Sunday Notes: A Yooper, Derrick Edington Was Tutored By an Erstwhile Closer

Derrick Edington is hoping to join select company. MLB history includes fewer than a dozen players born in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the most accomplished being Mike Bordick (Marquette) and George Brunet (Houghton). Also notable are Kevin Tapani, who was born in Iowa but grew up in the U.P. (Escanaba), and John Michaelson, whose family moved to a small town in the Copper Country when he was five years old so that his father could work in the mines. Michaelson, who got a cup of coffee with the Chicago White Sox in 1921, is the only big-leaguer to have been born in Finland.

Edington is from the village of Pickford, which is located roughly 40 miles north of the Mackinac Bridge, which separates the state’s two peninsulas. The 6-foot-8, 230-pound right-hander’s journey from rural Michigan to affiliated baseball spanned several years at baseball’s lower runs, and included a helpful boost from a former All-Star closer.

Signed out of an independent league by the Tampa Bay Rays last May, Edington has gone from throwing “maybe 82 [mph]’ as a high school senior — basketball was his better sport — to sitting 95-96, and occasionally reaching triple digits. Raw but nonetheless promising, he made 20 relief appearances between the Florida Complex League and Arizona Fall League, logging high ERAs but also fanning 39 batters in 32 innings.

I asked the erstwhile Pickford Panther about his atypical path to pro ball.

“It was a long road,” explained Edington. “I was at a JUCO, Kellogg College, in downstate Battle Creek, then at Davenport University, a D-2 in Grand Rapids. After I graduated in the spring of 2022, I had a tryout for an indie-ball league called the USPBL. After a season there [with the East Side Diamond Hoppers], I went to a tryout for the Frontier League and got picked up by the Windy City Thunderbolts. Early in my second season there, I got a call from my manager. He told me, ‘Hey man, the Tampa Bay Rays are going to pick up your contract.’”

The caller was Bobby Jenks.

“He was huge in getting me to where I’m at right now,” Edington said of the sturdily-built right-hander who recorded 173 saves for the White Sox from 2005-2010. “We talked pitching a lot, much of that about mental mindset on the mound. [Former big-league pitching coach] Larry Rothschild was kind of coming and going at Windy City while I was there, and he also helped me out. It’s always been between the ears for me — physically, I can handle anything — and being prepared for any situation is something Bobby and Larry talked to me about a lot.”

Edington also credits Jenks for helping to get him “in front of the right eyes“. The former closer made calls to connections within the industry, telling them that they might want to give the hard-throwing hurler an opportunity, As for the call he made to Edington, it was equal parts unexpected and music to his ears.

“It was disbelief,” recalled Edington. “I mean, it was seriously disbelief, and obviously excitement. There were a lot of emotions, because every baseball player’s goal is to get that chance. My first, probably, month in the Rays organization there were a lot of pinch-me moments. It was like, ‘Wow, this is really happening.’ So yeah, it was super surreal to get that phone call.”

Pickford’s population is 1,562. Against tall odds, the small U.P. town may one day boast a big-league pitcher.

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RANDOM HITTER-PITCHER MATCHUPS

Andrew McCutchen is 12 for 22 against Jordan Lyles.

Xander Bogaerts is 16 for 34 against Jordan Montgomery.

Daniel Murphy went 22 for 64 against Jordan Zimmermann.

Austin Riley is 4 for 9 against Jordan Hicks.

Adley Rutschman is 3 for 6 against Jordan Romano.

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When the Milwaukee Brewers inked Tyler Alexander to a free agent deal on Wednesday, they brought on board a 30-year-old southpaw who can both start and work out of the bullpen. They also brought on board a pitcher who exemplifies “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” Dating back to his days as a Southlake, Texas prep, and continuing on through his time at Texas Christian University and a decade of professional baseball, Alexander has relied more on moxie than power to record outs.

“Honestly, I think I have been the same pitcher since high school,” said Alexander, who spent last year in Tampa after five seasons in Detroit. “What I throw is different, but I’ve always been a guy that moves the ball around, locates well, changes speeds, changes shapes. I’ve thrown the same velocity since I was probably 17 years old.”

Alexander’s four-seamer and sinker averaged 89.6 and 89.7 mph respectively last season, qualifying him as soft-tosser by today’s standards. That he ranked in the fourth percentile for velocity isn’t something he’s especially proud of, but it’s also not something he’s about to lose sleep over. Much like one of his former Tigers teammates, his goal is to stifle the opposition, not to light up radar guns.

“He might throw a little bit harder than I do [91.6 mph], but we throw very similar pitches,” Alexander said when asked how he compares to Tyler Holton. “We actually have the same exact arsenal, and do basically the same things. We both locate the ball. And you don’t necessarily have to throw hard in this league, not as long as you locate and change shapes. That’s really the name of the game.”

One of the pitches Alexander and Holton have in common is the sweeper. Alexander threw one in 2022, shelved it in 2023, then brought it back in 2024. The current iteration is both different and improved.

“The grip is the exact same, but how I throw isn’t,” explained Alexander. “When I first started throwing one, I wanted something like a Rich Hill curveball, something big that sweeps a ton. I ultimately decided that it didn’t play well with my arsenal, so I stopped throwing it. Then, when I got here to the Rays, they said I should try to make it as as horizontal as possible. Instead of throwing it [with this hand orientation], I’m throwing it this way, so it sweeps more than it drops. The horizontal movement actually hasn’t changed much, but whereas the vertical used to get into the negative, now my goal is for it to stay positive.”

Alexander has a 4.55 ERA and a 4.70 FIP over 449 big-league innings.

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A quiz:

The Cy Young Award has been given out to pitchers in both leagues since 1969, while from 1956-1966 there was only one recipient. Which of the following pitchers never won a Cy Young?: Don Drysdale, LaMarr Hoyt, Randy Jones, Mike Mussina, Steve Stone.

The answer can be found below.

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NEWS NOTES

MLB announced on Friday that five umpires have been promoted to full-time positions: Paul Clemons, Emil Jiménez, Alex MacKay, Dan Merzel, and Nate Tomlinson. Three umpires retired following the 2024 season: Paul Emmel, Jerry Layne, and Larry Vanover.

SABR announced that Bruce Bochy will be honored with this year’s Roland Hemond Award, which which recognizes a baseball executive who has demonstrated a lifetime commitment to professional baseball scouts and scouting, and player development history. The award has been given out since 2001.

Longtime Detroit Tigers clubhouse manager Jim Schmakel is retiring. Schmakel has been with the team since 1978.

The Pittsburgh Pirates have hired Daniel Vogelbach as a special assistant to their hitting department. The 32-year-old veteran of nine big-league seasons finished his career with 361 hits, including 81 home runs.

Jim Todd, a right-hander who pitched for the Chicago Cubs, Oakland Athletics, and Seattle Mariners in a career that comprised the 1974-1979 seasons, died on February 3 at age 77 (per Baseball Player Passings). The Lancaster, Pennsylvania native had his best season in 1975 when he went 8-3 with a 2.29 ERA and a dozen saves for the A’s.

Angel Torres, a left-handed pitcher who appeared in five games for the Cincinnati Reds in 1977, died on February 1 at age 72. The La Cienaga, Dominican Republic allowed two runs over eight-and-a-third innings, with Cesar Cedeno responsible for all of the damage. The Houston Astros outfielder took Torres deep twice in as many at-bats.

This year’s SABR Analytics Conference will be held in Phoenix from March 14-16. Featured speakers include Burke Badenhop, Kyle Boddy, Glenn Fleisig, Michael Girsch, Mike Petriello, and Michael Sonne. More information can be found here.

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The answer to the quiz is Mike Mussina. The right-hander finished among the top five vote getters six times, but never received the honor.

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Which of Spencer Arrighetti, Hunter Greene, Jared Jones, and Spencer Schwellenbach will finish the 2025 season with the highest fWAR? I asked that question in a Twitter poll earlier this week, and as often happens, the results surprised me. It was the paucity of support received by the last-place finisher that stood out. While the top three were largely bunched together — Jones got 36.5%, Greene 34.4%, and Schwellenbach 27.1% — Arrighetti garnered just 2.1%.

Last season, the young quartet’s respective WAR totals were Greene 3.8, Schwellenbach 2.6, Jones 1.8, and Arrighetti 1.6. Much for that reason, it is understandable that Arrighetti polled poorly. At the same time, Greene, who I anticipated getting the most votes, finished second, while Jones, who did win, had only a marginally better 2024 than Arrighetti. Moreover, not only did the Houston Astros rookie have the highest strikeout rate of the four, he had a strong second half of the season. What might that mean for 2025? Only time will tell, but I’d rank them: 1. Greene, 2. A coin flip between Arrighetti and Schwellenbach, 4. Jones.

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FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Pedro Avila has reportedly signed with NPB’s Tokyo Yakult Swallows. The 28-year-old right-hander had a 3.25 ERA over 50 relief appearances with the Cleveland Guardians last year.

NPB’s Chiba Lotte Mariners have reportedly signed Austin Voth. The 32-year-old right-hander had a 3.69 ERA over 68 relief appearances with the Seattle Marines last year.

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A random obscure former player snapshot:

Raul Casanova played for both a 109-loss team and a World Series-winning team. A journeyman catcher whose big-league career comprised 387 games, the Humacao, Puerto Rico native spent his 1996 rookie season with a Detroit Tigers squad that finished with what was, at the time, a franchise-worst record (53-109). Nine years later, he saw action in six games for a Chicago White Sox squad that won 99 games, then went on to win the Fall Classic. In between, Casanova had a career-best campaign with the Milwaukee Brewers. Caddying for Henry Blanco, the backstop bashed 11 home runs while putting up a 96 wRC+. Lauded as a power-hitting prospect with a high ceiling, Casanova ended up going deep just 35 times in what was ultimately an underwhelming career.

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Paul Janish was a defensive-minded shortstop for parts of nine big-league seasons, seeing action with the Cincinnati Reds, Atlanta Braves, and Baltimore Orioles from 2008-2017. The now-Chicago White Sox farm director also logged time at second and third base, although it’s at yet a different position where he’s in the record books. Jansih twice toed the rubber with the Reds in a mop-up role, and the result was 11 earned runs allowed over a pair of frames. His 49.50 ERA is the highest in MLB history among hurlers with at least two innings on his ledger.

How does the erstwhile Rice University Owl look back at those outings?

“I affectionately refer to that as it having been fun to do once, but doing it twice made me realize I didn’t want to do it anymore,” Janish said good-naturedly. “It does give me the luxury of being able to tell people that I pitched in the big leagues. It’s also a little bit of a nod to where I stood, relative to the rest of the big-league roster. But in all good fun… obviously, there have been a few guys who have brought in a bit of comic relief, like Brett Phillips, a few years ago, throwing the eephus pitches. So, I’m glad I got to do it. At the very least, it gave me some good stories to tell.”

He also got some good souvenirs. Janish has signed bats from Prince Fielder and Jayson Werth (a grand slam), the two players who took him deep. And then there are the bragging rights.

“I struck out J.J. Hardy, who I later played with,” explained Janish. “You can imagine that provided some pretty interesting banter.”

Hardy was the first of the 17 batters Janish faced in his two mound appearances, while the last batter he faced, Pedro Feliz, also went down on strikes. In between, things didn’t go so well.

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LINKS YOU’LL LIKE

At Axios Chicago, Justin Kaufmann and Tyler Buchanan teamed up to write about Chicago’s Black trailblazers, from Rube Foster to Minnie Minoso.

MLB.com’s Mike Petriello looked at the ballparks and players who were most impacted by weather conditions last year.

Justin Krueger profiled longtime Texas Rangers catcher Jim Sundberg for SABR’s Bio Project.

Why did the Pirates sign Adam Frazier and Tommy Pham? John Perrotto addressed that question at Pittsburgh Baseball Now.

The Athletic’s Chandler Rome wrote about how Alex Bregman’s departure leaves a void in the Houston Astros clubhouse (subscription required).

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RANDOM FACTS AND STATS

Barry Bonds had a career-high 411 total bases in 2001. Shohei Ohtani had 411 total bases — his highest total to date — last season.

Willie Mays played 21 seasons with the Giants and batted .304 with a 156 wRC+ and 1,859 RBIs. Mel Ott played 22 seasons with the Giants and batted .304 with a 154 wRC+ and 1,860 RBIs.

Lefty Grove had 300 wins and 141 losses. Early Wynn had 300 wins and 244 losses. Both are in the Hall of Fame.

Don Drysdale started 465 games and had a 209-165 won-lost record.
Milt Pappas started 465 games and had a 209-166 won-lost record.

The San Diego Padres signed Roberto Alomar as an amateur free agent on today’s date in 1985. Five years later, the Padres traded the Hall of Fame second baseman, along with Joe Carter, to the Toronto Blue Jays in exchange for Tony Fernandez and Fred McGriff.

On today’s date in 1909, the Cleveland Naps traded Charlie Chech and Jack Ryan — cash was also part of the package — to the Boston Red Sox in exchange for Cy Young. The legendary hurler proceeded to go 19-15 with a 2.26 ERA for Cleveland in what was his age-42 season. Young’s 294-and-a-third innings in 1909 were his fewest since his 1890 rookie season.

Players born on today’s date include Ribs Raney — his full name at birth was Frank Robert Donald Raniszewski — a right-hander who appeared in four games for the St. Louis Browns across the 1949-1950 seasons. The Detroit native went 17-7 with the Mountain State League’s Huntington Jewels in 1942.

Also born on today’s date was Bill Pecota, whose claim to fame is twofold: Nate Silver named a projection system after him, and he played all nine positions (never all in the same game) over the course of his career. A Kansas City Royal from 1986-1991, Pecota subsequently spent one year with the New York Mets, and two with the Atlanta Braves. He went 26-for-97 as a pinch-hitter.

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