As I mentioned before, I have soft spot for pitchers with
funky deliveries and the Mets’ ironman of the late 80’s and early 90’s was
I-Man, the first Met ever to have a last name starting with the letter “I”,
Jeff Innis. During his brief but
exclusively Mets career he went an uninspiring 10-20 but his career ERA as a
setup man out of the pen was a sparkling 3.05.
He twice pitched more than 80 innings in a season and once threw
76.
The skinny submariner was a joy to watch as his soft tossing
stuff befuddled batters. He never had
huge strikeout numbers but no one was making any strong contact against him as
they were not sure where to pick up the pitch as it was released near the top
of the mound when he delivered. His two
types of breaking balls had a lot of movement that batters could not handle
very well. In this video clip you can
see an example of how he pitched, a typical weak swing and an equally
surprising accurate throw from catcher Mackey Sasser to nail the runner at
first base. Have a look here.
Innis attended the University of Illinois, earning a degree
in psychology. During the summers he
played in the Cape Cod League for the Cotuit Kettleers. He led the league in saves during one season,
was an All Star both years he was there and helped his team to a
championship. During the period in which
aluminum bats were fluffing up offensive stats, Innis finished his two-year
stint in that league with a 2.15 ERA. He
was named to the Cape Cod Baseball League Hall of Fame in 2008.
Drafted in the 13th round by the New York Mets,
he started off his minor league career quite well. In short season ball for Little Falls over a
period of 28 games Innis went 8-0 with a 1.37 ERA. That stellar performance had him jump up to
Jackson in AA for the next season where he got his first taste of adversity,
becoming a bit wild and finishing with a much less impressive 4.25 ERA. That performance earned him a demotion the
following year to Lynchburg where he got back to what made him so impressive
the first time around, finishing the 1985 season with a 53 game record of 6-3
with a 2.34 ERA and 14 saves. He then
returned to Jackson during the 1986 season serving as the team’s closer and
finished the season with a then club-record 25 saves, a 2.45 ERA and became a
Texas League All Star.
1987 was a breakthrough year for Innis who rode the
Tidewater/New York shuttle several times.
For the Tides he was 6-1 with a 2.03 ERA and for the big club he went
0-1, but pitched in 17 games and finished his first taste of the big leagues
with a respectable 3.16 ERA. Over the
next three seasons he continued to bounce back and forth between the majors and
AAA despite never posting an ERA above 3.18. He was mentored a bit by NY Mets submariner
Terry Leach, though Innis didn’t drop down quite as much as Leach did. He said he was trying to pitch more like Dan
Quisenberry until his minor league pitching coach had him stand a bit more
upright with improved results.
In general Innis was considered a quiet, pensive teammate
who was not part of the firecracker-tossing, bleach spraying or golf club
swinging antics that were a part of the NY Mets’ negative lure of those
days. He was, however, a talented mimic
and routinely would break up his fellow players with a spot-on impressive of
the GM, Frank Cashen.
In 1991 Innis had the dubious distinction of setting a
record for appearing in 69 games without recording either a win or a save. For the season he finished 0-2, but with an
ERA of just 2.66. He famously asked for
a raise and was told he had his nerve considering he had a losing record and no
saves.
He followed that up in 1992 with even more pitching – this
time appearing in 76 games, earning a 6-9 record and a 2.86 ERA. He didn’t wait long to get off the schneid,
recording his first ever win on Opening Day.
He would pitch just one more season in the big leagues,
closing out his Mets career in 1993 with for him an uncharacteristically high
4.11 ERA over 67 games. He was not
offered a contract for the 1994 season and bounced around with the Twins,
Phillies and Padres minor league organizations, switching to a knuckleball that
he was never quite able to master.
After retiring from baseball Innis earned his living selling commercial insurance and ran a private baseball academy.
1 comment:
Solid guy Jeff Innis...and classic Met, in that despite a career 3.05 ERA, he could still somehow be 10-20 in his career. I’d take two of those right how. Just a homer allowed every 13 innings is so...un-Edwin Diaz, a real plus for a reliever.
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