Players with odd career arcs

"Jamie Moyer’s card has been removed. He’s too ancient and weird for us to predict any aspect of his performance this year with PECOTA. Our official fantasy advice would be: don’t draft him."

Seeing this quote and reading an article this week on the odd career arc of Rick Sutcliffe got me thinking that it could be interesting to discuss players whose career's had odd turns in productivity or some guys like Moyer who figured it out way late in his career. (Below is a link to the article about Sutcliffe, who was a pitcher I saw a bunch growing up on WGN with the Cubs. I saw him pitch a complete game win against the Reds the only time I went to Wrigley field about 1989 or 90.)

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-big-red-one/

A pitcher that like Moyer really came out of nowhere and figured it out was Dave Stewart. Stewart had a couple of years of being a decent middle reliever for the Dodgers but was pretty much a journeyman, then out of nowhere was one of the best starters in the AL (or all of baseball) for four seasons in his early 30s.

I wonder for pitchers what is the formula for coming out of nowhere to get good like that? I know some pitchers learning the split fingered fastball was a big thing in the late 80s to early 90s. I would suppose that they just get good at throwing strikes and figure out what is their out pitch.

There are plenty of odd hitting career arcs in the steroid era.

Steve Finley was a way better player in his mid to late 30s than he was in his mid to late 20s. Whether or not he was using, the guy was really durable across his career.

Moyer is a freak. The guy was a hangabout until 33, then has just piled up the starts and has has so much success. The only guy I can even somewhat compare him to is a knuckleballer like Charlie Hough, but he was a pretty decent reliever (key one for the mid 70s Dodgers) before he started later in his career.

It's not really an arc since he remained basically the same player throughout his career, but my first thought was Shawon Dunston since he played until he was 39 despite missing all those games early on and sucked pretty much the whole time. Playing for six teams in three years is a little odd, too. Slash stats of his first all-star season: .249/.271/.357. Total walks, 1985-2002: 203. (Barry Bonds' walks, 2004: 232.)

Nolan Ryan finally stopped walking a ton of guys in his mid 30s

Nolan Ryan's 1987 pitching line is a prime example of how wins are about getting support and luck. That season line always stuck out for me, as statistically it is one of the better all around lines in his career.

I didn't realize how many walks the dude gave up. Criminy you would have to strike out 367 people to be competitive if you give up 200 hits AND 200 walks in a year. Of course all of those guys that still pitched in the early mid-70s racked up bunches of complete games.

Talking about the Reds current crop of players with a friend, we started talking that this was the best crop of young players they have had since the mid 80s and this guy came up.

Kal Daniels was a pretty good hitter, probably considered a better player when he first came up that Paul O'Neil, who went on to have a quite long and successful career. Looking up his stat line, Daniels drew some walks.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/d/danieka01.shtml

Also, what the heck was Bret Saberhagen's deal with odd numbers. The dude was killer in 85, 87, 89 and 91...in-between, not so much.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/s/saberbr01.shtml

"I didn't realize how many walks the dude gave up."

Yeah he was just awful at first.

hence, Jim Fregosi :p

Yeah, it's amazing that Ryan was 1st or 2nd in H/9IP basically every year in the 70's, but was in the top ten in WHIP only once. Then he started walking half as many guys and finally led the league in WHIP for two straight years -- at ages 43 and 44!!!