Baseball Loyalty

In a previous column I talked about whether or not CC Sabathia signing a huge contract with the Yankees was good for baseball. Most of what I was discussing had to do with the dynamics of the league and how small market teams have to be creative/strategically sound in order to compete with the mega-franchises. Yet, I overlooked a key point -- and I have to give credit to my friend Aaron for bringing this up -- there is very little loyalty left in the game of baseball. With the blockbuster contracts that high profile (and even some low profile) players are signing these days when they hit the free agent market, it is very rare to see a player that stays with the team that brought him up/gave him his first shot.

With this in mind, I went around the league and tried to find players that have shown great loyalty to their team. Here are the criteria: Since at least the 2000 season they have, a) spent their entire career with one team b) were traded early in their career and have remained with the team that traded for them

*I acknowledge that the D-Backs and Rays are only 10 years old and therefore it is difficult to include them in this discussion.


Here are the results:
Arizona Diamondbacks: None

Atlanta Braves: John Smoltz, Chipper Jones, *special mention here for Greg Maddux who spent
the majority of his career with the Braves, and then signed with the Cubs, the
team that originally brought him up when the Braves wanted to move in a
different diretion

Baltimore Orioles: Melvin Mora, Brian Roberts

Boston Red Sox: Tim Wakefield, Jason Varitek

Chicago White Sox: Mark Buehrle, Paul Konerko

Chicago Cubs: None

Cincinnati Reds: None

Cleveland Indians: Jake Westbrook

Colorado Rockies: Todd Helton

Detroit Tigers: Brandon Inge

Florida Marlins: None

Houston Astros: Roy Oswalt, Lance Berkman

Kansas City Royals: None

Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim: Scott Shields

Los Angeles Dodgers: None

Milwaukee Brewers: None

Minnesota Twins: Michael Cuddyer

New York Yankees: Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, Derek Jeter, Andy Pettite (Though he did
leave for a couple years to play for the Astros, he did come back to the
Yankees, and had played over 10 years for them at the start of his career)

New York Mets: None

Oakland A's: Eric Chavez

Philadelphia Phillies: Jimmy Rollins

Pittsburgh Pirates: Jack Wilson

San Diego Padres: Trevor Hoffman

San Francisco Giants: None

Seattle Mariners: Ichiro Suzuki

St. Louis Cardinals: Albert Pujols

Tampa Bay Rays: None

Texas Rangers: Michael Young

Toronto Blue Jays: Roy Halladay, Vernon Wells

Washington Nationals: None



So there you go, 29 out of over 750 ball players. There are several pretty big names on here, but not all of them are household names. I don't mean to suggest anything by this, I simply think it is interesting to point out.