VIERA, Fla. — In the long history of the game, there’s never been a general manager who has hit on every trade and free agent signing. It’s like cooking — sooner or later, the chef is going to crank out a clinker. Nobody’s batting 1.000.
Mike Rizzo’s record as Nationals GM is solid, but even he’d admit that some things don’t always work out. When he signed Cuban defector Yunesky Maya to a four-year, $8 million deal in July 2010, insiders proclaimed it a coup of sorts. A bad club needing rotation depth got a young veteran for well below market value. Cincinnati had signed another Cuban ace, Aroldis Chapman, to a six-year, $30 million deal, so Maya, who ranked just behind Chapman among Cuban arms, looked like a steal.
The process of defecting forced Maya into over a year of inactivity, between getting kicked off the Cuban national team for attempting to defect, and finally escaping to the Dominican, where after nine months he was allowed to sign with a big league team.
Maya signed with the Nats on July 31, 2010, and began a crash course of preparing for the majors. Over the course of the next month, he spent time at three different minor league levels after a couple of weeks of conditioning: four days in the Gulf Coast League, a single start at Potomac in the Carolina League, and two starts at Syracuse. In just over 21 innings of work, he went 1-2 with a 3.38 ERA. He notched 18 strikeouts and walked 10. When rosters expanded in September, Maya was called up.
He made his debut against the Mets on September 7, working five innings in a 4-1 loss. He allowed a first-inning three-run homer to Ike Davis but was effective thereafter. A week later, he started against Atlanta and again had one bad inning — a four-run second — and the Nats lost 4-0, though Maya went six innings. He made three more starts down the stretch and finished 0-3 with a 5.88 in 26 innings. There were stretches of consistency but usually one bad frame where he’d lose command.
Maya was optioned to Syracuse in March 2011 and recalled in late May. He made five starts before moving to the bullpen, and in that final start against the Mets on July 30, he got his first win in a combined 3-0 shutout. He was 1-1 for the year with another ERA above 5.00.
That the Nats would cut Maya after only four innings of work this spring probably says more about the rest of the staff than it does him. Maya simply hasn’t progressed enough in his brief career to stay among the club’s top 15 or so arms. He’s signed through 2013, and barring a trade or a rash of injuries on the staff, may never get back to Nats Park.
Rizzo deserves credit for aggressively pursuing Maya in the first place. That it hasn’t worked is more on the player than it is the GM.
Examiner columnist Phil Wood is a baseball historian and contributor to MASN’s Nats Xtra. Contact him at [email protected].
