Aaron Small - Reliever
Age: 34 Years Old.

Three-Year History and splits:

SEASON Level G GS CG IP H R ER HR BB SO W L ERA
2003 AA 8 7 0 41.0 47 23 22 5 14 24 3 4 4.83
2003 AAA 14 14 0 89.1 95 50 46 12 18 56 6 4 4.63
2004 AAA 27 24 2 154.2 199 95 87 18 29 109 9 9 5.06
2004 MLB 7 0 0 16.1 24 15 15 5 7 8 0 0 8.27
2005 AA 1 1 0 5.0 7 3 2 1 1 3 1 0 3.60
2005 AAA 11 10 0 49.0 62 30 27 5 8 21 1 4 4.96
2005 MLB 15 9 1 76.0 71 27 27 4 24 37 10 0 3.20

Outlook: Simply put, Aaron Small came of out nowhere to pick up 10 wins (and quite possibly save the 2005 season) for the Yankees and the chance of that happening again (in my mind) is slim. Small's career is the definition of the term journeyman - he began pitching in pro-ball in 1989 at the age of 17, and he's 34 now. This is no case of a player being held down in the minors either. He hasn't even been good enough to get tagged with the "AAAA player" label as his career ERA in AAA, in 871 innings, is 4.92 with a WHIP of 1.41. Still, baseball is a funny game - maybe he's finally figured something out that had been missing and maybe he's not just a fluke who benefitted from very good luck on balls in play. Maybe it was just his time to catch fire so that he could get a big payday after toiling so long in the minors ($1.2 million, $800K after taxes in an annuity @ 8% would give you a little over $60K tax-free for the next 40 years - not bad as a secondary source of income, right?). Whatever it is/was, Aaron Small was a wonderful surprise and a great story in 2005 and if he repeats his performance, I will be first in line to congratulate the man and wish him well. Based on his history though, I just can't see it happening.

Please post your predictions for the following stat line in the comments section:

G GS Innings W L BB K HldSV ERA