For 99.9 percent of major league baseball players, you can pick any 365 day period of their career and count how many teams they played for on one hand. Then there is Oliver Drake.
Even before the recent trade, Oliver Drake has been on six different teams in the last year. It started with the Brewers, then a DFA led to a trade to the Indians. Rinse and repeat, more DFAs saw him go to the Angels, Blue Jays, Twins, and Rays. The Rays were quick to kick him to the curb, but the Blue Jays picked him back up for a second stint…and now, he’s headed back to the Rays.
The MLB leader in frequent flyer miles is likely hoping to settle in now. His last stint in Tampa lasted 19 days before he was DFA’d, and another six before he was claimed by the Blue Jays. The Rays clearly like him, so a whopping month and nine days after losing him, he is back.
Of all the teams that Drake has been a part of, he pitched for all of them except Tampa Bay. Maybe they just feel cheated, so they sent cash to Toronto to get him back.
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It can never be said that Drake is not a desired commodity. Teams keep seeing enough of something in him to give him a shot, but then things happen to make whatever team it is that week see him as expendable.
During his time with the Brewers, which is where it all started, his play was about as inconsistent as his ball cap. Drake’s ERA last season was well over five, but we can call that jet lag.
In his career, Drake has never posted a negative fWAR. His career mark sits at 1.4. His walk rate is is 3.8 per nine, with his strikeout rate in the majors hovering above nine.
As a 43rd round draft pick of the Orioles in 2008, Drake likely understood that his career would have more challenges than most of his teammates. It took him seven years to break into the MLB. Now, things are just getting weird.
Drake will be 32 at the start of Spring Training. He has been a part of seven organizations in his career and played for six of them. A lot of players won’t play for six teams in their career. To put that in perspective, Bartolo Colon has been on 11 teams in his 21 year career. That includes two stints with teams that have been longer than Drake’s entire career.
You can say it has been a career year for Mr. Oliver Drake, but certainly not in the way he wanted.
Let it be said that Drake has had the most interesting year of any player in the majors. We can only hope that this excursion has not scared him out of home ownership for the rest of his life. But there is no blaming him if he is a little shell shocked.