Frank Cimorelli was a relief pitcher with the 1994 Cardinals.
Frank Thomas Cimorelli was born August 2, 1968, in
Poughkeepsie, New York. He attended Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School in
Hyde Park, where he lettered in baseball and basketball, and graduated in 1986.
He then played baseball for two years at Dutchess Community College in
Poughkeepsie, earning his AA degree in 1988. From there he went to Dominican
College in Orangeburg, New York; in June 1989 he was named an honorable mention
NAIA All-American and was drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals in the 37th
round of the free agent draft.
On June 9 Frank signed a contract with the St. Louis
organization, and he was sent to the Johnson City Cardinals of the Rookie class
Appalachian League. He started 12 games for Johnson City and had a 4.57 ERA in
65 innings. On January 3, 1990, he filled out a questionnaire in which he gave
his size as 6-1, 175, and his “first name you go by” as “Cimo,” and mentioned
having played with the Poughkeepsie Lasers and New York Generals of the
Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League during his college summers.
During spring training 1990 Frank got to pitch some against
the parent Cardinals. From Larry Harnly’s Cardinal Notebook column in the April
8 Springfield State Journal-Register:
Consider these hitters Springfield Starter Frank Cimorelli faced during spring training—Terry Pendleton, Pedro Guerrero, Tom Bruansky and Vince Coleman. And they went 0-for-6 against him.
“All four commented on how much his ball sinks,” Springfield Manager Keith Champion said.
Guerrero grounded out to shortstop twice, Brunansky flied out to right and walked, Pendleton flied out to left and then there was the highlight.
“It was when Coleman was called out on strikes,” Cimorelli said. “I got him on a curve.”
Frank spent 1990 with the Springfield Cardinals of the Class
A Midwest League, where he began and ended the season in the rotation and was
in the bullpen in between. He had a 4.56 ERA in 120 1/3 innings in 41 games, 15
of them starts.
Frank returned to Springfield in 1991, spending the entire
season in the rotation. From the State Journal-Register of July 30:
Cimorelli stifles Burlington
Springfield erupts in 7th
By Larry Harnly
For the first time in 22 starts, Frank Cimorelli was sufficiently pleased with his performance that he saved the game ball. He will give it to his mother, Doreen, in New York after the season.
Cimorelli lowered his earned run average to 2.99 as he turned in a complete-game four-hitter and Springfield scored all its runs in the seventh inning for a 6-1 victory over Burlington Monday night at Lanphier Park.
Cimorelli allowed himself the luxury of clapping on the mound after he made Chris Hatcher his seventh strikeout victim for the final out. “I was pumped,” he said…
Improving to 7-10, Cimorelli said it was his best game. He had one other game when he permitted only one run, but he did not get the victory.
“Everything worked well,” he assessed. “I had good location; everything was low. I got one pitch up, and (Nick Davis) took it deep (homered to lead off the third). It’s his job to take it deep.”
“I went into a mini-slump for a while. My mechanics were screwed up. I had trouble spotting my pitches. Roger Erickson (pitching coach) was helpful. I was throwing too far across my body, and my arm was lazy.”
…Cimorelli, a sinkerballer who turned in a tops of 84 mph, has a three-game winning streak. Two objectives, he said, are to keep his ERA under 3.00 and to record 180 innings. “That led the league last year,” he pointed out.
He had hoped he would get a shot with St. Petersburg this year, but now he figures he will spend the rest of the year here.
“If I keep pitching like this,” he said, “I will get a chance with St. Pete. I want to put some pressure on the Cardinals (to place him on perhaps the AA roster this winter or risk losing him in the draft).”…
Frank’s ERA went up to 3.38, but he did get 191 2/3 innings
in, over 29 starts, with an 8-14 record.
In 1992 it was decided to make Frank a reliever, and he
returned to Springfield for a third season. Again he spent the whole year
there, and he set a new Midwest League record by appearing in 65 games. He had
a 1.73 ERA in 72 2/3 innings, allowing just 48 hits and 22 walks while striking
out 66. A September 21 story in the State Journal-Register quoted St.
Louis director of player development Mike Jorgensen as saying that Frank “is
pretty well locked in (for Arkansas next year)” and continued:
Cimorelli, who also will head to the FIL [Florida Instructional League], said his velocity jumped from 81 mph last year to 86 after his role was changed.
“This year was a lot more fun than I thought it would be,” he said of his third season with the same team. “I was pretty bummed when I heard I was coming back. But I believe that everything happens for a reason.”
As predicted, Frank started 1993 with the AA Arkansas
Travelers of the Texas League. He had a 2.54 ERA for them in 56 2/3 innings in
37 games before being moved up to AAA, with the Louisville Redbirds of the American
Association, in July. With the Redbirds his ERA was 2.72 in 43 innings in 27
games, though he had control issues for the first time in his career, walking
25. From the September 12 State Journal-Register:
…Which pitchers who have not performed for the parent team this year could jump to the Cardinals next season?
Rick Mahler, minor league pitching coordinator, named only three—starters Brian Barber and Doug Creek and reliever Frank Cimorelli. All three are former Springfield Cardinals who spent most of this season with Class AA Arkansas before being promoted to Class AAA Louisville. Mahler said Barber and Creek are closer to being ready than Cimorelli.
All three realistically figure to start next season with Louisville…
“Cimorelli threw the ball well. I liked him here (with Springfield) last year. I don’t see him being a closer with the Cardinals, but he could be Louisville’s closer next year.”
From the State Journal-Register again, December 6:
Cimorelli proves Erickson right
Frank Cimorelli spent three years toiling with the Springfield Cardinals. That seldom happens and could mean one thing—a player going nowhere and ticketed for release.
But a little more than a year after Cimorelli pitched his last game for Springfield, he has been promoted to the St. Louis Cardinals’ major league roster.
Roger Erickson was Cimorelli’s pitching coach his first two years with Springfield and takes credit for some of Cimorelli’s progress.
“Frank would not still be playing ball if it wasn’t for me and Keith Champion (former Springfield manager),” Erickson said. “The Cardinals were going to get rid of him the first year. They didn’t see anything in him. They were going to let him come back to spring training the next year as just a body.
“I remember in one report to Ted Simmons (then the director of player development) that I said he will have better velocity in the bullpen. I said his future was in the bullpen and that he could be a very good middle reliever.
“I said that he could get to Class AAA and that with his stuff he might be able to throw middle relief in the big leagues.”
Erickson was right. Cimorelli established himself as a middle reliever with Springfield in 1992. Then he bypassed Class A St. Petersburg and jumped this season to Class AA Arkansas (2.54 earned run average) and Class AAA Louisville (2.72 ERA). He will be in 1994 spring training with St. Louis.
Frank did go to spring training with St. Louis, though on
March 19 he was sent to the minor league camp for reassignment. He started the
season with Louisville but on April 26 was recalled to the majors. He made his
debut on April 30 in Houston, entering the game in the bottom of the fifth,
down 5-1, after starter Allen Watson was pinch-hit for by Jose Oquendo. Frank
allowed singles to his first two batters, Jeff Bagwell and Ken Caminiti, and
the Astros scored a run. In the sixth he allowed three doubles and two singles
to the first five batters, which included Bagwell and Caminiti again, and four
runs, and was replaced by Bryan Eversgerd, also making his debut.
…The linescore on his first major league inning against Colorado [actually Houston] was a disaster—seven hits and five runs.
“I wasn’t as nervous as I thought I would be,” Cimorelli said. “I threw strikes, but they were not good strikes. They hit’em.”
Cimorelli knew it was not his day.
“I had the first hitter in the second inning [James Mouton] 0-2,” he recalled. “I threw a curve in the dirt and had him fooled. He threw the bat at it and got a double.”
…Cimorelli agreed with Eversgerd on one key point: Mistakes get hit with more frequency in the majors.
“But if I stay within myself and let the ball work, I can do the job,” he said. “You’ve got to keep the ball down. That’s the kind of pitcher I am. I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t throw harder.”
Despite inferior statistics, Cimorelli said he’s not discouraged. He knows the early promotion was a bonus. He had not expected to be called up so soon, but he had given up no runs with Louisville.
It’s a major transition from Lanphier Park to Busch Stadium.
“What an atmosphere here,” Cimorelli said. “You know you are on TV, and there are 50,000 people in the stands at times.”
On June 30 Frank was recalled to St. Louis. The next day he
got his first major league save, pitching the last three innings of an 11-4
victory over the Rockies credited to Rick Sutcliffe; he also got his first
strikeout, Dante Bichette. He made six more relief appearances, the last on
July 18, before being sent back down to Louisville. The major league season was
halted in August by a players’ strike, so he didn’t make it back up; his major
league stats, mainly due to poor outings in his first and final games, included
an 8.77 ERA in 13 1/3 innings in 11 games, with 20 hits, 10 walks, and one
strikeout. With Louisville he had a 4.01 ERA in 60 2/3 innings in 48 games.
At the end of September the Cardinals moved Frank to the major
league roster, but in November they apparently had a change of heart; they
placed him on waivers, and when he cleared waivers they sent him outright back
to Louisville.
In February 1995 the major league players were still on
strike. An AP story on February 16 mentioned Frank as a likely candidate to
cross the picket lines and sign up as a replacement player, but another AP
story from the 21st included the following:
…On Sunday, Donald Fehr, head of the Major League Players Association, said anyone playing in a spring game would be considered a replacement player. That was enough to scare off several players, among them right-handers Alan Benes, the team’s [the Cardinals] first-round pick in the June 1993 draft, and Frank Cimorelli, who played in 11 Cardinal games last season…
Cimorelli, 26, said he doesn’t want to even get near Al Lang Stadium, where the Cardinals will play their exhibitions starting March 4. He hopes the front office will understand.
“They can get as mad at me as they want,” Cimorelli said after 66 pitchers and catchers worked out indoors Monday due to rain. “You can’t play in these games and think everybody will forget about it, because you will get branded.”
On March 29, at which point it was looking like the strike
might be settled soon, Larry Harnly wrote in the State Journal-Register:
Pitcher Frank Cimorelli, who appeared in 11 games for St. Louis last season would have been a valuable replacement player. He said he never seriously considered that route.
“Whether those players will get resentment is a tough call,” Cimorelli said. “If they come back and fit in, they will be accepted. They won’t be if they come back with a big league attitude.
“I want them to tell me they just did it for the money. I don’t want to hear it was their shot at the big leagues.”
On April 3, the day after the strike was ended, Frank’s name
appeared on a list headed “An unofficial list of major-league players who filed
for free agency or were released and became free agents and have not yet been
reported as signed.” This is the only indication I found of his having been a
free agent. At any rate he began the season with Louisville. He had a 9.00 ERA
in five innings in six games, allowing 12 hits but no walks, and was released
on April 27.
On May 2 the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported that Frank had worked out for New Orleans Zephyrs’ pitching coach Bill Campbell in Louisville. The next mention of him I found was in the August 17 El Paso Herald-Post: "The [El Paso] Diablos added free-agent pitcher Frank Cimorelli, who was 2-4 for 25 appearances this season with two teams, to the roster."
Apparently he had played for someone after Louisville, but I
don’t know whether it was New Orleans or somebody else. He pitched in two games
for El Paso, which was in the Brewers’ organization, allowing one run on one
hit in two innings; that seems creditable enough, but he was released on August
24.
Sometime during 1996 Frank caught on with the New Haven
Ravens, a Rockies affiliate in the Class AA Eastern League. He had a 5.00 ERA
in nine innings in five games before being let go; the only thing I know about
the timing of his stint is that one of the games he pitched was on June 24.
This apparently ended Frank’s pro baseball career. In the
years since he has spent time as a high school and college baseball coach.
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