Hall of Fame Pyramid - Starting Pitchers, Part 2
May 22, 2019 9:13:55 GMT -5
Rich - Former GM and Ryan_NatsGM like this
Post by sansterre - Milwaukee Brewers on May 22, 2019 9:13:55 GMT -5
One of the most colorful players in this building, Dizzy Dean! Dean was a straight-up country boy. He grew up on the move and got little more than an elementary school education. What became clear as he grew, however, was that the boy could throw. He was discovered by a scout from the St. Louis Cardinals, signed and stowed away on one of Branch Rickey’s newfangled farm teams. The 6’2” phenom had unusually long arms and was notable for several things: the ease with which he got great velocity on his fastball, the similarity of motion between his fastball and his changeup, and his absolute command of all three of his pitches (a curveball being the third). The Cardinals had a loaded roster (winning the pennant in both ‘30 and ‘31) and so were reluctant to bring Dean up, letting him strike out 9 per 9 in the minors. When he came up in 1932 (at age 22) he emerged as one of the best in the league instantly. In his first five seasons he was either 1st or 2nd in K/9 every year, and he finished in the top ten of BB/9 three times, leading the league once. fWAR has him as the best pitcher in the NL three times, rWAR only has him #1 once, but in the top four each one of his first six years. He won an MVP (back before the Cy Young existed) so his peers clearly felt the same way. At age 27 his career was derailed in an unusual way; a line drive from Earl Averill came back through the box and fractured Dean’s toe (in classic Dean fashion, when he was told that his toe was fractured he shot back without pretense, “fractured, hell, the damned thing’s broken!”) It never healed correctly and Dean changed his stride off the mound to stop from putting weight on the toe. This sapped the speed from his fastball and added strain to his arm. Overnight Dean went from being one of the best in the league to being average or worse, losing pretty much the entire career he might have had after age 27.
A discussion of Dizzy Dean is not complete without discussing his character, of which much has been said and written. Dean had a lot in common with Satchel Paige (interestingly, a pitcher he enjoyed pitching against in barnstorming tours a great deal). Both were born entertainers, both prone to showboating, both convinced they were the best pitchers alive (more likely true in Paige’s case than Dean’s). Both would, at times, announce the pitch that was coming, daring the batter to hit it, both with more success than you would guess. Dean tended to see the process of pitching as highly personal; he was infamous for loading up against great hitters, only to give up hits to weaker hitters who he took less seriously. In one game against the Pirates the Cardinals’ fielding failed him, allowing a number of unearned runs. Dean, in a fit of pique, began lofting balls over the plate like batting practice, letting the Pirates smash hits all over the park. Once on the major league club he racked up massive living expense debts, charging them all to the Cardinals. Rickey, irritated, put Dean on a living allowance of a dollar a day ($18.50 today). Dean was colorful and fun, but also selfish and destructive. He was the best pitcher on the “Gashouse Gang” Cardinals of ‘34, going 2-1 in the World Series against the Tigers and pitching 27 innings, striking out 15 and only allowing 6 runs.
Now here’s the rub; Dean is in Cooperstown, but he’s barely an Honorable Mention here, even with his hardware. I’m afraid that Dean is overrated historically, mostly by virtue of the fact that sportswriters do most of the voting, and sportswriters love good copy. Players known for personality and quotability are invariably overrated by the press (Yogi Berra leaps to mind) and players known for being aloof from the press suffer in turn (Ted Williams and Mike Mussina). Dean was great at his peak, but some of that is by comparison. Dean’s peak doesn’t come close to comparing with Lefty Grove’s (comparing anyone to Grove is unfair, but still), nor does it compare with the peak of Dazzy Vance (categorically underrated). Dean was quotable, colorful and the best pitcher on one of the best teams in the decade. And if he had a Koufaxian six-year peak and then imploded, yeah, I could see him as Bronze. But his peak is a series of 6 fWAR seasons, or an 8 and a pair of 7s in rWAR. Great. But not world-breaker great. Between ‘32 and ‘37 (Dean’s peak) he was probably the second-best pitcher in baseball (behind Grove in his 30s and just ahead of Carl Hubbell), which is impressive. But he has pretty much no career outside of those years. I don’t see the argument for Bronze. Honorable Mention for sure.
The best pitcher on the best team of the 30s, Vernon “Lefty” Gomez! Gomez was a strange bird, known for his amusing anecdotes of not always certain authenticity. He broke into the majors for the Yankees seriously at 22 in 1931, relying almost exclusively on a fastball so fast that it was considered second only to that of Lefty Grove. As his career went on he learned a reliable curve but his fastball was always his go-to. Despite his comical reputation he had an aggressive approach, leading the league in strikeouts three times and finishing in the top five another four. His strikeouts came at the cost of control; he rarely had a BB/9 better than league average. As the ace for the incredibly dominant Yankees he won a lot of games, finishing with a .649 winning percentage and leading the league in wins twice. As a result of his reputation he made seven All-Star games and won five rings.
As far as his historical value and what tier he should be in . . . it’s complicated. As far as FIP goes, he is considered very good but his average control limits his contribution. A career FIP- of 94 over only 2500 innings is respectable but definitely not Bronze. However, his rWAR is a completely different game, his ERA- is 79, an incredible 15 point difference. By RAW he had two 10+ seasons (‘34 and ‘37) and more than qualifies for Bronze. So where does that leave us? His career BABIP and LOB% are both way better than league average, which suggests skill, but the Yankees as a team had quite good BABIP and LOB%, which suggests much of this ‘skill’ was actually fielding. The Yankees through the 30s were very good fielders, led by center fielder Joe DiMaggio. So we may surmise that at least some of what appears to be Gomez’ skill controlling balls in play and stranding runners was actually the quality fielders behind him. rWAR (which tries to take team fielding into account) sees his peak as 9.2 and 8.3 WAR, which is excellent but not quite good enough to drag the rest of his career to Bronze. The dealbreaker for us was his hitting. Gomez is famous for quipping that he was such a bad hitter that he never broke a bat until after he retired, backing out of his garage. I don’t know how true that is, but Gomez was a terrible hitter. The average hitter during Gomez’ career hit 277/350/405; obviously a pitcher isn’t expected to hit that well but I want to convey that the AL of that era was a hitter’s paradise. Well Gomez hit 147/194/159 for his career, costing his team 49 runs with his bat. And to my mind that ends it; however you split the enormous gap between his RA9 and his FIP, once you count his horrible hitting he’s stuck at Honorable Mention.
Another curious Cooperstownian, Ted Lyons! Lyons played for the White Sox his entire career, from 1923 to 1946 (ages 22 to 45). While known for his enormous strength he actually was not known for dominating stuff (he was accounted to have short fingers which didn’t help). His career K/9 was 2.3, his very best was 3.5; he was never in the top ten in any strikeout category. But his control was excellent, with fourteen top tens in BB/9, leading the league four times. The wacky thing is that up to age 38 he relied on his fastball, change and curve (he had a knuckleball but used it rarely). While his cellar-dwelling K/9 meant that his FIP was never great (fWAR doesn’t consider him to have any seasons above 5 WAR, and only three above 4) he did demonstrate some ability to control BABIP and LOB%, consistently showing lower marks than his team. rWAR has him with *nine* different 4+ WAR seasons, five at 5+ and one above 7. At age 38 he hurt his arm and lost his fastball, usually the beginning of the end for a pitcher. Lyons instead converted into a knuckleballer with great control, leading the league in BB/9 for ages 38 through 40 (1939-1941). World War II didn’t start until he was 40, so you'd think it wouldn’t have hurt his career much. But he was constantly throwing up 3-4 rWAR seasons leading up to the draft; he may well have been able to continue to do so for years. Heck, when he got back from the WAR, at 45, he was pitching on pace for another solid year when a promotion to manager caused him to stop pitching.
Lyons was an educated man, fond of trivia, learning and stories. He was fond of infielder/catcher Moe Berg (a Princeton alumnus); according to tales when they had a runner at second they would stop using hand signals for pitches and instead call out the pitches in Greek. He was almost universally beloved as a player and a storyteller. His incredible popularity inevitably accounts for his induction into Cooperstown; his rWAR is respectable, but he only had three seasons in the top five his whole career. Perhaps the best summary of this brainy pitcher with limited stuff can come from Ted Williams: “They’d say, ‘Well, he’s not real fast, but he’s sneaky fast,’ and ‘His curve is hittable, but he gets it in good spots,’ and ‘You’ve gotta watch his change-up,’ and ‘He’s got a knuckleball,’ and ‘The one thing you can’t do, you can’t guess with the son of a gun.’” Williams often named Lyons as the one of the toughest pitchers for him to hit: “Lyons was tough and he got tougher the more you faced him, because he’d learn about you by playing those little pitcher-batter thinking games, and he’d usually out-think you.”
Starting for the Tigers from 1931 to 1943, Tommy Bridges! Bridges’ curve was widely accounted the best curveball of his generation. As a sign of its dominance Bridges was not a junkballer, working the bottom of the zone to induce grounders and control batters; Bridges was a strikeout pitcher. Bridges led the league in strikeouts twice and was in the top six of K/9 eleven of the thirteen years of his career. Even though he had no better than average control, he struck out so many batters that he finished in the top 5 of K/BB five times and even in the top ten of WHIP six times. His peak of strikeout dominance was ‘38-40 (ages 31-33), when he averaged 6 K/9 (AL average for those years was about 3.7). He finished top ten in ERA ten times, nine times for rWAR (the Tigers were generally an average fielding team so Bridges’ ERA numbers are considered representative). Though never a workhorse he led the league in games started twice and completed at least ten games every year, impressive for a 150 pound pitcher.
He pitched excellently in two World Series victories (‘34, ‘35), striking out 21, walking 9 and allowing two home runs over 35 and a third innings. In the final game of the ‘35 season, in the clinching game 6 against the Cubs (Tigers up three games to two), Bridges distinguished himself. Tied 3-3, Cubs third-baseman Stan Hack hit a triple, giving the Cubs an 82% chance of winning the game. Bridges dug deep and struck out the #8 hitter. The pitcher hit a dribbler back to Bridges who, looking Hack back to third, threw to first and got the second out. Bridges got the last out by inducing Augie Galan, the Cubs’s leadoff hitter, to fly out. The Tigers won the game in the bottom of the 9th, and Bridges was voted the #2 sports hero of the year (behind a player for Notre Dame). By the time he hit 31 he couldn’t go 200 innings in a year anymore and finished with only 2826 IP. Finishing with an ERA- of 80, Bridges could easily have made Bronze had his career gone on a little longer; he was a great pitcher in his day.
Speaking of players playing their whole career for one team, playing for the Indians from age 18 to 37 (1928-1947), Mel Harder! Curiously for a gentleman whose last name is “Harder” he lacked dominating stuff. His only strong pitch when he made the majors was a sinker, though after a few years he developed an excellent curve. Unsurprisingly given that he relied primarily on two different dropping pitches he gave up few home runs (top ten in preventing HRA/9 six times and leading league once). He threw with a lot of control, allowing 2.6 BB/9 during his prime (ages 22-30), with eight top tens in BB/9 (one led league). It’s typical of his style that probably his best year (1935, 22-11, 3.29 ERA for 7+ WAR/rWAR) he actually struck out only 3 per 9 (below league average) but led the league in both BB/9 (1.66) and HRA/9 (0.19). From ‘32-35 (ages 22-25) he finished in the top 5 of WAR each year, but in ‘36 he suffered a nasty arm injury. This took velocity off his sinker and forced him to re-tool around his curveball. To his credit, he achieved another two strong years (‘38 and ‘39) but by age 30 (1940) he was pretty much shot, never pitching 200+ innings again and his trademark control abandoned him (3.4 BB/9 at and after 30, and as that number was up against diminished competition during World War II, his control was no doubt worse than it looks). During his peak Harder was about as good as a pitcher can be with only average stuff, but he was very good, breaking 5 rWAR six different seasons.
Playing on approximately fifteen different teams, Bobo Newsom! Actually, he only played on nine teams, was traded eight times and the team he played for the most (the Senators, eight seasons) he played for five different times. Some of this was Newsom being an unusual guy, some of it was his willingness to confront managers when he disagreed, but part of it was cunning. Newsom was the master of maneuvering teams into releasing him so that he could negotiate with multiple teams at once, effectively creating free agency for himself. Newsom was what you might call a character, like a bizarre benign Rube Waddell. He could never remember anybody’s name so he referred to everybody as “Bobo”, which eventually earned him that nickname. He hated coming out of a game after he started it; in 1935 a line-drive by Earl Averill struck Newsom’s knee (what's with Earl Averill injuring so many pitchers with line drives?). When the manager approached him, Bobo asserted that his kneecap was broke, but when the manager made to pull him Bobo cut him off, saying “You kidding me? I said it was broke, I didn’t say I was dead.” He pitched the whole game, hobbling to and from the mound, and afterwards his teammates laughed at his assertions that his kneecap was broken, that is, until an x-ray confirmed the diagnosis. Once, in a game where FDR was in attendance, a throw from third base hit Newsom in the jaw. Gritting his teeth (no doubt gently), Newsom completed the game. Asked about it he said in his trademark argot, "When the president comes to see Ol' Bobo pitch he ain't gonna let him down."
As a pitcher he was somewhat more mundane. He didn’t fully break into the league until he was 26 (1934), but proved himself reliably strong, putting up eight 3+ WAR seasons before World War II, and another two afterwards. He was wild, walking as many or more than league average per nine, but striking out batters in abundance. He finished in the top ten in allowing the most walks thirteen times (walking the most batters in the league twice), but he also had twelve seasons in the top ten in strikeouts, and from 1937-1941 (ages 29-33) he finished 2nd in strikeouts every year (behind Lefty Gomez in ‘37, and behind Bob Feller the other years). Rarely historically dominant (his highest fWAR year was a 6.1) he was nevertheless consistently good for a long time. And quite a character.
Really, really hard to rank historically, Hal Newhouser! It’s interesting that Newhouser and Bob Feller came into the league around the same time because the two have a lot in common. Newhouser was known for his obsessive perfectionism when it came to pitching, for overwhelming stuff and for a complete lack of control over his pitches and his temper. His roomate starting out with the Tigers in 1940 (age 19) was veteran Schoolboy Rowe, who was quickly driven crazy by Newhouser’s need to discuss nothing but the minutiae of pitching. Newhouser for his first four years (ages 19-22) was always one of the top three in K/9 (he and Bob Feller constantly traded back and forth). Unfortunately, he also led the league in allowing the most walks per 9 each year. Frustrated with his struggles he was infamous for violent outbursts, and was widely considered the least popular member of the Tigers. And when World War II broke out, despite his efforts to enlist, a faulty heart got him rejected.
By 1944, age 23, Newhouser humbled himself to Paul Richards, the pitching coach, asking for guidance. Nobody knows quite what exactly was imparted, but from 1944 on Newhouser was a different pitcher. That year he won the MVP and led the league in strikeouts, allowed only an average number of walks and finished just second to Dizzy Trout in both fWAR and rWAR. In 1945 he was even better, winning his second MVP and leading the league in strikeouts, ERA, FIP, Wins, Complete Games and Shutouts, leading both leagues by an enormous margin in every kind of WAR. In 1946 he was even better than that, striking out 8.5 batters per 9, the highest K/9 figure ever recorded at that point in history. He led the league in: wins, ERA, FIP, WHIP, H/9 and K/9, finishing 2nd in rWAR to Feller. In both ‘47 and ‘48 (age 26 and 27) his strikeouts regressed but he remained the best pitcher in the AL both years. By age 29 he had begun to have arm trouble and no amount of medical attention seemed to help. From that age to his retirement at age 34 he only pitched 500 innings and his K/9 were only league average.
So how to evaluate him? Being the best pitcher in the AL three times is a big achievement; having two 9+ rWAR seasons (and one 11+) is a great achievement. Despite pitching three thousand innings, he only has about six seasons that really matter; before 1944 he was too wild and after 1949 his arm pain was too limiting. In a vacuum, are those six seasons good enough to get him into Bronze? Combined with his hardware, yes, though he’s borderline. They certainly beat Dizzy Dean’s best six. Except for one major problem. Of Newhouser’s three best seasons, two were ‘44 and ‘45. Let’s consult the record: how did Newhouser’s dominant seasons fare against Ted Williams or Joe DiMaggio? How did Newhouser’s pitching those years compare with Feller’s? The answer to both questions is simple: we don’t know, because all three named players were serving in the armed forces for that time. Newhouser broke out right when the quality of competition plummeted because of the draft. In his defense he was only average in 1943 when the draft had already taken his biggest competition, and he was at his best in 1946 when the war had released its conscripts back onto the field. So how big a knock on him are those two seasons being in wartime? Not terribly. But enough to knock a borderline Bronze player down a notch.
Speaking of unusual careers, try Early Wynn! Wynn was one of the many pitchers with incredibly strange career arcs. In part 1, from ages 21-28 (1941-1948) he pitched for the Senators and showed little, being consistently below average. At that point he only had a fastball going for him; his other pitches were ineffectual. In ‘49 (starting Part 2 of his career) he was traded to the Cleveland Indians (the year after the Indians had won the World Series). Who should he have as his pitching coach but Mel Harder? (If you don't know who Harder is, go back three pitchers and pay more attention). Harder worked with Wynn, teaching him both a curveball and changeup that Wynn grew to deploy with great success. In part 2 his K/9 jumped to the point where after turning 30 he was in the top five of strikeouts nine different times, leading the league twice, but his control was only average. In part 3 (starting in 1954) Wynn put it all together (at age 34), brought his BB/9 and HRA/9 down and suddenly became excellent for the next three years, putting up 6.6, 5.9 and 8.9 RAW. In part 4 (1957, age 37 to his retirement at age 43) he started losing velocity and control, so he learned a knuckleball and started using that to go deeper in games, throwing it often on 0-2 counts. Part 4 Wynn was no ace, but he was sure as heck better than any 37-43 year old had any right to be.
From a historical perspective, you can see how Wynn could be overvalued. His durability allowed him to pitch 4500+ innings between four different decades, which means that he racked up a lot of counting stats. He has exactly 300 wins for his career, 2300 strikeouts, 289 complete games, 49 shutouts . . . it’s a lot. Also, his peak (Part 2) happened to coincide with the Indians dominance in the early 50s (a string of six 90+ win seasons, including 111 in ‘54) so he was highly visible. And you had to have respect for any guy who could reinvent himself so much that he pretty much had an apparently Hall-worthy career *after* he turned 29. The knock on him is that much of his career wasn’t that good; you could amputate his career before 29 and after 40 and lose out on very little, and his peak between those points was really good but not great (88 ERA-, 102 FIP-; FIP likes Wynn far less than ERA, and the Indians did field good defenses). If you want Wynn in the Hall, I can’t fault you. But Wynn was less dominant than we like our Bronze pitchers.
With a similar story to Hal Newhouser, Billy Pierce! Pierce was a 5’10” lefty who weighed 160 pounds coming up, but despite that had incredible velocity on his fastball. Joe DiMaggio, after having struck out against a young Pierce, expressed disbelief to the press that such a small pitcher could generate that much speed. Pierce came up with the Tigers but was traded to the White Sox in 1949, at age 22 (not the Tigers’ finest move). Out of the gate Pierce demonstrated that he had the stuff, becoming one of the best strikeout pitchers in the American League (not comparable to Newhouser, but still top seven). Pierce’s problem was that he had no control, walking more than he struck out each of his first two years with the Sox. In 1951, Pierce’s third year, Paul Richards (the same coach who had helped Newhouser get his pitches under control), became the manager of the White Sox and helped Pierce slow down, as well as develop a third pitch slider.
Pierce’s BB/9 dropped by half and he went on to have nine different top tens in that stat. For the next seven years (through age 31) Pierce became one of the best pitchers in the league. He led the league in rWAR twice (seven top tens) and fWAR once. Interestingly, in 1955 he led the league in ERA, FIP, WHIP, K/BB and rWAR; the very next season the MLB introduced the Cy Young Award (before that point both pitchers and hitters competed for the MVP). This is only a coincidence; the actual Cy Young died in 1955 and the award was created in his honor. Anyhow, Pierce put up some other nice top tens: K/9 (ten, led league twice), ERA (six, led league once), shutouts (seven), K/BB ratio (ten, led league once), and clutch pitching - WPA/LI (six top fives, three first place). By age 32 injuries derailed his career and he was mostly average for his remaining six years. In terms of top tens and hardware Pierce could be Bronze but he’s not; the problem is that his top seasons are not super-dominant; he never had an fWAR above 6 and his best rWAR seasons are 7 and 7.3. If you have a relatively narrow peak (seven years in this case), to make Bronze you have to be overwhelmingly good, and Pierce was not. But he’s certainly an Honorable Mention.
So, trivia question for you: between 1964 and 1970 which pitcher has the most strikeouts and has the best K/9? Being a discerning baseball fan you might remember that the 60s were Sandy Koufax’s decade and guess him. You’d be wrong. So then you’d remember that Koufax blew out his arm at the end of ‘66, so it might not be him. But then you’d remember Bob Gibson and go with him. But it isn’t him either. It’s Sam McDowell. Who the heck is Sam McDowell? Great question.
McDowell was a 6’5” lefty fireballer whose stuff was so overwhelming that he routinely got comparisons with Koufax. In his senior year of high school he struck out 152 batters in 63 innings (that’s getting 80% of his outs with strikeouts) and allowed not a single earned run. The Cleveland Indians made him a big signing bonus offer of $75k (about $650k today) and signed him (this was a few years before the MLB draft was started). McDowell was in the majors at the age of 20 in 1963, with a line of 6.1 BB/9 and 8.7 K/9. He brought his walks under control (a little) and from 1964 to 1970 he was one of the best pitchers in the league, boasting a line of 4.1 BB/9 and 9.5 K/9. In that time he was first in K/9 every year but one (he was second the other year). He also led the league in allowing the most walks five times. 1971 (age 28) was still a good year but he was becoming slowed by injuries and alcoholism, and by age 29 he was a replacement level pitcher.
How does his career compare in the aggregate? fWAR actually really likes McDowell, loving his stuff and his low home runs allowed rate, and feeling that his control issues aren’t bad enough to compromise them: it has his top four seasons at 6.8, 7.6, 8.7 and 9.4 WAR, which is a dominant peak, and from ‘64-70 it thinks he was the second best pitcher in the league, behind Gibson. Surprisingly, rWAR is less impressed; it sees him having only seven years above 2 WAR (very low), and it has his top four years as: 5.4, 6.6, 8.2 and 8.3 (although those two 8+ years are still considered the best in the AL). The difference mostly arises from the fact that McDowell was wild, with eight top tens in Wild Pitches (led league thrice) and that batters made good contact off of him when the ball was in play (his BABIP is actually higher than that of his team, if not by much). His best comp in this building is Doc Gooden, a pitcher with overwhelming stuff but whose self-destructive tendencies caused him to give up more runs than you’d guess. It’s the story I seem to tell many times; if your career only has seven good years, to make Bronze they’d better be amazing. McDowell was really good, but not that good. The quote I’ll end on: Oakland slugger Reggie Jackson said of McDowell, “I like [McDowell] and I think he’s got the greatest fastball, curveball, slider, and changeup I ever saw. I call him ‘Instant Heat.’ [McDowell] simplifies things out there. You know he’s gonna challenge you, his strength against yours, and either you beat him or he beats you. And he won’t throw at you, either, because he’s too nice a guy. He knows that with his fastball he could kill you if he ever hit you.”
Speaking of narrow peaks, Wilbur Wood! Wood was a failed starter who bounced through multiple teams and went nowhere, eventually being sent down to the minors. He was tutored by Cooperstownian Hoyt Wilhelm on the fine art of throwing the knuckleball and Wood picked it up quickly. By 1967 (age 25) Wood was in the majors as a high-workload reliever for the White Sox, leading the league in Games for three years and Games Finished for two (he put up 10.5 rWAR over these three years *in relief*). Around this time injuries forced the White Sox to use Wood as a starter (knuckleballers at the time weren’t considered starter material; Phil Niekro had only begun starting for Atlanta in 1967). Wood, it turned out, was more than ready. The next two seasons, ‘71 and ‘72, were two of the best pitching seasons *ever*. In rWAR his 1971 season was worth 11.7 WAR, and is the fourth best MLB pitching season ever since 1930, with the three pitchers ahead of him being: Steve Carlton, Roger Clemens and Pedro Martinez. His 1972, not as good was only worth 10.7 WAR. And compared to those, his 7.3 rWAR 1973 is mediocre, but it’s still a great season.
The interesting thing is that his peripherals aren’t great for those years: 0.6 / 1.7 / 5.7 (HRA/9, BB/9 and K/9) for his 1971 season aren’t dominating but certainly capable. So what accounts for his crazy-high rWAR? First, he threw a billion innings, as it was normal for him to alternate between pitching on two and three days of rest. His IP for those three years: 334, 376.2, 359.1. Those are deadball-era innings; since 1930 of the pitcher-seasons with the most IP, Wood is #1, #4 and #16. So that helps. Also, Wood’s BABIP was way better than the average for his team (knuckleballs are harder to hit solidly than other pitches) and his LOB% much better. Also, the White Sox in those days were not good and their fielding by itself was catastrophic, so Wood’s 1.91 ERA in 1971 was actually much better than it looked. And it’s remarkable that a pitcher that threw the knuckleball so often was able to do so while allowing so few walks. Alas, old age caught up to Wood; at age 31 he was still really good, at age 32 he was above-average and by age 33 he was washed up. So, again, he’s one of these guys who only had nine good seasons, and only five really good seasons. That said, you know how I’m always saying “if you only have five-seven really good seasons, they’d better be amazing”? Wood’s were amazing; a peak where you put up 30 WAR in three seasons is historically great. And Wood’s pitching is actually Bronze, right over the divide. But his bat was bad enough (career 084/140/090 hitter) that it tips the scales.
So why is Wood right on the verge of Bronze for us, but never got above a 7% vote for Cooperstown? There are a lot of reasons, mostly tied to the unintentional prejudices that the voters have. First, knuckleballers suffer a stigma from being ‘gimmick’ pitchers. Had Wood put up two 10+ WAR years with a blazing fastball, things might be different. Heck, Phil Niekro (who is in our Gold Tier) took five years to make Cooperstown. You don’t get no love as a knuckleballer. Second, his teams were not good. From 1971-73, without Wood the White Sox would have been: 68-94, 77-77 and 70-92. If Wood had thrown up 10+ WAR years for the Yankees en route to a World Series, that might have been something different. But playing on a bad team isn’t the way to get noticed. I’d love to complain about pitcher wins again, but he actually led the league in wins in both ‘72 and ‘73 (on bad teams) so I’ve got nothing there (save that had he been on a good team, he would have won more). Third, the crap-tastic defenses behind him made his ERAs look way worse. Fourth, Wood simply didn’t look like a dominant pitcher; he looked like a chubby guy who happened to be good because of a trick pitch. We don’t have Wood as Bronze, but our standards for Bronze are considerably higher than Cooperstown’s standards for entry. Wood deserved better.
The winning pitcher of the last game of the 1969 World Series, Jerry Koosman! Koosman had an interesting career. He was a lefty who threw a 90+ mph cut fastball (cutters aren’t common for lefty pitchers for some reason). He had excellent stuff but deliberately pitched to contact (breaking so many bats that it was rumored he had a deal going with Louisville Slugger), becoming known for getting through games with a minimum of pitches thrown. The aggregate is a pitcher who was quite good for a long time, but not quite as good as you’d guess. From age 25 (1968) to age 35 he pitched for the Mets (helping them to their surprise 1969 championship) and then bounced around the majors until he was 42 (1985), doing a creditable job the whole way. His top tens: HRA/9 (five), K/9 (nine, one led league), FIP (eight, one led league), K/BB (seven) and rWAR (four, one led league). So how do his WAR numbers stack up over a four-thousand inning career? Well, you may assume that if he’s Honorable Mention and he pitched that long, his peak probably wasn’t great. His fWAR numbers: twelve 3+, seven 4+, three at 5. His rWAR numbers: nine 3+, six 4+, four 5+, two 6+, one 7. Translated, he was good for a long time (twelve 3+ fWAR years doesn’t happen often at honorable mention) but his peak was not particularly dominant.
One of the few pitchers to win a Cy Young and an MVP in the same year, Vida Blue! Blue came up full-time for the Oakland A’s in 1971, at the age of 21. In that, his best year, he led the league in ERA, shutouts, FIP, WHIP, H/9 and K/9 (in rWAR he finished second, a good ways behind Wilbur Wood). In that year he went 24-8 and the A’s won 101 games. This season is held up occasionally as one of the best ever but inspection doesn’t bear that out; the A’s had excellent fielding which made Blue look better and a strong lineup to give him run support. Blue’s 1971 season grades out at 8.8 fWAR and 9.0 rWAR; great numbers but between 1950 and 2009 there have been 26 better fWAR seasons and 39 better rWAR seasons, about once every two years. Blue’s ‘72 season was marred by tensions with the A’s owner, Charlie Finley. Finley wanted Blue to change his first name to “True” legally, and even offered to pay him to do it. When Blue refused, Finley rolled it out to his organization anyways, having everyone from the announcers to the scoreboard refer to him as “True Blue”. Blue was, understandably, not appreciative of these efforts. So for ‘72 he wanted a big raise (consistent with being one of the top ten or so pitchers in the league) and Finley balked, so Blue held out for most of the year. Eventually the two compromised, with a figure closer to Finley’s than Blue’s.
The rest of Blue’s career did not live up to his 1971 season. Whether because of age or the drug addiction he battled throughout his career, the hard-throwing lefthander was never again that good. In contrast to Koosman, Blue only had *six* seasons above 3 rWAR, but his top seasons (9 rWAR in ‘71 and 7.6 rWAR in 1976) were certainly better than anything Koosman did. His top tens: K/9 (three, led league once), HRA/9 (four), BB/9 (one), shutouts (seven, led league once), FIP (six, led league twice) and rWAR (five, three top threes). The aggregate of his career is just below the standard for Honorable Mention, but with the hardware he won in ‘71, it’s hard to keep him out.
I'm spent, and we're halfway through our starters! Let's take a break, check out the Honorable Mention Relievers and double back!
A discussion of Dizzy Dean is not complete without discussing his character, of which much has been said and written. Dean had a lot in common with Satchel Paige (interestingly, a pitcher he enjoyed pitching against in barnstorming tours a great deal). Both were born entertainers, both prone to showboating, both convinced they were the best pitchers alive (more likely true in Paige’s case than Dean’s). Both would, at times, announce the pitch that was coming, daring the batter to hit it, both with more success than you would guess. Dean tended to see the process of pitching as highly personal; he was infamous for loading up against great hitters, only to give up hits to weaker hitters who he took less seriously. In one game against the Pirates the Cardinals’ fielding failed him, allowing a number of unearned runs. Dean, in a fit of pique, began lofting balls over the plate like batting practice, letting the Pirates smash hits all over the park. Once on the major league club he racked up massive living expense debts, charging them all to the Cardinals. Rickey, irritated, put Dean on a living allowance of a dollar a day ($18.50 today). Dean was colorful and fun, but also selfish and destructive. He was the best pitcher on the “Gashouse Gang” Cardinals of ‘34, going 2-1 in the World Series against the Tigers and pitching 27 innings, striking out 15 and only allowing 6 runs.
Now here’s the rub; Dean is in Cooperstown, but he’s barely an Honorable Mention here, even with his hardware. I’m afraid that Dean is overrated historically, mostly by virtue of the fact that sportswriters do most of the voting, and sportswriters love good copy. Players known for personality and quotability are invariably overrated by the press (Yogi Berra leaps to mind) and players known for being aloof from the press suffer in turn (Ted Williams and Mike Mussina). Dean was great at his peak, but some of that is by comparison. Dean’s peak doesn’t come close to comparing with Lefty Grove’s (comparing anyone to Grove is unfair, but still), nor does it compare with the peak of Dazzy Vance (categorically underrated). Dean was quotable, colorful and the best pitcher on one of the best teams in the decade. And if he had a Koufaxian six-year peak and then imploded, yeah, I could see him as Bronze. But his peak is a series of 6 fWAR seasons, or an 8 and a pair of 7s in rWAR. Great. But not world-breaker great. Between ‘32 and ‘37 (Dean’s peak) he was probably the second-best pitcher in baseball (behind Grove in his 30s and just ahead of Carl Hubbell), which is impressive. But he has pretty much no career outside of those years. I don’t see the argument for Bronze. Honorable Mention for sure.
The best pitcher on the best team of the 30s, Vernon “Lefty” Gomez! Gomez was a strange bird, known for his amusing anecdotes of not always certain authenticity. He broke into the majors for the Yankees seriously at 22 in 1931, relying almost exclusively on a fastball so fast that it was considered second only to that of Lefty Grove. As his career went on he learned a reliable curve but his fastball was always his go-to. Despite his comical reputation he had an aggressive approach, leading the league in strikeouts three times and finishing in the top five another four. His strikeouts came at the cost of control; he rarely had a BB/9 better than league average. As the ace for the incredibly dominant Yankees he won a lot of games, finishing with a .649 winning percentage and leading the league in wins twice. As a result of his reputation he made seven All-Star games and won five rings.
As far as his historical value and what tier he should be in . . . it’s complicated. As far as FIP goes, he is considered very good but his average control limits his contribution. A career FIP- of 94 over only 2500 innings is respectable but definitely not Bronze. However, his rWAR is a completely different game, his ERA- is 79, an incredible 15 point difference. By RAW he had two 10+ seasons (‘34 and ‘37) and more than qualifies for Bronze. So where does that leave us? His career BABIP and LOB% are both way better than league average, which suggests skill, but the Yankees as a team had quite good BABIP and LOB%, which suggests much of this ‘skill’ was actually fielding. The Yankees through the 30s were very good fielders, led by center fielder Joe DiMaggio. So we may surmise that at least some of what appears to be Gomez’ skill controlling balls in play and stranding runners was actually the quality fielders behind him. rWAR (which tries to take team fielding into account) sees his peak as 9.2 and 8.3 WAR, which is excellent but not quite good enough to drag the rest of his career to Bronze. The dealbreaker for us was his hitting. Gomez is famous for quipping that he was such a bad hitter that he never broke a bat until after he retired, backing out of his garage. I don’t know how true that is, but Gomez was a terrible hitter. The average hitter during Gomez’ career hit 277/350/405; obviously a pitcher isn’t expected to hit that well but I want to convey that the AL of that era was a hitter’s paradise. Well Gomez hit 147/194/159 for his career, costing his team 49 runs with his bat. And to my mind that ends it; however you split the enormous gap between his RA9 and his FIP, once you count his horrible hitting he’s stuck at Honorable Mention.
Another curious Cooperstownian, Ted Lyons! Lyons played for the White Sox his entire career, from 1923 to 1946 (ages 22 to 45). While known for his enormous strength he actually was not known for dominating stuff (he was accounted to have short fingers which didn’t help). His career K/9 was 2.3, his very best was 3.5; he was never in the top ten in any strikeout category. But his control was excellent, with fourteen top tens in BB/9, leading the league four times. The wacky thing is that up to age 38 he relied on his fastball, change and curve (he had a knuckleball but used it rarely). While his cellar-dwelling K/9 meant that his FIP was never great (fWAR doesn’t consider him to have any seasons above 5 WAR, and only three above 4) he did demonstrate some ability to control BABIP and LOB%, consistently showing lower marks than his team. rWAR has him with *nine* different 4+ WAR seasons, five at 5+ and one above 7. At age 38 he hurt his arm and lost his fastball, usually the beginning of the end for a pitcher. Lyons instead converted into a knuckleballer with great control, leading the league in BB/9 for ages 38 through 40 (1939-1941). World War II didn’t start until he was 40, so you'd think it wouldn’t have hurt his career much. But he was constantly throwing up 3-4 rWAR seasons leading up to the draft; he may well have been able to continue to do so for years. Heck, when he got back from the WAR, at 45, he was pitching on pace for another solid year when a promotion to manager caused him to stop pitching.
Lyons was an educated man, fond of trivia, learning and stories. He was fond of infielder/catcher Moe Berg (a Princeton alumnus); according to tales when they had a runner at second they would stop using hand signals for pitches and instead call out the pitches in Greek. He was almost universally beloved as a player and a storyteller. His incredible popularity inevitably accounts for his induction into Cooperstown; his rWAR is respectable, but he only had three seasons in the top five his whole career. Perhaps the best summary of this brainy pitcher with limited stuff can come from Ted Williams: “They’d say, ‘Well, he’s not real fast, but he’s sneaky fast,’ and ‘His curve is hittable, but he gets it in good spots,’ and ‘You’ve gotta watch his change-up,’ and ‘He’s got a knuckleball,’ and ‘The one thing you can’t do, you can’t guess with the son of a gun.’” Williams often named Lyons as the one of the toughest pitchers for him to hit: “Lyons was tough and he got tougher the more you faced him, because he’d learn about you by playing those little pitcher-batter thinking games, and he’d usually out-think you.”
Starting for the Tigers from 1931 to 1943, Tommy Bridges! Bridges’ curve was widely accounted the best curveball of his generation. As a sign of its dominance Bridges was not a junkballer, working the bottom of the zone to induce grounders and control batters; Bridges was a strikeout pitcher. Bridges led the league in strikeouts twice and was in the top six of K/9 eleven of the thirteen years of his career. Even though he had no better than average control, he struck out so many batters that he finished in the top 5 of K/BB five times and even in the top ten of WHIP six times. His peak of strikeout dominance was ‘38-40 (ages 31-33), when he averaged 6 K/9 (AL average for those years was about 3.7). He finished top ten in ERA ten times, nine times for rWAR (the Tigers were generally an average fielding team so Bridges’ ERA numbers are considered representative). Though never a workhorse he led the league in games started twice and completed at least ten games every year, impressive for a 150 pound pitcher.
He pitched excellently in two World Series victories (‘34, ‘35), striking out 21, walking 9 and allowing two home runs over 35 and a third innings. In the final game of the ‘35 season, in the clinching game 6 against the Cubs (Tigers up three games to two), Bridges distinguished himself. Tied 3-3, Cubs third-baseman Stan Hack hit a triple, giving the Cubs an 82% chance of winning the game. Bridges dug deep and struck out the #8 hitter. The pitcher hit a dribbler back to Bridges who, looking Hack back to third, threw to first and got the second out. Bridges got the last out by inducing Augie Galan, the Cubs’s leadoff hitter, to fly out. The Tigers won the game in the bottom of the 9th, and Bridges was voted the #2 sports hero of the year (behind a player for Notre Dame). By the time he hit 31 he couldn’t go 200 innings in a year anymore and finished with only 2826 IP. Finishing with an ERA- of 80, Bridges could easily have made Bronze had his career gone on a little longer; he was a great pitcher in his day.
Speaking of players playing their whole career for one team, playing for the Indians from age 18 to 37 (1928-1947), Mel Harder! Curiously for a gentleman whose last name is “Harder” he lacked dominating stuff. His only strong pitch when he made the majors was a sinker, though after a few years he developed an excellent curve. Unsurprisingly given that he relied primarily on two different dropping pitches he gave up few home runs (top ten in preventing HRA/9 six times and leading league once). He threw with a lot of control, allowing 2.6 BB/9 during his prime (ages 22-30), with eight top tens in BB/9 (one led league). It’s typical of his style that probably his best year (1935, 22-11, 3.29 ERA for 7+ WAR/rWAR) he actually struck out only 3 per 9 (below league average) but led the league in both BB/9 (1.66) and HRA/9 (0.19). From ‘32-35 (ages 22-25) he finished in the top 5 of WAR each year, but in ‘36 he suffered a nasty arm injury. This took velocity off his sinker and forced him to re-tool around his curveball. To his credit, he achieved another two strong years (‘38 and ‘39) but by age 30 (1940) he was pretty much shot, never pitching 200+ innings again and his trademark control abandoned him (3.4 BB/9 at and after 30, and as that number was up against diminished competition during World War II, his control was no doubt worse than it looks). During his peak Harder was about as good as a pitcher can be with only average stuff, but he was very good, breaking 5 rWAR six different seasons.
Playing on approximately fifteen different teams, Bobo Newsom! Actually, he only played on nine teams, was traded eight times and the team he played for the most (the Senators, eight seasons) he played for five different times. Some of this was Newsom being an unusual guy, some of it was his willingness to confront managers when he disagreed, but part of it was cunning. Newsom was the master of maneuvering teams into releasing him so that he could negotiate with multiple teams at once, effectively creating free agency for himself. Newsom was what you might call a character, like a bizarre benign Rube Waddell. He could never remember anybody’s name so he referred to everybody as “Bobo”, which eventually earned him that nickname. He hated coming out of a game after he started it; in 1935 a line-drive by Earl Averill struck Newsom’s knee (what's with Earl Averill injuring so many pitchers with line drives?). When the manager approached him, Bobo asserted that his kneecap was broke, but when the manager made to pull him Bobo cut him off, saying “You kidding me? I said it was broke, I didn’t say I was dead.” He pitched the whole game, hobbling to and from the mound, and afterwards his teammates laughed at his assertions that his kneecap was broken, that is, until an x-ray confirmed the diagnosis. Once, in a game where FDR was in attendance, a throw from third base hit Newsom in the jaw. Gritting his teeth (no doubt gently), Newsom completed the game. Asked about it he said in his trademark argot, "When the president comes to see Ol' Bobo pitch he ain't gonna let him down."
As a pitcher he was somewhat more mundane. He didn’t fully break into the league until he was 26 (1934), but proved himself reliably strong, putting up eight 3+ WAR seasons before World War II, and another two afterwards. He was wild, walking as many or more than league average per nine, but striking out batters in abundance. He finished in the top ten in allowing the most walks thirteen times (walking the most batters in the league twice), but he also had twelve seasons in the top ten in strikeouts, and from 1937-1941 (ages 29-33) he finished 2nd in strikeouts every year (behind Lefty Gomez in ‘37, and behind Bob Feller the other years). Rarely historically dominant (his highest fWAR year was a 6.1) he was nevertheless consistently good for a long time. And quite a character.
Really, really hard to rank historically, Hal Newhouser! It’s interesting that Newhouser and Bob Feller came into the league around the same time because the two have a lot in common. Newhouser was known for his obsessive perfectionism when it came to pitching, for overwhelming stuff and for a complete lack of control over his pitches and his temper. His roomate starting out with the Tigers in 1940 (age 19) was veteran Schoolboy Rowe, who was quickly driven crazy by Newhouser’s need to discuss nothing but the minutiae of pitching. Newhouser for his first four years (ages 19-22) was always one of the top three in K/9 (he and Bob Feller constantly traded back and forth). Unfortunately, he also led the league in allowing the most walks per 9 each year. Frustrated with his struggles he was infamous for violent outbursts, and was widely considered the least popular member of the Tigers. And when World War II broke out, despite his efforts to enlist, a faulty heart got him rejected.
By 1944, age 23, Newhouser humbled himself to Paul Richards, the pitching coach, asking for guidance. Nobody knows quite what exactly was imparted, but from 1944 on Newhouser was a different pitcher. That year he won the MVP and led the league in strikeouts, allowed only an average number of walks and finished just second to Dizzy Trout in both fWAR and rWAR. In 1945 he was even better, winning his second MVP and leading the league in strikeouts, ERA, FIP, Wins, Complete Games and Shutouts, leading both leagues by an enormous margin in every kind of WAR. In 1946 he was even better than that, striking out 8.5 batters per 9, the highest K/9 figure ever recorded at that point in history. He led the league in: wins, ERA, FIP, WHIP, H/9 and K/9, finishing 2nd in rWAR to Feller. In both ‘47 and ‘48 (age 26 and 27) his strikeouts regressed but he remained the best pitcher in the AL both years. By age 29 he had begun to have arm trouble and no amount of medical attention seemed to help. From that age to his retirement at age 34 he only pitched 500 innings and his K/9 were only league average.
So how to evaluate him? Being the best pitcher in the AL three times is a big achievement; having two 9+ rWAR seasons (and one 11+) is a great achievement. Despite pitching three thousand innings, he only has about six seasons that really matter; before 1944 he was too wild and after 1949 his arm pain was too limiting. In a vacuum, are those six seasons good enough to get him into Bronze? Combined with his hardware, yes, though he’s borderline. They certainly beat Dizzy Dean’s best six. Except for one major problem. Of Newhouser’s three best seasons, two were ‘44 and ‘45. Let’s consult the record: how did Newhouser’s dominant seasons fare against Ted Williams or Joe DiMaggio? How did Newhouser’s pitching those years compare with Feller’s? The answer to both questions is simple: we don’t know, because all three named players were serving in the armed forces for that time. Newhouser broke out right when the quality of competition plummeted because of the draft. In his defense he was only average in 1943 when the draft had already taken his biggest competition, and he was at his best in 1946 when the war had released its conscripts back onto the field. So how big a knock on him are those two seasons being in wartime? Not terribly. But enough to knock a borderline Bronze player down a notch.
Speaking of unusual careers, try Early Wynn! Wynn was one of the many pitchers with incredibly strange career arcs. In part 1, from ages 21-28 (1941-1948) he pitched for the Senators and showed little, being consistently below average. At that point he only had a fastball going for him; his other pitches were ineffectual. In ‘49 (starting Part 2 of his career) he was traded to the Cleveland Indians (the year after the Indians had won the World Series). Who should he have as his pitching coach but Mel Harder? (If you don't know who Harder is, go back three pitchers and pay more attention). Harder worked with Wynn, teaching him both a curveball and changeup that Wynn grew to deploy with great success. In part 2 his K/9 jumped to the point where after turning 30 he was in the top five of strikeouts nine different times, leading the league twice, but his control was only average. In part 3 (starting in 1954) Wynn put it all together (at age 34), brought his BB/9 and HRA/9 down and suddenly became excellent for the next three years, putting up 6.6, 5.9 and 8.9 RAW. In part 4 (1957, age 37 to his retirement at age 43) he started losing velocity and control, so he learned a knuckleball and started using that to go deeper in games, throwing it often on 0-2 counts. Part 4 Wynn was no ace, but he was sure as heck better than any 37-43 year old had any right to be.
From a historical perspective, you can see how Wynn could be overvalued. His durability allowed him to pitch 4500+ innings between four different decades, which means that he racked up a lot of counting stats. He has exactly 300 wins for his career, 2300 strikeouts, 289 complete games, 49 shutouts . . . it’s a lot. Also, his peak (Part 2) happened to coincide with the Indians dominance in the early 50s (a string of six 90+ win seasons, including 111 in ‘54) so he was highly visible. And you had to have respect for any guy who could reinvent himself so much that he pretty much had an apparently Hall-worthy career *after* he turned 29. The knock on him is that much of his career wasn’t that good; you could amputate his career before 29 and after 40 and lose out on very little, and his peak between those points was really good but not great (88 ERA-, 102 FIP-; FIP likes Wynn far less than ERA, and the Indians did field good defenses). If you want Wynn in the Hall, I can’t fault you. But Wynn was less dominant than we like our Bronze pitchers.
With a similar story to Hal Newhouser, Billy Pierce! Pierce was a 5’10” lefty who weighed 160 pounds coming up, but despite that had incredible velocity on his fastball. Joe DiMaggio, after having struck out against a young Pierce, expressed disbelief to the press that such a small pitcher could generate that much speed. Pierce came up with the Tigers but was traded to the White Sox in 1949, at age 22 (not the Tigers’ finest move). Out of the gate Pierce demonstrated that he had the stuff, becoming one of the best strikeout pitchers in the American League (not comparable to Newhouser, but still top seven). Pierce’s problem was that he had no control, walking more than he struck out each of his first two years with the Sox. In 1951, Pierce’s third year, Paul Richards (the same coach who had helped Newhouser get his pitches under control), became the manager of the White Sox and helped Pierce slow down, as well as develop a third pitch slider.
Pierce’s BB/9 dropped by half and he went on to have nine different top tens in that stat. For the next seven years (through age 31) Pierce became one of the best pitchers in the league. He led the league in rWAR twice (seven top tens) and fWAR once. Interestingly, in 1955 he led the league in ERA, FIP, WHIP, K/BB and rWAR; the very next season the MLB introduced the Cy Young Award (before that point both pitchers and hitters competed for the MVP). This is only a coincidence; the actual Cy Young died in 1955 and the award was created in his honor. Anyhow, Pierce put up some other nice top tens: K/9 (ten, led league twice), ERA (six, led league once), shutouts (seven), K/BB ratio (ten, led league once), and clutch pitching - WPA/LI (six top fives, three first place). By age 32 injuries derailed his career and he was mostly average for his remaining six years. In terms of top tens and hardware Pierce could be Bronze but he’s not; the problem is that his top seasons are not super-dominant; he never had an fWAR above 6 and his best rWAR seasons are 7 and 7.3. If you have a relatively narrow peak (seven years in this case), to make Bronze you have to be overwhelmingly good, and Pierce was not. But he’s certainly an Honorable Mention.
So, trivia question for you: between 1964 and 1970 which pitcher has the most strikeouts and has the best K/9? Being a discerning baseball fan you might remember that the 60s were Sandy Koufax’s decade and guess him. You’d be wrong. So then you’d remember that Koufax blew out his arm at the end of ‘66, so it might not be him. But then you’d remember Bob Gibson and go with him. But it isn’t him either. It’s Sam McDowell. Who the heck is Sam McDowell? Great question.
McDowell was a 6’5” lefty fireballer whose stuff was so overwhelming that he routinely got comparisons with Koufax. In his senior year of high school he struck out 152 batters in 63 innings (that’s getting 80% of his outs with strikeouts) and allowed not a single earned run. The Cleveland Indians made him a big signing bonus offer of $75k (about $650k today) and signed him (this was a few years before the MLB draft was started). McDowell was in the majors at the age of 20 in 1963, with a line of 6.1 BB/9 and 8.7 K/9. He brought his walks under control (a little) and from 1964 to 1970 he was one of the best pitchers in the league, boasting a line of 4.1 BB/9 and 9.5 K/9. In that time he was first in K/9 every year but one (he was second the other year). He also led the league in allowing the most walks five times. 1971 (age 28) was still a good year but he was becoming slowed by injuries and alcoholism, and by age 29 he was a replacement level pitcher.
How does his career compare in the aggregate? fWAR actually really likes McDowell, loving his stuff and his low home runs allowed rate, and feeling that his control issues aren’t bad enough to compromise them: it has his top four seasons at 6.8, 7.6, 8.7 and 9.4 WAR, which is a dominant peak, and from ‘64-70 it thinks he was the second best pitcher in the league, behind Gibson. Surprisingly, rWAR is less impressed; it sees him having only seven years above 2 WAR (very low), and it has his top four years as: 5.4, 6.6, 8.2 and 8.3 (although those two 8+ years are still considered the best in the AL). The difference mostly arises from the fact that McDowell was wild, with eight top tens in Wild Pitches (led league thrice) and that batters made good contact off of him when the ball was in play (his BABIP is actually higher than that of his team, if not by much). His best comp in this building is Doc Gooden, a pitcher with overwhelming stuff but whose self-destructive tendencies caused him to give up more runs than you’d guess. It’s the story I seem to tell many times; if your career only has seven good years, to make Bronze they’d better be amazing. McDowell was really good, but not that good. The quote I’ll end on: Oakland slugger Reggie Jackson said of McDowell, “I like [McDowell] and I think he’s got the greatest fastball, curveball, slider, and changeup I ever saw. I call him ‘Instant Heat.’ [McDowell] simplifies things out there. You know he’s gonna challenge you, his strength against yours, and either you beat him or he beats you. And he won’t throw at you, either, because he’s too nice a guy. He knows that with his fastball he could kill you if he ever hit you.”
Speaking of narrow peaks, Wilbur Wood! Wood was a failed starter who bounced through multiple teams and went nowhere, eventually being sent down to the minors. He was tutored by Cooperstownian Hoyt Wilhelm on the fine art of throwing the knuckleball and Wood picked it up quickly. By 1967 (age 25) Wood was in the majors as a high-workload reliever for the White Sox, leading the league in Games for three years and Games Finished for two (he put up 10.5 rWAR over these three years *in relief*). Around this time injuries forced the White Sox to use Wood as a starter (knuckleballers at the time weren’t considered starter material; Phil Niekro had only begun starting for Atlanta in 1967). Wood, it turned out, was more than ready. The next two seasons, ‘71 and ‘72, were two of the best pitching seasons *ever*. In rWAR his 1971 season was worth 11.7 WAR, and is the fourth best MLB pitching season ever since 1930, with the three pitchers ahead of him being: Steve Carlton, Roger Clemens and Pedro Martinez. His 1972, not as good was only worth 10.7 WAR. And compared to those, his 7.3 rWAR 1973 is mediocre, but it’s still a great season.
The interesting thing is that his peripherals aren’t great for those years: 0.6 / 1.7 / 5.7 (HRA/9, BB/9 and K/9) for his 1971 season aren’t dominating but certainly capable. So what accounts for his crazy-high rWAR? First, he threw a billion innings, as it was normal for him to alternate between pitching on two and three days of rest. His IP for those three years: 334, 376.2, 359.1. Those are deadball-era innings; since 1930 of the pitcher-seasons with the most IP, Wood is #1, #4 and #16. So that helps. Also, Wood’s BABIP was way better than the average for his team (knuckleballs are harder to hit solidly than other pitches) and his LOB% much better. Also, the White Sox in those days were not good and their fielding by itself was catastrophic, so Wood’s 1.91 ERA in 1971 was actually much better than it looked. And it’s remarkable that a pitcher that threw the knuckleball so often was able to do so while allowing so few walks. Alas, old age caught up to Wood; at age 31 he was still really good, at age 32 he was above-average and by age 33 he was washed up. So, again, he’s one of these guys who only had nine good seasons, and only five really good seasons. That said, you know how I’m always saying “if you only have five-seven really good seasons, they’d better be amazing”? Wood’s were amazing; a peak where you put up 30 WAR in three seasons is historically great. And Wood’s pitching is actually Bronze, right over the divide. But his bat was bad enough (career 084/140/090 hitter) that it tips the scales.
So why is Wood right on the verge of Bronze for us, but never got above a 7% vote for Cooperstown? There are a lot of reasons, mostly tied to the unintentional prejudices that the voters have. First, knuckleballers suffer a stigma from being ‘gimmick’ pitchers. Had Wood put up two 10+ WAR years with a blazing fastball, things might be different. Heck, Phil Niekro (who is in our Gold Tier) took five years to make Cooperstown. You don’t get no love as a knuckleballer. Second, his teams were not good. From 1971-73, without Wood the White Sox would have been: 68-94, 77-77 and 70-92. If Wood had thrown up 10+ WAR years for the Yankees en route to a World Series, that might have been something different. But playing on a bad team isn’t the way to get noticed. I’d love to complain about pitcher wins again, but he actually led the league in wins in both ‘72 and ‘73 (on bad teams) so I’ve got nothing there (save that had he been on a good team, he would have won more). Third, the crap-tastic defenses behind him made his ERAs look way worse. Fourth, Wood simply didn’t look like a dominant pitcher; he looked like a chubby guy who happened to be good because of a trick pitch. We don’t have Wood as Bronze, but our standards for Bronze are considerably higher than Cooperstown’s standards for entry. Wood deserved better.
The winning pitcher of the last game of the 1969 World Series, Jerry Koosman! Koosman had an interesting career. He was a lefty who threw a 90+ mph cut fastball (cutters aren’t common for lefty pitchers for some reason). He had excellent stuff but deliberately pitched to contact (breaking so many bats that it was rumored he had a deal going with Louisville Slugger), becoming known for getting through games with a minimum of pitches thrown. The aggregate is a pitcher who was quite good for a long time, but not quite as good as you’d guess. From age 25 (1968) to age 35 he pitched for the Mets (helping them to their surprise 1969 championship) and then bounced around the majors until he was 42 (1985), doing a creditable job the whole way. His top tens: HRA/9 (five), K/9 (nine, one led league), FIP (eight, one led league), K/BB (seven) and rWAR (four, one led league). So how do his WAR numbers stack up over a four-thousand inning career? Well, you may assume that if he’s Honorable Mention and he pitched that long, his peak probably wasn’t great. His fWAR numbers: twelve 3+, seven 4+, three at 5. His rWAR numbers: nine 3+, six 4+, four 5+, two 6+, one 7. Translated, he was good for a long time (twelve 3+ fWAR years doesn’t happen often at honorable mention) but his peak was not particularly dominant.
One of the few pitchers to win a Cy Young and an MVP in the same year, Vida Blue! Blue came up full-time for the Oakland A’s in 1971, at the age of 21. In that, his best year, he led the league in ERA, shutouts, FIP, WHIP, H/9 and K/9 (in rWAR he finished second, a good ways behind Wilbur Wood). In that year he went 24-8 and the A’s won 101 games. This season is held up occasionally as one of the best ever but inspection doesn’t bear that out; the A’s had excellent fielding which made Blue look better and a strong lineup to give him run support. Blue’s 1971 season grades out at 8.8 fWAR and 9.0 rWAR; great numbers but between 1950 and 2009 there have been 26 better fWAR seasons and 39 better rWAR seasons, about once every two years. Blue’s ‘72 season was marred by tensions with the A’s owner, Charlie Finley. Finley wanted Blue to change his first name to “True” legally, and even offered to pay him to do it. When Blue refused, Finley rolled it out to his organization anyways, having everyone from the announcers to the scoreboard refer to him as “True Blue”. Blue was, understandably, not appreciative of these efforts. So for ‘72 he wanted a big raise (consistent with being one of the top ten or so pitchers in the league) and Finley balked, so Blue held out for most of the year. Eventually the two compromised, with a figure closer to Finley’s than Blue’s.
The rest of Blue’s career did not live up to his 1971 season. Whether because of age or the drug addiction he battled throughout his career, the hard-throwing lefthander was never again that good. In contrast to Koosman, Blue only had *six* seasons above 3 rWAR, but his top seasons (9 rWAR in ‘71 and 7.6 rWAR in 1976) were certainly better than anything Koosman did. His top tens: K/9 (three, led league once), HRA/9 (four), BB/9 (one), shutouts (seven, led league once), FIP (six, led league twice) and rWAR (five, three top threes). The aggregate of his career is just below the standard for Honorable Mention, but with the hardware he won in ‘71, it’s hard to keep him out.
I'm spent, and we're halfway through our starters! Let's take a break, check out the Honorable Mention Relievers and double back!