Forgotten Pitchers of the 1980s, pt. 3

The Late Bloomers: Mike Scott and John Tudor

My goal in this series of articles about pitchers of the 1980s is to show that that decade’s reputation for mediocrity is undeserved. The two previous parts dealt with pitchers who had excellent careers, yet have been underappreciated. This article is about two players who very well may have garnered more attention had they been able to break into the majors sooner. Mike Scott didn’t become a full-time starter until age 26; John Tudor had to wait until he was 28. Scott and Tudor combined for only 21 starts and 109.2 innings pitched before their age 26 seasons. To put this in perspective, there were 14 pitchers in the 1980s who threw over 1000 innings before age 26, led by Fernando Valenzuela with 1805 innings pitched in 234 starts. As you’ll see, though, both pitchers overcame their late starts to put together solid career numbers.

Mike Scott was born in Santa Monica, California in 1955. After a stellar career at Pepperdine University, including a perfect game in his junior season, Scott was selected in the 2 ^nd round by the Mets in 1976. He made it to the majors at the beginning of the 1979 season and threw 53 innings on the year, both as a starter and a reliever. That Mets team won just 63 games, but had a very promising array of young pitchers such as Scott, Jeff Reardon, Jesse Orosco, Juan Berenguer and Neil Allen. As it turned out, only Orosco remained to play on the 1986 World Series team; Allen was traded to St. Louis in 1983 for Keith Hernandez.

Scott spent the next three years battling injuries and inconsistency, shuttling between the rotation and the bullpen. He started 45 games in 1981-82, but struck out only 117 batters over two seasons. After a 1982 season in which he lost 13 games and recorded a 5.90 ERA and 1.66 WHIP, he was traded to Houston for Danny Heep. Scott’s main problem early in his career was a limited repertoire; as he told Sports Illustrated in 1987, “in college all I had to go with the fastball was a lollipop curve…I had a 95 mile-an-hour fastball and I couldn’t strike anyone out [in the majors].” He also threw a slider, but with little confidence.

In 1983, his age 28 season and his first in Houston, Scott had a sort of rejuvenation, going 10-6 after missing a month with shoulder soreness. The following spring, however, brought more bad news: “I lost my slider. Just lost it. Right from the start, in spring training…I was totally out of sync. It just got worse and worse.” In 29 starts, he went 5-11 with a 4.68 ERA, compared to a league average of 3.31. “I didn’t know if my career was over,” he recalled, “but I did know it wasn’t moving very fast.”

At the end of 1984, Scott had a career mark of 14-27 with a 4.64 ERA, 151 strikeouts and 122 walks in 364 innings. He was turning 30 and had accomplished little in baseball. The turning point of his career, however, was to come that winter. Teammate Enos Cabell approached him after the season and asked if he’d be interested in working with Roger Craig, the split-finger fastball teacher who had just quit as pitching coach for the Tigers after helping many of their pitchers, most notably Jack Morris. Scott, who by his own admission had “tried every kind of breaking pitch,” agreed, and Astros manager Bob Lillis helped make the arrangements. Craig and Scott spent nine days together in San Diego working on mechanics, and when the right-hander showed up at spring training, he was an entirely new pitcher. 1985 saw a triumphant Mike Scott post career highs in wins (18), ERA (3.29), strikeouts (137), starts (35), innings pitched (221.2) and complete games (4). After the season, he signed a three-year contract that he could not have dreamed of twelve months earlier.

The following season, Mike Scott’s numbers took another astronomical leap. He struck out an incredible 306 batters while recording a .923 WHIP; both single season numbers were unmatched by any pitcher in the decade. He also led the league in ERA (2.22), innings pitched (275.1) K/9 (10.0), and shutouts (5, as many as he’d had in his entire previous career). For his efforts, he was rewarded with the Cy Young award, becoming the first Astro to be so honored (and the last until Roger Clemens in 2004).

Scott was not only posting incredible individual numbers. He and his untouchable splitter helped spur Houston to a 96-66 record, helping them towards the playoffs for the first time in five years. He clinched the berth on September 25 with a no-hitter against the Giants. It remains the only pennant ever secured with a no-hitter in the history of the game. He narrowly missed a second consecutive no-hitter, then took the hill for Game 1 against New York in the Divisional Series. Facing a fearsome Mets offense that had led the league in hits, runs and batting average, Scott threw an absolute gem. He allowed only 5 hits and struck out 14 in a complete game victory over Doc Gooden. Only Bob Gibson and Sandy Koufax had ever struck out more batters in a post-season game. The ace next took the hill for Game 4, trying to even the series at 2-2. In another complete game, Scott allowed just 3 hits and 1 run. Ironically, this run came on an 8 ^th inning sacrifice fly by Danny Heep, the player for whom the Mets had traded him. Although the Astros lost in six games, Scott was named the series MVP. Of 65 batters faced, only 10 had reached base safely. Complained Keith Hernandez after Game 1, “he’s a Rembrandt… I was sitting on [the split-finger fastball] all night and he still stuck it down my throat.”

Since his resurgence in 1985, Scott had heard accusations of ball-doctoring, including by his mentor Roger Craig. These reached their apex in the 1986 playoffs. Mets hitters produced a dozen scuffed baseballs they claimed to have found in play, and repeatedly asked the umpires to check the balls during at-bats. Astros manager Hal Lanier suggested that “if they have balls they’re saving over there, and if they’re such big fans of Mike Scott, they ought to bring ‘em over and he’ll sign ‘em.” The protests were to no avail; home plate umpire Doug Harvey pronounced Scott clean and described his wicked splitter as “a fastball with a bomb attached to it.” Despite widespread suspicion, he was never found in violation of any rules on the mound in his entire career.

Though Scott never had another season like 1986, he did spend four more very productive years in Houston. From 1987-1990, he went 59-44 with a 3.26 ERA and 12 shutouts. He pitched over 200 innings each season and was named to the All-Star team in 1987 and 1989. In 1989, he won 20 games for the first and only time, and finished a distant second in Cy Young voting to the Padres’ Mark Davis. He retired after two games in 1991, at the age of 36. It is a matter of speculation as to how his career might have differed had he learned the splitter before 1985. From 1985-89, only Nolan Ryan, Roger Clemens, Mark Langston and Scott recorded 1000 strikeouts, and only Clemens and Orel Hersheiser topped his 17 shutouts. For a span of several years, Scott was undeniably among the top pitchers in the game.

John Tudor’s path to glory was even longer than Scott’s. Tudor was born in Schenectady, NY but grew up outside of Boston. After a mediocre career at Georgia Southern, he was drafted by the Red Sox in the 1976 draft’s secondary phase. He was originally envisioned as a reliever, but opened scouts’ eyes in 1977 with a no-hitter for Bristol in the AA Eastern League. He’d injured his arm in college, and already in the minor leagues he was beginning to experience the lingering pain that haunted him throughout his career. Tudor was first called up to Boston in late 1979 and made several impressive appearances that year and the next. Already 26 years old, and always the pessimist, Tudor remarked, “If I pitch well, I’ll make it. If I don’t, they’ll probably put on my tombstone, ‘just another left-hander who died in Fenway Park’.” He didn’t die, but he didn’t quite make it, either; in his time with the Red Sox from 1979-83, Tudor started 94 games and came away with a 39-32 average and a 3.96 ERA. He was traded to Pittsburgh in 1983 for Mike Easler, and from Pittsburgh to St. Louis in 1984, along with Brian Harper, for George Hendrick.

1985 seemed at first to be another slow start for Tudor. He won only 1 of his first 10 starts, losing 7. The Cardinals, however, were giving him very little run support. Of those 10 starts, the team scored over 3 runs only three times. For his part, Tudor had a 3.96 ERA and a 1.15 WHIP. For the remainder of the season, however, he would have little need for run support. In 26 starts from June 3 to the end of the season, Tudor went 20-1, with 13 complete games and an incredible 10 shutouts. He had a 1.45 ERA, a 4.15 K/BB ratio and .871 WHIP. Opposing batters posted a meager .199/.234/.254 against him. He was at center stage in a thrilling N.L. East pennant race, in which the Cardinals outlasted the Mets and Expos. Unfortunately for Tudor, his outstanding performance was partially overshadowed by Dwight Gooden’s sophomore campaign. The 20-year-old righty struck out 268 batters and won 24 games, easily taking the N.L. Cy Young award.

After handling the Dodgers in the Divisional Series, St. Louis met the Kansas City Royals in the World Series. Tudor started Games 1 and 4, allowing just 1 run total and winning each. Game 4 was particularly memorable, a complete game shutout in which he allowed 5 hits, walked 1 and struck out 8. After thus having staked themselves a 3-1 series lead, however, the Cardinals proceeded to drop the next two games, setting up a deciding game in Kansas City. Tudor took the hill for the Redbirds on four days’ rest. Between the regular season and playoffs, he’d thrown 303 innings already on the season, and his arm was in bad shape. The man who had been labeled ‘soft’ in his Boston days faced the challenge unflinchingly, but the story did not have a happy ending. He was shelled for 5 runs in 2.1 innings before coming out of the game. He surrendered just 3 hits—one of them a home run—but uncharacteristically walked 4 batters. After being pulled, Tudor smashed his hand against a dugout appliance, opening a cut that required several stitches to close. The Cardinals failed to muster any offense of their own, going on to lose the game 11-0. Tudor had been butting heads with the media throughout the series, and he faced many tough questions in its aftermath; this was almost certainly the most difficult time of his professional career.

Like Mike Scott, Tudor was unable to repeat the success of his magical season, although he was a solid contributor in 1986-87. In 1988 he was traded to the Dodgers for Pedro Guerrero. It was in Los Angeles that he won a World Series ring. His lone appearance was a start in Game 3, in which he lasted only 4 batters—retiring all of them—before leaving with pain in his shoulder. After the season, he underwent three major surgeries on his knee, elbow and shoulder. As his shoulder surgeon said, “he has pitched with so much pain that he has too high a tolerance for it.” He missed the 1989 season, signed with the Cardinals for 1990, and came roaring back with a 12-4 record and 2.40 ERA. His body told a different story, however, and he retired at season’s end after picking up the N.L. Comeback Player of the Year award. Tudor’s career line was 117-72, a .612 rate. In the 1980s, only Dwight Gooden, Roger Clemens, Teddy Higuera and Ron Darling had a higher winning percentage.

Despite a prickly attitude and an undeserved reputation as a malingerer, John Tudor evinced nothing but admiration from his peers. About his changeup, Mike Schmidt complained, “I don’t know how he can have such a perfect fastball delivery and throw the ball 25 miles an hour slower. How many times a game do you see a batter swing at what he thinks is a fastball away, only to be halfway into the swing and realize that it’s a changeup that’s not due to arrive for a few more minutes?” Whitey Herzog called it “one of the great changeups in the history of the game.” Tony Pena, who caught for him in Boston, declared him to be “the smartest pitcher I’ve ever seen.” Like Scott, John Tudor’s time in the spotlight was delayed and short-lived, but during his brief peak, he was without doubt one of the best hurlers in the game.

References: www.baseball-reference.com, www.baseballlibrary.com, Sporting News & Sports Illustrated archives.