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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Sunday, February 03, 2013
This has not been a fall for Scott Kazmir. It has been a plummet. A life-changing plunge from Mets superphenom to Rays ace to Angels reject.
To out of baseball.
At age 27.
In 2004, Kazmir was shipped away by the Mets in one of their most catastrophic deals ever. The flamethrowing lefty emerged into not just a Rays All-Star, but a pitcher who was historically good. But over the last few years, Kazmir’s fall has been inexplicable.
On Tuesday, though, he heads to Goodyear, Ariz., on a minor league contract with the Indians, the 29-year-old Kazmir trying to fight his way back to the majors for the first time in two years.
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1. Walt Davis Posted: February 03, 2013 at 05:49 PM (#4361335)No, his arm fell off. Steve Blass or Rick Ankiel might have been inexplicable but Kazmir fell apart for the same reason most pitchers do.
??? that's a tiny bit of a nexaggeration, innit?
Yes but it might depend on what stats you look at and where you draw your "historically good" line. For ages 22-24 (min 350 IP), Kazmir has the 2nd highest K/9 ever -- Prior being #1. His K/BB was solid (2.7, same as Gooden's) and his ERA+ was 132. That ERA+ was well behind the age 22-24 leaders (he was 35th and there are 12 guys over 150) but he was on an "HoF track" ... if he could just keep it up for another 2500 innings or so. :-)
But, agreed, when you add it all up, he was probably no better at those ages than Hamels, Zambrano or Zito, probably worse than Kershaw and a lot worse than Oswalt, so really not that special for his era. Even in 2007 he didn't receive a CY vote. He was also already fragile.
But he caused tremendous misery to Mets fans and for that he will always be appreciated!
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