Boston Red Sox Memories: Potential pitching greatness derailed
The Boston Red Sox have had their share of promising careers shortened with injuries and personal issues. A few pitchers that I will now look at.
The Red Sox have never been known for being able to cultivate pitching talent. Seemingly whenever they have world-class homegrown talent in the system something goes awry. This isn’t a recent occurrence and sadly is a part of Boston’s deep history.
Attaining the highest strata of your profession is a remarkable achievement and worthy of adulation be it baseball or physics, but this is baseball and not M.I.T. The weeding-out process in professional baseball shatters many dreams especially among the draft picks that are in double-digit rounds.
Getting to “The Show” is an arduous task and that is just the first phase. The second phase is remaining in the majors. The benefits package would make even our bloated Congress envious. The fiscal reward is well noted as even journeyman players and rewarded with low seven-figure contracts.
For the élite players, the compensation could become multi-generational as inherited wealth is passed down like the scions of the industrialist of the Gilded Age still wallowing in century-old trust funds.
Within baseball history is the litter of failure: Failure of incompetence, health, or misappropriation of talent. Sometimes it is a perfect storm that encompasses all three that derail great promise and demote an expected bright career into a dustbin. The Red Sox have – like every team in every sport – had their share and here are a few of my selections and just pitchers who had caught my attention.
Roger Moret
Pitching development takes time and patience and the result can be failure or success. Sometimes it is a mixture of both. In another age, the Red Sox actually developed pitching and one was a lefty Roger Moret. Moret could in the parlance of pitching “bring it” with a blazing fastball. Moret also had quirky behaviors that today would have warning flags and not be ignored.
Moret first surfaced in Boston at age 20. Moret was – for comparison’s sake – a lightly shorter (6’4”) of Chris Sale. Moret’s first breakthrough was 1973 when split duty between the rotation and bullpen yielded a 13-2 record and 3.17 ERA.
In 1974 Moret went 9-10 in the same role, but in 1975 Moret led the American League in winning percentage at 14-3. In the playoffs, Moret was little used and in the offseason was traded to the Braves for Tom House. Why? A lopsided deal and first inspection.
In 1978 Moret was with the Rangers and in an early-season game went into a catatonic state in front of his locker. The first thought of as a joke the seriousness of the situation soon became apparent and eventually, Moret was placed in a psychiatric hospital for treatment. Moret returned to the Rangers and was eventually released.
Moret attempted a few comebacks that were ill-fated and unproductive, but once he returned to his native Puerto Rico, Moret continued to pitch for many seasons. In 2014 Moret returned to Fenway Park for a reunion of the 1975 team and had enjoyed – by all accounts – a positive retirement.
The real issue was Moret’s mental health that the Red Sox apparently ignored. His emotional instability was on display with off the field incidents including a questionable car accident. Moret also had to confront a problem that today is minimized – being Latino with few supports in place and couple that with emotional instability. With the Braves and later the Rangers this was magnified and Moret faded away.
Moret was a wasted talent that in the baseball world of today would have had far more support in place both for mental health and making the cultural clash as seamless as possible. Moret – like Tony Horton – became undiagnosed Flotsom of baseball. Moret had the physical stuff to be one of the best.
Ken Brett
When the name Brett is tossed out in baseball conversations the first thought is George Brett the Hall of Fame third baseman, but for me, it is Ken Brett. Brett tossed and batted left-handed and was drafted fourth (1966) with the expectations of being an outfielder. But in slightly over a year Brett was on the mound in the World Series.
Brett dazzled in the minors in 1967 (14-11, 1.95) and was called up to Boston in the last week of the season and appeared in just one game of mop-up duty against the Indians, but was not done. Fellow lefty Sparky Lyle went down to injury and Brett became his replacement – thanks to a commissioner decision – and twice faced the Cardinals and did it cleanly. Then it all became unraveled.
In 1968 Brett started the season at Triple-A and it was the usual suspect that did Brett in – arm trouble. Brett hung around the Red Sox through 1971 going 10-15 in his Sox career before the hard thrower was shipped to Milwaukee and that started an amazing trip through ten organizations in an injury-plagued 14-year career.
What Brett could do is hit and hit for power. The final career average was .262 with ten home runs and occasional use as a pinch-hitter. One of the best hitting pitchers of the decade and with hindsight a position player may have been a better option.
Brett had a respectable career, but this was a pitcher who had the physical and mental attributes to be one of the best in Red Sox history. Brett’s potential was off the charts and joins a list of promising players whose careers were shortchanged by injury.
The Relievers
What do right-handers Daniel Bard and Craig Hansen have in common? Both were first-round draft picks. The positive is both were high-profile prospects in the Red Sox farm system. And both were closers or expected to be closers for an extended period. And both crashed and burned Hindenburg style. In the instance of both, they simply lost the ability to pitch.
Bard recently signed another minor league deal in an attempt to resuscitate a once-promising career. Bard – who could consistently reach 100+ – had what is known as “The Yips” or Steve Blass Disease where the plate suddenly becomes the size of a postage staff resulting in a proliferation of walks.
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For Bard, the road to ruin was paved with walks and it started in 2012 with a 6.5 BB/9 and then it went downhill. One season in the Texas system a 121.5 BB/9! When Bard got the ball over the plate he was several degrees of intimidating. Was it arm trouble? A mind block? Maybe the latest comeback will tell, but Bard should have been either a setup or closer extraordinaire.
Hansen also threw hard and had issues with control at all levels. I had seen Hansen at Pawtucket (AAA) and presumed once the rough edges were refined the Red Sox had a talent for the bullpen. In 2011, despite a 2-9 record with Boston, it looked as if that talent would surface. The 3.0 BB/9 and 9.1 K/9 of that season disintegrated the following season and after 2013 Hansen never returned to the majors.
Looking at Hansen’s post-2013 minor league statistics is a wonder in control issues with even a BB/9 that at one time was Bard like. With Hansen, the issue that killed off his career was brachial plexus neuropathy that caused pain and weakness in the arms. Hansen remained persistent in career attempts, but the real Hansen never returned.
Steven Wright
Steven Wright has employed a varied approach to scuttling a once-promising career. A 15 game suspension for a personal contact violation, bagging a PED suspension, a laundry list of injuries, and now sitting on the sidelines via arm surgery and a release ticket from the Red Sox. Wright burned brightly for one season before an ill-fated injury extinguished the flame.
Wright was a pitch specialist who had managed to corral the knuckleball and revive a career that was stuck in the minor league swamps. The portly right-hander became an All-Star at 31-years-old and went 13-6 before a shoulder injury as a pinch-runner (yikes!) started the cascade of misfortune.
Wright’s last Boston payday was a $1.375 MM contract for 2019 season – a season curtailed by injury. The injury list that Wright accumulated was rather remarkable with shoulder bursitis, knee injuries, toe contusions and now Tommy John Surgery. At 35-years-old Wright may be finished or maybe not?
Next. Red Sox plan to bat Devers second. dark
Knuckleball pitchers are not my favorite pitching species. If the quirky pitch is not performing as expected the day or night will be delightful for those hoisting the lumber. The pitch also extends careers as many of the more capable extended their careers in their 40s. So this is a never say never, but Wright should and could have been a worthy successor to Tim Wakefield.