You'd Have To Call It A Comeback

Rick Ankiel said a couple of weeks ago he was going to try and get himself in condition to try out for a major league job next year. As a pitcher. Ankiel hasn't played in the majors since 2013. He hasn't pitched in a major league game since 2004. He gave up pitching because the effort it took to keep the monster, the yips, whatever you want to call the thing that made it nearly impossible for him to throw strikes, would consume his life. He thinks he has that under control now. He seemed to come to this conclusion off a brief appearance in a game he played on a team of retired pros against collegiate all-stars. His velocity was nothing to write home about, but he also hadn't been doing any exercises yet to get the arm prepared for pitching. Maybe he can still hit the low-90s.

A writer at the Viva El Birdos site proposed if Ankiel was going to pitch in the majors, it should be with the Cardinals. Mostly, I think, because it would be cool for him to come back to where it went off the rails for this final chapter. There was a fair amount of pushback in the comments. It sounds like a publicity stunt. The team has better options. He'd be taking an opportunity away from some younger player. I'm not sure the folks touting the last two have noticed how poor the Cards' lefthanded reliever options have been this season. If they have pitchers who are good enough to merit being in the majors, they're doing a great Invisible Man impersonation. Still, their points stand. There are plenty of reasons to doubt.

My primary concern is Ankiel would get back on the mound and find out, no, he hasn't got control of the monster. That would be an ugly way for things to go. Now presumably he'd have to prove himself in some workouts first, probably take a minor league contract, and play his way on in Spring Training. If he doesn't have it under control, or the velocity doesn't come back the way he thinks it will, a team could figure that out before real games began.

I'd still like to see him try. I'm at the point with sports where, unless I have a strong rooting interest towards one team or the other - against the Dallas Cowboys, for example - I'm not concerned as much with who wins. I'd still rather see the teams I like win, but I'd also like for them to have players that I find interesting.

That generally means guys that have the capacity to do something spectacular, or maybe that's there something unique about them. There are a lot of players that, if they were on a team I didn't care about, I wouldn't think twice about them. I didn't think much about Jedd Gyorko before he joined the Cardinals, and I probably won't think much about him after he goes to another team. Doesn't make him a bad player, just lacks a certain something that gets my attention.

That was a big part of why Tommy Pham was my favorite Cardinals' player of the last few years. Not just because of how hard he played, or how many injuries he'd fought through to get there, or even because he was outstanding last year. Because with him there was always the possibility he was going to do something awesome. Upper deck home run, or a game where he hits two homers and throws out two guys at home plate (which he did against Philly last year). Great sliding catch, or legging out a triple by running like a madman.

Ankiel is that kind of player. He looked like he could be a future Cy Young winner his rookie year, and then it all fell apart. So he decided to become an outfielder, and he made that work for 6 seasons. At any time out there, he could let one fly and you'd remember the arm he had. Or he could crush a big home run. Besides all that, I'd be rooting for him to succeed, whichever team he was with. If it's a choice between watching Rick Ankiel be a lefty reliever out of the Cardinals' bullpen, or watching Brett Cecil/Ryan Sherriff/Chasen Shreve with that job, I'd rather see Ankiel at least take a crack at it.