Junk Wax Prospector - Sam Militello - New York Yankees

1991 Bowman

Sam Militello was the exact type of pitching prospect that I assumed would become a portfolio piece in my junk wax retirement account...

After pitching at Jefferson High School in Tampa, Florida, Militello moved on to the University of Tampa for two seasons, before getting drafted by the New York Yankees in the 6th round of the 1990 draft.

1992 Bowman

Upon signing, Militello was assigned to the Oneonta Yankees of the Class A New York Penn League. He started 13 games for Oneonta, putting up a 8-2 record, with a 1.22 ERA. In 88 and 2/3 innings, Militello allowed a stingy 53 hits and 24 walks, while striking out 119.

The last place (in 1990) New York Yankees had a new and very promising top pitching prospect on the horizon...

1991 Classic

Militello opened 1991 with the Prince William Cannons of the Class A Caorina League, going 12-2 in 16 starts, before a midseason promotion to the Class AA Albany/Colony Yankees in the Eastern League. For the 1991 season, Militello put up a 14-4, 1.57 ERA record, with 105 hits and 46 walks in 149 and 1/3 innings, striking out 168 in 23 games across 2 levels.

Baseball America - February 1992

The Yankees now had one of the top pitching prospects in all of baseball, and card companies were starting to take notice.

1992 Donruss

1992 saw Sam Militello as a member of the AAA Columbus Clippers starting rotation to open the season. He lived up to the challenge of AAA baseball without missing a step. Going 12-2, 2.29 in 21 starts. The 104 hits, 46 walks and 152 strikeouts in 141 1/3 innings were in line with his 1991 numbers.

Sam Militello was added to the 40 man roster and made his MLB debut against the Boston Red Sox, in New York, on Sunday, August 9, 1992.

1992 Donruss Phenoms

Throwing 98 pitches (59 for strikes) over 7 innings, he held the Red Sox to only one hit (Tony Pena). Militello walked three, and hit Sox' DH Jack Clark with a pitch in the 7th. Steve Farr pitched the last two hitless innings to pick up his 16th save of the season.

I distinctly remember reading the box score for Militello's stellar debut in the following day's newspaper, feeling confident that my collection's current top pitching prospect was going to exceed the bold predictions for his future.

1992 Fleer Update

Doing a little bit of calendar research, I realized that I most likely would be watching his second major league start, live and in person! Thanks to a previously planned tour with Jay Buckley, I would actually be in Chicago the next weekend, attending 2 Cubs AND 2 White Sox home games in 2 days.

Militello was scheduled to pitch Saturday night's game. Meaning that I would be able to take my own picture of Sam Militello, pitching in Comiskey Park!

The White Sox had left their longtime home, Comiskey Park, at the end of the 1990 season. My priorities were still developing at that time, and I was more interested in the new park built across the street to replace it.

Once I got to Chicago, I picked up some of the available original Comiskey commemorative stuff and learned about the history of the old park, which opened in 1910. This bonus section from the Chicago Tribune was sold at a souvenir stand just south of New Comiskey.

Inside the stadium, the previous season's White Sox team yearbook was still on sale, packed with stories and pictures of both ballparks. Old Comiskey was more than something to laugh at when I saw some of it's garish features during Twins games...

Old Comiskey was demolished after the 1991 season began. Starting at home plate, the aged ballpark collapsed piece by piece, in order to become the parking lot for New Comiskey across the street. When the old park was cleared from the land, a commemorative home plate was placed at it's exact location, now amongst the parked cars.

I needed to get this picture, because in 25 years, I was going to need it for this website. I completely knew it back then...

The match-up for the Saturday, August 15 night game was Militello for the Yankees, pitching against 44 year old knuckleballer Charlie Hough. (Hough would pitch another two seasons for the Florida Marlins, at age 46.)

Promotional giveaway for the game was this cute little duffel bag keychain! 

It's a little beat up after 25 years of sitting in various boxes...

The Yankees won the game 4-2. Militello pitched 8 strong innings to back up his first start. Throwing 103 pitches, 65 for strikes. He gave up 6 hits to Chicago, walked three and struck out four.

While not as dominating as his first start against Boston, this was another good outing that bumped his career record to 2-0, in 2 games.

Watch out Hall of Fame, Militello is coming...

1993 Topps Gold

Militello's next two starts were a mixed bag. Against Oakland on August 20, he pitched 6 and 2/3 innings, giving up 4 runs on 4 hits and 4 walks, while striking out a career high 10.

His third major league win came against Milwaukee, on August 25th. 7 innings, 1 run, on 7 hits, 3 walks and 4 strikeouts.

1993 Fleer

Coming into his 5th career start, Militello brought his perfect record of 3-0 (in 4 games) to Minnesota for a Sunday afternoon game against the Twins. I didn't, but I should have gone to that game. It would have been cool to see 2 of his eventual 11 major league starts in person...

Minnesota dealt Militello his first career defeat, in a 5-3 victory over the Yankees. He lasted only 4 and 2/3 innings, giving up all 5 runs (4 earned), off 7 hits and 6 walks. Militello struck out 4 Twins in the game, but the wildness was a concern...

He made 4 more starts in September to finish the year. Three of them were quality, with one -his final appearance of the 1992 season- against Cleveland, going awry.

1993 Donruss

Overall, his 1992 major league numbers were intriguing. The 3-3 record is what it is. His 3.45 ERA looks a lot better if you removed two bad innings against Cleveland. But it doesn't work that way... In 60 total innings, Militello walked 32, which is not good. He struck out 42, with improvement predicted with experience in upcoming seasons.

1993 Upper Deck

The statistic that popped out the most to me was in those 60 innings, he gave up only 43 hits. Yes, it's a small sample size, but giving up an average of 6.5 hits per 9 innings brings two things to mind...

1. Militello's pitches have incredible movement. Once he refines command of the offspeed pitches, the walks will drop dramatically, and the strikeouts should improve as well. The movement of those pitches also causes less solid contact, keeping the total amount of base hits down. Pitchers who can maintain this, tend to have really long and successful careers.

2. In order to have the kind of pitch movement that leads to numbers Militello posted in 1992, you are most likely putting a tremendous amount of strain on your throwing shoulder and/or elbow.

Beckett Baseball - November 1992

The collecting world took notice of Militello, and his cards became a bit expensive in the 1992 offseason. Likely fueled by his playing for the Yankees, almost as much as this couple of paragraphs in a story Beckett ran...

1993 Stadium Club

Militello earned the #3 slot in the Yankees rotation out of Spring Training in 1993, but something wasn't right. His first start of the season came in Cleveland. Just as they did in his last start in 1992, the Indians beat him up pretty good. 6 hits, 5 runs, 2 walks and no strikeouts in just 2 and 2/3 innings.

That dreaded two word phrase came up: arm soreness.

1993 Leaf

After a week off, he made a relief appearance in a blowout loss to the Texas Rangers, 1 hit and 1 walk, resulting in 2 runs, in an inning and two thirds.

Four days later, on April 22, 1993, Sam Militello made his final major league appearance.

It wasn't bad... Five innings, 3 hits, 1 run on 4 walks and 5 strikeouts. He was the winning pitcher as the Yankees beat the Athletics 5-1 in Oakland. After the game, he was placed on the disabled list with a sore arm.

1993 Bowman

While rehabbing from injuries in 1993, Militello made 7 starts with AAA Columbus. He went only 1-3, with a 5.73 ERA. The peripherals weren't terrible, but there was a real reason of concern. He threw 33 innings of AAA ball. He gave up 36 hits, way up from his ratio in 1992. Twenty walks were also up from his already high 1992 numbers...

However, 39 strikeouts indicated that he may be able to come back in 1994.

1993 Ultra

But 1994 turned out even worse. Between stints on the disabled list, Militello only made 4 starts for AAA Columbus. In those 4 starts, Militello pitched a total of 3 and 2/3 innings. Averaging less than 1 inning per start. In that 3 2/3 innings, he game up 16 runs (13 earned), off 4 hits and 19 walks.

Wow...  

19 walks in 3 2/3 innings... A 46.6 BB/9 is unfathomable... 

His final statistics for the season: 0-3, 31.91 ERA.

Something was definitely wrong.

1993 Select

The Yankees let him go in July 1994. He signed a contract with the Florida Marlins, but did not pitch in a game until 1995. And it was only 4 starts with the Brevard County Manatees in the Class A Florida State League.

Militello was still battling wildness, going 0-1, 7.84 ERA over 10 and 1/3 innings, giving up 7 hits, 20 walks and 18 strikeouts. The strikeouts were still there, but the walks didn't go away. Militello re-signed with the Marlins for the 1996 season, but left the team in March.

Giving it one more attempt, Militello signed with the Yankees in April 1996. He started 3 games with the Greensboro Hornets of the Class A South Atlantic League, but the numbers weren't any better. 0-2, 8.53 ERA, 1 hit (!), 7 runs (6 earned), 15 walks and 5 strikeouts in 6 1/3 innings.

1993 O Pee Chee

Sam Militello stayed with the Yankees until retiring in April 1997.

After retirement, Militello worked as a minor league pitching coach with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 1998, then as a minor league coach in the Cleveland Indians system, for the 1999-2000 seasons.

Militello became the pitching coach with the Tampa Spartans (his alma mater) in 2001, and was promoted to Associate Head Coach in 2009.

1993 Pinnacle Team 2001

Pinnacle made an insert set for it's 1993 brand, featuring players they predicted would be stars in 2001. While I agreed with Pinnacle in principle, Militello pitched his final major league game months before this card was found in packs. Maybe they meant in 2001 he would be a coach of his college team. In that case, they were dead on...

******

During the late 1999 push to add important stuff to the Archives, via ebay, I looked for Sam Militello memorabilia. This was brought to mind during a big card thinning out sort in my cramped one bedroom apartment. I found this picture and bought it for a reasonable price.

It hung on the wall at Kenyon until I moved in 2003.

My purchase was not influenced in the least by the inclusion of this certificate of authenticity.

Nothing against Clubhouse Sportscards, I'm very happy with my purchase and have zero doubts as to it's authenticity. But if I did, this C.O.A. wouldn't sway me either way. If you are going to forge an autograph, would the thought of forging a C.O.A. be above their morals?

******

While doing research for this story, I found this story on BronxPinstripes.com. It uses Sam Militello and Jose Quintana as a comparison point for pitcher Zach Littell, who had just been traded by the Yankees to the Minnesota Twins, in July 2017.

Thought it was an odd coincidence as I was putting all this together...

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I saved this for last, not because it's notable, but that it doesn't really fit in with the rest of the cards in the Militello collection. Oversize cards stand out, and tend to get separated from the rest.

1993 Toys R Us Master Photos

Sam Militello was included in the Master photo subset (which I never really understood the point of. It's a slightly larger photo when presented uncropped. But there's not enough of it to make a difference...) for both the Stadium Club line and the spinoff set made exclusively for Toys R Us in 1993. The Toys R Us set was really nice. A different design than the current stadium club sets, and came packaged in a plastic Toys R Us store. Similar to the Stadium Club Dome sets of 1992 and 1993.

Topps including Militello in a relatively small insert set shows the potential he had in the Hobby. Just as fast as he exploded onto the hobby and baseball scene, his star blew out even quicker, due to injury and inability to throw strikes.

Unfortunately, the Yankees went on to do just fine without him...

******

Lets take a final look at August 15, 1992. 

I like that Donruss cards has an ad on the outfield wall. 

I like the light-up pinwheels on the scoreboard. 

I like this picture a lot...