2004 Topps Chrome, Dewon Brazelton

#392 Dewon Brazelton

Here is the second of three cards that Dewon signed for me at the T-Bones/Wingnuts preseason game back in April. The first one can be seen here.

It sounds like Dewon has had an interesting career. He had knee surgery and Tommy John surgery before completing high school. Because of that, he went undrafted out of high school and attended Middle Tennessee State instead. He set the MTSU school record for wins and strikeouts while there and he ended up getting drafted with the third overall selection in the 2001 draft.

He made his pro debut the following year with the Rays AA team, the Orlando Rays. He did good enough that season the got promoted to AAA for one start before getting a September call-up to the big league club. In his Major League debut, he gave up 5 runs in 6 innings against the Blue Jays and he took the loss. He fared much better in his second start by throwing 7 innings and only allowing 2 runs to the Yankees. I'm sure that Rays fan were pretty excited by the fast start that Dewon had.

Unfortunately, it wasn't meant to last. Dewon pitched in 52 more games for the Rays, over three seasons, before they traded him to San Diego. He pitched in 9 games for the Padres in 2006 before getting demoted and then released. In 2007, he pitched for the Royals AAA and the Pirates AA team. He didn't pitch at all in 2008 and 2009 was spent in the Atlantic League. He started out 2010 with the Kansas City T-Bones, but he must have been released before the season started. It would appear that Dewon's career may be over.

It seems that the major issue with Dewon may have been control. For his Major League career, Dewon tallied just 145 strikeouts compared to 151 walks. It is going to be hard to be successful with that bad of a strikeout to walk ratio.

I thought it was funny when I looked up Dewon's page on Baseball Reference. Our good friend, the Collective Troll, is the sponsor of the page. That is pretty cool.