Minor League Closers

[RedRed]

Does anyone have any info on Hendley of Dayton, Shafer and Guevara at Chattanooga and Abe Woody of Sarasota. I'm curious as to how hard they throw. They all have good numbers so maybe help is on the way.

[flyer85]

Does anyone have any info on Hendley of Dayton, Shafer and Guevara at Chattanooga and Abe Woody of Sarasota. I'm curious as to how hard they throw. They all have good numbers so maybe help is on the way.Most major league closers were not closers in their minor league career.

[edabbs44]

Most major league closers were not closers in their minor league career.
That is true...a lot of the good ones learn more pitches as starters, which helps them later on.

[jmcclain19]

Most major league closers were not closers in their minor league career.

Actually, this argument intrigued me - so I went and a did a little research to check how true that statement is

Here are the some of the games top closers and setup guys - and outlined when, or if, they were converted from starting games.

Jason Isringhausen
Converted after four MLB seasons
Derrick Turnbow
Converted after being a Rule V pick from Low A ball
Todd Jones
Converted at AA
Brad Lidge
Converted upon promotion to MLB
Jose Valverde
Been a reliever entire pro career
Francisco Rodriguez
Converted at AA
David Weathers
Converted after fifth MLB season
B.J. Ryan
Been a reliever entire pro career
Danys Baez
Converted at AA, but he did start for most of his 2nd MLB season
Brian Fuentes
Converted at AAA
Mariano Rivera
Converted after 1st MLB season
Billy Wagner
Converted upon promotion to MLB
Ryan Dempster
Converted after six MLB seasons
Bob Wickman
Converted after two MLB seasons
Trevor Hoffman
Been a reliever his entire career
Huston Street
Drafted as a reliever
Chad Cordero
Drafted as a reliever
Joe Nathan
Converted after two MLB seasons
Eddie Guardado
Converted after two MLB seasons
Francisco Cordero
Converted at High A
Armando Benitez
Been a reliever his entire pro career
Eric Gagne
Converted after three MLB seasons
Mike MacDougal
Converted after one MLB season
Octavio Dotel
Converted after two MLB seasons
Akinori Otsuka
Been a reliever his entire MLB career
Duaner Sanchez
Converted at AA
Mike Timlin
Converted at High A
Jose Mesa
Converted after six MLB seasons
Scot Shields
Converted upon promotion to MLB - but spent much of his 3rd seasons starting
Kyle Farnsworth
Converted after one MLB season
Braden Looper
Converted at AA
Arthur Rhodes
Converted after four MLB seasons
Fernando Rodney
Been a reliever his entire pro career
Justin Duchscherer
Converted upon promotion to MLB
Roberto Hernandez
Converted upon promotion to MLB
Todd Coffey
Been a reliever entire pro career
Neal Cotts
Converted after one MLB season
Chad Qualls
Converted upon promotion to MLB
Scott Linebrink
Converted at AAA
Dan Wheeler
Converted after two MLB seasons

So here it is, the results from this completely subjective and unscientific survey. We'll divide them up into four groups- those who have spent their whole careers as relievers, those who were converted in the minors, those converted when promoted to the bigs and those who were converted after at least one year the majors. Now, I know the nature of the beast is that many of these guys had a couple of starts here and there - like Scot Shields and Danys Baez, but I've tried to look at when exactly they became a full time reliever, not just a spot starter.

Out of 40 total - here are the numbers
No Converts
9
Minor Converts
9
Promotion Converts
7
Major Converts
15

Much more spread out than I would have thought, but interesting nonetheless. Certainly does still feed the notion that Converted starters make up the bulk of relievers now a days. But there are still more career relievers and low end converts than I would have expected in the numbers. Like I stated earlier, an unexact and incomplete data pool to pull from, but fun either way.

[Coffeybro]

Todd Coffey
Been a reliever entire pro career

You may want to edit the previous post and redo the numbers. Todd was originally a starter in the minors. Even after the Tommy John surgery he spot started 9 games and did relief work.
The following link has his stats up to last year.

http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/C/todd-coffey.shtml

[flyer85]

ANother point is even guys that get converted to relief aren't necessarily minor league closers. There are a couple of reasons for this and there was a really well done recent article on this that IIRC was either at BP or THT.

[RedRed]

Even if none become Major League closers, they might help at the big league level in the future. Does anyone know if they are hard throwers or are they just minor league fill material?