The Attrition War, White Sox
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 White Sox.
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 White Sox had 33 pitchers who appeared at least once on a Baseball America Top Ten prospect list from 1995-2004.
Of those 33, pitchers who injured their elbow and required surgery: 4 (Malone, Stumm, West, Wright)
Of those 33, pitchers who injured their shoulders and required surgery: 2 (Barcelo, Rauch)
(generally, I’m looking for major surgeries that require ~1y off)
Unknowns and weird disappearances: 1 (Christman)
Suspicious: 0
Barely missed counting: Wing didn’t have surgery that I can find, but missed a year.
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
Luis Andujar, 8/1996
Traded to the Blue Jays in August 1996 as part of the Tony Castillo deal.
James Baldwin, 2/1995, 4/1996
Traded to the Dodgers in July 2001 for some guys.
Lorenzo Barcelo, 4/1998, 9/2000, 6/2001
Shoulder surgery in June 2001 cost him nine months. Returned and was shut down again (may have had second surgery). Last seen pitching badly in 2003.
Kevin Beirne, 6/1999
Traded to the Blue Jays in January 2001 as part of the David Wells deal.
Mark Buehrle, 10/2000
Pitching in the majors.
Carlos Castillo, 9/1995
Released in March 2000.
Scott Christman, 7/1995
Unknown. Another #1 draft pick goes poof.
Chris Clemons, 5/1997
Selected by the Diamondbacks in the 1997 expansion draft.
Neal Cotts, 3/2004
Pitching in the majors.
Pat Daneker, 9/1999
Claimed off waivers by the Blue Jays in July 2000.
Felix Diaz, 8/2003
Pitching in the minors.
Josh Fogg, 9/2001
Traded to the Pirates in December 2001 for Todd Ritchie.
Tom Fordham, 9/1997
Signed a minor league deal with the Reds in November 1999.
Jon Garland, 8/1999, 2/2000
Pitching in the majors.
Matt Ginter, 7/2000, 4/2001
Traded to the Mets in March 2004 for Timo Perez.
Matt Guerrier, 4/2002
Traded to the Pirates in March 2002 for Damaso Marte.
Kris Honel, 7/2002, 4/2003, 2/2004
ELbow and shoulder problems have not yet resulted in surgery that we know of.
Jason Lakman, 9/1998
Traded to the Orioles in July 2000 as part of the Charles Johnson deal.
David Lundquist, 10/1999
Claimed off waivers by the Royals in October 1999.
Corwin Malone, 3/2002, 6/2003
Elbow surgery early in 2003 (went on the DL in May, date of surgery unknown). Second elbow surgery this spring.
Comments
2 Responses to “The Attrition War, White Sox”
Whither N-Z?
Oh, well that is just super.