1991 Profile: Scott Sanderson

1991 AMERICAN LEAGUE ALL-STAR

"The Yankees purchased him from Oakland and signed him to a two-year, $4 million contract to be one of the mainstays of their rotation. The A's dealt him to avoid an arbitration hearing that would have resulted in a big contract.
Sanderson didn't pitch as well as last year's career-high 17 victories would indicate. He benefited from the superior offensive and defensive support of the A's. They chose not to give him a postseason start despite his regular-season success. Sanderson dominated the Yankees with a 3-0 mark and 0.89 ERA.
He did not make a major league appearance in 1988 until after undergoing back surgery. The operation saved his career and he has won in double figures in each of the past two seasons.
Sanderson was born in Dearborn, Michigan."

-John Shea and Tom Pedulla, The Complete Handbook of Baseball, 1991 Edition

"It would be nice to just tell Scott Sanderson to just go out and pitch. To have fun out, and not to worry. Say what you want, but no matter you slice it, there is still a lot of pressure riding on his right arm.
He comes to the Yankees after a [purchase from] Oakland after winning 17 games in 1990. Sanderson will be expected to deliver similarly in New York on a team with less offensive flair than the A's. He comes to a team in need of consistent starting pitching and in search of an ace. And he must prove that regardless of the team, he can provide plenty of quality innings.
'Scotty can pitch,' says General Manager Gene Michael. 'Last year he was healthy for the first time in a long time, and the results were evident. He can pitch.'
The Yankees' rise from last place lies heavily on the health and ability of Scott Sanderson. No pressure."

-The New York Yankees Official 1991 Yearbook

"Sanderson was signed by Oakland as a free agent in December 1989 after spending six seasons in the Chicago Cubs organization. He pitched the entire 1990 season with Oakland where he posted a 17-11 record with a 3.88 ERA in his first season as an American Leaguer. He pitched 200-plus innings (206.1) for the first time since 1982 and third time in his career and did not miss a turn in the rotation all year. His 17 wins established a career high. Sanderson walked 66 batters while fanning 128.
He notched wins in his first two outings- on April 13 at Seattle and then on April 18 at Anaheim when he beat the Angels for career win No. 100. Scott was 3-1 with a 2.35 ERA in five May starts. From May 2-15, he made three starts and was 2-0 with a streak of 18.1 consecutive scoreless innings.
He posted the first of his two complete games in the final game before the break on July 6 at Cleveland, taking the loss (8 IP, 6 ER). He was 9-5 with a 3.78 ERA at the break. Scott won his first three decisions after the break and posted a season best 10 strikeouts on July 26 against California. He was 11-6 with a 3.40 ERA through July.
His only shutout of 1990 came on August 13 against Boston as he threw a 3-hitter in a 12-0 win; it was his first shutout since April 23, 1986. Scott won his first three decisions in September, all on the road. His second-to-last start on September 22 against Detroit gave him win No. 17. He lost his final start on September 27 at Texas. He was 8-6 after the All-Star break. Scott did not pitch in the playoffs, but appeared in two World Series games, allowing two runs over 1.2 innings.
Scott was 11-4 with a 4.51 ERA on the road, 6-7, 3.17 at the Oakland Coliseum. The A's scored 113 runs (5.9 runs per start) in his 19 road games and 37 runs (2.5 per start) in his 15 home games.
He was obtained by the Yankees for a sum of cash on December 31, 1990 and signed a two-year guaranteed contract that day. The contract extends through the 1992 season.
In 1989 Sanderson was 11-9 with a 3.94 ERA over 37 appearances (24 starts). His win total was his highest since winning 12 in 1982 for the Expos. He walked 31 hitters over 146.1 innings, a ratio of 1.9 walks every nine innings.
On April 7 he fanned Andy Van Slyke of Pittsburgh for career strikeout No. 1,000. From April 30-May 23, Scott won four consecutive decisions, then on June 4 at St. Louis tossed his first complete game since 1986. From July 5-August 2, he made five starts and allowed 17 earned runs over 21 innings and went to the bullpen.
Scott made three starts over the rest of the season, pitching mostly in relief. His first relief appearance on August 6 against Pittsburgh resulted in a tough loss. Scott pitched 8.0 scoreless innings before allowing a leadoff home run to Jeff King in the 18th inning.
As a starter in 1989 he was 10-7 with a 4.06 ERA and in 14 relief appearances was 1-2 with no saves and a 3.38 ERA. Sanderson made one relief appearance in the NLCS, in Game Four at Candlestick Park (2.0 IP, 0 R).
Sanderson was selected by the Kansas City Royals in the 11th round of the June 1974 free agent draft, then was selected by the Montreal Expos in the 3rd round of the June 1977 free agent draft. His first year as a pro was spent in rookie ball with West Palm Beach of the Florida State League. He pitched in the Venezuelan Winter League and was 9-2 with a 1.41 ERA and also had two wins in the Caribbean World Series.
He started the 1978 season at AA Memphis and was 5-3 in nine starts before being promoted to AAA Denver where he went 4-2. Scott was promoted to the Expos on August 1 after only 28 minor league starts. He made his major league on August 6 against Chicago and did not figure in the decision in a 4-3 loss; his first big league loss was to the Cubs on August 13 with Scott tossing seven innings in a 2-1 defeat. His first major league win came on September 2 against San Diego. Scott was 4-0 with a 2.16 ERA in September.
In 1979, his first full season with the Expos, Scott was 9-8. He earned his first professional save on August 15 against Houston. In 1980, he was 16-11 with a 3.11 ERA and had seven complete games and three shutouts. He was sixth in the league in wins and ninth in ERA. Scott was 9-7 with a 2.96 ERA in the strike-shortened season of 1981. He struck out 77 batters and walked 31 over 137.0 innings.
Scott was 12-12 in 1982 with a 3.46 ERA but finished the season on fire, going 6-1 with a 2.91 ERA in his final eight starts. In his only loss during the streak, September 16 against the Mets, he fanned a career best 11 batters over 5.0 innings; from September 11-21 he fanned 21 batters over 11.2 innings. Scott hit his first career home run on September 11, a grand slam off Chicago's Randy Martz at Wrigley Field.
He struck out 158 batters on the year, eighth-best in the NL. His totals of strikeouts and innings pitched (224.0) were career highs. Scott threw seven complete games and three shutouts and ranked ninth in the NL in ERA.
In 1983, his final season with the Expos, he posted a 6-7 record with a 4.65 ERA. He tore ligaments in his right thumb on July 4th at Wrigley Field in a baserunning accident and was placed on the disabled list. He pitched three scoreless innings on September 6 against the Cubs to pick up his second career save.
In December of 1983 Sanderson was traded with infielder Al Newman to the San Diego Padres in exchange for pitcher Gary Lucas; then on the same day, the Padres traded Sanderson to the Cubs for first baseman Carmelo Martinez, pitcher Craig Lefferts and third baseman Fritz Connally. He won four of his first five decisions of '84 and was among the league leaders in ERA before succumbing to back spasms. He went on the DL from June 1-July 5. Scott was 6-1 with a 1.63 ERA against the National League East for the division-winning Cubs. He started Game Four of the NLCS and was not involved in the decision in a 7-5 Chicago loss to San Diego.
In 1985 Scott was one of five Cubs starters to spend time on the DL. From May 11 through the All-Star break he made 11 starts and pitched seven-plus innings in ten of them. In that stretch, he was 3-3 with a 1.83 ERA over 88.1 innings. At one point he allowed just one earned run over 26.1 innings. He went on the disabled list on August 14 after partially tearing the medial collateral ligament in his right knee.
Scott made a career high 37 appearances in 1986, 28 of which were starts. His only shutout as a Cub came on April 23 against St. Louis, a 5-hitter. He was in the starting rotation until September 1.
In his nine relief appearances he was 2-0 with a save and a 1.23 ERA as opposed to 7-11 with a 4.32 ERA as a starter. Scott's 37 batters walked in 169.2 innings ranked him third in the league with an average of 1.96 batters walked per 9.0 innings.
Scott opened the 1987 season on the 15-day disabled list with a tender right shoulder. He split the season between the starting rotation and the bullpen; he was 7-7 with a 4.48 ERA in 22 starts, 1-2 with two saves and a 3.27 ERA in 10 relief outings.
He hit his second career home run on May 1 off San Diego's Eric Show. Scott's longest outing was on May 11 when he pitched 8.1 innings against Los Angeles. His two saves came in back-to-back appearances, on July 9 at Los Angeles and on July 16 at San Francisco.
1988 was a lost season for Scott as he spent most of the season on the DL. On February 10 he underwent back surgery to remove a disc. He began his rehab with Peoria in the Class-A Midwest League on June 25 and made a start (5.0 IP). He was promoted to Iowa in the AAA American Association where he made three starts.
Scott joined the Cubs on August 26 in Atlanta and retired all seven batters he faced. He picked up his first victory in nearly a year on August 29 in Houston. He pitched a season high 3.0 innings on September 2 against the Reds.
Scott grew up in Northbrook, Illinois, where he played Little League, Pony League and American Legion ball. He was a catcher in Little League. He graduated from Glenbrook North High School where he played baseball, football and basketball and was all-state in baseball his junior and senior years.
He graduated from Vanderbilt University where he majored in business finance and history. He played for the US national team at the Inter-Continental Cup in Montreal in 1975 and in the Pan-American Games in 1976.
Scott enjoys golf, cross country skiing and carpentry. He grew up a Catfish Hunter fan and his favorite entertainer is Jack Nicholson."

-1991 New York Yankees Information Guide

SCOTT SANDERSON DONS THE PINSTRIPES
"He's gone from a team with the best record in baseball to a team with one of the worst. But curiously, not that much has changed for starting pitcher Scott Sanderson of the New York Yankees.
Sanderson reported to the Oakland Athletics in the spring of 1990 with a history of injury trouble and only moderate success in his past half-dozen seasons, although he had been an 11-game winner when it counted in 1989. His success was critical to the Chicago Cubs, winners of the '89 National League East title.
'My goal when I came to Oakland (as a free agent),' Sanderson said,' was to prove to the team that I was a good pitcher, to prove that I was healthy, to prove that I was worthy of wearing the Oakland A's uniform and to help them continue their dominance.
'I thought that I had accomplished all those goals, so there is some disappointment, I think natural disappointment, that Oakland did not want me back.'
The Oakland front office, on the other hand, was in the position of having to sign 27-game winner Bob Welch, the Cy Young Award winner and a free agent, to a mega-bucks contract. And so-called 'new look' free agency meant a sizable new contract for centerfielder Dave Henderson, too.
Faced with such a one-two punch for the A's wallet, Oakland General Manager Sandy Alderson decided the club could not afford to re-sign their third and fourth 'name' free agents, Sanderson and centerfielder Willie McGee.
With McGee, there was simply no room in the outfield, not even for the National League batting champ, a man who demanded to play every day and who eventually signed with the San Francisco Giants.
The case of the right-handed Sanderson, however, was more convoluted. He was coming off a 17-11 season and an almost certain contract of $2 million in today's marketplace, so there was a certain logic to Alderson's thinking. On the other hand, even with the A's potent lineup, pitchers don't win 17 games just by showing up. And there was no doubt that Sanderson liked Oakland- he agreed to salary arbitration with Oakland even after the A's made it clear they weren't going to make an attempt to sign him.
Oakland's loss became the Yankees' gain when the A's traded Sanderson to the Yankees in January. The right-hander said he's ready to do his part to forge a new, stronger Yankees starting rotation.
And he's not about to give up the goals he had when he pitched for the A's.
'My goals are exactly the same as they were,' Sanderson said. 'Part of the reason I have the goals I have is a matter of personal integrity- it's not a matter of what team I play for. I feel very strongly I owe the team the absolute best of my efforts during the season and during the off-season as far as conditioning goes.
'As players, we need to keep that in mind whether it be game by game or year by year. We always need to prove ourselves worthy to wear the uniform.'
In 1990, Sanderson proved that point over again, and not just on the field with his career-high 17 wins and a 3.88 earned run average that was his lowest in five years.
At 34, Sanderson no longer throws as hard as he did as a rookie pitching for Montreal a year and a half out of Vanderbilt University. To compensate, he has added a couple of speeds to his curve, including a slow, huge hook that would look positively inviting to enemy hitters- if it didn't flat out destroy their timing so effectively.
Perhaps a dozen times in 1990, hitters got so angry at missing Sanderson's tempting devil pitch that they slammed their bats into the ground in frustration. That pitch, plus a decent fastball and good change-up, will continue to be part of the Sanderson repertoire.
'It's wrong to change your approach when you go to a new team,' Sanderson said. 'I didn't when I went to Oakland from Chicago, and I won't now. The idea is the same- to get every hitter out. It's not like with Oakland a starting pitcher just had to throw his glove on the mound to win.
'You still can't afford to be giving up runs- no team scores that many runs that often. Not Oakland, not anyone. Winning is always a matter of getting outs, and pitchers can't afford to get away from that even for a moment.'
Perhaps the biggest personal crisis of his year with the A's came on the final road trip of the regular season when reporters learned that Sanderson was to be bypassed in the starting rotation for the playoffs. He was replaced by Mike Moore, who'd won just 13 games and had a 4.65 ERA to boot.
Sanderson hadn't been told by A's Manager Tony LaRussa about his status one way or another, and the moment he saw where the pre-game conversation was heading, he said, 'Anything I have to find out, I want to find out from my manager, not from the writers.'
During the course of the game, Sanderson was told by LaRussa that he wouldn't be starting. After the game, there were no nasty scenes from Sanderson, no yelling or recriminations, although comparing his record with Moore's, few would have blamed Sanderson if he'd taken such an approach.
But that isn't the soft-spoken, soft-throwing Sanderson's way.
'It had to be a tough decision for Tony,' he said at the time. 'During the season, you do what you can to help your team get to the playoffs. Once you're there, sometimes your role changes. All I want, all any of us want, is to do what will help the team win. If that means Mike starts and I'm in the bullpen, that's alright.'
None of that was lost on his teammates.
'That's the way Scotty is,' Oakland reliever Dennis Eckersley said. 'He's always been able to put the team ahead of himself, something that some guys just can't do. He's a great guy to have around the clubhouse, that's for sure.'
The team concept has long intrigued Sanderson. A career National Leaguer before signing with the A's, he had never been to Yankee Stadium before Oakland's first 1990 trip to the Bronx at the end of April.
'The first time I walked into the park, before I did anything else, I walked out to the (centerfield) monuments,' he said. 'Before I did anything else, I had to do that, because it really attracted me. I'm fascinated by all the history there, all the great players and all the great teams.
'I knew of it, of course, but that's not quite the same thing as being there and seeing it for yourself.'
So while pitching in Yankee Stadium this year, Sanderson would like to make a little history of his own. His two starts at Yankee Stadium with the A's were both good; a seven-inning shutout effort on May 2- the same day he visited the monuments- and a seven-inning, three-hit, two-run performance during the A's return on September 8.
'I did very well in my two starts there, but I don't know that two games makes much of a track record,' Sanderson said. 'It's really not much of a good indicator.'
As good as he was against the Yankees, Sanderson was at his best against the Red Sox. On August 13, he pitched a 4-0 shutout over Boston. It was his only complete game, and it enabled the A's to take a six-game lead over Chicago in the AL West. With the win, the A's had some breathing room for the first time all year against the pesky White Sox. For the year, Sanderson was 2-0 in three starts against the Red Sox.
It's easy to see why the Yankees were so interested in Sanderson, quite apart from his 17 wins and his 206 1/3 innings pitched. In three starts against New York, Sanderson pitched 20 1/3 innings, allowing just 14 hits and two runs. And the 206 1/3 innings are 50 more than any Yankee pitcher last year, save for Tim Leary's 208.
The general rule for baseball players and for pitchers in particular is that once past 30, injuries seem to come with greater and greater frequency. But a general rule does allow for specific exceptions, and in Sanderson, the Yankees are getting a pitcher who seems to be able to break that rule with impunity.
Five times before he turned 30, Sanderson went on the disabled list with arm, shoulder and back problems. But since he had surgery early in the 1988 season, he's been completely healthy for the longest uninterrupted stretch of his career, another factor that weighed into the thinking of the Yankees when they swung the deal for him.
'I feel that the back surgery that I had gave me a new lease on health,' Sanderson said. 'As of February, it's three years and I haven't missed a day or a game because of injuries. In all that time, I haven't been on the disabled list and I've been able to pitch on three days rest without a problem.'
Sanderson, who pitched on three days' rest five times in his career-high 34 starts in 1990, missed only one start all year, that coming on May 30, where a losing battle with a rampant flu bug caught up with him. Other than that, LaRussa was able to write Sanderson's name on his lineup card every fifth day without fail.
Still, the back injury has had a lingering effect- a positive one- on his career. He spends his off-seasons in a gym near his suburban Chicago home working out five times a week with a buddy, longtime Boston and Chicago catcher Carlton Fisk, a practice Sanderson took up around the time of his 1988 back surgery.
'I think my winter workouts are substantially different from those that a lot of other pitchers do,' Sanderson said. 'My approach is somewhat different and very intense. I try to take Sundays and Wednesdays off and we go at it hard the rest of the time. By the time spring training rolls around, I'm ready.'
But Sanderson, tall and lean at 6-5 and 200 pounds, has never been one to spend much time out of shape. When he joined the A's last spring, he became an eager proponent of Welch's every-other-day 'Wily Coyote' runs through the Arizona desert during the heat of the day. It would have been easy to dread those backbreaking runs, but Sanderson instead joined enthusiastically.
'When I first came up, I had the same kind of work habits, but I went about things differently,' he said. 'The longer I play, the more intelligent I become in how to go about workouts both in and out of season. And my intensity has increased.'
That, for one, will probably never change."

-John Hickey, Hayward Daily Review (New York Yankees 1991 Scorebook and Souvenir Program)