Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
As of today Rich Ankiel is no longer going to be cut by the Cardinals as a pitcher. He's going to be sent down this time with the designation of outfielder in front of his name.
Ankiel, a career .207 hitter, announced that his pitching days are over. Surprisingly, his pitching coach Dave Duncan was caught unawares—"I've been trying to get him ready to pitch". He added, "Doh!"
Ankiel will be remembered as promising pitcher who had problems with wildness, was stalked by the media, and had his share of injuries. I can't say what kind of outfielder he'll be remembered as, but I don’t expect that his second career will add much to his baseball epitaph.
Anyway, now that the book is closed on his pitching career let's look at just how wild he was. For every pitcher all time, I added (non-intentional) walks, balks, wild pitches, and hit batsmen and prorated them per nine innings (Actually, minimum of 200 innings pitched). Ankiel came in 61st out of 3020 pitchers. Here are the wildest pitchers all-time along with Ankiel's stats for comparison's sake:
| Name | W | L | ERA | IP | BB | WP | HBP | BK | IBB | Wild |
| Dick Weik | 6 | 22 | 5.90 | 213.7 | 237 | 19 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 10.91 |
| Bob Wiesler | 7 | 19 | 5.74 | 241.3 | 218 | 11 | 6 | 4 | 1 | 8.88 |
| Dave Cole | 6 | 18 | 4.93 | 237.3 | 199 | 12 | 7 | 1 | 0 | 8.30 |
| Mitch Williams | 45 | 58 | 3.65 | 691.3 | 544 | 44 | 52 | 24 | 39 | 8.14 |
| Ken Wright | 11 | 15 | 4.54 | 236.0 | 180 | 11 | 11 | 3 | 1 | 7.78 |
| Carl Doyle | 6 | 15 | 6.95 | 222.7 | 155 | 16 | 17 | 2 | 0 | 7.68 |
| Tommy Byrne | 85 | 69 | 4.11 | 1,362.0 | 1037 | 28 | 85 | 4 | 10 | 7.56 |
| George Boehler | 6 | 12 | 4.71 | 202.3 | 134 | 14 | 19 | 0 | 0 | 7.43 |
| Ken Johnson | 12 | 14 | 4.58 | 269.3 | 195 | 16 | 9 | 1 | 0 | 7.38 |
| Emmett O'Neill | 15 | 26 | 4.76 | 355.7 | 260 | 16 | 8 | 2 | 0 | 7.24 |
| Carl Cashion | 12 | 13 | 3.70 | 255.7 | 170 | 15 | 16 | 2 | 0 | 7.15 |
| Ed Correa | 16 | 19 | 5.16 | 282.7 | 189 | 29 | 7 | 2 | 4 | 7.10 |
| Lefty Mills | 15 | 30 | 6.06 | 435.0 | 302 | 20 | 19 | 1 | 0 | 7.08 |
| Cy Seymour | 61 | 56 | 3.76 | 1,029.0 | 655 | 60 | 84 | 8 | 0 | 7.06 |
| Doug Creek | 7 | 14 | 5.19 | 267.0 | 192 | 16 | 17 | 0 | 16 | 7.04 |
| Ryne Duren | 27 | 44 | 3.83 | 589.3 | 392 | 38 | 41 | 3 | 15 | 7.01 |
| John D'Acquisto | 34 | 51 | 4.56 | 779.7 | 544 | 56 | 19 | 5 | 25 | 6.91 |
| Lowell Palmer | 5 | 18 | 5.29 | 316.7 | 202 | 35 | 23 | 1 | 18 | 6.91 |
| Bill Daley | 29 | 16 | 3.49 | 409.7 | 291 | 10 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 6.79 |
| Rex Barney | 35 | 31 | 4.31 | 597.7 | 410 | 21 | 15 | 4 | 0 | 6.78 |
| John Rocker | 13 | 22 | 3.42 | 255.3 | 164 | 29 | 12 | 4 | 17 | 6.77 |
| Rick Ankiel | 13 | 10 | 3.90 | 242.0 | 130 | 20 | 12 | 2 | 2 | 6.02 |
So, yeah, Ankiel was wild, but he was no Mitch Williams. And yes the "Wild Thing" moniker fit.
And for all of you who think of Babe Ruth when you hear about a pitcher switching to the outfield, there actually have been 134 men who at one time were primarily a pitcher and eventually played primarily another position. Here are the last ten (and yeah, Kieschnick is a stretch):
| Name | HR | AB | W | L | Debut |
| Brooks Kieschnick | 16 | 306 | 2 | 2 | 1996-04-03 |
| John Upham | 0 | 13 | 0 | 1 | 1967-04-16 |
| Willie Smith | 46 | 1654 | 2 | 4 | 1963-06-18 |
| Bobby Darwin | 83 | 2224 | 0 | 1 | 1962-09-30 |
| Claude Osteen | 8 | 1099 | 196 | 195 | 1957-07-06 |
| Hal Brown | 2 | 484 | 85 | 92 | 1951-04-19 |
| Bob Cain | 0 | 214 | 37 | 44 | 1949-09-18 |
| Don Newcombe | 15 | 878 | 149 | 90 | 1949-05-20 |
| Bobby Shantz | 1 | 548 | 119 | 99 | 1949-05-01 |
| Mickey McDermott | 9 | 619 | 69 | 69 | 1948-04-24 |
| Dan Bankhead | 1 | 45 | 9 | 5 | 1947-08-26 |
| Clint Hartung | 14 | 378 | 29 | 29 | 1947-04-15 |
| Pat Cooper | 0 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 1946-05-11 |
| Joe Vitelli | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1944-05-30 |
| Al Lyons | 1 | 58 | 3 | 3 | 1944-04-19 |
For a closer analogue to Ankiel, here are the men who won at least 10 games in a season as a pitcher (Ankiel won 11) prior to moving to another position:
| Name | HR | AB | W | L | Debut |
| Tony Kaufmann | 9 | 414 | 64 | 62 | 1921-09-23 |
| Johnny Cooney | 2 | 3372 | 34 | 44 | 1921-04-19 |
| Babe Ruth | 714 | 8399 | 94 | 46 | 1914-07-11 |
| Rube Bressler | 32 | 3881 | 26 | 32 | 1914-04-24 |
| Reb Russell | 22 | 976 | 81 | 59 | 1913-04-18 |
| Clarence Mitchell | 7 | 1287 | 125 | 139 | 1911-06-02 |
| Joe Wood | 23 | 1952 | 116 | 57 | 1908-08-24 |
| Fred Mitchell | 0 | 572 | 31 | 49 | 1901-04-27 |
| Joe Yeager | 4 | 1853 | 33 | 49 | 1898-04-22 |
| Jack Dunn | 1 | 1622 | 64 | 59 | 1897-05-06 |
| Cy Seymour | 52 | 5682 | 61 | 56 | 1896-04-22 |
| Al Orth | 12 | 1698 | 204 | 189 | 1895-08-15 |
| Cozy Dolan | 10 | 3174 | 12 | 13 | 1895-04-26 |
| Bobby Wallace | 34 | 8618 | 24 | 22 | 1894-09-15 |
| Nixey Callahan | 11 | 3295 | 99 | 73 | 1894-05-12 |
| Tom Parrott | 15 | 999 | 39 | 48 | 1893-06-18 |
| Jack Stivetts | 35 | 1991 | 203 | 132 | 1889-06-26 |
| Kid Gleason | 15 | 7452 | 138 | 131 | 1888-04-20 |
| Elmer Smith | 37 | 4684 | 75 | 57 | 1886-09-10 |
| Ed Daily | 19 | 2573 | 66 | 70 | 1885-05-04 |
| Bob Caruthers | 29 | 2465 | 218 | 99 | 1884-09-07 |
| Dave Foutz | 31 | 4533 | 147 | 66 | 1884-07-29 |
| Perry Werden | 26 | 2740 | 12 | 1 | 1884-04-24 |
| Dick Burns | 4 | 544 | 25 | 27 | 1883-05-03 |
| John Coleman | 7 | 2508 | 23 | 72 | 1883-05-01 |
| Charlie Sweeney | 2 | 894 | 64 | 52 | 1882-05-11 |
| Larry Corcoran | 2 | 1289 | 177 | 89 | 1880-05-01 |
| John Ward | 26 | 7647 | 164 | 102 | 1878-07-15 |
| Frank Hankinson | 13 | 3272 | 16 | 12 | 1878-05-01 |
| Terry Larkin | 1 | 845 | 89 | 80 | 1876-05-20 |
| Lon Knight | 3 | 2288 | 16 | 28 | 1875-09-04 |
| George Bradley | 3 | 2258 | 171 | 151 | 1875-05-04 |
| John McMullin | 4 | 1082 | 14 | 15 | 1871-05-09 |
| Al Spalding | 2 | 1958 | 253 | 65 | 1871-05-05 |
So, no one's really done it since the era of Ruth. Kaufmann was the last to do it. He joined the Giants at age 28, played the outfield exclusively, and then left the Giants and returned to the mound. Anyway, it'll be pretty rare if Ankiel can pull it off. Given his sad recent past, I hope he can, but I highly doubt it.
By the way, if by the title I made anyone think of the execrable Brad Pitt vehicle (think Pinto) "Troy" I apologize abjectly.
And you left Roy Tucker--The Kid from Tompkinsville--off your list of big league moves from the mound.
Yep, this is just at the major-league level.
#9 (tie):
Date: July 23, 1922
Trade: Yankees send Lefty O'Doul, Chick Fewster, Elmer Miller, Johnny Mitchell, and $50 K to the Boston Red Sox for Joe Dugan and Elmer (J.) Smith.
Pre Career WS Diff: 76 (favoring NYY)
Post Career WS Diff: 94 (Bos)
Pre Year WS Diff: 9 (NYY)
Post Year WS Diff: 0
WSAB Pre Career Diff: 29 (NYY)
WSAB Post Career Diff: 59 (Bos)
WSAB Pre Yr Diff: 2 (NYY)
WSAB Post Yr Diff: 2 (NYY)
The Yankees give up too much to get two veterans? The trade drew a protest from then contending St. Louis, causing Commissioner Landis to change the rules to bar non-waiver trades after June 15.
O'Doul was still a young pitcher when the Yanks shipped him to the Sox. He would blow his arm out in Boston and then go back to the PCL to turn himself into a very good batting outfielder with the Giants, Phils, and Dodgers. (Also when in San Francisco, remember to visit Lefty O'Doul's pub. I have a menu from there that I kept as a souvenir.) He was the prize of the trade though the Sox didn't directly benefit from it.
Smith stinks up the field in NY (.185 batting average), and survives only one more year with the Yankees (122 OPS+) and two more years in the majors. Dugan was the Yankee third baseman and leadoff hitter for many years. So even when the Red Sox "win" one, they don't benefit from it.
The Kid from Tompkinsville?!? What about Henry Rowengartner?
Name HR AB W L Debut
Tony Kaufmann 9 414 64 62 1921-09-23
Johnny Cooney 2 3372 34 44 1921-04-19
Rube Bressler 32 3881 26 32 1914-04-24
Reb Russell 22 976 81 59 1913-04-18
Fred Mitchell 0 572 31 49 1901-04-27
Bob Caruthers 29 2465 218 99 1884-09-07
Perry Werden 26 2740 12 1 1884-04-24
Terry Larkin 1 845 89 80 1876-05-20
And Kaufmann, the latest to do it, was moved to the outfield exclusively at age 28 by the Giants but the next year then returned to the mound to finish out his career. Odd. Must have been an injury.
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