Oscar Taveras, 1992-2014

You have probably heard that Oscar Taveras, St. Louis's talented outfield prospect (ranked third in baseball by Baseball Prospectus, Baseball America, and MLB.com before the season) died in a car accident in the Dominican Republic yesterday. He was only 22.

Two things about Taveras. First, his rookie season, listed below, was viewed as somewhat of a disappointment. The column OPS+ measures his on base plus slugging relative to the league average, adjusted for his home park. His score of 65 means that he was 35% worse than the league average, which of course isn't very good. But his manager, Mike Matheny, seemed unwilling to commit to him. Taveras was called up at the end of May and started nine games in June, 15 in July, 24 in August, and 12 in September. The Cardinals were 36-25 in his starts, a .590 winning percentage, compared to .534 in games he didn't start. His minor league statistics--.320/.376/.516 slash line in 436 games spread over six seasons, including .313/.358/.485 at AAA Memphis--portended a strong, middle-of-the-order bat.

G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	OPS+	TB	GDP	HBP
80	248	234	18	56	8	0	3	22	0	1	12	37	.239	.278	.312	.590	65	73	10	1

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table

Generated 10/27/2014.

Second, he died in an auto accident. So did 35,303 Americans in 2011 (the last year for which data are available). That's almost as many people who died of breast cancer (41,374). It's 26% more than died of prostate cancer, more than twice as many who died of homicide, 4.6 times as many who died of HIV. It's 9% more than people who died from firearms (the majority of which, 19,990 of 32,351, were suicides). You're about 40 times more likely to die in a car accident than a boat or airplane accident. Just a reminder that cars are dangerous. Drive defensively, drive under control, always wear seat belts and shoulder harnesses, and catch a cab if you're at all impaired.