1994 Rookie of the Year Countdown – William VanLandingham

Continuing our Tuesday look at the countdown to the Rookies of the Year in 1994, today we examine former Giants pitcher William VanLandingham.

VanLandingham was drafted in the fifth round of the 1991 major league draft by the San Francisco Giants out of the University of Kentucky.  The Wildcats have produced 31 major leaguers, including Brandon Webb, Joe Blanton, Jim Leyritz, and many more you’ve never heard of.  The fifth round of the 1991 draft produced eight total players who saw time in the majors, most notably Nomar Garciaparra, who would decline the Brewers offer and go to college, and least notably outfielder DaRond Stovall, who was drafted by my Cardinals.

After his signing in 1991, VanLandingham was assigned to A- ball Everett, where he was very average.  Unfortunately, players who are average in A- ball don’t have much of a future.  At Everett, he would go 8-4 with a 4.09 ERA with 86 strikeouts and 79 walks.  He also threw 25 wild pitches in 77 innings.

1992 saw VanLandingham split time between A ball Clinton and A+ ball San Jose.  Unfortunately, he was not average at either stop.  He combined to go 1-7 with a 5.64 ERA with 77 strikeouts and 42 walks.  But he did cut his wild pitches down to only 10 in 75 innings, so that was something, and at this point, in 152 minor league innings, he had only allowed two home runs.

VanLandingham spent the majority of the 1993 season again at A+ ball San Jose.  While he did go 14-8, and had 173 strikeouts in 170 1/3 innings, he also allowed 175 hits and 87 walks, which translated to a WHIP of 1.555.  His ERA was 5.18.  This was apparently good enough to get a promotion for one start to AAA Phoenix, where he would get a loss, giving up six runs (five earned) and eight hits while striking out two.

In 1994, VanLandingham would start the season at AA Shreveport, where in eight games, he would go 4-3 with a 2.81 ERA and 45 strikeouts vs. only 11 walks.  This earned him a promotion back to AAA Phoenix, where in five games, he would go 1-1 with a 2.48 ERA and 29 strikeouts vs. 14 walks.  The Giants determined that he was ready for the show.

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VanLandingham made his major league debut on May 21^st, 1994 in a relief appearance against the Chicago Cubs.  The Cubs lit up Giants’ starter Bryan Hickerson for eight runs in 1 1/3 innings (although one of those runs VanLandingham let score as an inherited runner).  He would hold down the fort, giving up only one run in 3 2/3 innings, allowing two hits and four walks with four strikeouts.  The Giants would pull within 9-7 by the middle of the fifth inning, but the Cubs would add on three more runs, and the Giants’ three runs in the top of the ninth fell short as the Cubs won 12-10 behind Steve Buechele’s four RBIs and Sammy Sosa’s two solo home runs.  Overall with that appearance and a couple of starts, he went 1-0 with a 2.40 ERA and nine strikeouts vs. 10 walks.

June would see VanLandingham continue to provide stability to the Giants’ rotation.  In five starts, he would go 2-1 with a 4.56 ERA with 14 strikeouts and 14 walks.  Even with the increased ERA, opponents only hit .230 off of him that month.

In July, VanLandingham would make five more starts and a relief appearance, going 4-0 with a 2.83 ERA with 30 strikeouts vs. 14 walks.  He never gave up more than four runs in any start.  In the only start where he didn’t get a victory, he only gave up one run in seven innings, and in his two inning relief appearance, he got a perfect six up, six down.

With the player’s strike impending, VanLandingham only would get two starts in August, going 1-1 with a 5.23 ERA with three strikeouts and five walks.  This closed the book on the very short season for VanLandingham.

Overall, on his way to the seventh place finish in the 1994 Rookie of the Year voting, VanLandingham went 8-2 with a 3.54 ERA.  In 84 innings, he gave up 70 hits (four of which were home runs), and he had 56 strikeouts vs. 43 walks.  The win/loss record was probably enough to get votes, especially when in comparison to the other members of the 1994 Giants rotation.  The Giants finished 55-60 that year.  VanLandingham was actually tied for second on the team in victories with 8-7 Bill Swift, both runners up to 10-8 Mark Portugal.

VanLandingham would pitch three more seasons with the Giants, compiling a 27-26 record with a 4.54 ERA with 300 strikeouts vs. 220 walks.  His last major league game was against the Pittsburgh Pirates on July 27^th, 1997, where he would earn a loss, giving up three runs in five innings.  The last inning he threw was typical VanLandingham – ground out, fly out, walk, stolen base allowed, wild pitch, strikeout looking.

VanLandingham would sign with the Anaheim Angels for the 1998 season, but never made it back to the majors after going 0-6 with an 11.23 ERA and 12 strikeouts vs. 44 walks for AAA Vancouver.  One major league record VanLandingham held was longest last name.  That record has since been broken by Jarrod Saltalamacchia.

Next week’s look at the 1994 Rookie of the Year voting will focus on former Angels / Indians / Diamondbacks / Royals hurler Brian Anderson.