Here’s a list of the only major league pitchers to average more than 8.00 strikeouts per nine innings pitched, during their Age 24 and Age 25 seasons (minimum of 150 innings per year):

It’s select company. The eleven pitchers listed above have won 16 Cy Young Awards, and have led the leagues in strikeouts 35 times.

It’s select company, but it’s a junk exercise of sorts. Walter Johnson led his league in strikeouts at age 24 and 25, a far greater accomplishment, but people didn’t strikeout as much back then so he misses the list. Bob Feller led his league in strikeouts at age 19, 20, 21, and 22, which is a few ticks past what Carlos Zambrano has done, but the draft pulled him away from his Age 24 and 25 seasons. 

So it’s a weird list: at the very least we can say that these guys pitched in high-strikeout eras, and they did a good job of striking out hitters at a young age. What happened to them in their Age-26 season?

Eight of the eleven pitchers would either lead or come in second in their league in strikeouts. Two others finished 6^th and 7^th.

Who’s the outlier here? Brett Myers. He was moved to the bullpen early in the following season. Every other pitcher who managed a high K/9 rate at Age 24 and 25 stayed a starting pitcher.

And every pitcher, including Myers, retained the ability to strike hitters out:

I should get the disclaimer out of the way. This is an article about Brett Myers. My intention, in writing this, is to ask why the Phillies organization made certain choices about Brett Myers, and how those choices have affected the player he is today. The first decision concerns the Phillies response to the very public incident when Myers physically assaulted his wife. It is not my intention to a) minimize Mr. Myers’ actions, b) make excuses for those actions, or c) bring up, again, for public debate and discussion, that sad and sorry event.
 

The Arrest

Brett Myers was arrested early Friday morning, July 23^rd, 2006, on charges of domestic assault. Less than forty hours later he took the mound against the Boston Red Sox, enduring the taunts of an angry crowd that heckled him throughout the afternoon.

I watched that game. I was living in Cambridge at the time, and I managed to catch the broadcast on the small television in my bedroom. I watched because I wanted to see how Brett Myers would react to the fans in that lyric little bandbox, as they upbraided him. I wanted to see how he would pitch.

And here’s the thing: I could not believe the Phillies were letting him pitch that game.

I had heard of Myers before. He was a solid pitcher who had posted strong numbers in 2005. He was a sleeper candidate for the NL Cy Young, a young arm capable of 200 innings and 200 strikeouts. He was, in short, the kind of pitcher that most teams try to build a rotation around.

And there he was, days after an event that had been discussed ad nausea on sports radio and television, wearing the Phillies uniform and taking the mound in Fenway Park. And I knew exactly what would happen: every single person in that lyrical old bandbox would stand up, and every one of them would boo Brett Myers. I knew, too, that the fans would keep at it: Brett Myers would hear every obscenity, every insult, every curse, until he departed from the game.

Consider the scenario from Myers’ perspective: it is highly unlikely that he wanted to pitch. Certainly, considering the obvious stressors in his life, he didn’t want to take the hill against Boston. But he couldn’t refuse to pitch, either, or else he would be called a coward for bailing out of his start. He was in a situation where any action on his part, any request he made, would be judged and criticized.

I remember thinking: surely the Phillies know all of this. Surely they were aware of what kind of hell they were going to put Brett Myers through, if they allowed him to take the mound that day. Surely they knew, too, that Brett Myers wasn’t going to ask out of the start: he couldn’t, not really.

To my mind, it was in Myers’ best interest to give him the day off. It was also in the team’s best interest: here was a representative of the Phillies organization who had done something morally abhorrent: letting him pitch was, by all accounts, a PR disaster. Fans and the media jumped on the Phillies, who drew criticism for their decision to start Myers and the team’s delay in issuing a statement about the arrest. The Phillies organization was seen as insensitive, as having placed greater importance on winning games than reprimanding a player for egregious behavior. And, worst of all, the Phillies didn’t even win the game. They lost.

The Phillies could have give Myers the day off, but they let him pitch. He gave up three runs over five innings, leaving with the Phillies behind, 2-3. It was, to be frank, a gutsy performance, and I have no idea how he did it. I don’t know Brett Myers, but I think it’s fair to grant that he possesses some amount of humanness, some conscience, and I imagine that, as he pitched that day, in that angry stadium, that he felt, to some extent, the weight of what he had done.

After that, Myers went on a leave-of-absence. Which leads to an obvious question: why did the Phillies allow him to make that start in Fenway Park, subjecting him to the additional humiliation of pitching in front of hostile fans? Why didn’t they immediately pull him from action? And why, after he did pitch in Fenway, did the Phillies then grant him a leave-of-absence?

I don’t have an answer. I really don’t. If the Phillies simply wanted to win, well, I think the odds were extremely low that Myers would have a good game. He overcame those odds and did, in fact, pitch a solid game, but I doubt the PR-hit that the Phillies took was worth those five innings.

And if the Phillies were, in fact, trying to teach a lesson to Myers, if their intention was a ‘trial-by-fire,’ it didn’t work either. Here are Myers’ numbers before the arrest, and in the month after the arrest:

Bullpen

Despite the hoopla, despite the missed time, Myers finished the season strong, ending with a 3.91 ERA and 189 K’s in 198 innings.

Brett Myers was named the Phillies Opening Day starter in 2007. During the first game of the season, Myers pitched very well, giving only 4 hits and 2 walks, while striking out nine Atlanta hitters. He left with the score tied 3-3.

Expectations were high on the Phillies: they were a popular preseason pick in the NL East, but the Phillies lost Opening Day, and by the time Myers pitched again the Phillies were 1-3. Myers had a poor game, giving up six runs in four and one-third innings. True to form, he struck out six Florida hitters. Philadelphia again lost.

During his third start of the year, Myers again pitched poorly, giving up seven earned runs in 3 and one-third innings. The Phillies lost again, and their record stood at 2-8.

Myers had started three games. In one game, he had pitched very well. In two games he had pitched very poorly. Weighing this slight evidence, the Phillies decided to make Brett Myers, a man who had always been a starting pitcher, a middle reliever.  

Let’s consider the characteristics of Brett Myers at that point in his career.

-He was a durable starter (198, 215, 176, and 193 innings during the past four seasons). He had never been injured.

-He was an excellent strikeout pitcher (K/9 above 8.5 in each of the past two seasons).

-He gave up homeruns, (between 29 and 31 homers in each of the past three seasons).

-He was young, and had never pitched out of the bullpen in his career.

In converting him to the pen, the Phillies were abandoning one of his greatest assets (durability), and limiting another (high strikeout rate). Worse: they ran the risk of putting him in a position where giving up homeruns is the very last thing a pitcher wants to do: late innings of close ballgames.  

One has to wonders why the Phillies would take the most durable starter on the team and convert him to the bullpen. Was the relief pitching that bad? Was there simply no other pitcher around to step in? How bad would the Padre middle relief have to be to move Jake Peavy from the starting rotation?

It is far easier to find an effective relief pitcher. Most baseball fans instinctively know this. A cursory look around the major leagues in any year post-1980 reveals that there are always guys who can step in and close out games effectively, if only for one or two seasons. Think Sherrill or Browoski or Chad Cordero or Antonio Alfonseca: all no-named guys who became fine closers for a few years. And hell, the Phillies had Antonio Alphonseca in their bullpen: he’d notched 45 saves in 2000, and was a closer in 2001 and 2002.  

But the Phillies panicked. That’s all there is to it. They looked at two games and believed those two games said more about Myers’ ability than the entirety of his career.

I’ll grant that the Phillies had a few good starting pitchers. Jon Lieber, for instance, was stuck in the bullpen after a dismal spring. Still: Myers was a good pitcher: he was the Opening Day starter, he had recently signed an extension with the team, and he was coming into his prime pitching years. I doubt very many teams in baseball would have moved a pitcher like Myers to middle relief.  

And I think one of the reasons the Phillies were able to move Myers is because of his arrest in 2006. Had the Padres moved Peavy to middle relief, he would’ve complained. Had the Red Sox moved Beckett, he would have complained. But Myers, well, he couldn’t really complain at all. He wasn’t pitching well, and…well, there was that incident with his wife in Boston. Maybe he’ll shut up and accept the demotion.

And he did, he accepted the demotion. A great pitcher, a pitcher with a long track record of success as a starter, was going to the ‘pen. And when Tom Gordon got injured, Myers did well as the Phillies closer: he converted 21 of 25 save opportunities, striking out 64 in 53 innings while posting a 2.87 ERA.  Best of all, he gave up just four homeruns, a rate far lower than he had ever seen in the major leagues. 
 

Back to Square One

So the Phillies, finding that Myers fit the role of a closer very well, decided to acquire Houston closer Brad Lidge, and then extend him to a four-year contract worth $43 million dollars. They then announced plans to move Myers back to the starting rotation.

Myers has had a rough 2008 season. Before being demoted to AA, he has posted a 5.84 ERA in 17 starts. His strikeout rate had been good (88 K’s, 101 IP, 7.84), but he had given up 24 homers in little more than half a season, a record-setting pace. There have been flashes of dominance: an 11- and 10-srikeout game and two more games with 8 strikeouts, but generally he has been hit hard and often. He went to AA, but he’s back now: he gave up 3 runs in 5 innings against the Mets, and the Phillies again lost. They are now 4-14 in games where Myers starts, and it is easy to imagine that the end is near. The Phillies are trying to win the NL East (heads up: they won’t), and they are unlikely to put up with Myers for much longer.

Which is a shame, because Brett Myers is a very good pitcher. He is the same age as Josh Beckett, the same age as Peavy and Zambrano, and on some days he is their equal as a pitcher.

But the Phillies have let his career go to hell. They have bounced him around from starter to closer and back again, from Philadelphia to Reading to Lehigh Valley, so he could be an Iron Pig.

And I ask: to what end? Is he a more confident pitcher because of it, or a less confident pitcher? Does he have faith that this organization is trying to use his talent, or trying to bury it? Does he take the mound knowing that he has a job on this team, or is he wondering if the next homerun he surrenders will send him back to Clearwater or Redding or Lehigh?

The Phillies let him take the mound mere hours after he made life-changing, traumatic choices. They did not have to, but they let him face that crowd. We all have our demons; we all have moments of failures in our lives, moments we’d just as soon forget, and baseball players are no different. Myers was made to face his failures, not in silence, not with his wife and in his community, but by a trial of fire in front of 38,000 hostile witnesses. The Phillies could’ve bailed him out, but they did not. They gave him the ball.

And again I ask: to what end? Did it make him a better husband? A better teammate? A better Philly? A better pitcher? Did the team send a message that such behavior isn’t tolerated? Did the team show support to the victim, his wife, in making him pitch that day? Did they show him or his wife or his family compassion? Did they show support?

I don’t have answers to those questions, and I don’t know what will happen with Brett Myers’ career. He is signed through next year, for $12 million dollars. If he stays with the Phillies, well, I don’t think he’ll be worth a quarter of it. I think the only way he returns to anything like the pitcher he used to be is if he gets traded to another club. But I think it’s over for Myers in Philly. And I think it’s a shame.