The Attrition War, Nationals
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 Nationals.
Please note that I am trying to refrain from drawing any conclusions or making any comparisons, guessing at causes or relationships, or doing anything but presenting straight data. When the series is finished, I’ll have a summary post where I talk about those things.
In every organization so far there have been are several cases where those stats seem to ignore something important. I’m going at attempt to address those in the summary post, as well as methodology and thoughts on future research directions.
The Nationals had 32 pitchers who appeared at least once on a Baseball America Top Ten prospect list from 1995-2004.
I know I’m missing at least one big one, but it’s just shy of two and I’m not thinking straight. Hopefully, I’ll catch and revise this before anyone notices.
Of those 32, pitchers who injured their elbow and required surgery: 3 (Everts, Hill, Pavano)
Of those 32, pitchers who injured their shoulders and required surgery: 1 (Good)
(generally, I’m looking for major surgeries that require ~1y off)
Readers are, as always, encouraged to to add/correct information here in the comments or by email. Citations are particularly welcome.
Detailed data
Tony Armas, 5/1999, 1/2000
Many shoulder problems but no out-for-a-year problems. Boy, does that skirt the criteria.
Jason Baker, 10/1996, 5/1997
Signed as a minor league free agent with the Braves before the 2000 season.
Donnie Bridges, 9/1998, 1/2001, 4/2002
Traded to the Marlins in June 2002 for Brett Roneberg.
Chad Cordero, 5/2004
Pitching in the majors.
Zach Day, 8/2002, 4/2003
Pitching in the majors. Has had shoulder problems.
Clint Everts, 1/2003, 1/2004
Ligament replacement surgery in September 2004.
Scott Gentile, 10/1995
Unknown. Went to the Tigers in… ?
Josh Girdley, 10/2000, 4/2001
Was pitching last year…
Eric Good, 10/2002
Labrum *and* rotator cuff surgery in early 2002 (Feb/March).
Rod Henderson, 7/1995
Unknown.
Shawn Hill, 6/2004
Ligament replacement surgery in September 2004.
Mike Hinckley, 2/2003, 2/2004
Pitching in the minors.
Josh Karp, 5/2002, 3/2003, 4/2004
Pitching in the minors.
Ted Lilly, 3/1999, 6/2000
Traded to the Yankees in March 2000 for Hideki Irabu.
Luke Lockwood, 10/2001, 9/2002
Went to Florida at some point. Pitching in the minors.
Guillermo Mota, 4/1999
Traded to the Dodgers in March 2002 as part of the Matt Herges deal.
Jose Paniagua, 7/1996
Selected by the Devil Rays in the 1997 expansion draft
Carl Pavano, 2/1998
Elbow surgery in 2000. Pitching in the majors.
Carlos Perez, 8/1995
Traded to the Dodgers in March 1998 in a six-player deal.
Darrel Rasner, 6/2003, 7/2004
Pitching in the minors.
Rich Rundles, 7/2002
Pitching in the minors.
Seung Song, 5/2003, 8/2004
Claimed off waivers by the Blue Jays in November 2004.
Everett Stull, 3/1995, 5/1996, 10/1997
Went to the Orioles in 1998, means unknown.
Mike Thurman, 9/1997, 8/1998
Let go after the 2001 season, signed with the Yankees.
T.J. Tucker, 5/2000, 8/2001
Pitching in the majors
Ugeth Urbina, 1/1995, 2/1996
Traded to the Red Sox in July 2001 for Tomo Ohka.
Claudio Vargas, 7/2003
Claimed off waivers by the Diamondbacks in June 2005
Javier Vazquez, 6/1997, 3/1998
Traded to the Yankees in December 2003 for Nick Johnson, Juan Rivera, and Randy Choate.
Justin Wayne, 5/2001, 6/2002
Traded to the Marlins in July 2002 in the Cliff Floyd deal.
Neil Weber, 8/1996, 8/1997
Selected by the Diamondbacks in the 1997 expansion draft.
Jake Westbrook, 5/1998, 8/1999, 4/2000
Traded to the Yankees in March 2000 for Hideki Irabu.
Chris Young, 8/2003
Traded to the Rangers in April 2004 as part of the Einar Diaz deal.
Comments
17 Responses to “The Attrition War, Nationals”
Javier Vazquez, 6/1997, 3/1998
Traded to the Diamondbacks in January 2005 as part of the Randy Johnson deal.
Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to point out that he was traded to the Yankees from the Expos / Nationals organization? I believe the deal was a straight up trade for Esteban Loaiza wasn’t it?
Fixed, and no, it wasn’t.
loaiza was apart of the jose contreras deal, vasquez came to the yanks in the 2004 off season. that trade happened at the deadline
It’s amazing how many pitchers were sent to the Yankees with much brouhaha (Contreras, Vasquez, Loaiza, Weaver, Brown) who ended up being busts.
Derek,
Just wanted to say that I appreciate the hardwork in compiling all this, and it will certainly be interesting to see how the numbers come out in the end.
Tom
Rod Henderson – IIRC, he flamed out due to mediocre stuff, went to indy ball, and then was one of the slew of guys Seattle signed for the minors. Pitched for the Tacoma Rainiers about 3 years ago.
Everett Stull – Last I knew he went to the Braves a few years back and still couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn. Even his high school numbers were sub-par, but was drafted on ‘potential.’
In response to #4, the number of good to great (Vasquez) pitchers who absolutely flame out in the Bronx IS surprising. The only one of those flameouts that could have been expected was Brown.
It is also surprising that Stottlemyer seems to get a pass from the NY media. Even the Seattle media would rip Saint Price if we brought in Weaver and Vasquez only to watch them fail here, then pitch better somewhere else after we booted them.
I get that Stottlemyer and the Yankee management have won a fair number of World Series, and have way more political capital than Price will even have. Still . . . It is just funny how some members of the Yankees are completely above even the slightest criticism. Try telling a Yankee fan that Jeter is a first-ballot Hall of Famer, but that his range at short is below league average.
Here’s hoping that this peculiar brand of Yankee myopia keeps Derek “past a diving” Jeter at SS for years to come.
The Expos developed some good pitchers, there.
Re. 7:
I have. There’s none so blind as those who WILL not see.
3 out of 32 = 9%
I believe this puts the Expos/Nationals second on the live attrition ticker, behind Oakland.
Or did they? The Jury still seems to be out on Vasquez and Pavano.
Not knocking Urbina, Mota, et al. Merely saying that while there are some names up there we recognize, whether or not they’re “good” pitchers remains to be seen.
Hmm…I seem to remember Pavano being out for more than a year at some point, and I see some blogs/opinion reports that suggested he was out from June 2000-August 2001 with bone chips in the elbow (which, last I checked, don’t sideline pitchers for a year), but I haven’t found game logs/credible articles to support this yet.
Looking at his innings totals from 2000 and 2001 it would appear he did miss time those years.
http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/carl_pavano.shtml
Pitched 97 innings in 2000 for the Expos with no time anywhere else with a 8-4 record and 3.06 ERA. So it would appear something happened sometime that year at least to cause him to miss some time.
In 2001 it looks like he started 3 games at A league Jupiter for 12.1 IP, then 4 starts at AAA Ottawa for 27.2 IP, and finally 8 starts in Montreal for 42.2 IP. So in all he threw 82.2 innings in 2001 and it appears he went on a rehab spree there.
Also, looking at retrosheet, his last game he pitched in 2000 was June 24. He didn’t pitch another major league game until August 15, 2001. Thus it looks like he did have an injury (Although I don’t know what type) that kept him out of major league action from June 2000 to August 2001. Which it looks like kept him out of professional baseball from June 2000 until June or July 2001 if you include the rehab it seems he did have by going to A and AAA for 7 starts.
USA Today, July 13:
Injury update: RHP Carl Pavano, the team’s best starter,
went on the DL just before the break with triceps stiffness. Urbina
is out for the season after second elbow surgery within six weeks.
According to news reports, he pretty much stayed on the DL with “tricep tendonitis” for the rest of the season.
Oops…spoke too soon. Pavano had elbow surgery in August of that year.
#4 Don’t forget Wright
Retrosheet now has 00-04 data. Pavano in 2000 last pitched in June:
http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/Lpavac0010032000.htm
And in 2001, pitched in August:
http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/Lpavac0010042001.htm
I also hadn’t realized how closely his component stats in 03 and 04 look… so much for the reliability of W-L and ERA.