One day after Roy Halladay announced his retirement, two past Top-10 picks were traded and Mark Mulder announced he was going to try and make a comeback. Roy Halladay is 36, the same age as Mark Mulder. Tyler Skaggs is 22, born two months after I was. Drew Pomeranz is 25. Both of those two youngsters are now on their third team. Halladay retired before he was forced to pitch for a 3rd team, and if Mulder comes back, he'll be on his third team. This is the life of an MLB pitcher. The phenoms, the Hall of Famers, the guys who lost it so quickly.
Roy Halladay is the best pitcher of his generation, the best
pitcher of the last 10 years. He was a throwback, someone who could throw 250
innings in an era where pitchers were more babied than ever. He led his league
in complete games 7 times, including five straight years. He won a Cy Young in
both leagues, winning seven years apart, and finished 2nd two other times. Back
and shoulder injuries ruined his 2012 season and he came back as a shell of
himself in 2013, and just like that, it was all gone. Roy Halladay signed a
1-day contract and retired as a Blue Jay.
Pitcher's are probably the biggest risk proposition in modern
sports. There are just so many things that can go wrong. Start with the basic
physics: pitching is an violent, unnatural act. People aren't meant to contort
their arm and body like that to throw a ball 75-100 MPH, with the tradeoff for
slightly more human velocity with less human torque and arm action. Pitching is
a fool's errand, a job with a constant ticking clock. At some point it will be
over, and it will be over more quickly than any other position in sports.
Roy Halladay was supposed to be the safest bet. Here was someone
built like an ox, 6'6", 240 lbs. He could pitch 200+ innings easily, doing
so year after year after year. He had only one real bout with arm issues and
that was back in 2004. His only real injury in the following seven years would
be when he broke his leg on a line drive in 2005 (which ended a likely Cy Young
season - he was 12-4 with a 2.41 ERA and 185 ERA+ at the time). Since then, he
had thrown 220, 225, 246, 239, 252 and 233 innings in each season. He was a
monster, the sturdiest pitcher of his generation. And then like that, it was
gone.
It wasn't Tommy John surgery, with his arm giving way. It was his
shoulder, an injury that on the whole is probably worse for a pitcher. There is
no Tommy John surgery for shoulders. There is no easy fix. It ends careers.
Halladay was merely league average in 2012 and then awful in his brief attempt
to come back in 2013, and then he called it quits instead of trying to fight a
most certainly losing battle. The greatest pitcher of our generation, gone just
like that.
Pitcher's are never safe bets, and that is why I'm always amazed
why so much is invested in them. A can't-miss-pitching prospect is far more
likely to fail, in no fault of his own, than a hitting prospect, but they are
seen as having so much more upside. Both Tyler Skaggs and Drew Pomeranz were
recent draft picks, both in the 1st round of their draft, offering so much hope
and promise. They were both major parts of a big trade, with Skaggs being the
main prospect in a trade that brought Dan Haren (another good example for how
quickly it can go) to the Angels and Skaggs to Arizona. Three disappointing
years later he was traded back to Anaheim in a three-team deal.
Drew Pomeranz was even more highly regarded, the 5th overall pick
in the 2010 Draft, the second pitcher taken in that draft. One year later he
was traded to the Colorado Rockies for Ubaldo Jimenez. Two years later, he was
traded again, this time to Oakland. What makes it worse is Pomeranz was the 2nd
pitcher in his draft, with the 3rd pitcher being Matt Harvey and the 4th being
Chris Sale.
The players taken after Pomeranz also highlight just how much
of a lottery taking a pitcher is. Matt Harvey was having an amazing year this
season, coming somewhat close to doing what Clayton Kershaw did, and then it
all ended in a flash with the dreaded ‘elbow soreness’ that gave way to having
to undergo Tommy John surgery. Chris Sale, on the other side, has one of the
most violent deliveries in baseball, an action that many predicted would lead
to him blowing out his elbow, and quickly, if he was extended to 200 innings.
Of course, he’s thrown without repute for two years now and survived one minor
issue with tiredness in the arm, and is still healthy and throwing flaming
fastballs. You just never know with a pitcher. Stephen Strasburg was supposed
to have a great arm delivery, one that didn’t put too much stress on the elbow,
and he blew it out within a year.
One famous baseball mind once came up with a theory that a pitcher
is a like a gun with a limited amount of bullets, that each arm has a finite amount
of throws in them. That a team should just get the most out of how many throws
he has until it is all over. Hopefully, that number will be like Halladay,
where he can pitch for 15 years with only a few hiccups before it ends, but
there’s the other side, where it becomes like Mark Mulder.
Mark Mulder is also 6’6” and sturdy, a big guy who was the nominal
ace of the A’s Big-3 of Mulder, Hudson and Zito that dominated the AL from
2000-2002. Mulder wasn’t as good as Hudson or Zito (in Zito’s case, what he was
from 2000-2003), but he was successful, a consistently good pitcher who rarely
got hurt. He too was traded, but this time he was the main attraction. The
Cardinals, coming off of their 2004 World Series loss, wanted an ace in case
Chris Carpenter got hurt again (he didn’t, he won the Cy Young in 2005), and
they emptied the cupboards for Mulder. The Cardinals gave up Dan Haren, Kiko
Calero and Daric Barton. The second and third of those were decent players, but
Haren became a star in Oakland and then Arizona (and for a year in Anaheim).
Haren was multiples of what Mulder was post-trade, but the Cardinals banked on
the steadiness of Mulder.
That last one year. Mark Mulder had a good 2005 season, giving the
Cardinals 32 starts and 200 innings of 116 ERA+ ball. By 2006, his ERA had
risen to 7.14. By 2007, he pitched just three games, allowing 22 hits and 15
runs in 11 innings, and it was over. Now he’s attempting a comeback. Mulder is
maybe the saddest story of all of them, the guy who just loves pitching who
just lost it once again due to shoulder issues. Like Halladay’s problems, it
started slow but worked quick, and soon Mark Mulder was just not even merely a
bad starting pitcher, but an abhorrent one.
In the 2005 season, Mar Mulder was the Cardinals #2 starting
pitcher and twice went up against Roy Oswalt in the NLCS. Twice he lost. Oswalt
pitched brilliantly in that series, 14 innings, 3 runs, 8 hits, 12 strikeouts.
He would have pitched more if not for the dominant Houston bullpen (Brad Lidge
excluded). Roy Oswalt was a great pitcher, never better than he was in those
2005 playoffs. Roy Oswalt won 20 games twice, 19 games another time, led the NL
in ERA in 2006, and led the NL pitchers in WAR in 2007. He was a very good
pitcher for a long, long time. He was also my favorite pitcher, my favorite
baseball player.
Roy Oswalt was not built like Halladay and Mulder. He was just 5’11”,
and that was generous. He had a violent motion, but he was able to stay away from
getting hurt. Then 2008 came, and he had his fist extended DL stint because of
shoulder issues. The shoulder would never escape him. Even during his 2010
season, when he went 7-1 with a 1.74 ERA (234 ERA+) in his 12 starts with the
Phillies after being traded, and led the NL in WHIP for the season, there were
lingering questions of how long he’ll be able to keep up. The answer was less
than a year. An injury-plagued decent season in 2011 followed, and then two
terrible seasons that will most likely end his career this same way it ended
Halladay’s.
Baseball pitchers come and go. They can be amazing one year and
hanging on by a thread two years later. Johan Santana was the best pitcher in
baseball from 2004-2007. By 2011, he was in a long-term fight to pitch again
without pain. The Roys seemed untouchable in the mid decade and late decade,
and are both likely done in their careers. On the other side, top draft picks
fail to make any impact, and are always at risk to blow their elbow out at any
time.
There is no bigger risk than being a pitcher. It is a dangerous
job, one with little security and long term prospect. Even if you pass the
first few challenges inscathed, shoulder issues are inevitable. Roy Halladay
pitched a no-hitter in the playoffs in 2010. He was basically a Triple AAA
level player in 2012. It’s that unforgiving. Matt Harvey was a beyond dominant
pitcher at 21 this year. A month later, he was out until most likely 2015.
Everyone should admire what a pitcher does and value the moments he gives you
when they happen, because in a blink of an eye, they can be signing celebratory
one-day contracts and announcing their retirement.
