The Attrition War, Marlins
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 Marlins.
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 Marlins had 34 pitchers who appeared at least once on a Baseball America Top Ten prospect list from 1995-2004.
Of those 34, pitchers who injured their elbow and required surgery: 3 (Baxter, Burnett, Grilli)
Of those 34, pitchers who injured their shoulders and required surgery: 3 (Anderson, Holdzkom, Hutchinson)
Unknown injuries: 1 (Goetz)
(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
Jeff Allison, 3/2004
Pitching in the minors (out with deltoid strain).
Wes Anderson, 6/1999, 3/2000, 2/2001
Shoulder surgery in 2001. Left for Boston, means unknown, before the 2003 season.
Yorman Bazardo, 5/2004
Pitching in the minors.
Denny Bautista, 3/2002
Traded to the Orioles in August 2003 as part of the deal for Jeff Conine.
Allen Baxter, 5/2002
Injured his elbow in June 2002 and then appears to not have pitched two years. Chalking this up to the elbow injury.
Josh Beckett, 2/2000, 1/2001, 1/2002
Pitching in the majors.
Brent Billingsley, 10/1998
Claimed off waivers by the Expos in November 1999.
A.J. Burnett, 1/1999, 1/2000
Ligament replacement surgery in APril 2003.
Terry Byron, 10/2000
Traded/? to the Red Sox in mid-2002.
Wil Cunnane, 9/1995, 6/1996
Selected by the Padres in December 1996 in the Rule 5 draft.
Ryan Dempster, 10/1997
Trade to the Reds in July 2002 for a couple of guys.
Joe Fontenot, 5/1998
Last seen in Calgary in 1999 pitching badly.
Geoff Goetz, 9/1999
Missed time in 1999/2000 with shoulder issues. Missed 2003, unknown injury.
Jason Grilli, 8/2000
Elbow bone spur surgery in 2000. Ligament surgery in March 2002.
Rob Henkel, 10/2002, 8/2003
Traded to the Tigers in January 2003 as part of the Mark Redman deal.
Oscar Henriquez, 8/1998
Traded to the Mets in November 1998 for Jorge Fabergas.
Felix Heredia, 2/1997
Traded to the Cubs in July 1998.
Dustin Hermanson, 5/1997
Traded to the Expos in March 1997 for Cliff Floyd.
Lincoln Holdzkom, 10/2004
Hasn’t pitched since April 2004 due to a shoulder injury.
Trevor Hutchinson, 9/2004
Rotator cuff surgery in March 2005.
Gary Knotts, 9/2000
Traded to the Tigers in January 2003 as part of the Mark Redman deal.
Nelson Lara, 6/1998, 9/1999
Appeared with the Reds and Red Sox orgs in 2001, means unknown.
Andy Larkin, 2/1995, 3/1997
No evidence of injuries. Last seen pitching with the Marlins in 1998. Turns up in 2000 with the Reds after almost signing with the Cubs but failing his physical.
Don Levinski, 6/2003
Traded to the Orioles in August 2003 as part of the deal for Jeff Conine.
Braden Looper, 3/1999
Left for the Mets before the 2004 season.
Brian Meadows, 6/1995, 9/1998
Traded to the Padres in November 1999 for Dan Miceli.
Blaine Neal, 7/2001, 8/2002, 9/2003
Traded to the Padres in April 2004 for Ben Howard.
Scott Olsen, 4/2005
Pitching in the minors.
Brad Penny, 4/2000
Traded to the Dodgers in July 2004 for LoDuca/Mota/Encarnacion
Jay Powell, 3/1996
Traded to the Astros in July 1998 for Ramon Castro
Marc Valdes, 3/1995
Claimed off waivers by the Expos in December 1996.
Claudio Vargas, 6/2001, 7/2002
Traded to the Expos in July 2002 as part of the Carl Pavano trade.
Justin Wayne, 7/2003
Released in March 2005.
Dontrelle Willis, 4/2003
Pitching in the majors.
Comments
9 Responses to “The Attrition War, Marlins”
Wasn’t Dontrelle Willis a Cub traded to the Marlins right before he was called up?
Off the top of my head — maybe part of the Dempster trade?
I think Dontrelle was part of the trade for Derrick Lee, along with See Heop Choi (pardon my spelling)
He appeared on a BA Top 10 list, so he’s here.
OK 🙂
Not part of the Lee/Choi deal. Was acquired right before the 2002 season with Julian Tavarez and two other minor leaguers for Matt Clement and Antonio Alfonseca. The Lee/Choi trade was two years later.
Oh, thank you for clearing that up for me.
Just to let the casual observer know where the attrition rates are falling:
Average attrition rate: 21.5%
Standard deviation: 9%
Assume that all the teams’ unknowns are injury related attrition and the mean goes up to 26%; the standard deviation remains about the same.
Mariners attrition 31%. Not good, but scarcely more than one standard deviation from the mean. This could easily be explained by luck.
The one utter outlier in this whole sample is Oakland, with zero proven attrition and 1 unknown. 2.5 standard deviations from the mean can almost certianly not be explained by luck.
Okay, I’m getting ahead of myself here. I’ll shut up.
Wes Anderson is out of baseball. He had major shoulder surgery in 2001 while with the Marlins. After the Marlins let him go, he went to Boston’s minor league system before being picked up by Detroit as a Rule 5 pick in late 2003. He was never able to get completely healthy, which is a shame, because he was considered to be one of Florida’s best pitching prospects.
On a personal note, Wes is from Arkansas. I had a speech class with him last spring at the local college here. He’s a great person who didn’t act big time at all.
Hope this helps you out, Derek.
Wes Anderson’s stats
http://www.sports-wired.com/players/profile.asp?ID=4146