The Attrition War, Angels
Part of a continuing series, follow-ups to the initial post detailing the Mariners history over the same period.
Do the Mariners, in comparison to other teams, suffer a higher rate of injury to their pitching prospects than other teams? Here, I look at the Angels.
The Anahiem Angels had 28 pitchers appear on their Baseball America Top 10 Prospects lists from 1995-2004.
Of those, pitchers who injured their elbow and required surgery: 2
Of those, pitchers who injured their shoulders and required surgery: 3
During this time, the Angels produced four servicable starters up (Lackey, Ortiz, Schoenweis, Washburn) and two stud relievers (Percival, Rodriguez).
While only a difference of a couple of pitchers, this is almost half the Mariner rate and a dramatically higher rate of farm pitcher contribution of value to the major league team.
Please note that in doing these lists for other teams, I’m not nearly as familiar with the pitchers through long exposure to the franchise in the way I am with the Mariners, so there’s a much greater chance I’m missing something on an individual pitcher.
Detailed data:
Jeremy Blevins, 9/1996
Traded to the Yankees in December 1996 as part of the Jim Leyritz trade.
Chris Bootcheck, 5/2001, 4/2002, 9/2003
25 in AAA now.
Brian Cooper, 10/1998, 8/2000
Appeared in 27 games over three years. Traded to the Blue Jays in January 2002 for Brad Fullmer.
Jason Dickson, 6/1996, 3/1997
Tore cartilage in his shoulder in 1999, sat out season. Frayed labrum, surgery in June 2000.
Seth Etherton, 6/1999,3/2000
While the Angels shut him down in late 2000 with “tendinitis” in his shoulder, it turned out to be a torn labrum, and he had surgery in March 2001 while with the Reds.
Rich Fischer, 8/2003
Had trouble with elbow tendinitis, but seems healthy, though why he’s not pitching this year is unknown to me.
Ryan Hancock, 7/1995
Made the team in 1996, traded to the Padres in August 1997 for Rickey Handerson.
Mark Harriger, 3/1999
Ligament replacement surgery in 1999.
Pete Janicki, 7/1996, 8/1997
Didn’t make it to the majors. Elbow injury after being drafted, details scarce.
Bobby Jenks, 2/2002, 3/2003, 5/2004
Had a screw put in his elbow in July 2004 to deal with a stress fracture. The stress reaction severly limited his development. Claimed off waivers by the White Sox in December 2004.
Greg Jones, 9/1998
Rotator cuff surgery, date unknown but injured the shoulder in spring 2004.
John Lackey, 4/2001, 3/2002
Made the rotation in 2002, hung around being average since then.
Andrew Lorraine, 1/1995
Traded to the White Sox during the 1995 season.
Ramon Ortiz, 9/1997, 3/1998, 1/1999, 1/2000
Made the team in 1999, had five more-or-less average seasons as a starter.
Troy Percival, 3/1995
Stud. Several minor injuries in 2003.
Matt Perisho, 7/1995
Traded to the Rangers for Mike Bell in October 1997.
Francisco Rodriguez, 2/2000, 2/2001, 7/2002, 1/2003
Stud.
Rafael Rodriguez, 9/2004
Ervin (ne Johan) Santana, 9/2002, 5/2003, 2/2004
Suffering tendinitis in his elbow/shoulder, but no surgery yet.
Joe Saunders, 7/2003
Tore his rotator cuff in March 2003 but did not have surgery, opting to rehab it.
Jeff Schmidt, 9/1995
Appeared with the team in 1996.
Scott Schoeneweis, 4/1997, 4/1998, 2/1999
Made the team in 1999, was below-average into 2003 when they dumped him on Chicago.
Steven Shell, 10/2004
Phil Simas, 8/1995
Unknown
Joe Torres, 1/2001, 5/2002, 10/2003
Ligament replacement surgery in February of 2004
Derrick Turnbow, 4/2000, 7/2001
Had a screw put in his elbow in January 2002 to deal with a stress fracture.
Jarrod Washburn, 3/1996, 1/1997, 2/1998
Years of servicable starts in the rotation from 2001-.
Philip Wilson, 6/2001
Career stalled
Comments
11 Responses to “The Attrition War, Angels”
It’s that comparison data that will tell you if the Mariners are doing badly or well. Thanks for the good work, Mr. Zumsteg. This is part of the reason you’re my #1 source for Mariner news.
ineresting how they seem to have a lot of stree fractures as opposed to flat out elbow and labrum surgeries. No stress fractures on the M’s side of things.
Oops, I need to spell check before posting. stree means stress in my bass ackward language.
Shouldn’t that be 4 starters at the top of the post (add Washburn to the list)?
I only saw 2 stress fractures, which might not be enough to draw a conclusion from.
Though I have neither the intelligence nor the time to do the analysis, I would propose calculating “pitching value per pitching prospectâ€Â. Perhaps this could be done over the long term by using career Win Shares produced by drafted/signed pitchers divided by the number of pitchers drafted plus the number of (arbitrarily selected) significant pitching free agents. I’m trying to think of a good way of weighting the denominator of that fraction to account for the round in which a pitcher was drafted, but the methodology is beyond me. Yikes.
Do the pins not count as surgery?? If they do then they have 4 elbow surgeries.
Not as many surgeries as the M’s, but still a fair number of injuries (a few that weren’t operated on)….hmmmm.
Great work, Derek, keep em coming!
For shoulder/elbow, I’m looking for labrum or elbow surgeries serious enough that they took the pitcher out for a year (or thereabouts). Labrum surgery/ligament replacement’s an arbitrary line to draw, but I had to pick my spots.
Is that Lorraine in Tacoma or is that a different guy?
#8 It’s the same guy.
As a lifelong Halos fan this is of great interest to me. Thanks for the work on this.
The “Phil Simas” whereabouts unknown is probably Bill Simas, who was dealt to the White Sox (along with John Snyder, McKay Christiansen and Lorraine) in the Jim Abbott deal in 1995. He had some good years out of the pen and even saved 18 games in 1998. I’m pretty sure that he blew out his elbow in 2001, only to resurface in 2003 in the minors.
Simas was a serviceable reliever for the Sox for 5+ years, last pitching in the majors in 2000. He had right elbow surgery in ’01. He pitched in the minors in ’02 (W Sox) and ’03 (Dodgers) then was the closer for the independent Long Island Ducks in ’04 before signing with the M’s late in the year — he was one of the guys they signed to fill in at Tacoma when most of the Rainiers staff was in Seattle. Pitched in 9 games for the Rainiers (3.86 ERA, 2 BBs, 8 K’s) but wasn’t brought back for ’05.