Binge Sports: Oscar Taveras (1992-2014)

It’s a sad day for baseball and especially for fans of the St. Louis Cardinals. It has been confirmed that 22-year-old Oscar Taveras has died as a result of a car crash in his hometown of Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic. His girlfriend was also killed. There are no details at this point in time, but the Cardinals are investigating.

He was signed at 16 by the Cardinals and spent six seasons in the minor leagues, including a .386 batting average in the Midwest League in 2011, the highest in 55 years.

He spent 2012 with the Double-A Springfield Cardinals and finished the year with a .321 batting average, 23 homeruns, and 94 RBI, earning him the Cardinals Minor League Player of the Year, as well as the Texas League Player of the Year.

He entered 2013 with high hopes as he joined the Triple-A Memphis Redbirds as the third-best prospect in all of baseball, but was limited to only 46 games after a bad ankle sprain, which would eventually require season-ending surgery. In limited action, he still hit .306 with five homers and 32 runs batted in.

Taveras entered 2014 one spot higher in the overall prospect rankings at number two. Initially, it was thought that he would start the year with the big club, but a few more problems with the ankle put him back down in Memphis to start the season. But after hitting .325 with seven homers and forty knocked in over 49 games, he finally made his major league debut on May 31st. This is what happened in only his second major league at-bat.

After that, Taveras struggled a bit in the majors and was sent back down to Memphis, where he continued his solid play until being called back up a short time later. Over the rest of this season, you could really see him getting used to big league pitching and he was a very good outfielder as well. Over 80 games, he hit .239 with three homeruns and 22 RBI. On paper, those numbers don’t look spectacular but that’s really not bad at all for a rookie, especially for someone that young. He also had a big game-tying homerun in this year’s NLCS Game 2.

As a Cubs fan and a resident of central Illinois where the Cubs and Cardinals basically split the fan base 50/50, I’ve had numerous conversations about this kid and the future he was destined to have for a great organization. I was really looking forward to watching him play and match up against all the great prospects the Cubs have coming up. The Chicago-St. Louis rivalry is one of the best in all of sports and I’ve always had a tremendous amount of respect for what they do in St. Louis and Oscar Taveras was part of that. He had the potential to be one of the next great Cardinals and this really is a loss not only for the St. Louis Cardinals, but a loss for baseball fans everywhere. From myself and everyone here at Binge Media, our deepest sympathies go out to the Taveras family and friends, the St. Louis Cardinals organization and their fans all over the world. What are your favorite Oscar Taveras highlights? Did you ever get a chance to meet him? If you’d like to share your thoughts, comment below or follow and tweet @BingeSports or @THElukenorris.