Hall of Scrubs

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Major League Spring Training camps are full of Triple-A sluggers who generally have no shot at making the team.  While scrappy mediocre prospects like Pittaro impress the heck out of major league managers, big sluggers from AAA rarely gain attention even though they hit monstrous homers during Spring Training games.  They show up as non-roster invitees and are shipped out when the regulars need to get more playing time.  Sluggers like Randy Ruiz of the Blue Jays and Joe Koshansky of the Rockies (now Rangers) are recent examples.

In 2005, Calvin Pickering bucked this trend.  He came to Spring Training with the lowly Royals and battled their All-Star incumbent at first base, Ken Harvey, for spot on the roster.  Kansas City was not happy with the lack of power from the hefty Ken Harvey and were delighted with the power and patience of the equally hefty Calvin Pickering.  To the surprise of minor league slugger fans everywhere, Calvin Pickering actually won the job with a great Spring season.

Unfortunately, as is the case with most Spring Training surprises, it did not last long.  Calvin was given only 7 games to retain his new job as the starting first baseman. Only 7 games?  It was simply not fair.  He did scuffle in those seven games, hitting only .143.  The Royals promptly demoted him in favor of Ken Harvey.  It was the end of Calvin’s major league career.

Calvin went to Korea in 2006 where he hit a ton of homers.  No surprise.  He returned to the U.S. to play independent league baseball in 2007.  A blogger for the Royals review (www.royalsreview.com) recently spotted him in the Atlantic League and is sharing a photo of Pickering that shows how the 6′5” slugger has grown considerably around the midsection.  He won’t be playing in the field anytime soon with that size.  You can view this picture at the following link provided by the Royals Review:

Gigantic Calvin Pickering playing for the Bridgeport Bluefish in the Atlantic League

Prior to his stint with the Royals, Calvin played in the majors for the Orioles, who drafted him in the 35th round out of the Virgin Islands, the Reds and the Red Sox.  He ended up hitting a total of 14 homers in 95 major league games.  In the minors, he regularly hit over 30 homers per season and was known as the Barry Bonds of AAA (back when that was a respectable comparison).

You can view Calvin’s stats at www.baseball-reference.com:
Calvin’s stats

It happens every Spring.  Some crusty old manager goes nuts for a marginal prospect who is grinding hard to make a good impression during Spring Training.  It happens to the best of managers.  Recently, we have heard how much Jim Leyland likes Will Rhymes.  Hopefully, better judgement will prevail and Rhymes will start the year at Toledo.  These types of infatuations usually do not end well.  The prospect fizzles out by May and is shipped off to the minors.

 This is what happened to Chris Pittaro in 1985.  Sparky Anderson went nuts for this second baseman who hit an unimpressive .284 with 11 homers in AA.  Even though his team was coming off World Championship year, Sparky decided he needed to make room for Pittaro.  Unfortunately, there was no room at second.  He had the all-star duo of Trammell and Whitaker up the middle.  No worries, he thought.  Let’s just move Lou to third and make Pittaro the new second baseman.  He actually made an announcement that he was doing that.  Luckily, he partially came to his senses and moved Pittaro to third instead.  I think Lou basically refused to move.

The pressure of jumping from AA to the majors and of learning a new position at the same time proved to be too much for Chris Pittaro.  What a surprise!  He struggled both offensively and defensively and he was returned to the minors after 28 games.

Pittaro was so shaken that he hit only .194 in AAA.  The Tigers traded him that off-season to Minnesota in a deal for a backup catcher, Dave Engle.  The primary goal of the trade, I believe, was to keep Pittaro away from Sparky in the spring.  Who knows what would have happened if Pittaro hit .300 again in Spring Training.   He would have been like Purnal Goldy, who fooled the Tigers with great Spring Training stats in both 1962 and 1963 but failed each time they brought him North.  He was just an excellent Spring Training player. 

Chris tried to make it as a utility infielder for Minnesota, but he only got into 25 games in the next two years.  He retired after 1987 and became a scout.  Currently, he is a scouting director in the Oakland organization.

You can view Chris’s stats at www.baseball-reference.com:

Chris’s Stats

Karim Garcia is another former major leaguer making news in the World Baseball Classic.  As the leader of a potent Mexican offense, Karim is hitting .385 with three homers and 5 RBI.  Fans of Garcia are certainly not surprised to hear this.  He has been tearing up the Japanese, Korean and Mexican leagues the last few years.  He is ready to do more damage this year as a member of the Lotte Giants in the Korean League, where he is known as the “Latino Bambino.” After his major league career, he learned a little patience at the plate and has emerged as an offensive force.

It is too bad he could not learn that in the big leagues.  He was given several opportunities to do so, but poor defense, lack of plate discipline, and an awful attitude lead to his early departure from many major league organizations.

Karim started out as a top prospect in the Dodgers organization.  He was picked as Sporting News Minor League Player of the year in 1995 and made his major league debut that year at the age of 19.  He was also ranked higher than Alex Rodriguez as a prospect in AAA Pacific Coast League.  He was certainly on the fast track,  but he failed in 3 brief stints with the Dodgers and was selected by the Diamondbacks in the 1997 expansion draft.

Arizona made him part of a platoon in the outfield and he responded with nine homers.  The power was the only part of his game.  His defense in the outfield made him a liability.  Arizona swindled the Tigers in the off-season by shipping him to Detroit for Luis Gonzales, who went on to lead the Diamondbacks to a World Series championship.  The Diamondbacks took advantage of the Randy Smith’s obsession with power-hitting prospects to pull off the best trade in their short history. 

Karim, a left-handed hitter,  used the short right field porch in Tiger Stadium in 1999 to hit 14 homers in 288 at bats.  But Detroit had enough of his antics after one season.  They dumped him off on the Orioles in 2000.  It was the beginning of his career as a journeyman.  The Orioles released him after he went 0 for 16.  The Indians picked him up in 2001, but released him even though he hit 5 homers in 45 at bats.  The Yankees picked him up and released him.  The Indians picked him up again.  He hit 16 homers in limited duty and had a .584 slugging percentage.  But the Indians couldn’t wait to dump him again and sold him to the Yankees in 2003. 

Karim had a decent year for the Yankees in 2003 and was a member of their ALCS and World Series rosters.  However, he embarassed himself that year by joining Yankees reliever, Jeff Nelson, to beat up a member of the Fenway Park grounds crew in the visitor’s bullpen during the ALCS. 

The Yankees let him leave as a free agent in the off-season.   The Mets picked him up and traded him to Baltimore where he was released a second time. It was the end of his major league career.

You can view Karim’s stats at www.baseball-reference.com:

Karim’s stats

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Gene Kingsale was the typical no-hit, speedy centerfielder who was always so close to becoming a great leadoff hitter when he was a top prospect for the Baltimore Orioles in the late nineties.  If only he could bunt more or hit it on the ground more.  If only he could get more walks.  Sadly, he never could improve those skills in the US.  But the coaches of the Netherlands national team seemed to have unlocked that potential.

This former scrubby centerfielder is making news recently as the leadoff hitter for the Netherlands team that upset the Dominican Republic in the first round of the World Baseball Classic.  He has found success in the Netherlands that he could not find in the majors.  I doubt it will result in a return to the majors. Once a player ends up playing in the Netherlands League, he generally stays in the Netherlands.

Kingsale got several opportunities to prove himself in Baltimore before they waived him in 2001.  He never hit over .250 for the Orioles.  The Mariners claimed him off waivers , but they only gave him 18 at bats before waiving him again.  The Padres claimed him this time and handed him the regular centerfield job in 2002.  He responded by hitting .278 and stealing 9 bases.  The Padres then traded him to the lowly Tigers in 2003 for catcher Mike Rivera (NL Stan Papi Award winner in 2006).  In Detroit, Gene joined the ranks of Gary Pettis and Kimera Bartee by hitting a measly .208 as the regular centerfielder.  They gave up on him after 120 AB’s.  It was his last year in the majors.

In addition to being a star of the Netherlands, Gene’s other claims to fame are that he was the first major leaguer to come from Aruba and he was also knighted by the person in Aruba who does that type of thing (likely a major baseball fan).

You can view Gene’s stats at www.baseball-reference.com:

Gene’s Stats

The second Iorg brother is being inducted into the Hall of Scrubs. Like his brother Dane, Garth was a valuable utility infielder in the 80’s. He was a right-handed third base platoon partner to Rance Mulliniks for Toronto Blue Jays. Garth spent his entire career in Toronto after being drafted from the Yankees organization as te 46th pick in the 1976 expansion draft.

Garth’s best year was in 1985 when he helped the Blue Jays win a division title with a .313 average and 7 homers in 288 at bats. He fell to a .210 average in his last year in 1987.

Even though Garth spent his entire career with one of the Tiger’s biggest rivals, he is getting a lot of attention recently in Detroit due to the rise of his son, Cale, as the Tigers’ top shortstop prospect. Unlike his father and uncle Dane, Cale projects as a superstar shortstop in the mold of Alan Trammell.

Garth’s oldest son, Isaac, played in the minors and reached AA in the Braves organization before ending his career in 2004. His second son, Eli, is currently playing in AA for the Astros organization.

With Cale emerging as a future Tigers’ star, the talk of the Iorg family should continue for a long time in Detroit and should remain positive. That was not the case in the 80’s when Garth often led the Blue Jays to victory over the Tigers with several clutch hits. He always came in to face the Tiger’s weak left handed pitching and he usually delivered .. except in 1987.

In his last major league at bat that year, Garth faced the Tigers’ lefty Frank Tanana. With the tying run in scoring position and a division title at stake, Garth grounded to Frank for the final out of the game. The Tigers won the division but fell to the Twins in the playoffs.

Hopefully Garth’s son will soon help the Tigers win many more division titles and a World Series or two.

You can view Garth’s stats at www.baseball-refernce.com:

Garth’s stats

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