Rumors were flying around the water cooler this morning that Angels pitcher Scott Kazmir was looking awful in rehab, and that the team was going to release him and eat the approximately $8 million left on his contract this season, and the $2.5 million buyout on his deal for next year. The Angels acquired Kazmir from the Rays in August of 2009, just five months into his three year extension that the Rays signed him to in May 2008. With LA, he was nothing like the pitcher that dominated for the Rays from 2005 until 2008. What went wrong with Kazmir?
Control was always an issue for him. While he struck out at least a batter an inning in all but one of his seasons before 2009, he also walked a lot of hitters. His lowest walk rate was 3.24, and that mark would tick into the 4’s on occasion. His homer rates were all across the board, but really started to spike in 2009, the year that the Rays dumped him off onto LA.
Kazmir was always a guy who could blow his fastball by hitters. In his prime, it averaged 92 mph, and he had a nasty 83-84 mph slider and 82 mph change. Then, it all fell apart. Below is a chart of his velocities on his fastball, slider, and change from 2007 to his one outing in 2011. Look at the dropoff.
| FB | SL | CH | |
| 2007 | 92.1 | 83.7 | 81.4 |
| 2008 | 91.7 | 82.0 | 78.8 |
| 2009 | 91.1 | 81.2 | 79.4 |
| 2010 | 90.5 | 80.9 | 79.4 |
| 2011 | 86.5 | 81.1 | 78.1 |
Huge dropoffs in every pitch, most notably, losing a mile and a half per hour on his fastball in just a couple of seasons, when he was supposed to be getting stronger. Injuries obviously played a role, as he could really never stay healthy. During his peak, Kazmir was a stud pitcher. Now, he’s a broken down shell of himself at age 27. The same thing happened to Mark Prior, but the injuries were more of an issue with him. Kazmir has had to battle ineffectiveness as well. Now that his tenure as an Angel appears to be over, I’d expect him to latch on to an AAA club somewhere and try to regain strength in his arm. If he can’t do that and regain that lost velocity, his career is as good as done.
