The wrongful death lawsuit the family of deceased pitcher Tyler Skaggs filed against the Los Angeles Angels reached a particularly nebulous point Nov. 19, as attorneys for the family and the ballclub aimed to project how much money Skaggs would have earned had he not died in 2019, two weeks before his 28th birthday and in the midst of the most productive season of his career.
Skaggs’ family is seeking $118 million in lost wages in addition to punitive damages. They enlisted the services of Jeff Fannell, a former labor lawyer for the MLB Players’ Association, who testified that Skaggs would have earned between $109 million and $120 million in his career, according to The Athletic.
Skaggs died July 1, 2019 after ingesting oxycodone laced with fentanyl at the team’s Texas hotel. Former Angels public relations staffer Eric Kay is serving a 22-year federal prison sentence after providing Skaggs the pill; Skaggs family attorneys allege the Angels knew or should have known Kay was providing drugs to Skaggs.
For a moment, the details of Skaggs’ death took a backseat to what he could have been as a pitcher.
At one point, Fannell and Angels attorney Jeff Keithly engaged in a torturous back-and-forth based on Fannell’s career comparison between Skaggs and one-time All-Star pitcher Taijuan Walker, who is entering the final year of a four-year, $72 million contract with the Philadelphia Phillies.
Keithly, in testimony recounted by The Athletic, cited a particularly irrelevant data point: Skaggs’ 5.12 ERA in seven starts with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2013, which paled to Walker’s 3.60 mark for the Seattle Mariners – in three starts.
Those absurdly small sample sizes seemed to go unchecked, however, as Keithly and Fannell briefly devolved into an age-old argument on traditional and modern statistics.
‘Quality is not just ERA,’ Fannell said, per The Athletic, citing Fielding Independent Pitching as another, ostensibly fairer metric.
The career arc of pitchers can be particularly difficult to project, given uncertainties with arm health, league environment and the scarcity of supply going forward. Skaggs, though, seemed on an upward arc at the time of his death.
He underwent Tommy John surgery in 2014, and gradually ramped up his innings in the years since. The final start of his career – June 29, 2019 – was his 15th of the season, putting him on track to make 30 starts, a marker of durability for pitchers.
His 4.29 ERA that season came in arguably the most unfriendly environment to pitchers in major league history, when a record 6,776 home runs were hit, more than 600 higher than the previous mark set in 2017.
Within that context, another modern statistic – adjusted ERA, which accounts for ballpark and league environment factors – is particularly germane. Skaggs’ adjusted ERA that season was 108, or 8% better than league average.
Skaggs was due to be a free agent after 2019, and Keithly accused Fannell in court of simply doubling Skaggs’ stats, calling it ‘a fake platform year.’ With that said, several pitchers in Skaggs’ 108 adjusted ERA neighborhood that year went on to significant earnings.
Trevor Bauer, also 28 years old that year, went on to win the 2020 NL Cy Young Award and signed a $105 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2021. He had an adjusted ERA of 105. Zach Eflin, then a third-year right-hander with Philadelphia, posted a 108 adjusted ERA; he signed a three-year, $40 million contract with Tampa Bay after the 2022 season.
And on the high end of Skaggs’ range, Sandy Alcantara produced a 110 adjusted ERA in 2019, his first full major league season, won the 2022 NL Cy Young Award and signed a contract extension that could guarantee him $76 million.
While Skaggs may lack Alcantara’s pedigree, he’s also left-handed, which creates greater scarcity and often ensures greater longevity.
The Angels, The Athletic reported, have enlisted Baltimore and Boston general manager Dan Duquette as their expert witness on future earnings.
Toxicologist Stacey Hail also testified Nov. 19, reiterating much of her testimony from Kay’s criminal trial that Skaggs would have survived but for the fentanyl in his system. The Angels, the Athletic reported, will attempt to illustrate that the oxycodone and alcohol in Skaggs’ system also contributed to his death.
