A Sterling Silva Career

The thoroughly eccentric career of Carlos Silva appears to have come to an end as he was cast out by the Boston Red Sox on St. Patrick's Day. If so, Silva's time in the majors will be remembered as a singularity.

Actually, to be accurate, Silva's career came to an end on August 1, 2011, following a magnificent half season for the Cubs. Unable to catch his breath after the first inning of a start, Silva went under the knife for a heart arrhythmia and has never been the same since. 

Not that he was ever the same before that.

Silva was drafted by the Phillies out of Venezuela in '96 and made his pro debut in '02. Featuring a fastball and sinker and little else, the results were excellent -- 5-0, 3.21 out of the pen. But there were troubling signs. A soft-tossing righty, Silva was relinquishing more than a hit-an-inning and fanning just four per game. Pitchers who aren't fooling batters sufficiently to whiff six or seven per nine rarely have long MLB careers.

What was keeping Silva successful was a plethora of ground balls. He allowed just four hits to leave the yard in 84 frames, and as long as he could keep that up, and the walks down, he had a chance to survive, even if it was a tightrope walk. The following season he gave up three more homers in just three more innings, his walk rate spiked to nearly four per game and he fired a dozen wild pitches. Not surprisingly, his ERA busted loose to 4.43 and his value tanked. Before the '04 season the Phils shipped him off to Minnesota -- the land of soft-tossers -- as part of a package for Eric Milton.

Score one for the Twins. Moved into the starting rotation, Silva surrendered more hits and more home runs and struck out even fewer -- a nearly inconceivable 3.4 per game. But he helped pace a staff of extreme control freaks, walking just 1.6 batters per nine innings. He contributed 14-8, 4.21 in a 4.50 ERA league and helped Minnesota win the Central.

Then it got crazy. As Silva added the pounds, he focused his control. In '05, he became just the second pitcher in more than 80 years to match his walk total in wins, with nine each. (In 1994, Bret Saberhagen walked just 13 batters en route to a 14-4 mark with the Mets. He gave up as many home runs as walks that year.) Despite torn knee cartilage, Silva (9-8, 3.44) teamed with Johan Santana and Brad Radke for an astonishing 5.53 K/BB ratio. It sounds great, but with just 77 KOs in 188 innings, Silva had little room to maneuver.

The next season the ball began flying out of the park and the ERA ballooned to 5.94. He got things back under control a bit in his walk year (13-14, 4.81) but Seattle inconceivably broke the bank for him (four years, $48 million) a move that contributed to GM Bill Bavasi's dismissal.

More homers, more walks, even fewer strikeouts and a 10-car pile-up of injuries, including a frayed rotator cuff that liquidated most of the '09 season, bedeviled Silva and he went 5-18, 6.80 over those two years, prompting the Mariners to enact the trade of broken toys with the Cubs for uncertified lunatic Milton Bradley. Seattle got hosed when Bradley broke down and Silva shocked the world. He jacked his strikeout rate 50% higher than normal (to nearly the Major League average)and delivered 13 quality starts in 16 tries. Using Seattle's money, the Cubs got half a season of Roy Halladay quality out of Carlos Silva.

The wheels came off in the second half of 2010, then the heart palpitations, then elbow tendinitis, then the Cubs gave him his walking papers and an $11.5 million severance. The Yankees took a look last year, but you know the end has arrived when a team breaks camp with the smoldering remains of a 280-pound right-hander and it's Bartolo Colon, not you. So Silva returned to Medina, MN to live off the last MLB check with his wife and two kids.

For his career, Silva's 70-70 record is probably generous given a 4.68 ERA. He struck out just four-a-game, but walked just 1.7, the fifth lowest career rate for a starter since 1950. (Bob Tewksbury, Brad Radke, Bret Saberhagen and Rick Reed rank ahead of him. Greg Maddux and Roy Halladay aren't far behind.) All the rest of that group pitched better, longer and managed to miss a bat now and then. Given what Silva evidently had to work with, he squeezed nine years and $54 million out of that lemon. Not a bad gig if you can get it.

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