Rick Honeycutt

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Frederick Wayne Honeycutt (June 29, 1954 in Chattanooga, Tennessee) is the current pitching coach for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Honeycutt was a left-handed pitcher for 21 years from 1977 to 1997. He played with the Seattle Mariners, Texas Rangers, Dodgers, Oakland Athletics, New York Yankees, St. Louis Cardinals. He pitched in 30 post-season games, including 20 league championship series games and 7 World Series games, and never lost a game, going 3-0. Honeycutt gave up zero runs in the 1988 and 1990 post-seasons, and was a member of the Oakland Athletics 1989 World Series championship team.

He played for the University of Tennessee from 1973-1976, where he was an All-American first baseman-pitcher and won the Southeastern Conference batting title with a .404 mark. He also played semi-pro for the Chattanooga Lookouts during the 1970s.

Honeycutt was originally drafted in the 17th round of the 1976 draft by the Pittsburgh Pirates. After 1 1/2 seasons in their minor league system, the Pirates traded him to the Seattle Mariners in August 1977.

He made his major league debut on August 24, 1977 against the Toronto Blue Jays. He pitched two innings of relief, struck out 3, allowed 2 hits and no runs. His first start was against the New York Yankees on August 31. He pitched 7.1 innings in that start, allowing 3 runs. He finished the season 0-1, but got his first victory in his first start the following year, beating the Minnesota Twins on April 7, 1978.

He matured into a savvy control pitcher, being selected to the All-Star team in 1980 and 1983. Honeycutt also led the American League in ERA in 1983 with 2.42, although he was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers late in the season. Converted from a starting pitcher to relief in 1988 by Oakland, he became a valuable set-up man to future Hall-of-Famer Dennis Eckersley, posting a series of sub-3.7 ERAs from 1988 through 1993.

Struggling through a 17 loss season with the Mariners in 1980, Honeycutt was caught scuffing the ball by hiding a thumbtack within a bandage on his finger. He was subsequently suspended for 10 days.

He was the oldest major league player in both 1996 and 1997.

He made 268 starts and 529 relief appearances in his career, logging 2,160 innings pitched and compiling 109 wins and 38 saves.

Following his playing career, he spent a year coaching his kids' teams before joining the Dodgers as their minor league pitching coordinator. ^[1]

Honeycutt joined the Dodgers coaching staff as Pitching Coach for the 2006 season. He has also launched a sporting goods and apparel business in Chattanooga, Tennessee which continues today and he and Mariano Duncan were the only holdovers from Grady Little's 2007 Coaching Staff To Return On New Dodgers Manager Joe Torre's 2008 Coaching Staff,

[edit] See also

• List of Major League Baseball ERA champions

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference