Halladay threw 272 innings in 2010. 250 in the regular season, followed by 22 more with a perfect game in the playoffs.

His 266 regular season innings in 2003 are the most in a season this century.

I wonder if we'll ever see a pitcher throw 272 (or 266) innings in a year again. The trend of decreasing innings for starters is easily seen here....

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/pitching/piinnp4.shtml

The NL leader for 2017 pitching only 207 innings is the lowest of any non strike year ever.

He never won a WS. Could of swore he was on the team that beat the Rays.

Nope, they got him the offseason after they won.

That's not true, they won in 2008, lost to the Yanks in 2009, then got Roy

Very sad. Seeing all those tweets from other ball players got to me. RIP Doc

Ya the Yanks def didn't have to face Roy, they faced (and lost to) Lee twice though.

And then Ruben traded for Roy but stupidly traded Lee. Otherwise maybe Roy would have got to pitch in a WS in 2010

Cliff Lee had those weird couple months in Seattle, which turned into Justin Smoak, then he pitched for Texas in the Series before going back to Philadelphia. Dont recall who the Mariners sent for him initially.

June 27, 2002: Traded by the Montreal Expos with Brandon Phillips, Grady Sizemore and Lee Stevens to the Cleveland Indians for Bartolo Colon and Tim Drew.

July 29, 2009: Traded by the Cleveland Indians with Ben Francisco to the Philadelphia Phillies for Jason Knapp (minors), Carlos Carrasco, Jason Donald and Lou Marson.

December 16, 2009: Traded by the Philadelphia Phillies to the Seattle Mariners for Tyson Gillies (minors), Phillippe Aumont and J.C. Ramirez.

July 9, 2010: Traded by the Seattle Mariners with Mark Lowe to the Texas Rangers for Matt Lawson (minors), Blake Beavan, Josh Lueke and Justin Smoak.

November 1, 2010: Granted Free Agency.

December 15, 2010: Signed as a Free Agent with the Philadelphia Phillies.

Lee, Stevens, Phillips, and Sizemore is still super sick. A whole lot of nothing in the later deals.

criminally underrated trade by the tribe, particularly since they flipped lee for carrasco

pretty sure they got something of value for phillips as well

Damn, Sizemore was sick from 22-26. Did he get hurt; what happened to him?

Yeah, chronic injuries. Crazy he played for the Rays in the last few years.

Cleveland got 16 rWAR out of Lee before trading him, (another 16 WAR out of Carrasco, plus whatever Jason Donald and Lou Marson were worth), plus...

Lee Stevens was more or less worthless. Had a $4MM salary that year, and I'm guessing he was just in there for financial purposes. He was batting .190 pre-trade for Montreal, FA at the end of the season.

Sizemore gave 27.5 WAR, then got hurt forever.

Phillips got traded for some guy called Jeff Stevens. Stevens, who produced negative value, along with Chris Archer and something called John Gaub got Mark Derosa (1.3WAR). Derosa turned into Chris Perez the next year. Perez was particularly good in 2010, decent in 11 and 12, out of the league by 14.

This is my favorite thing to do with baseball reference.

had some legit HOF equity there for sure. Averaged 160 games and 6.2WAR from 22-25, 4 straight 20 hr -20 2b-20 sb seasons.

obviously speculation on sizemore but if I'm remembering correctly, his injuries lines up with when they started testing more strictly for roids. If they hadn't (and he had taken them), maybe he would've ended up with HOF numbers

On an Indians/roids note from that period, anyone remember the crash that was travis hafner?

Much appreciated. I like that stuff too.

Ah yes, Hafner. I think everybody associates him as a Cleveland lifer, save for the quick, forgettable stint with NYY at the end, but he was acutally drafted and debuted with the Rangers. 110 games in AAA, batted .342/.463/.559, 21 HR and more walks than K's.

Thing is, Hafner was 25 in AAA, but Texas already had Rafael Palmeiro at 1B and Mark Teixeira tearing up the minors. Teixeira skipped AAA entirely and made the big team out of spring training in 03, moving Palmeiro to DH. Hafner played a few games in 2002 for Texas, but it was clear that there wasn't much room for him, so they traded him and Aaron Myette to Cleveland for Einar Diaz and Ryan Drese.

Hafner went on to give CLE 25 WAR, the bulk of which coming from 2004-2007. Cleveland let him walk after 2012.

Myette, good ole Canadian boy, somehow managed to throw 154 innings in his big league career, spread over 5 seasons, despite having a career ERA of 8.16. This guy was ****ing bad. No business being in the bigs, clearly, but still managed to carve out 27 starts over 2 years. 2001 was especially bad. 48 IP, 11HRs, 54 ER. 41bb, plus 6 HBP, vs. 48 k's. WHIP of 2.172!! Averaged MORE THAN 2 baserunners an inning. This guy sucked, almost at a historical level. As bad as he was, he got traded for someone! Lyle Mouton, who was 34 years old and hadn't played in the majors for 2 years, and definitely didn't play for Cleveland at any point.

Diaz was pretty much just a glove, save for one season where he hit well too, but he was traded to Montreal for Chris Young, who was a piece in the Adrian Gonzalez trade to San Diego.

Drese had a 2004 season that just straight up blows my mind. First, he pitched 207 innings, striking out 98 batters (4.2/9ip). He walked 58, for a 1.69:1 ratio. Also beaned 11. 4.20 ERA. Yet somehow, 5.0 WAR. FIVE. (3.6 fWAR) Just goes to show how crazy the offense was in the early 00's. 4.20 is a 85 ERA-, fwiw.

Thing is, fangraphs' batted ball data doesn't look ridiculous to me, unless I'm missing something. 54% groundball rate is nice, but back then not everybody was trying to lift the ball in the air, and that number is probably a bit expected for a low strikeout guy. typical luck stuff like LOB%, babip, etc. FIP suggests he was a touch unlucky, even. According to B-Ref, he was never above replacement level after that year.

I was hoping that he was traded in some elaborate deal, but he ended up actually getting claimed by the Nats on waivers, eventually released, and never made it back.

good stuff bigeasy. I might just start listing random names just to see what you come up with.

was kinda hoping that. let's have one. Non CLE this time maybe?

I already know a lot about what happened with this guy when he left STL but I love the string of players that came from this guy and others might find it semi interesting


Kent Bottenfield

Sheesh, I'll admittedly be learning a lot here, as I can say for certain that I have never once been on Kent Bottenfield's Bref page and know 0 about him, but I'll make something happen.

Aaron Myette to me is a name that the White Sox traded, i think to Texas but cant recall for who.



Reading rosters from 15-20 years ago always gives me the jollies.

For example, I was expecting him to be in his mid 60's, not late 40's. Allstar in 1999?!? Not even that good of a season tbh... great start, I guess.

Two noteworthy trades here... one for Ron Gant, straight up. Both walked in free agency at the end of the year; the other was a trade, along with Adam Kennedy, to Anaheim for Jim Edmonds, my first favorite non-Blue Jay. Let's dance. Unless a straight up for Butch Henry is noteworthy? (It's not!)

Bottenfield provided the Cardinals 4 WAR over 2 seasons, including an allstar appearance in 1999, on the heels of a white hot April. From May onwards, he was just fair, but whatever.

Kennedy was about as good as I remember, putting up 18 WAR for ANA, then had seasons of -1.4 and +2.5 WAR in STL. Can't really explain that one.

Then there's good old Slim Jim Edmonds. I LOVED Jim Edmonds as a kid and still do. I regularly play baseball games on N64 and quite often find myself picking the Cards specifically for him. I remember him being better as an Angel than he was (20 WAR over 709 games), but holy christ was he ever good as a Cardinal. 6 year peak of 36 WAR from 00-05, 6 gold gloves, MVP votes, silver slugger, etc. Power, defence, and discipline.

But alas, father time is undefeated. Edmonds' career started to taper in 2007, and after the season, he was traded to SD, straight up, for David Freese, and wasn't much of anything, other than a 76 game hot streak as a 40 year old for Milwau... wait a second, David Freese! Despite not being that good, that guy was the World Series MVP!

Now, Freese has somehow been around forever, without ever really providing much. Spent parts of 5 seasons in STL, providing fewer than 6 WAR, but, again, WS MVP. STL shipped him out of town after the 2012 year, with Fernando Salas, for Peter Bourjos and Randal Grichuk.

Grichuk is still providing a bit of value, as a direct descendent from Bottenfield, and is kind of half likely to be traded this winter, potentially for something amazing that I can write about in 8 years.

Bourjos had an awesome first full year, and then pretty much ****ed off and now he's useless.

yeah Myette became Royce Clayton.

Clayton and Todd Stottlemyre to Texas for Fernando Tatis and Darren Oliver to STL. Tatis is the only player to ever hit 2 grand slams in one inning, but was otherwise not important (6 WAR career), though he has a kid in the Padres system who looks a bit special.