Ted Gray, 1991 Crown/Coca-Cola All-Time Orioles #162

Since I wrote a bit about journeymen on Friday, I thought I'd share this fun post by Doug over at the High Heat Stats blog. He searched Baseball Reference to find the players who did the most team-jumping over short spans of time. There were a few ex-Orioles on the various lists: Jose Bautista, Bruce Chen, Jorge Julio, Todd Zeile, Hoot Evers, Eddie Robinson, and Ted Gray. Gray is something of an interesting case, a World War II vet and an early-1950s mainstay of the Tigers pitching staffs. His ERA+ got steadily worse throughout his career, falling from a high of 119 (3.51 ERA) in his sophomore season of 1949 all the way down to 70 (5.38 ERA) in 1954. So after spending parts of his first eight big league seasons in Detroit, Ted was traded to the White Sox in a six-player deal that also involved future O's Walt Dropo and Bob Nieman. From there, here's the sad transaction history of 1955 for Ted Gray:

May 23, 1955: Released by the Chicago White Sox.

June 15, 1955: Signed as a Free Agent with the Cleveland Indians.

June 29, 1955: Released by the Cleveland Indians.

June 30, 1955: Signed as a Free Agent with the New York Yankees.

July 20, 1955: Released by the New York Yankees.

July 26, 1955: Signed as a Free Agent with the Baltimore Orioles.

September 17, 1955: Released by the Baltimore Orioles.

When the Orioles cut Ted loose, it definitively brought an end to the 30-year-old's career. While pitching for half of the clubs in the American League that season, the southpaw had only racked up 14 appearances totalling 23.1 innings. He gave up 38 hits, 15 walks, and 30 runs (25 earned), struck out only 11 men, and served up 4 home runs. The final tallies: a 9.64 ERA and a 42 ERA+ (again, 100 ERA+ is league-average). Somewhere in that mess, he managed to win a single game for the Orioles, tossing a scoreless ninth inning against the crummy Athletics and benefiting from a walkoff two-run double by Bob Hale.

Now that's how you rack up some mileage in style.