitting .286.

Davis would go on to have other notable seasons in the power department, but could never maintain a high batting average while doing so. USA Today wrote about his enormous power and steep decline when he retired in 2021.

The Houston Astros had a lot of accomplished hitters in the late 1990s and early 2000s, which is largely why Hidalgo’s 2000 season is often overlooked.

He crushed 44 home runs and drove in 122 runs during that campaign. He would never again eclipse 100 RBI in a season, or even hit 30 dingers in a campaign.

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Lowe was a versatile pitcher for the Boston Red Sox who began his career in the bullpen before becoming a starter. He was a good reliever, and made the fulltime transition to starting in 2002. He had a great season that year, winning 21 games with a 2.58 ERA. Things would get a lot bumpier after that for Lowe, who had a 4.90 ERA in his final two years starting in Boston.