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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Hi-oh Silva!

Check out these two pitchers:

Guy One: 4-18, 7.03 RA; 1.4H/IP; 1.8 K/BB; 1.22 HR/9; 3.89 K/9

Dude Two: 2-0, 1.90 RA; .52H/IP; 6.0 K/BB; .47 HR/9; 5.7 K/9

Fellow #1 is a soft-tosser whom hitters have figured out like Monday's crossword puzzle. The opposition's taking him all over the yard, and out of it, because he's fooling a batter every third inning -- which could simply be the opposing pitcher. He's like Sarah Palin -- the opposition is begging to face him.

Fellow #2 has a much better clue. His pinpoint control is helping him keep people off base and inside the park. He's Bobby Jindal -- the other team doesn't want to reckon with him.

If you're never alone with a schizophrenic, Carlos Silva always has a friend. The first line is his last two years in Seattle. The second line is his 2010 so far for the Cubs. 

As you can see, past results are no guarantee of future earnings. Nor should we assume his hot start is a predictor going forward. The NL hasn't seen the 6'4" Venezuelan before and may take a few turns through the circuit before they start treating him like the Hacky Sack so beloved by AL batters and their agents. In addition, Silva has moved to a weaker league that sends a non-Major League hitter to the plate every ninth turn. 

Nonetheless, that's quite a transformation -- so far -- for a guy whose fastest pitches the last two years were clocked going in the other direction.

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The Greatest Trade In Baseball History

The Seattle Mariners today made the greatest trade in baseball history by aquiring Milton Bradley from the Chicago Cubs for Carlos Silva.

"Are you nuts?" says you. "Bradley is a brittle cancer with a $33 million price tag." You are correct, sir (or madam, as the case may be.) But Carlos Silva is to strikeouts what Tiger Woods is to fidelity. Carlos Silva is  a major league pitcher like I am a Mongolian loofah sponge. And Silva is selling for the low, low price of $23 million over two years, plus the $2 million sendoff required for him to slink into oblivion in 2012.

Last year, the 30-year-old righty took the mound for a grand total of eight games. This was a blessing for the Ms, because in the 30 innings he managed to stay upright, opposing hitters uncorked a .324 BA against him and crossed the plate 29 times. Silva earned every bit of his 8.60 ERA, striking out 10 batters, one fewer than he walked. He accomplished this feat in one of the best pitching parks in the AL.

Of course, that was an off-year for him. In '08, Silva limited opposing hitters to a .330 batting average and sported a snazzy 4-15, 6.46 line. In '06, Silva went 11-15, 5.94 for Minnesota and held the league to a .326 batting average. In other words, against Carlos Silva, a utility infielder is Albert Pujols.

It's easy to see why Carlos Silva can't retire major league hitters: he doesn't have major league stuff. Good pitchers whiff a batter an inning. Marginal pitchers fan six per nine. Over his eight-year career, Silva sent 3.78 per nine down on strikes. That stinks like a limburger fart.

In fact, it's worse than that. In his last 100 starts over four years, Silva has been seven losses worse than a replacement level pitcher --  a guy out of triple-A who's getting sent back as soon as Eric Bedard comes off the DL. That is fantasmagorically abysmal. That is Double-A demotion abysmal. But since Silva earns 28.75 times as much as the President of the United States, Mariners brass was loathe to kick him to the curb.

In other words, the Mariners, who receive $6 million of Tom Ricketts' money in the deal, got Carlos Silva to go away for $2 million. What a racket! Milton Bradley could trot out to left field, moon Bill Gates, take the collar, boot the winning hit, flip off the crowd, spew expletives to the media, tip over the post-game spread and spontaneously combust, all in his first game in Seattle and still qualify as a bargain compared to his trade dopleganger. The Mariners swapped Phyllis Diller for Lindsey Lohan. You do the math.

If, instead, Bradley plays 100 games before inevitably getting hurt and hits his lifetime average of .370/.450 while clogging up the DH spot, he'll be worth four more wins than Silva. That ain't chicken scratch for a team that is a bat or two from favorite status in the AL West.

All this is just the capper on a great off-season for Seattle. They were the beneficiaries of the Phils' sudden Cliff Lee allergy and they inked Chone Figgins away from archrival Los Angeles. That creates a formidable rotation fronted by Felix Hernandez, Cliff Lee and Eric Bedard, if healthy. (Granted, that's like saying the Tigers have an outfield that includes Ty Cobb, if alive. But Bedard's due to hit the 150-inning mark one of these decades.) They add Figgins and Bradley to Ichiro and Franklin Guttierez, plus a little pop from Russ Branyan, and suddenly you have a team with great starters, the best defense in the league, and an offense that no longer conjures up images of -- Tinkerbell. Still, I think Seattle is a bopper away from beating the Angels and Rangers.

I'm not sure that big bopper is on the free agent market this year, but since Lee is only signed for one more season, M's GM Jack Zduriencik might be willing to empty the farm for Adrian Gonzalez, whom the Padres have offered for the right prospect haul. In any case, there could be some meaningful games this September at Safeco for the first time since 2001. If that's the case, Pacific Northwest denizens can thank The Greatest Trade In Baseball History for helping make it possible, even if Milton Bradley spends the 2010 season orbiting Pluto.
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