Felix Heredia Was Released Today

The transaction wire is a great place to hang out during Spring Training. A lot of great stories are found there. One of today's cuts was Felix Heredia. Heredia is one of those players that makes the Fan wonder how a player such as Heredia could hang around as long as he has.

2004 was a typical year for Heredia. He pitched in 47 games for the Yankees. A left handed pitcher, it was Heredia's job to take the ball when Joe Torre needed to get a left handed batter out. Giving the ball to Heredia 47 times makes the greatness of Torre's management skills come in to question.

Asking Heredia to perform such a task was like spraying lighter fluid into a fireplace. In those 47 appearances, Heredia pitched 38.1 innings. In those innings, he gave up 44 hits and walked 20 batters and hit two others. That's 66 base runners in 38.1 innings. That doesn't make that lefty/lefty situation make much sense. His ERA was over 6.00 for the year for the second time in his career.

Heredia pitched for nine years and pitching primarily to his supposed-strength (lefty batters), he pitched 458.1 innings and gave up 798 base runners. Ouch. How much do you want to bet that Heredia gets a job somewhere.

Here is a word to the wise to MLB managers: Never hire a pitcher named Heredia. There have been four pitchers with that name in the majors and besides Felix, here are their results:

Gil Heredia (1991 to 2001): Gil had one decent season, but his overall career featured a lifetime 4.46 ERA and 1328 base runners in 954 innings.

Ubaldo Heredia (1987): Pitched in two games for the Expos. Finished with a 5.40 ERA.

Wilson Heredia (1995, 1997): Wilson pitched 31.2 innings for the Rangers and walked 31 batters. Yeesh.

Over the years, there have been other players that cause the Fan to wonder why they played so long. Here are a few that come to mind:

Alfredo Griffin (1976-1993): Alfredo Griffin played for 17 seasons for the Indians, Blue Jays, Athletics, Dodgers and the Blue Jays again. Griffin was a shortstop who finished with a lifetime .249 batting average and a .285 on-base percentage.

In 1984, Griffin batted 429 times for the Blue Jays. He walked four times. Four. His batting average for the year was .241 and his on-base percentage was .248.

Well, lots of shortstops were weak hitters. Eddie Brinkman comes to mind. But fielding made up for it. Griffin had four years with more than 30 errors. Maybe Griffin was a great base runner. Not exactly. In 326 attempts, Griffin was thrown out 134 times.

Horace Clarke (1965-1974): Clarke played nine years--all but one of them with the Yankees. Those Yankee teams of the late 60's and early 70's were brutal and no one summed up who they were more than Horace Clarke.

The thing that makes Clarke's career remarkable is that, despite pathetic hitting for 600 at bats a season, he led off for the Yankees for almost all of his career. How can you have a lead off hitter for half a dozen years with a lifetime on-base percentage of .308 and a batting average of .254? The defining Horace Clarke statistic? He had 4813 lifetime at bats and ended up with 200 extra base hits.

Darren Oliver (1993 - 2004): Oliver pitched for eight different teams in his Major League career--badly. Remarkably, Oliver finished with a winning record, but he ended with a career earned run average of 5.07.

Oliver had four seasons where he finished with an earned run average over 6.00. The year 2000 was a career lowlight. He made 21 starts for the Texas Rangers and ended up with an earned run average of 7.42. For those not in the know, that is 7.42 runs per nine innings.

Despite the fact that Oliver gave up 2247 base runners in 1407 innings in his career, he never lacked a team willing to give him the ball.