Professional Career
Williams was signed as an undrafted free agent by the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1996. Williams began his Major League Baseball career in September 1999 with the Los Angeles Dodgers and pitched for the Dodgers until September 2002. While with the Dodgers in 2000 and 2001, the tandem of Williams and fellow Australian Luke Prokopec gained considerable popularity in the Los Angeles area. However, the attention was short lived, as both moved on to other franchises.
In 2003, Williams signed with the Hanshin Tigers, and earned 25 saves as a closer (52 games), helping the Tigers win their first Central League championship in 18 years.
In 2004, he pitched in 51 games, earning 14 saves. In 2005, he reverted to the role of set-up pitcher appearing in 75 games for the Hanshin Tigers, who won the championship.
Williams pitched for the Tigers for another 3 years, and his most recent contract was signed in 2008, which was a 2 year contract. He was likely one of the longest "foreign" (Note: Foreign player here means non-Japanese players who neither entered through draft nor obtaining FA right.) players in Tiger's history.
His performance in set-up pitching, combined with his set-up and closing pitcher teammate Kyuji Fujikawa and Tomoyuki Kubota, were well known by fans and other teams. Their formation was given the nickname JFK by their team, taking their initials with their pitching order (Jeff, Fujikawa, Kubota). The formation was one important element boosting Hanshin's countless victories, even though they had a poor starting pitcher line (Hanshin's starting pitcher's team ERA in 2007 was 4.45, the worst in the league, but their overall ERA was 3.56, best in the league)
After his retirement, Williams signed with the Tigers as a scout on 2 March 2011.
Read more about this topic: Jeff Williams (baseball)
Famous quotes containing the words professional and/or career:
“If I’d written all the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600 people—including me—would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism.”
—Hunter S. Thompson (b. 1939)
“A black boxer’s career is the perfect metaphor for the career of a black male. Every day is like being in the gym, sparring with impersonal opponents as one faces the rudeness and hostility that a black male must confront in the United States, where he is the object of both fear and fascination.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)