If further evidence were required that almost nobody knows where or when major league pitchers will develop, much less how to identify them, consider that the two Mariners starters who combined for 37 wins last season had each been rejected by five organizations.
Jamie Moyer, winner of 20 games at age 38, had been with the Cubs, Texas, St. Louis, Baltimore and Boston.
Paul Abbott, winner of 17 games at age 34, had been with Minnesota, Cleveland, Kansas City, the Cubs and San Diego.
Moyer arrived via trade in Seattle midway through the 1996 season with few expectations. Six months later, Abbott was signed as a sixth-year minor league free agent, with no expectations.
Not yet born to this planet is a sports imagination so original and vivid to have foreseen Moyer and Abbott would five years later anchor a pitching staff with the greatest results in American League regular-season history.
Among the many things that left baseball fans slack-jawed about the Mariners’ 2001 season, perhaps no aspect was as preposterous.
The acme of this absurdity came in the pivotal fourth game of the American League Championship Series, when Abbott stood upon the Yankee Stadium mound, matched against the great Roger Clemens, and pitched a no-hitter for five innings against the defending world champs.
Granted, he walked eight. Also granted: The Yanks failed to score.
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“Actually, it was eight walks in four innings,” Abbott said, smiling at the recollection. “I had a 1-2-3 first.”
It is that sort of whimsy, born of baseball life on the precipice, which seems to help keep Abbott unflappable. Many pitchers, faced with the growing debacle of control problems in the decibel hell of Yankee Stadium–not to mention the laser-like glower from his own manager–would have grooved some pitches just to put the blasted ball in play.
Instead, Abbott, who had only 49 major league appearances in his first 13 years of pro ball, remembers stepping off the rubber in the third inning and picking at his cleats to clear some dirt. The moment gave him pause to take in the scene.
“I looked up and thought, `This is so cool,”‘ he said. “This was is the field that I saw growing up (in Orange County), watching the Dodgers and Yankees play those great World Series when I was a kid. And here I was.”
This season, Abbott has moved to the No. 3 slot in the rotation behind No. 1 Freddy Garcia and Moyer. No one is claiming Abbott will improve on last year’s results, especially given the great run support he received. But given how late he came to his career uptick, just as with Moyer, there is no strong evidence that he can’t maintain, either.
When they joined the Mariners, both benefited from a franchise dearth of pitching–in 1996, a 5.21 team earned-run average was the club’s worst ever.
Until a month prior to his trade from Boston, Moyer had been a long-relief man. Same for Abbott, who was at San Diego’s Class AAA affiliate in Las Vegas. Both saw desperation for innings from starters. Moyer was an instant success, going 6-2 with a 3.31 ERA in the second half of ’96. Because of injuries–he has been on the disabled list 11 times in his career–Abbott took longer, not becoming a regular until ’99.
After years of being odd men out, both seized their days.
Said Moyer: “You’ve heard it said by so many players so many times: `I wasn’t quite ready.’ When I hear that from younger players, I say, `You weren’t ready?’ That’s your professional obligation, to be prepared.
“You may only get one opportunity, and you weren’t ready to throw strikes, field your position, or be a starter or reliever?”