50 Most Notable Yankees Free Agent Signings: Carl Pavano

Late in the evening of October 22, 2003, Carl Pavano toed the rubber at Miami’s then-Pro Player Stadium. He faced Derek Jeter, who had been named Yankees captain just months prior. Pavano had already retired Jeter three times that day, including inducing two back-breaking double plays. If he could put him away once more, the pitcher who’d flamed out in Montreal and struggled to find consistency throughout his brief career would have a signature moment, an eight-inning, one-run show of dominance against the mighty Bronx Bombers in the Fall Classic. On the fifth pitch of the at-bat, he caught Jeter looking with a pitch on the outside corner. Somewhere, Brian Cashman and George Steinbrenner were watching.

Carl Pavano
Signing Date: December 20, 2004
Contract: Four years, $39.95 million

Pavano was born in New Britain, Connecticut, where he pitched well enough at Southington High School to garner the attention of the Red Sox, who took him in the 13th round of the 1994 MLB Draft. He quickly rose through the ranks, dominating both Double-A and Triple-A and ending up as Baseball America’s ninth-ranked prospect in all of baseball before the 1998 season. That’s when Boston flipped him to the Expos as the prospect headliner of the deal that brought back Pedro Martínez.

The 22-year-old made his debut for Montreal that year, posting an encouraging 4.21 ERA and league-average 100 ERA+ in 134.2 innings. But, in what would become a trend for Pavano, the following years were marred by inconsistency and injury. The Expos threw in the towel on him midway through the 2002 season, trading the starter — who was 3-8 with a 6.30 ERA at the time — to the Marlins as part of a package that netted them Cliff Floyd and Wilton Guerrero.

The 2003 season was the first time Pavano truly got the chance to pitch a full, healthy season. He performed around league average but passed the 200-inning threshold, demonstrating that he could shoulder his share of the load in a competitive rotation.

But it was in the postseason when the right-hander truly broke out. In 19.1 innings — including that aforementioned World Series Game 4 start against the Yankees — Pavano allowed just three runs, serving as a catalyst for Florida’s unlikely title run.

Pavano continued that run of dominance into his walk year in 2004, delivering a career year at the perfect time. The 28-year-old earned the only All-Star berth of his career, winning 18 games for a middling Marlins team while finishing sixth in Cy Young voting. Crucially, he tossed 222.1 innings, ranking top-10 in baseball and signaling that his injury-prone days were behind him.

The 2004-2005 offseason was a transformative one for the Yankees’ rotation. After a backbreaking ALCS exit in ‘04, Jon Lieber and Esteban Loaiza exited in free agency. GM Brian Cashman worked feverishly to replenish his corps of starters, signing Pavano to a four-year, $39.95 million deal and Jaret Wright to a three-year, $21 million deal while swapping Javier Vázquez to the Diamondbacks in a trade that brought back five-time Cy Young Award-winner Randy Johnson.

Joe Torre, in a classic instance of putting the cart before the horse, exalted in his apparent embarrassment of riches. “We have a ton of pitchers on the staff,” the Yankees manager said after the acquisitions. “It’s a nice problem to have, trust me. Last year, my only concern was the lack of depth in the starting pitching. Now we have some youth, too.”

Torre played a major role in luring Pavano. While several teams aggressively courted the starter — including the Red Sox, who set up a lunch with ace Curt Schilling to lure him, and the Tigers, who enlisted Hall of Famer Al Kaline to show him around Detroit — the longtime skipper’s personal touch spoke to him. “His conversations with Joe Torre, who spoke with him again by phone in the last couple of days, really were impactful,” Pavano’s agent, Scott Shapiro, said. “Carl told me point-blank that he would go to war for the man. You can’t say anything bad about the decision of wanting to play for Joe Torre.“

Pavano’s outgoing manager lauded the Yankees for the move as well, citing what had become a well-established reputation for hard work and mental toughness. “Carl is a pretty level-headed kid,” Marlins manager Jack McKeon said. “He has a lot of pride and a tremendous desire to get better. He’s not satisfied with winning 18. He wants to get better. Nothing is going to bother him.”

This honeymoon continued into spring training where New York beat writers trumpeted his winning demeanor. Despite throwing two scoreless innings in his spring training debut, Pavano told the media that, “I don’t know if I’ll ever be happy, no matter how I throw out there. That’s how I keep my edge.” His hard-nosed, lunch-pail attitude were theorized to be a perfect fit for New York.

At the end of the day, though, what matters is performance. After a solid first month, Pavano began to unravel. By June, his ERA had ballooned above 4.50 and he was looking for answers. “I’m just trying to keep on level ground,” he told the press after a particularly difficult start. “Go out there and battle.”

Eventually, he could battle no longer, landing on the IL with an amorphous arm injury. After weeks of uncertainty, he was finally diagnosed with rotator cuff tendonitis, ending his season. “Mentally, it’s been tough on me,” Pavano said of his inability to stay on the field. “There’s a point when you feel like you’ve abandoned your team. Obviously, I’d like to be out there helping these guys win. But that’s not the case.”

It appeared to be all systems go for 2006. But injuries again derailed his season, punctuated by an unfortunate nondisclosure in August. As he worked back from injury, Pavano was in an automobile accident that resulted in broken ribs. He failed to inform the Yankees until they had planned to activate him off the IL, at which point he was forced to reveal his inability to pitch. The ailing hurler took “full responsibility for making the wrong decision,” explaining he had hoped to be healthy enough to pitch once activated regardless of the new injury. “At the time, I thought it was something I could get through,” he said at the time. “I figured I could pitch through it and it would get better. It didn’t get better.”

This time, Pavano had lost even his usual defenders. “Of course I’m angry,” said Cashman simply. Perhaps more importantly, the press corps which had hailed Pavano’s blue-collar work ethic a mere 18 months prior had completed a full reversal. As Tyler Kepner began his article in The New York Times announcing the surprise rib injury, “Carl Pavano continues to find new ways to let down the Yankees. The difference now is that the team is more than disappointed. It’s angry.”

The rib injury would keep the embattled Pavano from pitching in 2006 altogether. Despite his frustration with the circumstances of the injury, Cashman continued to give lip service to defending a free agent signing who had given little in return halfway through the deal. “I know there’s a lot of stuff flying around that he doesn’t want to pitch here, but he’s been held back by physical issues, and they’ve all been legitimate,” the GM said, adding, ”Players can’t play through marble-sized bone chips.“

Others in the organization were less sure. ”You have to walk into this clubhouse, dress next to these guys and carry your share of the load,“ Torre said of Pavano’s inability to contribute. “That’s what it amounts to. If that’s a little tough to do at first, so be it.” As Pavano prepared a comeback attempt in the spring of 2007, the club’s longest-tenured starter had some pointed words for his rotation-mate. “It didn’t look good from a player’s and teammate’s standpoint,” the usually reserved Mike Mussina said. “Was everything coincidence? Over and over again? I don’t know.”

Remarkably, given the apparent ambivalence about his return within the organization, Pavano was handed the ball on Opening Day after an injury to Chien-Ming Wang. Options were limited given the team’s injury woes at the time, but once again, he had a chance to let his play do the talking. And, once again, that opportunity was short-lived. After just two starts, Pavano went on the shelf with an elbow injury that ended up requiring Tommy John surgery.

By then, Mussina and some of his teammates even took to referring to the injured list as “the Pavano.” In an early 2007 interview from Tom Verducci’s The Yankee Years, the Moose made this biting comment:

“Our problem right now is we have too many pitchers on the 15-day Pavano … That’s what it’s officially called now. Did you know that? The Pavano. His body just shut down from actually pitching for six weeks. It’s like when you get an organ transplant and your body rejects it. His body rejected pitching. It’s not used to it.”

Pavano didn’t return until late August 2008, by which point the Yankees had fallen to the fringes of the playoff race and no one really cared about Pavano playing out the string. In all, Pavano would make just 26 starts for New York — less than a full season’s worth — over the course of his four years.

As he wound down his remarkably fruitless tenure in pinstripes, Pavano gave his side of the story in an interview with Kepner, airing grievances about the Yankees’ handling of his injuries. “A lot of times when I was in Tampa, I was really angry, because I’m away from my team, and I’m down there not getting the support that you feel you need to be successful,” Pavano said. “You know people are doubting you that should be helping you. You know people are kicking you when you’re down, and they should be picking you up. That’s the nature of this environment.”

In particular, Pavano placed blame on the team’s doctor, Stuart Hershon, who he felt had not appropriately diagnosed him at key junctures. “When they reported I had rotator cuff tendinitis, I actually had a stress fracture in my humerus bone,” he said of the pivotal 2005 injury that derailed his debut season and began his unraveling in New York. “It wasn’t rotator cuff tendinitis. It was just misdiagnosed.” He also took accountability for his role in pitching through injury. “I wish I had been smart enough to just get it right,” Pavano said. “Say something, make sure something was taken care of, instead of just keeping pitching and thinking it was going to get better.”

Cashman once again defended Pavano on the way out. “At the end of the day, he was hurt,” he said. “People always say, ‘Why do you stick up for him? Is it because you signed him?’ I’m just being objective. The guy, I know, can pitch when he’s healthy. He just hasn’t been healthy. It’s not because he mentally wanted it that way. It just happened.”

In a painful turn for Yankees fans, their GM would be proven right. After splitting 2009 between Cleveland and Minnesota, the veteran returned to the Twins in 2010 for his age-34 season. He proceeded to post one of the best seasons of his career, winning 17 games for a division-winning squad.

Perhaps the greatest twist of the knife, given Pavano’s inability to stay on the field in New York, is that he led the league that year with seven complete games while blowing past the 200-inning threshold — a feat he’d repeat the following year. The only solace the Yankees faithful could take in Pavano’s resurrection in Minnesota was that he lost both of his postseason starts against his former team, one each in ‘09 and ‘10.

Pavano retired after the 2012 season at the age of 36. His career was a mass of contradictions — the pitcher praised for his tenacity and ridiculed for his lack of commitment, the top prospect who found some of his greatest success after injuries had sapped his premier stuff, the playoff hero accused of folding under New York’s bright lights.

Was he was a great pitcher felled by unavoidable injury who unfairly had his reputation tarnished in the process? Was he a talented player whose motivation was not consistent enough to sustain a successful career? More than 20 years after he signed with the Yankees, it’s difficult to say. Without question, though, his contract will forever be remembered as one of the worst in team history.

See more of the “50 Most Notable Yankees Free Agent Signings in 50 Years” series here.