Breaking 'Em In

Friday, August 03 2012 @ 07:45 PM EDT

Contributed by: Magpie

Having just vented on how much I hate seeing 21 year olds in a major league rotation, I thought I'd journey back through time and see if this franchise has ever made such a thing work.

 (HINT - They have. Once or twice.But it was a long, long time ago.)

Here's a little list - not quite worthy of being called a Data Table. It's every pitcher that that the Toronto Blue Jays have ever put into a major league rotation for the first time in that pitcher's career. By which I mean, they go into the rotation and stay there for at least a month. That way we skip the three week fill-ins, like Luis Perez last year. But we catch the guys who didn't make it through a full year. Or even half a year. Giovanni Carrara, Paul Menhart and their ilk (rotation for three weeks, bullpen for two months, rotation for three weeks) don't quite make the cut. Obviously the Blue Jays aren't responsible for guys like Tom Underwood (1975 Phillies, age 21) or Al Leiter (1988 Yankees, age 22);

By my count there have been 48 such pitchers in the team's 36 seasons. They've gone on to start 5813 games in the major leagues. That's an an average of 121.1 per pitcher, ranging from David Wells 489 starts all the way down to Mark Eichhorn's 7. (The median figure, which might be more relevant, would be Dustin McGowan's 60.)

                                   Career
Age Pitcher Year Starts

20    Jeff Byrd    1977 17

21    Jim Clancy    1977 381
21    Jerry Garvin    1977 65
21    Phil Huffman    1979 32
21    Dave Stieb    1979 412
21    Mark Eichhorn    1982 7
21    Brandon Lyon    2001 21 (Active)
21    Henderson Alvarez  2011 31 (Active)
21    Drew Hutchison     2012 11 (Active)

22    Butch Edge    1979 9
22    Jim Gott     1982 96
22    Chris Carpenter    1997 329 (Active)
22    Kelvim Escobar    1998 202
22    Roy Halladay    1999 366 (Active)
22    Jesse Litsch    2007 67 (Active)
22    Brett Cecil     2009 73 (Active)

23    Joey McLaughlin    1980 12
23    Todd Stottlemyre   1988 339
23    Denis Boucher    1991 26
23    Marty Janzen    1996 11
23    Dustin McGowan    2005 60 (Active)
23    Mark Rzepczynski   2009 23 (Active)
23    Kyle Drabek     2011 30 (Active)

24    Luis Leal    1981 151
24    Jimmy Key    1985 389
24    Juan Guzman    1991 240
24    Pat Hentgen    1993 306
24    Justin Miller    2002 33
24    Dave Bush    2004 187 (Active)
24    Gustavo Chacin     2005 58
24    Shaun Marcum     2006 141 (Active)
24    Casey Janssen     2006 22 (Active)
24    Ricky Romero     2009 115 (Active)

25    Jeff Musselman    1988 19
25    Edwin Hurtado     1995 15

26    Paul Mirabella    1980 33
26    Juan Berenguer    1981 95
26    John Cerutti     1986 116
26    David Purcey     2008 21 (Active)

27    David Wells    1990 489
27    Huck Flener    1996 12
27    Robert Person    1997 135

29    Woody Williams    1996 330
29    Mark Hendrickson   2003 166 (Active)
29    Scott Richmond    2009 29 (Active)

30    Chris Michalak    2001 24

31    Brian Tallet    2009 36

33    Pete Walker    2002 31

And of those 48, how many were able to go into the rotation and just stay there for - oh, let's say three seasons. Without having to be dispatched back to the minors, or exiled to the bullpen, or placed on the disabled list.

Well, by my count, Ricky Romero is the fifth. He joins Dave Stieb, Luis Leal, Jimmy Key, and Pat Hentgen.

You might argue for Todd Stottlemyre, who was able to stick on his second kick at the can in 1989. You might argue for Juan Guzman (although he was effectively on the shelf for six weeks in his first full season.) But that's it.

As far as the 21 year olds go, there's a enormous caveat to the one roaring success. Dave Stieb, 21 years old when the 1979 season began, had at that point pitched a grand total of 20 IP as a pro. That's right. Twenty. And seeing as he was an outfielder at college, it's not like he racked up a lot of innings there. Jim Clancy certainly had a solid career, but he was wildly inconsistent and injuries of various kinds took a big bite of several of his early seasons (1979 and 1981 especially.)

Because context is always a fine thing, let's carry out the same exercise for the other three AL East teams that have been around since 1977. The Red Sox have broken in 43 starters over those 36 seasons. The youngest of them all was the best of them all.

21    Roger Clemens      1984      707

22    Don Aase    1977     91
22    Bob Stanley    1977     85
22    Bob Ojeda    1980    291
22    Jeff Sellers    1986     51
22    Kevin Morton    1991     15
22    Jeff Suppan    1997    417
22    Brian Rose    1998    54
22    Jon Lester    2006    176

23    Mike Paxton    1977    63
23    Steve Crawford    1981    16
23    Dennis Boyd    1983    207
23    Rob Woodward    1987    14
23    Aaron Sele    1993    352
23    Paxton Crawford    2001    11
23    Casey Fossum    2001    120
23    Clay Buchholz    2008    94
23    Justin Masterson   2008    109

24    Bruce Hurst    1982     359
24    Mike Brown    1983    42
24    Chuck Rainey      1979    106
24    Paul Quantrill     1993    64
24    Tomo Ohka     2000    178
24    Felix Doubront    2012     23

25    Allen Ripley     1978     67
25    John Tudor    1979     263
25    Al Nipper    1984     124
25    Mike Trujillo     1985     22
25    Eric Hetzel     1989    19
25    Mike Gardiner     1991    46
25    Tim VanEgmond    1994     17
25    Kason Gabbard     2007    31

26    Brian Denman    1982    9
26    Gar Finnvold    1994    8
26    Vaughn Eshelman    1995    30
26    Daisuke Matsuzaka  2007    110

27    Jim Wright    1978    28
27    Wes Gardner     1988     44
27    Steve Ellsworth    1988    7
27    Daniel Bard    2012     10

28    Tom Bolton     1990     56

29    Dana Kiecker    1990     30

The Yankees have generally found the tedious business of developing young pitchers to be beneath them; they generally prefer to buy them ready-made. They've broken in just 32 starters.

20    Gene Nelson        1981      68

21    Phil Hughes    2007    92

22    Dave Righetti    1981     89
22    Al Leiter    1988     382
22    Sam Militello    1992     11
22    Sterking Hitchcock 1993     200
22    Joba Chamberlain   2008     43

23    Jim Beattie    1978    182
23    Mike Griffin    1980    24
23    Doug Drabek    1986    387
23    Bob Wickman     1992    23
23    Andy Pettitte     1995    488
23    Ian Kennedy     2008    98
23    Ivan Nova     2010    55

24    Dave Eiland     1991    70
24    Jeff Johnson    1991    33
24    Ramiro Mendoza   1996    62

25    Ray Fontenot     1983    62
25    Dennis Rasmussen   1984    235
25    Bob Tewksbury    1986    277
25    Wade Taylor     1991    22
25    Mariano Rivera     1995    10
25    Randy Keisler    2001    20
25    Chien-Ming Wang    2005    119

26    Ron Guidry     1977    323

27    Jay Howell     1983    21
27    Clay Parker    1989    27
27    Scott Kamienicki   1991    138
27    Kei Igawa     2007    13
27    Darrell Rasner     2008    30

28    Hideki Irabu     1997    80

31    Jose Contreras     2003    175

32    Orlando Hernandez  1998    211


Finally, the Orioles have been floundering for much of the last 30 years, and they've introduced no less than 52 pitchers to a major league rotation, most of them since 1985. In the early years, they were introducing guys like Scott McGregor and Dennis martinez. Solutions made to last.  It's been a while since they came up with one of those guys, and the last one they found (Mike Mussina) ended up going to - where else - the Yankees.

20    Hayden Penn        2005      15

21    Storm Davis    1983    239

21    Sidney Ponson    1998    278
21    Chris Tillman    2009    41

22    John Habyan    1986    18
22    Pete Harnisch    1989    318
22    Ben McDonald    1990    198
22    Mike Mussina    1991    536
22    Arthur Rhodes    1992    61
22    Rocky Coppinger    1996    32
22    John Parrish    2000    16
22    John Stephens    2002    11
22    Adam Loewen     2006    29
22    Brian Matusz    2009    68

23    Dennis Martinez    1978    562
23    Eric Bell     1987    34
23    Jeff Ballard     1987    118
23    Jose Bautista    1988    49
23    Jimmy Haynes    1996    203
23    Daniel Cabrera    2004    155
23    Garrett Olson    2007    44
23    Brad Bergeson     2009    59
23    Zach Britton     2011    32

24    Scott McGregor    1978    309
24    Bob Milacki    1989    125
24    Jose Mesa     1990    95
24    Anthony Telford    1990    9
24    Josh Towers    2001    112
24    John Maine     2005    105
24    David Hernandez    2009    27
24    Jake Arrieta    2010    58

25    Mike Boddicker    1983    309
25    Ken Dixon    1985    68
25    Oswaldo Peraza    1988    15
25    Rick Krivda    1995    36
25    Eric Bedard    2004    185
25    Radhames Liz    2008    21
25    Jason Berken    2009    24

26    Allan Ramirez    1983    10
26    Mike Oquist    1994    79
26    Willis Roberts   2001    18
26    Rodrigo Lopez    2002    215
26    Brian Burres    2007    56
26    Wei-Yu Chen    2012    21

27    Sammy Stewart    1982    25
27    Eric DuBose    2003    27
27    Chris Waters    2008    12
28    Mark Williamson    1988    15
29    Dave Johnson    1989    57
29    Brian Holton     1989    16

30    Travis Driskill    2002    19
30    Alfredo Simon    2011    19

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