Tankersley Running On Empty?

[SmedIndy]

Dennis Tankersley, as you know, flamed out in a big way against the Giants Wednesday:


Dennis Tankersley (L,0-1) 0.0 3 7 7 4 0


Does anyone think he's overhyped, or can he bounce back?

[poorme]

seems like he can't throw a strike in the majors. of course he could bounce back, but there have to be concerns.

[sweaver]

Probably a mental roadblock. They may have to nursemaid him through middle relief to get him to succeed in the majors.

[gyb13]

also, I don't think he was mentally ready. He was called up in a hurry to make an emergency start, and lo and behold, he has to face the NL Champs and SuperBarry.

He'll come around.

[nyy26wc]

He may turn out to be something, but the early results are very toubling.

One of the themes that I noticed while writing my book is the worse that a young player performers, the more likely it turns out that he's just a bad player, as opposed to a good player who just got off to a slow start to his career.

By that, I'm not referring to a Sean Burroughs (-6 RCAA), Nick Johnson (-3 RCAA), Hank Blalock (-9 RCAA) start: just to identify 3 highly regarded youngsters who had negative RCAA rookie seasons, but I don't see that as a big red flag. I'm referring to more like a Luis Rivas kind of start to his career (coming into the year with -34 RCAA through the age of 22).

With a -25 RSAA start as 23 year old in 2002 and a -7 start, by virtue of all 7 of the batters he faced the other day scoring, this year, Tankersley's moving himself in the direction where his performance, albeit small sample sizes, are just so bad where he just might not have what it takes to be a good major league pitcher.

A counterargument to this would be Javier Vazquez, who had -44 RSAA as a 21 year old in 1998 and has turned into a good pitcher. But, since there are so few pitchers who had -44 RSAA in any season in baseball history, let alone ones who did it so young, his career path would be far more in the historical fluke category.

[gyb13]

Originally posted by nyy26wc
Tankersley's moving himself in the direction where his performance, albeit small sample sizes, are just so bad where he just might not have what it takes to be a good major league pitcher.

could it also be that some of these players aren't given an opportunity later on - that is, a team has a young player perform terribly and said player never comes back to having a shot at a starting job, either because the team gave up on him or found somebody else?

[KCBOOMER]

The guy is now 24. Ho ought to be establishing that he can at least hang on in the bigs, but he is just getting shelled. Looks bleak.

[nyy26wc]

Originally posted by gyb13
could it also be that some of these players aren't given an opportunity later on - that is, a team has a young player perform terribly and said player never comes back to having a shot at a starting job, either because the team gave up on him or found somebody else?

No. I'm thinking of some of the charts that showed real bad performances at very young ages and then those players going on to have years worth of bad track records.

[gyb13]

gotcha. what kind of a limit are you setting in terms of games/innings, etc?

remember, Tank has only 18 gms (10 starts) and a little over 50 innings under his belt.

[nyy26wc]

Originally posted by nyy26wc
No. I'm thinking of some of the charts that showed real bad performances at very young ages and then those players going on to have years worth of bad track records.

For example, here's Cesar Izturis's comment--

CESAR IZTURIS SS DODGERS DOB: 2/10/80

After starting his career with a .667 OPS/-5 RCAA in 46 games in 2001, Izturis hit .303 SLG, .253 OBA, .556 OPS, -33 RCAA in 135 games. He has a .582 career OPS, compared to his league average of .763, and –38 RCAA in 181 games. His minor league record shows great potential for lousiness, with OBAs under .300 3 times in his 5 minor league seasons and a .627 minor league OPS (.294 OBA, .333 SLG).

Among 22 year olds, Izturis set the major league record for the worst OBA, his OPS was the 3rd worst and his SLG was 7th worst, all vs. the league average (min: 450 PA) —

OBA                           YEAR     DIFF   PLAYER   LEAGUE   
1    Cesar Izturis            2002    -.086     .253     .340   
2    Jimmy Bloodworth         1940    -.081     .272     .352   
3    Benji Gil                1995    -.078     .266     .344   
4    Bobby Bragan             1940    -.072     .265     .336   
5    Mike Caruso              1999    -.067     .280     .348   
6    Rennie Stennett          1973    -.067     .265     .332   
7    Mike Champion            1977    -.066     .271     .337   
8    Hal Lanier               1965    -.066     .256     .322   
9    Ozzie Guillen            1986    -.064     .265     .330   
10   Nellie Fox               1950    -.062     .304     .366   

OPS                           YEAR     DIFF   PLAYER   LEAGUE   
1    Mike Caruso              1999    -.211     .577     .788   
2    Gair Allie               1954    -.207     .562     .769   
3    Cesar Izturis            2002    -.207     .556     .763   
4    Mike Champion            1977    -.191     .557     .747   
5    Wayne Ambler             1938    -.186     .615     .802   
6    Nellie Fox               1950    -.175     .608     .783   
7    Hal Lanier               1965    -.167     .545     .712   
8    Bobby Bragan             1940    -.163     .565     .727   
9    George Scharein          1937    -.162     .577     .739   
10   Enzo Hernandez           1971    -.161     .545     .706   

SLG                           YEAR     DIFF   PLAYER   LEAGUE   
1    Gair Allie               1954    -.156     .268     .424   
2    Mike Caruso              1999    -.143     .297     .440   
3    Wayne Ambler             1938    -.135     .298     .432   
4    Enzo Hernandez           1971    -.131     .250     .380   
5    Mark McLemore            1987    -.125     .300     .426   
6    Mike Champion            1977    -.124     .286     .410   
7    Cesar Izturis            2002    -.120     .303     .423   
8    George Scharein          1937    -.113     .284     .397   
9    Nellie Fox               1950    -.113     .304     .417   
10   Tim Foli                 1973    -.113     .277     .390   

Here's some not in the book analysis. I just in one of those look up a lot of players and enter numbers into a spreadsheet mood, so I wasn't looking for an analysis that had already appeared in print.

Those 3 lists give us 16 different players (excluding Izturis). Of them, only 1 (Gair Allie) was a single year player.

Those players got enough time in the majors to average 951 games, with almost half of them (7) appearing in at least 1000 games, and the median was 714 (pay close attention kids, that might be the only time you ever see the number 714 appearing in a baseball stats discussion. )

The group was bad enough to average -128 career RCAA, with a median of -102. The 2 "best" figures were Allie (whose MLB time was his -29 rookie season) and Mike Champion (-30: he was a player who only had 32 games left in him and was through in the majors at 23). Fox (-35) was the only other one to avoid -50 career RCAA while 9 of them hit the triple digit negative career RCAA mark, with Foli (-309), Guillen (-305) and Lanier (-257) each putting up worse than -250 figures.

[nyy26wc]

Originally posted by gyb13
gotcha. what kind of a limit are you setting in terms of games/innings, etc?

remember, Tank has only 18 gms (10 starts) and a little over 50 innings under his belt.

No real formal limit, it was just an informational observation.

And, actually how little Tankersley has pitched is, in case, a big negative. He didn't merely achieve -25 RSAA last year, he did it while only pitching 17 games. That's not just bad, that's horrible.

[nyy26wc]

I just ran the numbers and they show that Tankersley wasn't just horrible in 2002, he was historically horrible.

Fewest IP, season, by a pitcher who managed -25 or worse RSAA (since 1900)--

INNINGS PITCHED               YEAR     IP      RSAA    
1    Dave Hamilton            1980     30        -25   
2    Ryan Bowen               1992     33.2      -29   
3    Frank LaCorte            1977     37        -29   
4    Stu Flythe               1936     39        -34   
5    Aaron Myette             2002     48.1      -27   
6    Lloyd Allen              1973     49.2      -32   
7    Micah Bowie              1999     51        -31   
T8   Dennis Tankersley        2002     51.1      -25   
T8   Marsh Williams           1916     51.1      -28   
10   Herman Besse             1940     53        -26   

If we include the 19th century, Tankersley would be tied for 14th.

[Wolf Hopper]

90% of it is half mental.

When he got lit up last June v. the O's in an interleague game, these were some of the post game comments:

"It seems like he's going fine, but as soon as somebody gets on ...," Padres manager Bruce Bochy said. "Command's his problem. He's killing himself."

"One of the hard things for me right now is to try to settle down," Tankersley said. "I keep going a million miles a minute. It's tough for me to settle down, for some odd reason. I'm not nervous.

"I watch the tape after I get done, and it's like, 'Gosh, what was I doing out there?' I'm just flying around. My mechanics are flying open.

I'm trying to make perfect pitches, and that's when you get hurt."

"Whenever I'm slow and deliberate, I make good pitches and get guys out," he said. "When I get in the stretch, I try to rush and put the ball right where it needs to be for a double play. Next thing you know, it's right down the middle."


The next two things that this kid should be hearing is:

Mr. Tankersley, the doctor will see you know.................
and
So, tell me about your childhood.........................

[gyb13]

INNINGS PITCHED               YEAR     IP      RSAA      AGE    
1    Dave Hamilton            1980     30        -25       32   
2    Ryan Bowen               1992     33.2      -29       24   
3    Frank LaCorte            1977     37        -29       25   
4    Stu Flythe               1936     39        -34       24   
5    Aaron Myette             2002     48.1      -27       24   
6    Lloyd Allen              1973     49.2      -32       23   
7    Micah Bowie              1999     51        -31       24   
T8   Dennis Tankersley        2002     51.1      -25       23   
T8   Marsh Williams           1916     51.1      -28       23   
10   Herman Besse             1940     53        -26       28   

some notes on this, since we're discussing whether a horrible START to a player's career means something.

Dave Hamilton: that was his final (and worst) season, at age 32.
Ryan Bowen: he had 2 bad seasons (91-92), after he which he was just below average (-5 RSAA in over 200 IP). He was out of the majors at age 28.
Stu Flythe/Marsh Williams: those were their only seasons
Aaron Myette: -51 RSAA over the past 2 yrs!
Micah Bowie: 4 RSAA in 12 IP last yr...jury's out?

[SmedIndy]

Bowie may find his niche.

Tankersley was one of the "gems" of the young Padres staff. I wonder some of us (ok, me) fell for the hype with young pitchers again.

Thanks for the list Lee - on my laptop I take on trips I have a 7.0 Diamond Mind game where I play the '76 season. Frank LaCorte....the mind shudders. When I had a game where LaCorte faced D'Acquisto it took FOREVER.

Seriously, the list does give us all pause -