Park Pittman

[Al from SoDak]

Park Pittman was drafted by the Twins in the fourth round of the 1986 MLB June Amateur Draft. Pittman was drafted from college – Ohio State University. He was immediately assigned to rookie ball at Elizabethton. He showed a crazy high strikeout rate of 13.3 per nine innings pitched. In hindsight I would say his walk rate of 4.7 per nine innings was high. But he finished the season with a 2.45 ERA. The next season, 1987, was at class A Visalia. His strikeout rate decreased to 11.0 and his walk rate increased to 7.7 – not a good sign. This trend continued as he moved up the minor league hierarchy. By AAA Portland in 1990 he was striking out only 7.0 per nine innings and walking 10.8. He threw only 28.1 innings in 1990 at that was it for his baseball career.

On August 1, 1987, the Star Tribune reported that the first place Twins were trying to acquire veteran pitching for the stretch drive, but other teams were asking for one of a trio of top pitching prospects – Steve Gasser, Jeff Bumgarner, or Park Pittman. The Twins stopped discussions at that point – those guys were off limits. MacPhail wanted to improve the club without depleting its farm system. In the August 9, 1987, Star Tribune MacPhail said of Gasser, Bumgarner, and Pittman, “We aren’t going to give up any one of those three in any type of trade.” On August 15, 1987, also from the Star Tribune, MacPhail was quoted, “The prospects we have left in our system are the very, very high-premium types. We aren’t going to give up prospects like…Park Pittman, Jeff Bumgarner, and Steve Gasser. Those are the types of kids who you can’t make available unless you get a major contributing type of player who has a lot of years left.”

Predicting success of baseball prospects is an inexact science, especially pitchers. TINSTAAPP.

View full player