August 14th birthdays: Clay Buchholz, Mark Fidrych, Don Carman, and more
Posted by Andy on August 14, 2011
Here's a brief look at some of the players with a birthday today.
Clay Buchholz is on the disabled list with a serious shot at missing the rest of the season. While it's only his 3rd time on the DL in his career, he's topped 100 innings pitched in a season only once so far. It's starting to become cause for concern.
Mark Fidrych also topped 100 innings pitched just once, in his magical rookie season of 1976. He pitched effectively but infrequently in 1977 and 1978, and then ineffectively and infrequently in 1979 and 1980. Fidrych would have been 57 today had he not died in 2009. I am still finding hard to believe that he's gone.
Mark Loretta had a fine major-league career but doesn't get a lot of credit for it. He was recently mentioned on my thread about players who played multiple positions with the very unusual SS/1B combo. He was the top 2B in MLB in 2003-2004.
Mark Gubicza seems to be overrated by some and underrated by others. He gets more credit than he deserves based on winning 20 games in 1988, but the folks who point out his overall losing career record of 132-136 are missing the boat as well. Gubizca had a couple of rough injury-filled years in 1990 and 1991. From 1984 to 1989, he had a 118 ERA+ over 1313.1 IP and from 1992 to 1997 he had a 107 ERA+ over 683 IP. Those are some decent numbers if we throw out the horrible 78 ERA+ over 227 IP in 1990 and 1991.
Don Carman is remembered by a lot of Phillies fans as the "ace" of a really bad starting staff in the late 1980s. Fewer fans remember that he was actually quite good in 1985 and 1986 with a 138 ERA+ over 220.2 IP. As I have noted before, Carman was perhaps the worst hitter in major-league history, with by far the fewest times on based for any player with at least 230 plate appearances since 1901.
Joe Horlen had a nice career for the White Sox and had a fairly remarkable year in 1967. He won the AL ERA title at 2.06 (good for a 146 ERA+) despite striking out only 3.6 batters per 9 innings over 258 IP. That's one of the top 10 seasons by ERA+ since 1950 where the pitcher threw at least 200 innings with a K/9 rate of 4 or less. See who else is on there? Mark Fidrych, plus a few other guys whose careers didn't match their early major-league success (Allan Anderson, Bill Lee, etc.)
August 14th, 2011 at 8:42 am
I love Don Carman, but he's a great example of a pitcher who should have stayed a reliever. After a stellar 1985 (179 ERA+, 5.4 H/9) he was moved to the rotation and declined every year for the next 4 years, only bouncing back after they put him back in the pen. Texas Rangers, Neftali Feliz, are you listening?
August 14th, 2011 at 9:52 am
Mark Gubicza, signed with the Angels in 1997, began the season in the rotation and pitched 2 awful games, before retiring with a 25.07 ERA and the very sad boxscore line of "M Gubicza faced 6 batters in the 2nd inning."
He later surfaced as their TV commentator, and actually does a fairly decent job of it.
August 14th, 2011 at 10:39 am
Happy 34th birthday to Juan Pierre, whose name just never seems to come up in this blog.....
August 14th, 2011 at 10:58 am
Damn, it was Pierre's birthday that motivated me to write this post and then I forgot to mention him!
August 14th, 2011 at 11:42 am
Check out Josh Wilker's take on Mark Fidrych, including the awesome photo he links to at the end of The Bird with Big Bird.
http://cardboardgods.net/2011/08/14/mark-fidrych-2/
August 14th, 2011 at 12:04 pm
Andy, thanks much for the Wilker/Bird link. RIP to a real and gentle soul.
[sniffle]
August 14th, 2011 at 12:11 pm
Can't agree, though, with the statement that Spaceman Lee's career didn't match his early success. He had a couple of good seasons age 31-32, and over all, tossed almost 2,000 IP with a 108 ERA+.
August 14th, 2011 at 1:11 pm
It kills me to remember that 'The Bird' made the league minimum--$16,000 a year. He apparently used to look in payphones for change. I also never looked at his numbers from his second season--good core performances, just not enough of them. Pitching is a funny business...
August 14th, 2011 at 1:11 pm
John, I'm not saying he was lousy, but I stand by the notion that he didn't live up to early expectations, even if those expectations were unrealistic.
August 14th, 2011 at 1:25 pm
I do remember a Don Carman start, where he had a perfect game going into the 9th. It was '86 or '87, '86 I'd guess. To this day I have still never seen (or heard) a no-hitter, aside from 9th inning look-ins on ESPN, etc. (And, no, I'm not a Mets fan.)
Listened to the game that day.......that was probably my best chance!!!
August 14th, 2011 at 1:40 pm
I'm not Catholic, but I'm aware of the existence of Saints' Feast Days. A few days ago, when I came across a character in a novel I'm reading about how she and a sibling were named for the Saint whose Feast Day they were born on, I found a web site that showed these Feast Days. Seeing that there are three Marks in this list, I wondered if today happened to be the Feast Day for St. Mark. But no, that is on April 25. There was a time in the 1950s and 1960s when Mark was one of the most common name for boys born in the U.S., so that is likely the reason why there are three of them in this small group. There is also a guy I'm not familiar with named Mark Leonard in the list of August 14 birthdays.
The Saint whose Feast Day is today is St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe. Then again, maybe there are so many Marks born on August 14 because it is similar to this Saint's name.
And there are no Marks listed for April 25! (But Tony Phillips, who has been mentioned multiple times in this blog recently, was born on that day.)
August 14th, 2011 at 1:50 pm
Andy,
Why did you pick today to highlight b-days?
Is it your own?
I totally agree with you about not believing 'The Bird' has passed. Although I was too young to appreciate how magical his 1 season and his 1 of a kind personality at the time, the guy appeared on Sesame Street opposite Big Bird. That was enough for me at the time. It is too bad that today all the eccentric personalities in baseball seem to fall into the negative category (I'm thinking of Z and Milton Bradley right now). I guess the Bird was the PG version of Brian Wilson. Even if Wilson seems to be going to far or flakey, he always gives a 'wink' at the camera, letting you know that it is more an act and he is having fun. In an era of the corporate image, Wilson is a breath of fresh air. Not quite THE BIRD, but fun nonetheless. But considering how much press he is getting; How would Mark Fydrich be received today? Baseball needs some "good guy" nutcases.
I remember after 2004, how I though Loretta finally got the shot he needed to be a regular and show everyone how great he was. I had a side fantasy league with a friend, where we picked the leaders for every category, and based on how close they got to each leader by % is how the winner was chosen. So in 2005, Loretta was all over my leader board and ended up costing me a lot of money and pride. After that I always put a mental * next to his name. To have career highs (way highs) in virtually every category 2 years in a row, then at 32, regress back, just personally seems suspect. JMO.
And speaking of Mark Gubizca, I always thought those Royal teams of the 80's had tons of great pitchers who never panned out or pitched consistently. Danny Jackson, Gubizca, Saberhaegen, Gordon, etc. I did a quick check on that 88 Royal team that Gubizca won 20 for and noticed they had 5 guys in their pen that were or would become top closers. Quisenbury, Farr, Montgomery, Gordon and Garber. They all finished their careers with at least 150 saves.
And as far as the hitting, I don't know if the phrase Motley Crew properly describes that team.
Bo Jackson
Steve Balboni
Danny Tartabull
Jim Eisenreich
Lonnie Smith
Bill Buckner
Kevin Seitzer
Willie Wilson - who from 78-82 had a 10.2 dWAR (which includes less than half a season in 78). Which is absolutely lights out. But finished his 19 year career with just a 10.7 dWAR. That's over 95% of his defensive value contained in 25% of his career.
August 14th, 2011 at 1:55 pm
@ Double Diamond
Tony Phillips was initially named Mark, but kicked the crap out of his parents and changed his birth certificate to Tony, then forged his age to play on the Guatemalan Raccoons,
August 14th, 2011 at 2:06 pm
@1 Tristram Reminds me of the White Sox turning Goose Gossage into a starte the year after he led the league in saves. He started off okay...a 2.91 ERA in the first half and made the all-star game. But the second half his ERA was 5.08 and his ERA+ for the season was only 91. Plus, similar to Carmen his SOs per nine innings were way down.
August 14th, 2011 at 2:19 pm
BTW Andy,
I missed interpreted your answer to my % of innings to games question. Yes, you were correct. Crazy, how two guys are going to break the san=me record in the same season. But I guess not so crazy when you consider the change in the game in regards to bullpen, and especially lefty bullpen use.
But I have another question for you, a possible other record breaker.
There is a player this year, having his best year. Who is about to do something quite hard, something only 3 players in the live ball era have done. Actually two, depending if you use less than or less than or equal to for one of the attributes.
Here are a few hints.
He is a batter.
He is not a rookie but is having his first full season.
He is the best hitter on his team (unexpectedly). And has the highest position player WAR of his team.
He is relatively old for someone getting their first full time shot.
He is not a lock to join this group, but he looks as though he will.
He is tied (@ 77 inches) as the tallest (non-pitching) player, although he looks much taller than all the other guys who claim 6'5''.
His offensive WAR, is 3 times a teammate that is making 10 times as much.
The other players in this 'group' that he may join are:
Kirby Puckett
Tony Olivia
Joe Medwick.
Please, lets here some guesses, too many rainouts today.
August 14th, 2011 at 2:47 pm
@10 Nash BRuce - I remember that game as well. I think there were other near-misses with Bruce Ruffin and Charlie Hudson around that time as well.
August 14th, 2011 at 2:48 pm
@14 Ed - At least the White Sox learned their lesson quickly and put him back in the pen.
August 14th, 2011 at 2:49 pm
Not my birthday...I just saw an interesting name on the front page for 'born today' and decided to write the post.
August 14th, 2011 at 2:50 pm
@12 Duke - I was old enough to go to the '76 All Star game, started by Fidrych. That trumped the Sesame Street appearance and cemented a place in my heart for him. What coulda been...
August 14th, 2011 at 3:46 pm
An interesting collection of players. Apparently August 14th is the day to be born if you want to have a better-than-remembered major-league career, or if you want to have that one magical year. Elsewhere, August 14th boasts Magic Johnson, John Brodie, Mike Vrabel, and young star defenseman Shea Weber. (A further oddity - four of the ten NHLers born on August 14th are active now.)
August 14th, 2011 at 3:57 pm
"The Bird" is probably the best counter-argument to the old-school "let 'im pitch all complete games, there's no harm in that"
Bird's manager abused the hell out of his arm. 9 or more innings pitched 23 times in his age 21 season!! That's nuts, even by the standards of the day.
August 14th, 2011 at 3:59 pm
Also, I think Don Carman's real claim to fame is this:
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/legendary/licarmn.shtml
August 14th, 2011 at 7:05 pm
@11
Just for the record Mark was the 207th most popular boy's name in 1911, then gradually rose to 6th from 1959-1963 and gradually slipped to 161st in 2010.
August 14th, 2011 at 7:07 pm
I hate to bring religion up again, but I have two stories that both touch on it.
Joe Horlen's real first name is Joel. When I was young, I used to see both forms of the name. I wondered if he happened to be Jewish, since I thought of Joel as a very Jewish first name. Also, Horlen sounded like it could have been shortened from something else.
Well, I eventually learned that Joe/Joel Horlen wasn't Jewish during his playing days, but after he retired, he married a Jewish woman and converted to the Jewish faith.
2nd story - about the power of prayer for someone (me) who claims to not believe in prayer. This is connected to Don Carman's inclusion on this list.
The first Phillies game I ever attended, on Sept. 21, 1985, a little over a year before I moved to Philadelphia was against the Cubs at the Vet. Chicago won, 9-2. I just looked up the box score, and I see that the score was even worse than I remembered it to be. I have been saying all of these years that it was 9-4. And I remembered that the next day's score was the same, with the same winner and loser, so that one is worse than I remembered it being, too! (I wasn't at the September 22 game.)
I wasn't totally familiar with the Phillies then, especially their pitching staff. According to the scorecard, even though it was in the expanded rosters days of September, there was only one southpaw in their bullpen - Don Carman. Although the Cubs only had two lefthanded batters in their line-up, there was at least one time when I thought the Phillies should have brought in Carman. I guess that they didn't want to waste him. They even brought in one righthanded reliever, Dave Stewart - yes that Dave Stewart - who wasn't even listed on the scorecard. The Phils had just obtained him from Texas in exchange for B.J. Surhoff's brother Rich eight days earlier and hadn't bothered to print new scorecard roster inserts.
Al Holland and Dave Rucker are shown on this site's 1985 Phillies page as having been lefties in the team's bullpen that year. However, Holland was traded away early in the season. Rucker was traded to the Phillies at the very beginning of the season and appears to have spent the whole year with the club. Looking at his 1985 game logs, I see that near the end of the season, he was a starter, although he did appear in a game in relief on Sept. 28.
Getting back to the Phillies' lack of lefty relievers on September 21, 1985, I must have prayed for someone to send them one. While they've had a number of southpaws working out of the bullpen over the years, someone must have heard me and arranged for one to be born that day:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/bastaan01.shtml
Here's the Sept. 21, 1985, game:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PHI/PHI198509210.shtml
I checked Carman's 1985 game logs, and he did not appear at all between earning a save against the eventual NL champion Cardinals at home on Sept. 19 and appearing against the Cards in a loss in St. Louis on Sept. 26 (finishing the game by pitching the bottom of the 8th).
August 14th, 2011 at 7:13 pm
One more Carman tidbit - He was one of three young Phillies in the 1985-1987 time frame whose first pro contract was with a major league organization as a non-drafted American free agent, along with Rick Schu and Chris James.
@13 - All kidding aside, Tony Phillips' real first name is Keith (Keith Anthony Phillips), which is not Keith Moreland's real first name. Moreland's real first name is Bobby (not Robert).
August 14th, 2011 at 9:08 pm
@15, The Nat's Michael Morse?
@12, Willie Wilson was primarily a left fielder those years. In 1983 he was shifted to Center. His expected dWAR in center would have been less than in LF. If you put Ozzie Smith at 1B he would have been a great defender, likely the best ever, getting a great dWAR because he would be so much better than the average first baseman. But, he would be worth less to his team than he was at short. You need both the fielding wins above average for the position, and the position adjustment to best rate the defensive worth of a player. (There were comments at the time that the Royals had the leagues best CF playing left.)
Bill James noted that Fidrych's K/9 was so far below league average, 3.5/4.7 that he would have had trouble continuing his success at that rate. His BABIP of .250 was much lower than league average, and we have reason to believe that that difference may have been just luck and unsustainable.
August 14th, 2011 at 9:43 pm
@17 Tristram Actually they didn't. They traded Gossage in the offseason to the Pirates who moved him back to the pen. He pitched one year in Pittsburg before signing as a free agent with the Yankees.
August 14th, 2011 at 11:57 pm
KDS
Right you are.
Mike "The Beast" Morse is the answer, but what is he on pace to do that only three players have done since 1920?
August 15th, 2011 at 12:24 am
@Duke: RH hitters with batting titles? (assuming that MM wins)
I'm just random guessing....so forgive me if I'm wrong......and, if I'm right, LOL
August 15th, 2011 at 8:31 am
Nash Bruce & Kds,
Its a bit random,
if you want to keep guessing, don't read on...
Those other three all had an OPS+ of 150 with over 502 PAs and less than 30 walks. Puckett had exactly 30 walks, so if you technically go LESS THAN 30, its only Oliva and Medwick and soon Morse, although, he has had 4 walks in his last 12 games, plus, he may get more IBBs and just plained pitched around as the rest of the team flounders and his numbers go up. He has 22 BBs as of now, to go with like 411-412 PAs, plus a 154 OPS+
August 15th, 2011 at 1:13 pm
@27 Ed - see what I get for relying on my memory and not checking. I thought the White Sox moved him back, but no.
August 16th, 2011 at 8:33 am
There is an unspoken truth about Major League pitching. The "major" reason a strong young man pitchs as a reliever in the Majors...he's not smart enough to be a starter, especially back in the day. It's a well known fact amoung insiders, Gossage would not take instructions and could not get it through his head that pitching was an art form. Hence, welcome to the HOF....life is not just. There were scores of pitchers that pitched over 2,500 innings in their careers and many pitched through the "all important" 9th inning as well...that will never get a sniff of the Hall of Fame...but..there's Gossage in all his glory!