There's no such thing as a bad time for MLB enthusiasts to take stroll down Memory Lane. And today, we're headed for where it intersects with Deep Cut Boulevard.

That's right. It's time to remember some one-hit wonders from MLB's recent past.

Just so everyone's clear on the terms here, every team is going to be represented on this list. And as much fun as it would be to look back on various Chris Sheltons from days of yore, 2010 marks the beginning of the window of relevance here.

There will also be times when the definition of "one-hit wonder" gets stretched a bit.

Typically, that term refers to a person who came out of nowhere to do something amazing, only to immediately retreat back to nowhere. Many guys on this list match that description, but others made the cut via extreme outlier seasons that still stick in the ol' memory box.

Be prepared to see plenty of mentions to 2017 and 2019. A lot of guys had career years in those seasons, after all, in part because the ball was juiced out the proverbial wazoo.

In any case, we'll go one at a time in alphabetical order by city.

Arizona Diamondbacks: Yasmany Tomás in 2016

2016 Stats: 140 G, 563 PA, 31 HR, 2 SB, .272 AVG, .313 OBP, .508 SLG

Career Stats: 309 G, 1,175 PA, 48 HR, 7 SB, .266 AVG, .306 OBP, .459 SLG

The $68.5 million deal that the Diamondbacks did with Yasmany Tomás in December 2014 was very much of its time.

Cuban defectors were hot commodities back then, and for good reason. Recent seasons had seen Aroldis Chapman, Yoenis Céspedes, Yasiel Puig and José Abreu find stardom in MLB after leaving Cuba.

Arizona's hope with Tomás was that he would be next, and his production (most notably .900 OPSes in 2012 and 2013) in Cuba suggested he would be up to it.

His 2016 season was the closest thing the Snakes ever got to proof of concept. Though his low OBP and poor defense dragged down his WAR, he led the Diamondbacks in home runs and was generally one of the top sluggers in the National League.

But that was pretty much it for Tomás in the major leagues. Core surgery cost him most of 2017. He then spent all of 2018 in the minors and resurfaced for only four games with Arizona in 2019. He last played in the Mexican Pacific Winter League.

Atlanta: Chris Johnson in 2013

2003 Stats: 142 G, 547 PA, 12 HR, 0 SB, .321 AVG, .358 OBP, .457 SLG

Career Stats: 839 G, 2,995 PA, 63 HR, 18 SB, .275 AVG, .313 OBP, .404 SLG

To be clear, we're not talking about the NFL running back who rushed for 2,000 yards in 2009.

For that matter, we're not talking about the headliner of the trade that sent Chris Johnson to Atlanta in January 2013, either. That was former No. 1 pick Justin Upton, whereas Johnson was more like a throw-in after splitting the 2012 campaign with Houston and Arizona.

Which is to say it was a surprise when Johnson hit as well as he did in 2013. He ultimately beat out Freddie Freeman for the team lead in batting average and all but the Coors Field-aided Michael Cuddyer in the race for the NL batting title.

Because of his lousy defense at the hot corner, however, hitting was basically Johnson's only recourse to surviving as a major league regular. He wasn't able to do it, as he hit only .252 over the next three seasons before washing out of affiliated baseball in 2017.

Baltimore Orioles: Cedric Mullins in 2021

2021 Stats: 159 G, 675 PA, 30 HR, 30 SB, .291 AVG, .360 OBP, .518 SLG

Career Stats: 684 G, 2,680 PA, 85 HR, 122 SB, .252 AVG, .320 OBP, .425 SLG

In all fairness to Cedric Mullins, he remains a perfectly adequate everyday center fielder.

He has 17 home runs and 29 stolen bases on the offensive side this year, while his defense has been worth five Outs Above Average. WAR-wise, he's one of the top 10 center fielders in the American League.

It's just that it's hard to see Mullins ever having another 30-30 season again.

The first one was certainly an out-of-nowhere thing in its own right. He came into the year with only seven home runs to show for his first 115 games with the Orioles. At his hottest, he matched that total in just a 12-game stretch during the 2021 campaign.

The evidence was always there that Mullins' power output in 2021 was unsustainable, most notably in the sense that his hard-hit rate was only in the 39th percentile. That rate has since regressed even further, now sitting in the 16th percentile in 2024.

Boston Red Sox: Daniel Nava in 2013

2013 Stats: 134 G, 536 PA, 12 HR, 0 SB, .303 AVG, .385 OBP, .445 SLG

Career Stats: 589 G, 1,977 PA, 29 HR, 10 SB, .266 AVG, .357 OBP, .380 SLG

Daniel Nava was a former undrafted free agent who had even been cut by an independent team when he signed with the Red Sox in 2008. And when he did, the price was for $1.

As such, it was kind of a big deal when the hit a grand slam in his first major league at-bat in June 2010. Yet it looked for a while like that would be the pinnacle of his major league career, as he didn't see any time with Boston in 2011 and hardly any in 2012.

But then everything changed in 2013. Nava was with the Red Sox for basically the whole season and ended up finishing second on the team to only David Ortiz in batting average.

Among his 139 hits were some big ones, including his legendary post-Boston Marathon bombing home run.

Alas, that year proved to be a one-off. Nava took to mostly bouncing around between 2014 and 2017, ultimately hitting fewer home runs (10) in those four seasons than he had in 2013 alone.

After a comeback attempt as a pitcher failed, his playing career ended in 2020.

Chicago Cubs: Frank Schwindel in 2021

2021 Stats (with Cubs): 56 G, 239 PA, 13 HR, 2 SB, .342 AVG, .389 OBP, .613 SLG

Career Stats: 145 G, 566 PA, 22 HR, 2 SB, .269 AVG, .314 OBP, .456 SLG

In a span of 14 months between July 2021 and September 2022, Frank Schwindel went from being a waiver claim to being released.

The time in between was a wild ride, though.

From the time Schwindel joined the Cubs on July 30, 2021 through the end of the year, he was one of the 10 best hitters in all of Major League Baseball. If you go off of batting average, he was even the best hitter in the National League during that stretch.

As a result, the then-29-year-old went from a total unknown to sixth-place finish in the NL Rookie of the Year voting. It was a classic outhouse-to-penthouse story, albeit one that never seemed to have any real likelihood of lasting beyond 2021.

Yet while Schwindel did flame out of organized ball the following year, some might be pleased to know he's done just fine in indie ball with the Long Island Ducks.

Chicago White Sox: Daniel Palka in 2018

2018 Stats: 124 G, 449 PA, 27 HR, 2 SB, .240 AVG, .294 OBP, .484 SLG

Career Stats: 154 G, 542 PA, 29 HR, 2 SB, .218 AVG, .277 OBP, .433 SLG

Only so many people on Earth can claim to have played Major League Baseball, and only so many of those can also claim to have led their team in home runs.

To this end, at least, Daniel Palka has rare bragging rights.

The 27 homers he hit in 2018 indeed led the White Sox, and by a healthy margin over erstwhile AL Rookie of the Year and eventual AL MVP José Abreu, who hit 22 that year. And on a rate basis, Palka was actually a more effective slugger than even Giancarlo Stanton.

The catch, of course, is that Palka also struck out in 34.1 percent of his plate appearances.

That rate subsequently grew to 37.1 percent in 2019, which also marks the last year he played at the major league level. He may yet do so again, but it'll mean working his way back from his latest post with Union Laguna in the Mexican League.

Cincinnati Reds: Zack Cozart in 2017

2017 Stats: 122 G, 507 PA, 24 HR, 3 SB, .297 AVG, 385 OBP, .548 SLG

Career Stats: 839 G, 3,388 PA, 87 HR, 21 SB, .247 AVG, .300 OBP, .399 SLG

Granted, it's not like 2017 was Zack Cozart's first rodeo as a productive big leaguer.

He had broken in with the Reds six years before and had mostly served them well as an ace defensive shortstop. Per Defensive Runs Saved, he was even one of the 10 best defenders at any position in 2014.

But whereas he had never topped 16 home runs or a .732 OPS in a full season prior to 2017, suddenly there Cozart was with 24 of the former and a .933 mark for the latter. No other qualified shortstop had an OPS higher than .854 that year.

Cozart's breakout netted him a $38 million deal from the Angels in free agency, but that never came close to paying off. He struggled through the first half of 2018 before having season-ending shoulder surgery.

His career never recovered, with the 38 games he played in 2019 marking the end of it.

Cleveland Guardians: Oscar González in 2022

2022 Stats: 91 G, 382 PA, 11 HR, 1 SB, .296 AVG, .327 OBP, .461 SLG

Career Stats: 145 G, 562 PA, 13 HR, 1 SB, .269 AVG, .299 OBP, .413 SLG

It was largely thanks to a historic rookie class that the Guardians blew away expectations in 2022. And of the bunch, perhaps nobody was as pleasant a surprise as Oscar González.

He didn't go into the year ranked as one of Cleveland's top prospects, and that looked like a mistake shortly after his arrival on May 26. He was hitting .417 after 15 games, and the hits mostly kept coming for the remainder of the year.

Because of that and his taste in walk-up music, González was a fan favorite well before the playoffs arrived, and he further endeared himself to the city of Cleveland with three game-winning hits.

Though this was only two years ago, it already feels like forever.

González got bowled over by a sophomore slump in 2023, after which he was claimed off waivers by the Yankees. It's been nearly a year since he took his last MLB plate appearance on October 1, 2023.

Colorado Rockies: David Dahl in 2019

2019 Stats: 100 G, 413 PA, 15 HR, 4 SB, .302 AVG, .353 OBP, .524 SLG

Career Stats: 350 G, 1,311 PA, 46 HR, 17 SB, .268 AVG, .313 OBP, .460 SLG

David Dahl was not meant to be the hero of an underdog story.

The Rockies drafted him with the 10th overall pick in 2012, after which he was a consensus top-100 prospect annually for the next four years. But that was also when he was having terrible luck with injuries, including one that required him to have his spleen removed.

He was nonetheless still only 25 years old when he broke out as an All-Star in 2019, and the honors were well-deserved. He spent the first half of that year hitting .308 with 39 extra-base hits in 80 games.

Pretty much ever since then, though, Dahl has been stuck in the same injury cycle that threatened to derail his career back when he was a prospect. Suffice it to say, he's played in a grand total of 130 MLB games over the last five-and-a-half seasons.

Still, Dahl may yet be heard from again. He's made it into 73 games with the Phillies' Triple-A affiliate this year and done well to the tune of an .866 OPS.

Detroit Tigers: Austin Jackson in 2012

2012 Stats: 137 G, 617 PA, 16 HR, 12 SB, .300 AVG, .377 OBP, .479 SLG

Career Stats: 1,115 G, 4,653 PA, 65 HR, 114 SB, .273 AVG, .333 OBP, .396 SLG

The 2012 season was the one in which Miguel Cabrera won the Triple Crown, yet he was notably but one of four Tigers regulars who hit at least .300 that year.

Austin Jackson was another, and it felt at the time like a proper breakout for a guy who had previously been one of the sport's best prospects.

Jackson made it farther than first base on 55 of the 163 hits he collected that year, and he even drew more walks (67) than Cabrera (66). The totality of his offense was worth as much as that of Josh Hamilton, who finished the 2012 season with 43 home runs.

But while Jackson did stick around for another six seasons after 2012, a worthy follow-up to that year's offensive onslaught never came. The closest he came was in 2017, when he hit .318 in about half a season's worth of games for Cleveland.

After that year, he bounced between three organizations in 2018 in what would mark the final season of his playing career.

Houston Astros: Marwin Gonzalez in 2017

2017 Stats: 134 G, 515 PA, 23 HR, 8 SB, .303 AVG, .377 OBP, .530 SLG

Career Stats: 1,138 G, 3,882 PA, 107 HR, 44 SB, .252 AVG, .310 OBP, .399 SLG

Marwin Gonzalez was a big leaguer for 11 seasons between 2012 and 2022. And for most of it, he was a reliable yet unspectacular utility man.

Except, that is, for when he was one of the better hitters in a loaded Astros lineup in 2017.

That year saw him set career highs in numerous categories, including hits, home runs and OPS. He also provided some heroics amid Houston's championship run, most notably with a game-tying homer off Kenley Jansen in Game 2 of the World Series.

That Gonzalez never came close to replicating his 2017 season in his last five years in the majors—he's played in Japan in each of the last two seasons—could just be one of those things.

Or, it could be because he never again enjoyed the benefit he enjoyed last year: More trash-can bangs than any other Astros hitter.

Kansas City Royals: Hunter Dozier in 2019

2019 Stats: 139 G, 586 PA, 26 HR, 2 SB, .279 AVG, .348 OBP, .522 SLG

Career Stats: 594 G, 2,315 PA, 73 HR, 19 SB, .238 AVG, .305 OBP, .420 SLG

Hunter Dozier is another guy for whom success in MLB was pretty much preordained.

The Royals took him with the No. 8 pick in the 2013 draft, when he was fresh off hitting .396 as a junior at Stephen F. Austin. He made it to the big club three years later and was a regular by 2018.

Dozier's big break in 2019 was mostly built on extra-base hits. Not pictured in the stat lineup there are the 29 doubles and 10 triples he posted that year, and he did all that in spite of Kauffman Stadium's pitcher-friendly dimensions.

The Royals showed their confidence in his long-term outlook by signing him to an extension in the spring of 2021, but it proved to be a misfire. His last 345 games as a major leaguer saw him post a .679 OPS before the club released him in May 2023.

The Angels gave Dozier a shot at redemption this year, but he managed only a .662 OPS for their Triple-A team before they let him go in June.

Los Angeles Angels: Jared Walsh in 2021

2021 Stats: 144 G, 585 PA, 29 HR, 2 SB, .277 AVG, .340 OBP, .509 SLG

Career Stats: 381 G, 1,410 PA, 59 HR, 4 SB, .239 AVG, .301 OBP, .438 SLG

Spoiler alert: This is a story that takes a dark turn.

In the beginning, though, Jared Walsh's rise to stardom with the Angels was a true underdog success saga. Suffice it to say that 39th-round draft picks don't usually become All-Stars, and especially now that the 39th round doesn't even exist anymore.

Walsh was a two-way player initially, but it became clear once he started racking up homers in the minors in 2018 and 2019 that the batter's box was the right place for him. That path led him to 2021, wherein he was one of the top left-handed hitters in the AL.

There's a reason Walsh's productivity plummeted in 2022 and 2023, though. He suffered from serious neurological issues that he believed might have been caused by COVID-19, for which he tested positive for multiple times.

Walsh said he was feeling better when he was with the Rangers earlier this year, but his career is still on a downward slide. He was let go by both them in April and by the White Sox in July.

Los Angeles Dodgers: Austin Barnes in 2017

2017 Stats: 102 G, 262 PA, 8 HR, 4 SB, .289 AVG, .408 OBP, .486 SLG

Career Stats: 597 G, 1,706 PA, 35 HR, 22 SB, .223 AVG, .324 OBP, .339 SLG

The Austin Barnes of today (and really of the last seven years) is basically a textbook case of a backup catcher.

He's really only there to make sure Will Smith can get out of the crouch now and then and to handle the pitching staff on days when it's his turn to start. He's solid at both of these things, typically rating well for both his receiving and his blocking.

Knowing all this, it's frankly jarring to look back and see that this same guy spent a year as an on-base machine with decent power for a very good Dodgers team in 2017.

Barnes even had some moments in the playoffs that year, particularly in Games 2 and 3 of a three-game sweep of Arizona in the NLDS. He had a multi-hit, multi-RBI game in the former and a homer off Zack Greinke in the latter.

To say Barnes has never come close to replicating 2017 would be overstating it. Even despite the limited action he sees, he's been one of the worst hitting catchers in MLB since 2018.

Miami Marlins: Brian Anderson in 2019

2019 Stats: 129 G, 520 PA, 20 HR, 5 SB, .261 AVG, .342 OBP, .468 SLG

Career Stats: 630 G, 2,527 PA, 66 HR, 14 SB, .251 AVG, .336 OBP, .403 SLG

Just in case anyone needs reminding how desolate the situation was in Miami circa 2019, this was after Giancarlo Stanton, Christian Yelich, Marcell Ozuna and J.T. Realmuto all left town.

So, there was predictably little for Marlins fans to root for in 2019, but you had to hand it to Brian Anderson for trying his best. His .811 OPS that year was the best on the team, and he likewise finished two homers shy of Garrett Cooper for the team lead.

There was some evidence that Anderson could keep this up, including a hard-hit rate that placed in the 86th percentile. Pretty much everything else, however, painted him as a merely OK hitter who had flown too close to the sun.

Which has pretty much proved to be the case. Frequent trips to the injured list have been a factor, but elevated strikeout rates serve as evidence that pitchers figured Anderson out.

Come September 27, it will have been a year since his last major league hit.

Milwaukee Brewers: Domingo Santana in 2017

2017 Stats: 151 G, 607 PA, 30 HR, 15 SB, .278 AVG, .371 OBP, .505 SLG

Career Stats: 516 G, 1,919 PA, 77 HR, 30 SB, .255 AVG, .341 OBP, .446 SLG

Before it was "The Josh Hader Trade," it was looking more like "The Domingo Santana Trade."

Though Hader and Santana did arrive in Milwaukee in the same deal in 2015, it was the latter who was first to establish himself with the Brewers. He was already rocking an .880 OPS and 11 homers by the time Hader arrived on June 10, 2017.

Santana didn't let up for the rest of the year, ultimately taking his place as one of three Brewers hitters (the others being Travis Shaw and Eric Thames) to top 30 homers. He was one of 19 NL hitters to slug over .500 that year.

Alas, things taking a dark turn on one-dimensional sluggers with holes in their swings and little to offer on defense is a tale as old as time. And so it went for Santana after 2017, though injuries also played a role in the demise of his MLB career.

On the plus side, he's spent the last four years carving out a nice career for himself in Japan, notably by way of an .875 OPS and 65 homers.

Minnesota Twins: Willians Astudillo in 2018

2018 Stats: 29 G, 97 PA, 3 HR, 0 SB, .355 AVG, .371 OBP, .516 SLG

Career Stats: 188 G, 588 PA, 16 HR, 1 SB, .267 AVG, .291 OBP, .396 SLG

Willians Astudillo was never a top prospect, yet it seems fair to say a lot of people couldn't wait to get a look at him when he debuted in 2018.

He was known for his extraordinary penchant for contact, having struck out only 76 times in 2,343 career plate appearances at the time of his call-up. And besides, your standard utility guy isn't listed at 5'9", 225 pounds, as he was.

And his nickname? "La Tortuga?" Priceless.

What hype there was for Astudillo initially went unrealized, but then he ended 2018 by batting .378 over his last 22 games. Along the way, he became one of the most eminently meme-able players in MLB.

It was fun while it lasted, but it didn't last that long. Astudillo never really caught on again after 2018, and he's spent his time since his last major league appearance in 2022 bouncing around various foreign leagues.

New York Mets: J.D. Davis in 2019

2019 Stats: 140 G, 453 PA, 22 HR, 3 SB, .307 AVG, .369 OBP, .527 SLG

Career Stats: 640 G, 2,142 PA, 72 HR, 7 SB, .257 AVG, .340 OBP, .425 SLG

Though he was able to break in with them in 2017 and 2018, J.D. Davis basically didn't have an avenue to playing time with the Astros. So, they traded him to the Mets in January 2019.

It had all the makings of a shrewd move, as Houston's lack of at-bats for Davis only did so much to hide the .988 OPS he had posted for their Triple-A affiliate the previous season.

That production ended up providing a solid forecast for what he did with his first real MLB opportunity in 2019. He had a higher OPS than Michael Conforto despite hitting 11 fewer home runs. Overall, he was one of the top offensive left fielders in the National League.

Even then, though, Davis' red flags included a whiff rate in the 23rd percentile and a glove that didn't really fit anywhere. It's rare for such things not to get exposed, and that plus a variety of injuries pretty much tell the story of how his career has gone awry.

He's currently in the Orioles system following his release by the Yankees in August.

New York Yankees: Miguel Andujar in 2018

2018 Stats: 149 G, 606 PA, 27 HR, 2 SB, .297 AVG, .328 OBP, .527 SLG

Career Stats: 373 G, 1,439 PA, 43 HR, 12 SB, .273 AVG, .306 OBP, .434 SLG

If nothing else, Miguel Andujar will always have a legacy as the guy who kept Shohei Ohtani from unanimously winning the AL Rookie of the Year in 2018.

That year was a proper coming-out party for Andujar, and it wasn't a wholly unexpected one. He went into the 2018 season as a top-100 prospect, with high marks for both his power at the plate and his arm strength in the field.

The former was often on display throughout that year, which concluded with him tying four other Yankees for second on the team in home runs after Giancarlo Stanton's 38. He also drove in 15 more runs than any other rookie.

Things promptly fell apart for Andujar in 2019 season, and hard. He opened the year with zero homers through 12 games, and that was all he wrote after having season-ending surgery on his right shoulder.

Andujar just had another season-ending surgery in August, this time on his core. The times between those two surgeries haven't been all bad, but certainly mostly so as he's posted only a .671 OPS across 207 major league games.

Oakland Athletics: Ramón Laureano in 2019

2019 Stats: 123 G, 481 PA, 24 HR, 13 SB, .288 AVG, .340 OBP, .521 SLG

Career Stats: 599 G, 2,306 PA, 79 HR, 64 SB, .246 AVG, .319 OBP, .428 SLG

Let's acknowledge that Ramón Laureano has recently been a godsend for Atlanta in the wake of Ronald Acuña Jr.'s torn ACL, but his 2019 season still stands alone.

He had already teased (and not just with his arm) in 2018 that the Astros would end up ruing the day they traded him to the A's in November 2017, and what he did in 2019 was basically double down on it.

Even despite his relatively limited 123-game sample, Laureano's offensive onslaught was so well-rounded that only two American League center fielders were more valuable in that respect: Mike Trout and George Springer.

Yet the momentum Laureno carried out of 2019 quickly expired. He didn't play especially well in the shortened 2020 season, and his 2021 campaign came to an early end after he was hit by MLB with an 80-game suspension for performance-enhancing drugs.

Even with his recent surge with Atlanta factored in, he's spent the last three years as a below-average hitter to the tune of a .683 OPS.

Philadelphia Phillies: Domonic Brown in 2013

2013 Stats: 139 G, 540 PA, 27 HR, 8 SB, .272 AVG, .324 OBP, .494 SLG

Career Stats: 493 G, 1,748 PA, 54 HR, 23 SB, .246 AVG, .305 OBP, .405 SLG

Where were you when Domonic Brown finally lived up to the hype?

Said hype was certainly of the big variety in the early 2010s. He went into 2011 ranked by Baseball America as the No. 4 prospect in baseball, with a projection that "he could hit .300 with 20-25 homers annually once he gets established in Philadelphia."

He didn't quite get his average over .300, but that report otherwise seemed spot-on when Brown broke out as an All-Star in 2013. Or at least, it did until it didn't.

His hot hitting ended well before the season did, as not one of his 27 homers came in his final 31 games. An Achilles injury was no help, and the fresh start he got in 2014 ultimately didn't provide any relief. He played in 144 games, but he went deep only 10 times.

The Phillies parted ways with Brown after 2015, which also proved to be his last season as a major leaguer. He flamed out of organized ball in 2017 and retired in 2020.

Pittsburgh Pirates: Kevin Newman in 2019

2019 Stats: 130 G, 531 PA, 12 HR, 16 SB, .308 AVG, .353 OBP, .446 SLG

Career Stats: 613 G, 2,223 PA, 26 HR, 46 SB, .262 AVG, .306 OBP, .361 SLG

It wasn't necessarily a surprise when Kevin Newman hit over .300 in 2019.

He was primarily known for his bat when the Pirates drafted him out of Arizona with the No. 19 pick in 2015. He had hit .337 in three seasons as a Wildcat, along the way walking nine more times than he struck out.

After he got a cup of coffee with the Bucs in 2018, MLB.com had Newman rated as a 60-grade hitter going into the 2019 season. He certainly looked the part, ultimately becoming the only everyday shortstop in the NL to bat over .300.

Yet despite how often he hit the ball, he wasn't the best at hitting it hard. He was in fact among the worst, ranking in just the sixth percentile for hard-hit rate that year.

The passing of time has done nothing to make this particular skill any better. And as a result, it's not the biggest shocker that Newman has only a .250 average and 14 home runs to show for his last 1,595 major league plate appearances.

San Diego Padres: Chase Headley in 2012

2012 Stats: 161 G, 699 PA, 31 HR, 17 SB, .286 AVG, .376 OBP, .498 SLG

Career Stats: 1,436 G, 5,761 PA, 130 HR, 93 SB, .263 AVG, .342 OBP, .399 SLG

Chase Headley is another guy who was always meant to have a good career in Major League Baseball, and he can rightfully look back and say he did.

Yet even a dozen years later, exactly what got into him in 2012 remains confounding.

In fact, it behooves one to be more specific about when whatever it was that got into him, well, got into him. It was a tale of two seasons, conveniently demarcated by the All-Star break:

• 1st Half: .780 OPS, 8 HR
• 2nd Half: .978 OPS, 23 HR

Thus did Headley go from being nowhere on the national radar to somewhere near the center of it. He ended up leading the National League in runs batted in and finishing fifth in the MVP voting.

But rather than a grand arrival, this turned out to an outsized blip. He never hit more than eight home runs in any half of the six seasons he played after 2012, with his DFA by the Padres in May 2018 marking the end of his playing career.

San Francisco Giants: Marco Scutaro in 2012

2012 Stats (with Giants): 61 G, 268 PA, 3 HR, 2 SB, .362 AVG, .385 OBP, .473 SLG

Career Stats: 1,391 G, 5,486 PA, 77 HR, 55 SB, .277 AVG, .341 OBP, .388 SLG

To refer to Marco Scutaro as a one-hit wonder almost feels insulting. He was a dependable player for many teams throughout a career that lasted 13 years.

He was nonetheless not the kind of guy who usually carried his teams, which is why what he did in 2012 remains so extraordinary.

It wasn't headline news when the Giants acquired Scutaro from the Rockies in July, but then he started hitting. And hitting. And hitting and hitting to a point where only eventual NL MVP Buster Posey had a higher average down the stretch of 2012.

Then came one of the most remarkable playoff runs in memory, be it recent or otherwise.

Scutaro almost single-handedly willed the Giants into the World Series with an MVP-winning performance in the NLCS, collecting six multi-hit games in seven tries and batting .500 overall. He later added an exclamation point with the hit that won the title for the club.

The Giants didn't really get their money's worth out of the three-year deal they did with Scutaro after 2012, but it's not like you could blame them for wanting him back.

Seattle Mariners: Daniel Vogelbach in 2019

2019 Stats: 144 G, 558 PA, 30 HR, 0 SB, .208 AVG, .341 OBP, .439 SLG

Career Stats: 602 G, 1,957 PA, 81 HR, 0 SB, .219 AVG, .340 OBP, .405 SLG

When you're 6'0", 270 pounds and you want to be a major leaguer, pretty much your only recourse is to start hitting and to keep hitting.

Daniel Vogelbach understood the assignment. He generally had little trouble hitting in the minors after going to the Cubs in the second round of the 2011 draft. And come the mid-2010s, he had become a solid bet for a .290 average and 20 home runs.

It was just a question of when he would get a chance to show his act could translate against major league pitching, and it was the Mariners who were rewarded for giving him one in 2019. He earned All-Star honors and led Seattle in home runs and runs batted in that year.

Yet beyond Vogelbach's obvious athleticism limitations, there was also his platoon split. It was hard to ignore even in 2019, when he hit only .161 in left-on-left matchups. And of the 1,253 additional plate appearances he's taken since then, only 151 have been against lefties.

As of now, he has yet to be scooped up again after the Blue Jays cut him loose in June.

St. Louis Cardinals: Aledmys Díaz in 2016

2016 Stats: 111 G, 460 PA, 17 HR, 4 SB, .300 AVG, .369 OBP, .510 SLG

Career Stats: 705 G, 2,543 PA, 78 HR, 15 SB, .259 AVG, .312 OBP, .424 SLG

Aledmys Díaz was another guy who benefited from the copycat-style run on Cuban players in the 2010s, only he initially seemed like a discount.

Though original reports had the shortstop's four-year contract with the Cardinals in the $20 million range, it ended up being worth just $8 million when ink was put to paper in March 2014. Barely more than two years later, Díaz was an All-Star.

And a deserving one, at that. He went into the 2016 All-Star break leading all major league shortstops with a .316 average and trailing only four others in home runs to boot.

But then the hits started to dry up for Díaz after the break, and then he got a bad break when he fractured his right thumb on a hit-by-pitch on the last day of July. He returned to hit only .216 in September.

In the eight years since then, Díaz has shown only occasional flashes of the stick he wielded as a rookie in 2016. And with this year seeing him get released first by the A's and later by the Astros, what's next for him is anyone's guess.

Tampa Bay Rays: Steven Souza Jr. in 2017

2017 Stats: 148 G, 617 PA, 30 HR, 16 SB, .239 AVG, .351 OBP, .459 SLG

Career Stats: 505 G, 1,895 PA, 72 HR, 42 SB, .229 AVG, .318 OBP, .411 SLG

Steven Souza Jr.'s name was familiar to baseball fans well before he had his own breakout in 2017.

In 2014 alone, he was the guy who sealed Jordan Zimmermann's no-hitter with a diving catch in left field. He was in the news again later that year as part of a megadeal that sent him to Tampa Bay, Wil Myers to San Diego and Trea Turner to Washington.

Souza himself initially provided solid but unspectacular returns for the Rays in 2015 and 2016. The 2017 season is when that changed, as he finished second on the team and third among all American League right fielders in home runs.

Yet despite being named as the Rays' Most Valuable Player for 2017, he got shipped to Arizona the subsequent winter and never really found his footing there. He then completely tore apart his left knee in March 2019, causing him to miss the season.

Souza got chances from three different teams after that, but none led to anything. He retired midway through 2022.

Texas Rangers: Danny Santana in 2019

2019 Stats: 130 G, 511 PA, 28 HR, 21 SB, .283 AVG, .324 OBP, .534 SLG

Career Stats: 547 G, 1,866 PA, 47 HR, 75 SB, .255 AVG, .296 OBP, .413 SLG

Though he never had a shot at beating José Abreu, it does bear noting that Danny Santana placed in the AL Rookie of the Year voting back in 2014.

The book on him then wasn't so much about his power, but his speed, hitting acumen and defensive versatility. The first two were certainly on display in 2014, when he finished with a .319 average and 20 stolen bases in 101 games.

So where the heck did those 28 home runs in 2019 come from?

The ball surely had a lot to do with it, but Santana also helped his own cause by boosting key power metrics like his launch angle and exit velocity. In actuality, he didn't overachieve that much.

That performance nonetheless always had a stench of unsustainability, and subsequent years have borne that out. He hit just six homers in 53 major league appearances in 2020 and 2021, and he has been out of affiliated ball ever since.

Toronto Blue Jays: Chris Colabello in 2015

2015 Stats: 101 G, 360 PA, 15 HR, 2 SB, .321 AVG, .367 OBP, .520 SLG

Career Stats: 225 G, 793 PA, 28 HR, 2 SB, .257 AVG, .317 OBP, .424 SLG

The Blue Jays had a stacked lineup just in the first half of 2015, and it only got deeper when Troy Tulowitzki came aboard in July.

But lest anyone forget, he was actually hitting below Chris Colabello by the time Toronto was deep into the playoffs.

As odd as that seems in retrospect, it was hard to feel in the moment like Colabello didn't deserve it. He may have been a 31-year-old journeyman, but he was one with the highest batting average on the team and an OPS that placed below only sluggers Josh Donaldson, José Bautista and Edwin Encarnación.

Colabello immediately fading into obscurity after 2015 was probably always likely, but it's doubtful anyone had him playing in just 10 more major league games.

If you take his 2016 PED suspension at face value, he only has himself to blame for this. It's nonetheless only fair to note that he maintained his innocence, saying: "I would never, have never and will never compromise the integrity of baseball."

Washington Nationals: Joey Meneses in 2022

2022 Stats: 56 G, 240 PA, 13 HR, 1 SB, .324 AVG, .367 OBP, .563 SLG

Career Stats: 286 G, 1,210 PA, 29 HR, 3 SB, .274 AVG, .322 OBP, .408 SLG

It was only after the Nationals had given up on their 2022 season that they gave Joey Meneses his shot, and they really couldn't have expected what happened next.

For his first act, he homered in his major league debut and went on to rank fourth among NL hitters in wRC+ for the stretch run of 2022. Yes, he even outranked the recently traded Juan Soto for that span.

And while it didn't take place in the majors, Meneses' second act is still worth recalling. He not only played for, but also starred with Mexico in the 2023 World Baseball Classic, going 10-for-27 with two homers in six appearances.

Yet the notion of Meneses continuing to keep the good times rolling was always far-fetched. He was already 30 when the Nationals called him up, and thus would be easy to push aside if his bat ever went cool.

That's what happened in 2023, and the early months of this year did not result in a warm-up. Meneses got sent back to the minors in July after posting just a .593 OPS in 76 games.

Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.