Angels release Scott Kazmir

[ThomasTomasz]

27-year-old lefty Scott Kazmir was released by the Angels yesterday. The team ultimately received 188 innings of 5.31 ball, plus 10 2/3 postseason innings, since acquiring him on August 28th, 2009. The Angels gave up prospects Alexander Torres and Matt Sweeney that day, and infielder Sean Rodriguez was included as a player to be named later. The Angels still owe Kazmir over $9MM to cover his salary for the rest of the season and the buyout on his club option. Today's Kazmir links...

"Yankees people will at least discuss Kazmir, if they haven't already," tweets SI's Jon Heyman. Heyman notes that the Yanks could use a second lefty in the bullpen, though Kazmir hasn't appeared in relief since his rookie season.
My take: signing Kazmir is a low-risk proposition that almost any team could justify, taking him on as a minor league project for the next several months similar to what the Nationals are doing with Oliver Perez. But that's only if Kazmir wants to sign right now and finds a good fit.

"I don't have any regrets," Angels GM Tony Reagins said of the '09 Kazmir trade, speaking to Mike DiGiovanna of the L.A. Times. Explained Reagins, "You make decisions in this business and live with the consequences."

Angels manager Mike Scioscia remarked to ESPN's Mark Saxon and the AP, "He's still young and I'm sure at some point we hope he can unlock that secret of where he needs to be."

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2011/06/scott-kazmir-links-thursday.html

Early thoughts on where he will land? I'm sure he will find a team willing to give him a chance. I wouldn't bet on Kazmir going to a high profile spot like New York however.

 

[FedEx227]

The secret is arm problems brought his 94 mph fastball to like 86. Not much of a secret.

 

[Slateman]

okay, why? Is he injured? Is he just tired? Are his mechanics just a mess?

 

[FedEx227]

I think it's a combo of the influx of injuries he had starting in 2008 and just general tiredness from the amount of innings he pitched in his first 3-4 years in the league.

 

[ThomasTomasz]

I think it's a combo of the influx of injuries he had starting in 2008 and just general tiredness from the amount of innings he pitched in his first 3-4 years in the league.

Thats the weird thing- other pitchers have pitched more in their first four seasons. Kazmir pitched 186, 144, 206 and 152 innings. He also had 33 innings in 2004.

I blame it on injuries and his short frame. Kazmir should have been converted to a reliever, but with his stuff back then, you can't really blame Tampa Bay for keeping them a starter.

 

[FedEx227]

No, I know, he did have a lot of major league innings early on though. By the time he was 20 he was a regular guy in a major league rotation. I just wonder if he hadn't built up enough stamina.

 

[RyanLeaf16]

Friedman got rid of him at the right time back in '09. I remember many Rays fans complaining on the local airwaves that the organization was giving up on the season, but, props to Friedman for knowing when to liquidate an asset.

 

[FirstTimer]

He's only 27? Damn

 

[FirstTimer]

Interesting article from Yahoo on him:

On Wednesday, the Los Angeles Angels made the move of releasing Scott Kazmir(notes) after the left-hander gave up 35 runs in 17 innings in Triple-A and the majors. Kazmir is just 27 and other teams are reportedly interested in his cheap services (the Halos are eating $9 million of his remaining salary this season), but he's already looking more like a cautionary tale than a possible reclamation project.

Interestingly, it's a cautionary tale we've seen before, as one of the closest parallels to Kazmir's career can be found in another left-hander who made his last appearance the year before Kazmir debuted: Steve Avery.

Scott Kazmir was taken with the 15th pick of the first round of the 2002 draft, 14 years after Avery was taken with the third overall pick in the 1988 draft. Both men blew through the minor leagues and reached the majors two years later, pitching brilliant full seasons at the age of 21, making the All-Star team within the next two years, and then seeing their effectiveness evaporate shortly after their 24th birthday, as seemingly minor injuries sapped their control and derailed their careers.

Writer Pete Williams noticed the parallel two years ago, when the Rays traded Kazmir to the Angels in a remarkably prescient move. As Williams then wrote:

Like Avery, Kazmir is a hard-throwing left-hander who reached the Majors at the age of 20 and experienced great success between the ages of 21 and 24. [...]

Like Avery, Kazmir is a former first-round pick and a pleasant young man who helped turn around the fortunes of a long-suffering franchise.

Like Avery, Kazmir suffered a relatively minor injury that seems to have thrown his mechanics out of whack.

Steve Avery's injury was a muscle strain below the armpit of his pitching arm; Kazmir had an injury to his pitching elbow. Neither injury was severe enough to require surgery, but Williams speculates that both were just serious enough as to cause the pitchers to change their pitching mechanics. And it was all downhill from there. Avery's innings stayed relatively high in the strike seasons of 1994 and 1995, when he was 24 and 25, but slid markedly after that, never to recover; Kazmir has only pitched 200 innings in one season, 2007 when he was 23, and his elbow injury the following year may have sealed his fate.

But despite wherever Kazmir goes from here, his career will also always serve as a cruel metaphor for the fallen fortunes of the New York Mets team that originally drafted him, then swapped him to the Rays for Victor Zambrano in one of the worst trades of all time.

While Steve Avery's career floundered in the mid-'90s, the Braves always seemed to have another pitcher around the corner. That wasn't the case for the Mets. In 2002, they were two years removed from a league championship and an appearance in the first Subway Series since 1956. But they finished in last place, and they were in last place in 2003 — a combined 40 games below .500, despite big-ticket contracts to Tom Glavine(notes), Mike Piazza, Al Leiter and Cliff Floyd(notes), who contributed to the second-highest payroll in baseball in 2003. Then, on July 30, 2004, the Mets were four games below .500, seven games behind the first-place Braves, but Scott Kazmir had a 1.73 ERA at AA as a 20-year-old. The Mets had one of the best trade chips in the world, and for some reason, they thought they were just one piece away from contention. Or, at least, owner Fred Wilpon thought so, and he convinced GM Jim Duquette to believe it, too.

They traded Kazmir for Victor Zambrano, who pitched 14 innings for them in 2004, then landed on the DL soon thereafter; he then threw 166 1/3 mediocre innings in 2005 and 21 1/3 innings in 2006 before being shut down for Tommy John surgery. While Kazmir was blossoming into one of the best young left-handed pitchers in the game with the Devil Rays, Carlos Beltran(notes) watched a called strike three to end the 2006 season, and Willie Randolph's Mets choked away the division twice in a row. The Mets were doing well but not well enough, and Kazmir was doing well, and this would have been the time when they could have used that extra push, not two years earlier. Of course, by this point, the Mets simply would have wished they just had his arm in the rotation.

But the first playoff appearance for the Rays was the last good year for Kazmir — the 24-year-old veteran pitched well in the 2008 regular season, acceptably in the postseason, and not very well in the World Series. As his team was becoming a powerhouse in baseball, he was turning into an old man. His velocity started slipping in 2009 and fell again in 2010, and his strikeouts fell too. During those years, the Mets were seeing their own team decimated by injuries to Johan Santana(notes), Carlos Beltran, Jose Reyes(notes) and Jason Bay(notes).

And now, both Kazmir's career and Fred Wilpon's ownership of the Mets appear perilously close to ending — Kazmir because he gave up two runs an inning in the minors and majors, Wilpon because it seems increasingly possible that, unless he can pay back $200 million in two years, he will have to sell the Mets to David Einhorn for a dollar.

Though he never pitched an inning for them, it's hard to think of Scott Kazmir without thinking of the Mets, the team whose decade might have been radically different had they held on to him. But it's hard to think of the Mets without thinking of Scott Kazmir, the man whose high expectations and early flameout resembles so many recent Mets seasons.

At least Steve Avery got a World Series ring.

 

[ThomasTomasz]

He's only 27? Damn

That makes it even more strange, as 27 is the usual breakout year for players in baseball. Adrian Beltre was in the same way as Kazmir- started in the bigs when he was 19 and it took him a while to get going. There is still hope for Kazmir, but its mental right now, as well as getting healthy and being used properly.

 

[Cody]

I think he'd be a good fit with the Indians

 

[moneyman255]

I heard Kazmir's veloicty was reaching 86 MPH in AAA, which is why they decided to release him. I would take a flyer on him and send him to AAA and see if he can turn it around, but I wouldn't trust him on the MLB roster.

 

[Blade]

He probably needs Tommy John surgery. He's young, he should go through it and be back in a year or so.

 

[FedEx227]

He just needs to refind the 10 mph he lost on his fastball... not very likely.

 

[LiquidLarry2GhostWF]

He just needs to refind the 10 mph he lost on his fastball... not very likely.

Bartolo Colon thinks he should give stem cell treatment a shot.