The Attrition War, Orioles
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 Orioles.
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 Orioles had 31 pitchers who appeared at least once on a Baseball America Top Ten prospect list from 1995-2004.
Of those 31, pitchers who injured their elbow and required surgery: 4 (Bedard, Coppinger, Falkenbourg, Riley)
Of those 31, pitchers who injured their shoulders and required surgery: 3 (Coppinger, Hale, Rivera)
Unknown injuries: 0
(generally, I’m looking for major surgeries that require ~1y off)
Unknowns: three (Falkenborg, Moreno, Shepherd)
Contributions welcome!
Readers are, as always, encouraged to to add/correct information here in the comments or by email. Resolving unknowns and citations are particularly welcome.
Detailed data
Denny Bautista, 5/2004
Traded to the Royals in June 2004 for Jason Grimsley.
Erik Bedard, 2/2002, 1/2003, 7/2004
Elbow ligament replacement surgery in 2002. Pitching in the majors (on DL).
Armando Benitez, 1/1995
Pitching in the majors.
Daniel Cabrera, 3/2003
Pitching in the majors.
Rocky Coppinger, 5/1995, 1/1996
Elbow and shoulder surgery in August 1997. Traded to Milwaukee in July 1999.
David Crouthers, 10/2004
Traded to the Cubs in the Sammy Sosa deal. Has left baseball.
Sean Douglass, 6/2002
Claimed off waivers by the Twins in October 2003.
Brian Falkenborg, 10/1997
Elbow ligament replacement surgery. Signed a minor league deal with the Mariners in January 2001, but no stats for 2000-2001.
Chris Fussell, 4/1996, 4/1997, 7/1999
Traded to the Royals as part of the Jeff Conine deal.
Beau Hale, 6/2001
Labrum surgery in March 2003 and never came back.
Jimmy Haynes, 3/1995, 2/1996
Traded to the Athletics in July 1997 for Geronimo Berroa.
Ryan Kohlmeier, 8/2001
Claimed off waivers by the White Sox in September 2001.
Rommie Lewis, 5/2003, 8/2004
Unknown. Doesn’t appear to be pitching.
Adam Loewen, 1/2004
Tore his labrum (September 2004) but rehabbed it, didn’t miss much time.
Calvin Maduro, 10/1995
Traded to the Phillies in 1996.
John Maine, 2/2004
Pitching in the minors.
Gabe Molina, 10/1999
Traded to the Orioles in July 2000.
Steve Montgomery, 9/1998
Claimed off waivers by the Dodgers in spring 1998 (in 1998, injured his shoulder and missed mucho time).
Julio Moreno, 5/1997, 8/1998
Unknown. Made more complicated by the presence of Julio Moreno, who pitched for the Senators from 1950-1953.
Billy Percibal, 3/1996
Unknown — washed out?
Sidney Ponson, 1/1997, 3/1998
Pitching in the majors.
Jay Powell, 7/1995
Traded to the Marlins in July 1998 for Bret Barberie.
Matt Riley, 1/1999, 1/2000, 7/2001, 4/2002, 6/2004
Elbow ligament replacement surgery. Traded to the Rangers in March 2005 as part of the Ramon Nivar deal.
Luis Rivera, 5/2001
Labrum surgery in March 2001. Released in April 2003.
Nerio Rodriguez, 2/1997, 5/1998
Traded to the Blue Jays in July 1998 for Juan Guzman.
B.J. Ryan, 5/2000
Pitching in the majors.
Brian Sackinsky, 9/1995
Briefly called up in 1996, then disappeared.
Mark Seaver, 8/1997
Traded to the Athletics in July 1997 as the PTBNL for Geronimo Berroa.
Alvie Shepherd, 9/1996, 7/1997
Unknown — washed out? For a once-top rated draft pick, there’s remarkably little information available on his fate.
Richard Stahl, 3/2000, 2/2001, 1/2002, 7/2003
Pitching in the minors.
John Stephens, 9/2002
Pitching in the minors
Comments
16 Responses to “The Attrition War, Orioles”
Falkenborg is in the Padres org, pitching for AAA Portland right now.
Currently playing on the Portland Beavers. Had some time in the Majors this year with the San Diego Padres.
The issue isn’t what he’s doing now, as the AW doesn’t care once they leave the org. It’s what happened 2000-2001, when he didn’t play before the M’s picked him up.
http://slam.canoe.ca/StatsBBM/BC-BBM-LGNS-95WHERE-R.html
If you look on that list there, it shows Alvie Shepherd as “OUT OF BASEBALL”, whatever that means. I’ll see if I can’t dig up more.
Nothing specific, but this comes from what appears to be an Orioles blog from the days before “blogs” existed.
http://www.oobleck.com/orioles/archives/news/1999/july.html
That was dated on July 20, 1999.
I’m pretty sure that Falkenborg had a majar arm injury that took him out of the 2000 and 2001 seasons. After he recovered, Gillick picked him up (remembering Falkenborg from Gillick’s time in Baltimore). I don’t remember if that was a minor league FA signing or minor league Rule 5 pickup (or is it Rule V, I always disremember).
Found a link at Baseball Prospectus Transaction Analysis, March 23-31, 2000:Placed RHP Brian Falkenborg on the 60-day DL (sprained ulnar collateral ligament). [3/23]
Seeing as he didn’t pitch again in 2000 and 2001, that was probably a bit more than a sprain.
Brian Falkenborg is with the Beavers. he pitched 2/3rds of an inning today at Cheney Stadium, and got completely lit up (faced 10 batters, gave up 5 hits, 2 walks and 1 hit by pitch on 33 pitches). I felt sorry for him (though he wasn’t helped by a couple of errors), and wondered how many (if any) of the crowd remembered that he was ours, and a local boy.
In unrelated news, Felix pitched 1+ innings and was pretty awful. 9 batters faced, 3 hits, 2 walks, 1 hit by pitch (damn near 2), lousy moves toward 1st, and almost managed to throw a ball into center trying to catch a guy at 2nd. I desperately want him to be THE MAN as much as anybody, but the outings I’ve seen so far at Tacoma really don’t show me he’s ready for the show yet- and I’m not just talking about ERA or how many pitches he’s got, cuz clearly, he does have some great pitches and when you see them, they take your breath away. but to this fan, he doesn’t look as good now as he did this spring, and i’m not sure whether it’s the bursitis, or facing AAA batters, or if he’s losing a bit of focus because of all the hype surrounding him.
Jeff Harris pitched a 3 hitter (2 walks 5 k’s) thru 6 innings for Tacoma and might have had the best outing of his season so far.
Beau Hale is back with the Keys (high A) as of June 7th and pitching relief (15.1IP 16H 16SO 12BB)
Anyone know anything about Dave Crouthers “leaving baseball”?
Falkenborg had Tommy John surgery. He popped the ligament in his second or third MLB game, with Baltimore.
The Orioles tried to option him to AAA while he was on the DL, which is against MLB rules. Falkenborg filed a greivance, and the commissioner’s office ruled him a free agent. Gillick signed him, out-bidding several teams.
He never reached the majors with Seattle, instead suffering a litany of injuries in the minors, including a Theisman-esque gross-out knee destruction backing up third base at Cheney Stadium.
He the majors with the Dodgers last year, and San Diego has called him up three times this year.
Re: #8
I was at Tacoma and realized Falkenborg was there a while back.
Visiting team bias? Hmm… 🙂
I can’t believe you stated Falkenborg didn’t receive defensive help and failed to mention the same for Felix. On the steal attempt Christanson couldn’t get the damn ball out of his glove. Single to center and it took Jamal strong two or three attempts to even pick the ball up (on what could have been a play at the plate). Rifkin dove and missed a grounder past first base. It appeared to me that he dove past the ball, as it bounced under his forearm and not his glove.
Also, Felix didn’t just hit a batter, he drilled him in the head with a fastball. He survived that inning and the following inning was shaky. I imagine part of Felix not being as effective and losing focus was due to hitting Ojeda. Also, he and Christianson couldn’t get on the same page — multiple mound visits.
Must note, Choo had some great defense after Felix was gone…a nice throw to third for an out and a sliding catch.
Stay on-topic, please.
Just defending the teenager. 🙂
What gives, no lead story about Snelling’s option?
So — will you be posting the Attrition Wars for the opposing team as we face them now (those that you haven’t already covered)?
This was coincidence, I’m going alphabetically.
Sorry I’m so late to the party – I didn’t get an invitation.
I’m 95% certain Percibal washed out due to an injury, but I don’t remember if it was an elbow or a shoulder.
Using BA’s rankings excludes gems like Chris Smith, who was the O’s #1 draft pick in 2001 (#7 overall). Smith somehow managed to keep his arm from falling off long enough to sign a contract, but was too injured to pitch in 2001. He pitched 11 innings in 2002, 13 and a third in 2004, and a whopping 26 and a third this year before finally being freed to pursue a promising career in insurance sales. Rotator cuff.