R. A. Dickey was one last year. Bruce Chen was also one last year and the year before that and several years before that. A perennial reclamation project, you might call him.
That’s my name for pitchers who have eliminated themselves from teams’ starting rotations through repeated injuries or chronic ineffectiveness and who become part of a pool from which teams seeking starters cast a rod and hope they catch a big fish.
Reclamation projects do not qualify by any statistical criteria. You just know them when you see them.
The Yankees, for example, have one or two in their starting rotation, Bartolo Colon for sure and Freddy Garcia, depending on one’s point of view. They have two more in the minor leagues, Carlos Silva and Mark Pryor. They had a third in the minors until Kevin Millwood exercised a clause in his contract last Sunday and opted to become a free agent.
Two of the Mets’ starters are R.P.’s: Chris Young and Chris Capuano. Two of their former starters, Oliver Perez and John Maine, are reclamation projects in other organizations, Perez and his $12 million Mets’ salary in the minors with Washington and Maine in the minors with Colorado.
The Mets had great success with Dickey as an R.P. last season. At the age of 35, the right-handed knuckleballer had pitched professionally for 13 years but had accumulated only 5 years of major league service with Texas, Seattle and Minnesota and a 22-28 record and a 4.70 earned run average in 48 starts and 96 relief appearances.
“Dickey’s a pitcher I had a lot of history with,” said Omar Minaya, who was the Mets’ general manager who signed him last year. “We signed him when I was with the Rangers. He was our No. 1 draft choice. He was always a good person, always gave his best.”
As baseball executives do, Minaya watched Dickey from a distance after they no longer worked in the same organization. He especially noted when Dickey started throwing a knuckleball in 2005 under the tutelage of Charlie Hough, a former accomplished major league knuckleballer.
When the Mets were looking for pitchers last year, Dickey was a minor league free agent and they signed him. But he still had to make the team.
“Our minor league people watched him and wanted to release him,” Minaya said. “But I liked the person so I kept him. More than the pitcher, I thought he would help some of the young pitchers. I thought if he didn’t make it he’d be a good pitching coach.”
Dickey turned out to be a savior for the pitching staff. Even though he began the season in the minors, he started 26 games for the Mets, compiling an 11-9 record and 2.84 e.r.a., seventh lowest in the National League.
Chen, a Panama native, was an unaccomplished 32-year-old pitcher when the Kansas City Royals extended a spring training invitation last year for what would be his 17th season in professional baseball. He had played for 10 different teams in the majors, squeezing eight of them into an eight-season span.
The left-hander had a decent season with the Orioles in 2005 – 13-10, 3.83 – but in the following four season with the Orioles, Rangers and Royals, he won one game and lost 13. When the Royals re-signed him last year as a free agent, they did so based on his 2009 performance of 1-6 and 5.78.
That definitely qualified him as a reclamation project, and he responded with a 12-7 record and 4.17 e.r.a.
Garcia had a 12-6 record for the White Sox last season, which sort of disqualifies him from the R.P. designation. Despite his record, though, the 34-year-old Venezuelan right-hander had difficulty getting the kind of contract he wanted. A free agent, he signed a minor league contract with the Yankees Feb. 10, but as a major leaguer he has a $1.5 salary and can earn an additional $3.6 million in performance bonuses.
“Garcia did pretty well last year,” Minaya said. “We signed him with the Mets the year before last. We ended up releasing him because he wasn’t healthy. Unfortunately we didn’t keep him long enough.”
The Mets released him April 28, 2009, after he had made only two minor league starts, setting him up as a reclamation project for the White Sox.
Yankees scouts liked what they saw of Garcia last year. They didn’t see Colon because thanks to arm trouble he didn’t have a season. However, after the season he pitched in the Dominican winter league, and his manager liked what he saw.
His manager was Tony Pena, who is also the Yankees’ bench coach. A recommendation followed.
Garcia won a job in the starting rotation. Colon in the bullpen. But when Phil Hughes went on the disabled list with an ailing finger, Colon joined the rotation, too.
In Garcia’s first four starts, he had a 1-2 record and a 2.88 e.r.a. Colon had a 2-1 record and a 3.00 e.r.a. in three starts and three relief appearances.
Like the Yankees, the Mets have filled the openings in their rotation with R.P.’s.
Capuano, who a few years ago made 19 consecutive starts, which neither he nor the Brewers won, has begun his Mets’ tenure with a 2-3 record and 5.40 e.r.a.
Young, coming back from a disabling shoulder injury he suffered last season, was scratched from a start against Los Angeles Saturday night. (UPDATE: Young was subsequently diagnosed with another shoulder injury that threatened his season.) He had a 1-0 record and 1.88 e.r.a. in his first four starts.
Among other Reclamation Projects, Dontrelle Willis is still trying to regain his pitching effectiveness, this season’s attempt coming at Louisville with the Reds’ AAA team.
Ian Snell didn’t win a major league job in St. Louis so he retired. Then there are some pitchers who were Reclamation Projects last year but were not successful in their quests to come back, and they are effectively retired: Ben Sheets, Kris Benson, Russ Ortiz, and Jorge Sosa.
WINNERS BLOSSOM IN LAND OF LOSERS
What’s going on here?
The Pittsburgh Pirates, who have a major league 
record 18 consecutive losing seasons, have two starting pitchers who are a combined six games over .500. Kevin Correia, 30-year-old right-hander, had a 5-2 record through Saturday while Charlie Morton, 27-year-old right-hander, had a 4-1 record.
Morton, acquired from Atlanta in 2009 in the Nate McLouth trade, had a 2-12 record last season. Correia, whom the Pirates signed as a free agent, had a 10-10 record for San Diego last season.
Correia, who had a 2.91 e.r.a., signed a two-year contract for $8 million, could easily revert to form (he began the season with a career 36-43 record, but if he continues to pitch well, there will be some teams, the Yankees, for example, that will wonder how and why they missed him.
Meanwhile, what’s with Ubaldo Jimenez, the Colorado pitcher, who last season won his first six starts and went on to have a 15-1 record at the All-Star break? He has emerged from his first five starts this year with no wins and two losses.
The Rockies, however, have basically led the National League West all of this season whereas last year they failed to reach the top of the division despite Jimenez’s gems.
DYSFUNCTIONAL DANDIES
An executive of another club was talking about the Chicago White Sox recently after I asked him if he thought they could overcome their dreadful start. The White Sox, whom many saw as the American League Central favorite, lost 22 of their first 33 games, the equivalent of a 54-108 record for the entire season.
“I think the White Sox are a good team,” the executive said. “But they always have dysfunction between the general manager and the manager. They have a lot of distractions. But they have good guys as players.”
General manager Ken Williams and manager Ozzie Guillen have had more than their share of differences in the eight years that Guillen has been the White Sox manager. Williams is in his 11th season as general manager.
One reason they have survived together is they are both favorites of Jerry Reinsdorf, the club’s chairman. But even Reinsdorf gets tired of losing when the team is supposed to win.
WHEN A REMATCH ISN’T
This sort of thing gets tiresome. The news release headline said, “Sunday MLB on TBS” Features a 2010 ALCS Rematch Between the New York Yankees @ Texas Rangers.”
It is not a rematch, nor is any of the other so-called rematches; games played a season or two later between teams that played in the World Series or the Super Bowl. Yet that’s how people often refer to them – rematches.
The teams are not the same; they are different. They have at least a few different players. And even if they don’t, the same players are different.
The Rangers, for example, don’t have Cliff Lee on the mound. The Yankees have Russell Martin behind the plate. The circumstances are different. The loser of the series faces no immediate consequences. The loser doesn’t go home for the winter while the winner advances to the World Series.
The game is simply the finale of a three-game regular-season series in May.