Former big league pitcher Tom Timmermann passed away this past week at the age of 85, according to multiple reports. The right-hander spent parts of six seasons in the majors.
Timmermann was signed by the Tigers and made his pro debut in 1960 at the age of 20. He’d go on to spend nearly a decade bouncing around the minor leagues, working as both a starter and a reliever, until he eventually made his big league debut with Detroit on June 18, 1969. He recorded 1 1/3 scoreless innings in his debut to kick off what was a strong season out of the bullpen in his rookie year.
After pitching to a 2.70 ERA in 46 2/3 innings out of the bullpen, Timmermann made his first career MLB start in the penultimate game of Detroit’s season. He managed a complete game where he surrendered three runs to the Orioles but came away with the win after striking out future Hall of Famer Frank Robinson and teammate Boog Powell as they wrapped up brilliant campaigns that saw them both finish in the top 3 of AL MVP voting that year.
Even after his impressive finish to the 1969 season, Timmermann didn’t manage to break into the Tigers rotation right away. He spent the 1970 and 1971 seasons largely in the bullpen and pitched to roughly average results across 169 1/3 innings, though he did manage to record 31 saves along the way. In 1970, he set the team record for appearances by a pitcher with 61 and was named Tiger of the Year by Detroit’s chapter of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.
It was in 1972 when Timmermann finally got the opportunity to start in the majors on a regular basis. Then in his age-32 season, Timmermann started 25 of his 34 games that year and pitched quite well with a 2.89 ERA in 149 2/3 innings of work. It was a solid enough performance, but it wasn’t enough to earn the right-hander another look in the rotation for the 1973 season. The Tigers put him back in the bullpen, though Timmermann’s chance to start would later come at the cost of his roster spot in Detroit. On June 15, nearly four years to the day after his big league debut, Timmermann was traded to Cleveland in exchange for future All-Star Ed Farmer.
The move to an eventual 90-loss club in Cleveland allowed Timmermann the opportunity to start, but he didn’t do very well with the change of scenery. The right-hander pitched to a 4.96 ERA across 33 appearances for the franchise during the 1973 and ’74 seasons. The last game of his major league career arrived on April 26, 1974, when he threw 3 1/3 scoreless innings of relief and was credited with a win over an Angels lineup that coincidentally included Robinson. Timmermann pitched at the Triple-A level for the Toledo Mud Hens and Oklahoma City 89ers to close out his season before calling it a career after the 1974 season.
In all, Timmermann recorded a 3.78 ERA in 548 innings of work at the big league level across six MLB seasons. He posted an even 35-35 record with 35 saves recorded in that time, and struck out 315 batters throughout his big league career. Though it wasn’t known until long after his big league career had come to a close, Timmermann was also the biological father of former big leaguer Phil Leftwich. Leftwich was born nearly a month to the day prior to Timmermann’s MLB debut but was put up for adoption as an infant, and the connection between the two wasn’t discovered until Leftwich (who pitched for the Angels in parts of three seasons from 1993 to 1996) was on the cusp of his own big league debut.
MLB Trade Rumors joins the rest of the baseball world in extending our condolences to Timmermann’s family, friends, and loved ones.