B.C. – Before (Aroldis) Chapman
Posted by Steve Lombardi on September 24, 2009
There's been a lot of talk lately about Cuban pitching prospect and free-agent-to-be Aroldis Chapman. So, I decided to ask Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Pitching Game Finder to show me the big careers, since 1983, of pitchers who were born in Cuba. (I picked 1983 to make the list "After Luis Tiant.") Here's the results:
Cnt Player **ERA+** IP From To Ages G GS CG SHO GF W L W-L% SV H R ER BB SO ERA HR BF IBB HBP BK WP Teams BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+ SH SF 2B 3B GDP SB CS Pk Birthplace +----+-----------------+--------+------+----+----+-----+----+---+---+---+---+---+---+-----+---+----+----+----+----+----+------+---+-----+---+---+---+---+-----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+----+---+---+---+---+---+----+---+---+---------------+ 1 Alberto Castillo 128 35.1 2008 2009 32-33 44 0 0 0 8 1 0 1.000 0 38 15 14 14 28 3.57 3 162 1 8 0 1 BAL .271 .370 .386 .756 168 0 0 7 0 3 2 1 1 Havana City, Cuba 2 Danys Baez 110 609.2 2001 2009 23-31 449 26 1 0 247 35 49 .417 114 554 307 275 252 458 4.06 60 2623 24 44 3 22 CLE-TBD-TOT-BAL .243 .327 .378 .705 111 24 20 116 7 54 47 16 1 Pinar Del Rio, Cuba 3 Tony Fossas 110 415.2 1988 1999 30-41 567 0 0 0 149 17 24 .415 7 434 211 180 180 324 3.90 39 1842 36 10 4 11 TEX-MIL-BOS-STL-TOT-NYY .269 .344 .396 .740 99 27 9 73 8 42 30 13 2 Havana, Cuba 4 Orlando Hernandez 110 1314.2 1998 2007 32-41 219 211 9 2 2 90 65 .581 2 1181 641 604 479 1086 4.13 177 5558 18 67 7 27 NYY-CHW-TOT-NYM .239 .312 .409 .721 87 31 42 248 30 62 136 52 5 Villa Clara, Cuba 5 Rolando Arrojo 108 700 1998 2002 29-33 158 105 4 2 15 40 42 .488 6 715 377 354 255 512 4.55 83 3040 15 67 3 13 TBD-TOT-BOS .267 .344 .430 .774 95 24 18 142 22 72 49 25 5 Havana, Cuba 6 Jose Contreras 100 1076.1 2003 2009 31-37 186 175 5 3 4 71 63 .530 0 1084 616 554 390 792 4.63 123 4677 12 56 2 72 NYY-TOT-CHW .295 .374 .407 .781 103 24 29 169 21 72 126 26 5 Havana, Cuba 7 Rene Arocha 99 331 1993 1997 27-31 124 36 2 1 40 18 17 .514 11 363 169 151 75 190 4.11 37 1404 12 11 1 7 STL-SFG .282 .325 .445 .770 109 22 9 72 13 28 26 19 0 Havana, Cuba 8 Ariel Prieto 96 352.1 1995 2001 25-31 70 60 3 0 5 15 24 .385 0 407 218 190 176 231 4.85 34 1607 7 20 4 17 OAK-TBD .294 .378 .439 .817 112 13 12 67 16 40 34 14 2 Havana, Cuba 9 Livan Hernandez 96 2722 1996 2009 21-34 411 410 47 7 0 155 151 .507 0 3011 1441 1345 938 1711 4.45 315 11822 71 68 12 35 FLA-TOT-SFG-MON-WSN-TOT-ARI .285 .344 .439 .783 123 138 99 547 70 259 145 82 24 Villa Clara, Cuba 10 Vladimir Nunez 89 442 1998 2009 23-34 254 27 0 0 91 21 34 .382 21 430 264 237 199 327 4.83 55 1924 19 13 3 22 ARI-TOT-FLA-COL-ATL .259 .338 .429 .767 104 22 31 93 12 30 39 19 8 Havana, Cuba 11 Hansel Izquierdo 89 29.2 2002 2002 25-25 20 2 0 0 5 2 0 1.000 0 33 17 15 21 20 4.55 2 144 3 5 0 0 FLA .289 .413 .456 .869 138 1 3 11 1 5 1 1 0 Havana, Cuba 12 Osvaldo Fernandez 87 387 1996 2001 27-32 76 67 3 0 3 19 26 .422 0 439 229 212 136 208 4.93 43 1709 11 12 4 9 SFG-CIN .287 .348 .445 .793 111 21 12 100 6 43 13 16 7 Holguin, Cuba 13 Michael Tejera 80 238.1 1999 2005 22-28 111 27 0 0 15 11 13 .458 3 256 140 136 111 172 5.14 26 1060 6 10 0 4 FLA-TOT-TEX .278 .360 .434 .794 114 13 5 58 4 21 9 10 6 Havana, Cuba 14 Tony Menendez 80 29 1992 1994 27-29 23 0 0 0 6 3 1 .750 0 29 17 16 6 20 4.97 7 119 0 1 0 0 CIN-PIT-SFG .264 .305 .518 .823 124 1 1 5 1 2 1 1 0 Havana, Cuba 15 Israel Sanchez 74 45.1 1988 1990 24-26 30 1 0 0 9 3 2 .600 1 52 29 27 21 19 5.36 1 204 2 1 1 3 KCR .292 .366 .348 .714 101 2 2 7 0 5 3 1 1 Falcon Lasvias, Cuba 16 Alay Soler 73 45 2006 2006 26-26 8 8 1 1 0 2 3 .400 0 50 33 30 21 23 6.00 7 208 1 1 0 3 NYM .275 .350 .478 .828 117 2 2 12 2 1 5 0 0 Pinar del Rio, Cuba 17 Adrian Hernandez 68 44 2001 2004 26-29 14 5 0 0 3 0 6 .000 0 45 36 32 30 33 6.55 10 209 1 2 0 8 NYY-MIL .257 .370 .474 .844 121 1 1 8 0 2 1 4 1 Havana, Cuba 18 Eddie Oropesa 61 92 2001 2004 29-32 125 0 0 0 22 8 4 .667 0 99 79 75 72 78 7.34 11 444 11 4 2 6 PHI-ARI-SDP .274 .400 .416 .816 114 6 1 12 3 6 6 4 1 Colen Matanzas, Cuba 19 Francisley Bueno 55 2.1 2008 2008 27-27 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 2 2 1 1 7.71 1 13 0 0 0 0 ATL .417 .462 .667 1.129 202 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Havana, Cuba 20 Yoslan Herrera 42 18.1 2008 2008 27-27 5 5 0 0 0 1 1 .500 0 35 20 20 12 10 9.82 1 100 0 1 0 1 PIT .427 .495 .573 1.068 190 3 2 7 1 3 1 0 0 Pinar Del Rio, Cuba 21 Jose Canseco 15 1 1993 1993 28-28 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 2 3 3 3 0 27.00 0 8 0 0 0 0 TEX .500 .625 .500 1.125 213 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 Havana, Cuba
Yeah, I see Jose Canseco sneaking in there at the end. But, I also see a lot of pitchers with so-so major league careers. Just some food for thought for those big league teams bidding on Chapman...what works in Cuba sometimes doesn't do as well in a MLB park near you...
September 24th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
I'm not sure what conclusions we can draw from this. I think the sample is too small. A lot of these guys were old by the time they got here. Livan Hernandez has had a solid career. El Duque was a very good pitcher. I am sure Contreras is older than listed; despite maddening inconsistency he had some stretches of excellent pitching. Soler and El Duquecito are probably the only real busts. Arocha and Prieto were considered major disappointments but their performance wasn't terrible. I don't even recognize a lot of these names, so I don't think they had high expectations. I wonder if this list looks all that different than one of pitchers born in Ohio over the same period?
OK, I actually looked it up. Ohio is about the same population as Cuba but has 6 times as many pitchers, one of them being Roger Clemens. The weighted average of their ERA+ is 104, Cuba's has been 99. (Not the best way of comparing them, but quick & easy.)
I saw Chapman during the WBC, and he sure has some arm.
September 24th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
I just made good use of the Search box to look up a nickname. Maybe it's because I intentionally don't pay close attention to the Yankees, figuring I'm going to hear about their guys anyway, but the nickname "El Duquecito" didn't mean anything to me. Just in case any of you are wondering, typing "El Duquecito" into the Search box brings up the page for Adrian Hernandez, who is indeed near the bottom of the above list. Two of his three brief periods of winless major league service were spent with the Yankees, which the third one was with the Brewers.
September 24th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
Yeah, I shouldn't have been so colloquial. Adrian Hernandez was coming up in the Yankees system when Orlando Hernandez was in their rotation. Same homeland, same surname, so he got the similar nickname. They don't look anything alike and I'm pretty sure they are not related. It's possible he was only hyped up around NY _because_ of the nickname, and the baseball world at large never thought he was much of a prospect. His great claim to fame was bowing out of a start with a stomach ailment in 2002, leaving Clemens to start on 3 days' rest and preventing El Duquecito from ever earning his team's respect.
September 25th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
I was still living in Cleveland back in '99 when they signed Danys Baez so I remember the hype surrounding him. He was a young fireballer and supposedly had a large upside. In his first season in '01 he was basically unhittable. Then the Indians tried to turn him into a starter and he flopped. Then they sent him back to the bullpen (with a brief stint as closer) and he improved a bit, but was still below expectations. They shipped him off to Tampa Bay where he had a mini come-back before falling apart again. I saw him pitch for Baltimore earlier this year and he looked ok; not great, not bad. So by ERA+ he may look like the 2nd best pitcher in the group, but he never had near the consistency of say El Duque, and he fell well short of the hype.
September 25th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
I remember thinking Baez was promising as a starter and I thought he should have been left in the rotation. Checking his 2002 numbers, they seem solid. Not sure why you classify it as a flop. But it's true he never lived up to the hype.