Players Who Debuted In MLB On Their Birthdays

This blog post

by Kevin Goldstein over at Baseball Prospectus discusses Edwin Jackson ‘s sparkling MLB debut, on what happened to be his 20th birthday. Which players aside from Jackson debuted on their birthdays?

Since 1919, only 9 position players have gotten the best birthday present ever: their first MLB game. Of those, only 3 actually started the game.

There really aren’t any memorable players on this list, or memorable performances for that matter. Eight out of the nine debutantes lost their first game and only one of them did much on offense.

I remember Jarrod Saltalamacchia

‘s debut quite well. At the time, many Braves fans (including myself) considered Salty to be an exciting prospect. I was actually at the ballpark when he hit his first home run a few weeks later (off of Cole Hamels ). I figured that he’d be traded at some point–and he was, not long after, to the Rangers in the Mark Teixeira deal–but I thought he’d go on to have a very bright career. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened yet, and probably won’t. At least it looks like he’ll at least have a long career, if not a particularly good one.

Keith Johnson

was a minor-league journeyman who finally made his MLB debut on his 29th birthday. Like so many other such players, though, he never got a real shot in the majors. He played in only 5 more games, going 2/4 with 2 walks and a sac bunt in his career.

Dave Clark

was a backup outfielder who hung around MLB for 13 seasons in the ’80s and ’90s, posting a .264 / .338 / .408 line. He never had more than 318 PAs in a season, though he did have two pretty good years for the Pirates in 1993 and 1994.

LaRue Washington

‘s primary position is listed on Baseball-Reference as “pinch runner.” He appeared in 28 games in his career but got only 25 plate appearances.

The best career on this list almost certainly belongs to Bruce Benedict

, a catcher who spent his entire career with the Braves during the dark years of the 1980s. Benedict made All-Star Teams in 1981 and 1983. Still, he barely topped 7 WAR in his career, so the bar for “best on this list” is really low.

Doug Clarey

appeared in just 8 more games after his MLB debut, mostly as a defensive replacement. He received only 3 more plate appearances, though he did manage to hit a home run for his only MLB hit. The homer was a doozy, too; it came in the 16th inning and put his Cardinals ahead for good. The WPA of that play was .490.

Junior Kennedy

was the 10th pick in the 1968 draft. So he probably got a good-sized bonus from that, which is nice. He played parts of 7 seasons as a reserve infielder.

Rene Lachemann

, like Jackson, made his MLB debut on his 20th birthday. Most of the time, reaching the majors at such a young age bodes quite well for a player’s career, but Lachemann wasn’t so fortunate. He barely played in MLB after the 1965 season, and was out of the bigs for good by age 23. He would go on to be a longtime MLB manager and hitting coach, though.

Morrie Aderholt

had by far the best offensive performance on the list. He wasn’t just the only player to get multiple hits or hit a home run; he was the only one to drive in or score a run at all. Aderholt’s debut did not portend great things, however; he lasted just 6 seasons, never getting more than 111 PAs in a year.

Now let’s look at the pitchers who debuted on their birthdays:

Once again, there’s really not much here to get excited about. Only 3 of the 19 pitchers played for a winning team in their first games, and only a few pitched all that well. Very few of these players went on to successful careers; other than Larry Dierker

, Edwin Jackson is probably going to end up as the most successful, and he’s likely to be better remembered for getting traded a lot than for his playing skills.

Aside from Dierker and Jackson, the only other player over 10 career WAR is Mace Brown

, who was mostly a reliever, though this was in the pre-World War II era, so he still pitched a fair amount of innings. Brown was an All Star in 1938.

Many of these players barely made a dent in MLB, appearing in just a few scattered games. These include Robert Manuel

, R.J. Swindle (at least so far; he’s still active), Kevin Joseph , Brian Looney , and Tom Hughes .

The least impact of all was made by Chris Haughey

, who ties for the youngest birthday debut of all time with Larry Dierker. Haughey walked 10 in 7 innings on the last day of the 1943 season. Now that he was 18, he joined the Army and fought in World War II. After his return, he pitched 5 seasons in the minors but never made it back to the majors.

Since Dierker made his MLB debut in 1964 on his 18th birthday, no other pitcher has debuted at a younger age. David Clyde

(18 years, 66 days) and Tim Conroy (18 years, 81 days) came close in the ’70s, but lately there haven’t been many teenage pitchers at all. The last 18-year-old pitcher was Jose Rijo in 1984, and the only 19-year-old pitcher in the last 20 years was Felix Hernandez in 2005.

Dierker’s first game wasn’t all that auspicious, but he went on to have a very successful career, amassing 38 WAR over 14 seasons, including a whopping 9 WAR in 305 innings in 1969. He was also the Astros’ manager for 5 seasons, leading them to 4 postseason appearances (though they lost in the NLDS each time).

Other than Dierker, only one other player on this list lasted for 14 seasons, and that’s Dan Miceli

… though Miceli was just a middle reliever and had just 2 WAR in his career. Still, that’s a lucrative business; Miceli made more than $9 million in his career. Coincidentally, Miceli shares a birthday with the inspiration for this post, Edwin Jackson (September 9th). He was born exactly 13 years before Jackson and made his debut exactly 10 years earlier.

I have no idea why so many more pitchers debuted on their birthdays compared to hitters. I also have no idea why so few of the players’ teams ended up winning; I expected them to do worse than normal, if only because debuting players aren’t very good and are more likely to be used in low-pressure situations like blowouts, but only 4 wins out of 28 games seems freakishly low. If you can think of any explanation for either of these phenomena, please let me know in the comments. Thanks for reading, as always.