The Attrition War, Rangers
So the Rangers go up out of order, because of a fine reader contribution. Adam Morris writes:
I’m the author of the Lone Star Ball blog, which covers the Rangers.
In conjunction with your attrition reports, I’ve prepared one for the poor, pitiful Texas Rangers pitching prospects who cracked the BA top 10 list from 1995-2004.
It is a pretty depressing list, as a Ranger fan.
This ended up being a great help, as Morris found information on some of the more obscure players that take about 80% of the research time. As a result, I was able to hurry up and get this out the door before I head out on vacation.
Readers who want to help with this freaking enormous research project can either email me to take on a whole team or just look at one in the series, find a player with “unknown” or something, go research them and post the results in the comments.
This is part of a continuing series, follow-ups to the initial post detailing the Mariners history over the same period.
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.
Readers are, as always, encouraged to to add/correct information here in the comments or by email. Citations are particularly welcome.
Pitchers appearing at least once on the Baseball America Top Ten list: 32
Of those 32, pitchers who injured their elbow and required surgery: 6 (Elder, Kolb, Kozlowski, Santana, Wilson, Zimmerman)
Of those 32, pitchers who injured their shoulders and required surgery: 3 (Cedeno, Dittfurth, Lewis)
(generally, I’m looking for major surgeries that require ~1y off)
Strange mystery injuries: Carrion, with 2
His list supplies a lot more information than the form I’m using, and also disagrees with me substantially on several counts. His original is up on his site if you want to see more detailed information on the pitcher careers.
Detailed data
Joaquin Benoit, 6/1998, 5/2001, 9/2002
Pitching in the majors. Many injury issues in his career, but no surgery.
Jim Brower, 5/1998
Released in April of 1998.
George Carrion, 7/1997
Wow… weird. In 1996, blew out his arm. Details unknown. In 1998, left the team. Returned in 2000 and then blew out his arm again — details unknown.
Jovanny Cedeno, 9/2000, 2/2001, 8/2002
Labrum surgery in June 2001. Second surgery in September 2002. Released in April 2004.
Francisco Cordero, 2/2000
Pitching in the majors.
John Danks, 2/2004
Pitching in the minors.
Doug Davis, 8/2000
Claimed off waivers by the Blue Jays in April 2003.
Ryan Dempster, 7/1996
Traded to the Marlins in August 1996 as part of the deal for John Burkett.
Ryan Dittfurth, 6/2002
Rotator cuff surgery in September 2002.
Juan Dominguez, 4/2004
Pitching in the majors.
David Elder, 10/2000
Ligament replacement surgery in 1998 (details scant). Traded to the Indians in December 2001 for John Rocker.
Ryan Glynn, 8/1998, 3/1999
Signed a minor league deal with Brewers in February 2001.
Travis Hughes, 9/2003
Claimed off waivers by the Nationals in April 2005.
Jonathon Johnson, 6/1996, 3/1997
Traded to the Diamondbacks in April 2001 for no reason.
Brandon Knight, 5/1998
Selected by the Twins in the Rule 5 draft in December 2000.
Dan Kolb, 1/1997, 7/1998
Ligament repair and bone spur removal on his elbow in June 2000. Waived (and released) in March 2003 and then signed by Milwaukee.
Ben Kozlowski, 3/2003
Ligament replacement surgery in June of 2003. Claimed off waivers by the Reds in October 2004.
Corey Lee, 10/1997, 3/1998, 6/1999
Traded to the White Sox in December 2001 as part of the Herb Perry deal.
Colby Lewis, 6/2000, 6/2001, 4/2002, 2/2003
Shoulder surgery (specific issue unclear) in May 2004. Claimed off waivers by the Tigers in October 2004.
Wes Littleton, 7/2004
Pitching in the minors.
Sam Marsonek, 9/1998
Traded to the Yankees in December 1999.
Jerry Martin, 9/1995
Unknown. Research is complicated by the higher-profile Jerry Martin, who played from 74-84.
Ritchie Moody, 10/1995
Had arm problems and quit in 1997. Details scarce.
Aaron Myette, 8/2001
Traded to the Indians in December 2002 as part of the Travis Hafner – Einer Diaz trade.
Danny Patterson, 6/1997
Traded to the Tigers in November 1999 as part of the nine-player Juan Gonzalez deal.
Matt Perisho, 4/1998
Traded to the Tigers in December 2000 for Brandon Villafuerte and Kevin Mobley
Andy Pratt, 9/2001
Traded to the Braves in April 2002 for Ben Kozlowski.
Mario Ramos, 3/2002
Claimed off waivers by Oakland in November 2003.
Josh Rupe, 9/2004
Pitching in the minors.
Julio Santana, 1/1995, 2/1996
Tore his elbow in 2003 (information is scant here), missed 2004. Claimed off waivers by the Devil Rays in April 1998.
C.J. Wilson, 8/2003
Ligament replacement surgery in August of 2003.
Jeff Zimmerman, 10/1999
Ligament replacement surgery in July 2002. “Exploratory surgery” on elbow in March 2004. “Trapped nerve” surgery April 2004. Ligament replacement surgery on his elbow in July 2004.
Comments
4 Responses to “The Attrition War, Rangers”
all of a sudden, i feel a lot better
Zimmerman’s career has been a rather pitiful one. I remember once when ESPN claimed he had an “unhittable slider”. Amazing how the Baseball Gods can just destroy a good pitcher.
FWIW, both Ryan Glynn (Oakland) and Julio Santana (Milwaukee) are in the majors right now, both called up this month…
Thanks for the compliment, Derek…
As a point of clarification, Brandon Knight was traded by the Rangers to the Yanks in December, 1999. While he was a Rule 5 draft pick by the Twins in December, 2000, he was returned to the Yanks in March of 2001, and stuck around in the Yanks’ organization for a few years.
Also, Corey Lee and Ryan Dempster both ultimately had T-J surgery, but it was after they left the Rangers’ organization, so I don’t know if they count.
Great work on this project…I’m very interested in seeing what the final results are, once all the teams are tallied…