Article: Scott Schoeneweis, Bullpen Gamer

[Mac]

It was the second game of the 2005 season. Blue Jays reliever Scott Schoeneweis was sitting in the Toronto bullpen down the left-field line in Tampa. “Schoeneweis, you’re a bum!” someone in the crowd behind him yelled.

Scott Schoeneweis turned around to the unsurprisingly sparse crowd at Tropicana Field and saw a recognizable face in a Devil Rays jersey yelling at him. It was his ex-teammate Billy Koch, who had been cut by the Jays just weeks earlier in a failed comeback attempt.

The good-natured ribbing from Koch aside, Scott Schoeneweis was not a bum. He pitched on Opening Day and would also pitch that night. And the following afternoon. In all, Schoeneweis pitched 80 games in that season, a feat reached by only five pitchers in Blue Jays history.

Schoeneweis broke into the majors with the Angels in 1999 and spent the next two years in the back end of their rotation. Schoeneweis threw a complete game, three-hitter against the Blue Jays in his second career start. In 2002, he won a World Series ring when the Angels beat the Giants and was dealt to the White Sox the following season. During his final arbitration seasons, he pitched in both the rotation and bullpen and established a reputation as being tough on left-handed hitters (.222 average in the previous three years).

The Blue Jays showed immediate interest in the lefty once Schoeneweis became a free agent. Schoeneweis himself said that Toronto “kept pursuing me and showing more and more interest," and what became a two-year, $5.2 million free agent deal “was something I didn't want to turn down.” In the same off-season future, Kyle Farnsworth assault victim Paul Wilson got a two-year, $4 million deal with the Reds. Those numbers came with expectations; in Toronto’s case, it would amount to quite the workload.

It’s unfair to a decent workhorse like Paul Wilson that this is what I remember, but how can you not?

Things didn’t start well for Schoeneweis in the Toronto bullpen. His 7.71 ERA popped off the page at the end of April but didn’t reflect the situation entirely. As Dave Till of Batter’s Box said at the time, he was being worked like a “rented mule”; John Gibbons had used him to pitch back-to-back games six times in the month. It’s easy to imagine this was an adjustment period for Schoeneweis, who started 19 games for the White Sox the previous season. While a bullpen role had been expected, he was used very differently for the first time in his career. Schoeneweis pitched at least an inning in only three of his 12 appearances in April, and he threw only nine innings in 12 appearances in a slightly improved May.

Schoeneweis’ usage patterns were strange early on. He struck out all three White Sox batters he faced on May 7, and Gibbons did not use him for three days. When he finally re-emerged from the bullpen against the Royals, he gave up home runs to Matt Stairs and Emil Brown and was taken out of the game before facing a third hitter. Schoeneweis then pitched in six straight scoreless appearances before another three-day hiatus. His return from the latest layoff yielded a four-run, no-outs-recorded appearance in Seattle, a game that was incredulously saved by Miguel Batista.

Second billing to Josh Towers?? Yikes. Courtesy of the Toronto Star (Sep 02, 2005 ·Page 28)

Starting in June, Schoeneweis found his groove in the Blue Jays bullpen. Gibbons trusted him enough to have him replace the unreliable Batista in the ninth inning against Boston on July 3, where he recorded his only save of the season by retiring Johnny Damon with the bases loaded to preserve a 5-2 win. Schoeneweis had become a super dependable option out of the Jays bullpen for Gibbons to turn to. He gave up runs in only four of his next 28 appearances in June and July. Here are Schoeneweis’ monthly splits courtesy of the invaluable BaseballReference:

Months -- Game-Level

Month	W	L	ERA	G	GS	GF	IP	H	ER	BB	SO	WHIP	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
Mar/Apr	0	1	9.00	12	0	1	7.0	12	7	7	6	2.714	.353	.463	.441	.905
May	1	0	6.00	12	0	5	9.0	7	6	3	8	1.111	.206	.290	.441	.731
June	1	1	2.45	11	0	1	7.1	3	2	5	6	1.091	.125	.276	.125	.401
July	0	0	2.92	17	0	2	12.1	12	4	4	13	1.297	.250	.308	.292	.599
August	0	1	1.86	12	0	2	9.2	10	2	5	7	1.552	.263	.349	.290	.638
Sept/Oct	1	1	0.77	16	0	4	11.2	10	1	1	3	0.943	.238	.304	.262	.566

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table Generated 2/22/2025.

Schoeneweis was also as tough as advertised against left-handed hitters, allowing opponents to hit just .188/.260/.241. He did struggle against righties (.306/.405/.389) but it didn’t seem to matter to Gibbons; Schoeneweis was deployed equally against hitters from both sides of the plate. His 80 appearances was offset by a total of 57 innings thrown all season and it wasn’t like Schoeneweis excelled in back-to-back situations:

Days of Rest -- Game-Level

Days of Rest	W	L	ERA	G	GS	GF	IP	H	ER	BB	SO	WHIP	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
0 Days	2	1	4.86	26	0	5	16.2	17	9	8	9	1.500	.262	.351	.339	.690
1 Day	1	2	2.18	25	0	5	20.2	19	5	9	16	1.355	.241	.326	.266	.592
2 Days	0	0	0.00	14	0	4	9.2	7	0	2	11	0.931	.200	.263	.200	.463
3 Days	0	1	9.00	12	0	1	8.0	10	8	4	4	1.750	.294	.385	.529	.914
4 Days	0	0	0.00	1	0	0	0.2	1	0	1	2	3.000	.333	.500	.333	.833
5 Days	0	0	0.00	1	0	0	0.2	0	0	1	0	1.500	.000	.333	.000	.333
6+ Days	0	0	0.00	1	0	0	0.2	0	0	0	1	0.000	.000	.000	.000	.000

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table Generated 2/22/2025.

Schoeneweis struggled with consistency in 2006. He held 18 leads for Toronto out of the bullpen but also surrendered multiple runs in nine of his 55 appearances that season. Schoeneweis hurt his knee shagging fly balls before a game in July, scoffed at being placed on the injured list, and then struggled while pitching at less than 100%. He gave up three runs without recording an out on August 8 against the Orioles and said after he was “feeling the worst of anyone in this clubhouse.”

That finished a stretch where Schoeneweis surrendered 15 earned runs in 18 2/3 innings. He would pitch three more times for Toronto before being shipped to Cincinnati in a post-deadline trade, leading J.P. Riccardi to be quoted as saying one of... well just see: “At this point Schoeneweis was more of a luxury than a need.” Is this somehow the genesis of J.P.'s hilarious feud with Adam Dunn?

You have to give Riccardi credit for giving Schoeneweis a good word on the way out. The trade came as a surprise to Schoeneweis, who thought he was simply going to be released for his performance as of late. “I just feel so bad about everything,” he told Geoff Baker of the Toronto Star before departing for the Reds.

Quote

“I'm going to miss him. Schoeney's been a valuable guy for us the last couple of years," said Gibbons, who added his seal of approval as well by calling Schoeneweis a "good guy".

Not sad to see him go was Damon, who said in the offseason that Schoeneweis was the best left-handed pitcher he faced inside the division. He was certainly good enough in games against Damon’s former team that Red Sox fans remembered Schoeneweis from his time in Toronto years later. With 135 appearances across less than two seasons with the team, today we remember a bullpen warrior in Scott Schoeneweis.

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[Terry Mesmer]

>today we remember a bullpen warrior in Scott Schoeneweis

Why?

[paulnotskenes]

On 2/26/2025 at 8:53 AM, Terry Mesmer said:

>today we remember a bullpen warrior in Scott Schoeneweis

Why?

He deserves at least a little remembering for having to endure that jersey set

[paulnotskenes]

If gibby says “schoensy” is a good guy, then that’s good enough for me