Latin American countries have long-supplied players to the big leagues, the earliest in 1902, although it wasn’t until the 1950s that they really become commonplace. Several Asian players have posted games this season in Major League Baseball that further illustrate the game has fully embraced an international talent pool of players. Furthermore, Major League teams now have players who were born in Italy, Australia, and the Netherlands. However, the 1996 Los Angeles Dodgers were somewhat unique at the time by staffing its starting pitching rotation with a truly international flavor.
Before reviewing that distinctive Dodgers team, let’s take a further look at the proliferation of international players in today’s game of baseball. According to the MLB Commissioner’s office last April, 28 percent of the MLB players on the 2013 25-man opening day rosters were born outside of the 50 United States. The Dominican Republic was most represented with 89 players. Venezuela was second with 63, then Canada (17), Cuba (15), Mexico (14), Puerto Rico 13), and Japan (11). The overall percentage was just shy of the 2005 record of 29.2 percent. The percentage of foreign-born players has roughly doubled in the last twenty years. In an August 2006 study by the American Foundation of National Policy, the number of foreign-born players in 1995 was 13.74 percent.
In 2013, Japanese pitcher Yu Darvish of the Texas Rangers has continued to wow big league fans by hurling five games with 14 or more strikeouts. Japanese veteran Ichiro Suzuki of the New York Yankees, joined an elite group of players this month by recording his 4,000th career hit as a professional. Korean pitcher Hjun-jin Ryu has been a pleasant surprise for the NL West Division-leading Los Angeles Dodgers by posting a 12-5 record and 3.08 ERA. Yasiel Puig (Cuba), Jurickson Profar (Curacao), Xander Bogaerts (Aruba), and Alex Liddi (Italy) are promising rookies with bright futures in the majors.
Getting back to the Dodgers team of 1996. Their regular starting rotation included Hideo Nomo from Japan, Ramon Martinez and Pedro Astacio from the Dominican Republic, Ismael Valdez from Mexico, and US-born Tom Candiotti of Italian descent. Amazingly, these five pitchers accounted for 152 starts of the Dodgers’ 162 games that year. (As a side note, when’s the last time that happened?) A sixth pitcher, Chan Ho Park of South Korea, started the other ten games for the Dodgers, but he was also used as a reliever. Consequently, this combination of international players, all pitchers, was the first of its kind in the majors. If you didn’t know any better, you would have thought the Dodgers had recruited its players from the United Nations. Can you imagine the task Dodgers catcher Mike Piazza had in communicating with these guys on the field?
The Dodger organization was among the first in Major League Baseball to pursue the acquisition of Asian pitchers, at a time when other teams were securing pitchers who were defecting from Cuba. In 1994, Park had become the second Asian pitcher in the big leagues following Mansanori Murakami of the San Francisco Giants thirty years earlier. Nomo made his MLB debut with the Dodgers a year later than Park. International recruiting was apparently a Dodger organizational development strategy, as 45 percent of their players on the 1996 team were from outside the United States.
So, how did this select group of pitchers fare in 1996?
Hideo Nomo had made his Major League debut in 1995 and wound up being the National League Rookie of the Year. The 27-year-old right-hander followed that with another stellar season in 1996, compiling a 16-11 record and 3.19 ERA for the Dodgers. He finished fourth in the Cy Young Award balloting.
Ramon Martinez, who came up through the Dodgers system, led the team in winning percentage in 1996 with a 15-6 record and posted a 3.42 ERA. The 28-year-old, who was the brother of ace pitcher Pedro Martinez, was the highest paid pitcher on the team at $4.8 million per year.
Ismael Valdes, at 22 years of age, was already in his third major league season. The right-handed hurler posted a 15-7 record and 3.22 ERA in 33 starts.
Pedro Astacio had not pitched well as a starter in 1995 and wound up being relegated to the bullpen for the Dodgers. In 1996, he worked his way back to the starting rotation and had a credible won-loss record of 9-8 and 3.44 ERA in 32 starts.
The only American in the starting rotation in 1996 was Tom Candiotti, a 38-year-old journeyman knuckleball pitcher. In his fifth season with the Dodgers, he was the only starter with a losing record, 9-11.
23-year-old right-hander Chan Ho Park had been the first Korean to pitch in a Major League game in 1994. In his first full season in the big leagues in 1996, Park primarily worked as a middle reliever for the Dodgers, but as mentioned above he was also used as a spot starter. He finished with a 5-5 record and 3.64 ERA.
Led by this stellar pitching staff, the Dodgers finished second in the National League West Division, only one game behind the San Diego Padres. However, they captured the wild card spot for the playoffs, but were swept by the Atlanta Braves in three games in the League Division Series.
Peter O’Malley, the owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, was quoted as saying, “Now baseball’s community is the world, and a team should reflect its community.” That was true of the Dodgers in 1996, and today it is largely true of all of the Major League teams.