Friday, September 15
By Michael Wolverton Special to ESPN.com
Editor's note: The team of writers from the Baseball Prospectus (tm) will be writing twice a week for ESPN.com. You can check out more of their work at their web site at baseballprospectus.com.
Back in the early 1980s, before Roger Clemens and Bret Saberhagen
arrived on the scene, the American League was hurting for star
starting pitchers. Aside from Dave Stieb, who received little attention for a
variety of reasons, nobody in the league was consistently putting up
the top-flight run prevention numbers you expect from an elite
starter.
Partly as a result of that, three AL Cy Young awards in a
four-year period went to starters who had gaudy W/L records but so-so
ERAs: Steve Stone in 1980 (25-7, 3.23), Pete Vuckovich in 1982 (18-6,
3.34), and La Marr Hoyt in 1983 (24-10, 3.66). None of them had ever
or would ever again receive a significant number of votes for the
award. Were these one-year wonders who suddenly raised their games to
an elite level? Or, were they good-but-not-great pitchers who turned
powerhouse offensive support and media fascination with W/L records
into baseball's highest pitching honor?
| | Scott Elarton is averaging 7.44 runs of support per game, the second-highest total in the NL behind Shawn Estes. |
Those of you who read my
previous column for the Insider know what side of that debate I'm
going to come down on. Pitchers don't win games, teams do. A pitcher
can only prevent runs, and a pitcher whose W/L record is
significantly better (or worse) that you'd expect from his run
prevention is generally the beneficiary (or victim) of luck. In the
earlier article, we looked at the pitchers who had the toughest luck
-- those who had crummy records despite good or even great pitching.
Today we'll look at the other side of the coin -- pitchers who got all
the breaks they needed, and then some.
We'll use the same method of estimating luck as we did last time. We
start by computing an expected win (EW) and expected loss (EL) total
for the pitcher based only on how he pitched: how many innings he
went, how many runs he gave up, the pitcher- or hitter-friendliness of
the parks he pitched in, and (when we have the data) the number and
location of the runners he left on base when he was removed from the
game. The EW/EL record is a "fair" W/L record for the pitcher in that
it assumes he had a league average offense and bullpen behind him. We
have two different ways of coming up with the EW/EL record: a tool
called the Support-Neutral
W/L record is used for the 2000 season, and a method based on Bill
James' Pythagorean
formula is used for the historical numbers.
I won't go into any more detail than that, and will instead invite
anyone interested to read the earlier bad luck article or visit the Starting
Pitcher Report on the Baseball Prospectus web site for more
description of the methods and discussion of luck.
Here are the luckiest starters of 2000 by this method, through games of September 11. Only the pitchers' starts are considered; any relief appearances are ignored.
Pitcher Team W L Pct EW EL EPct Luck
Scott Elarton HOU 16 5 .762 9.9 9.5 .510 10.6
David Wells TOR 19 6 .760 13.7 9.8 .583 9.1
Tom Glavine ATL 19 7 .731 13.1 9.3 .585 8.2
Andy Pettitte NYY 18 7 .720 12.0 8.7 .580 7.7
Tim Hudson OAK 16 6 .727 11.5 9.2 .556 7.6
Cal Eldred CHW 10 2 .833 6.8 5.8 .540 7.0
G. Stephenson STL 16 8 .667 11.0 9.8 .529 6.8
Willie Blair DET 8 3 .727 4.5 5.8 .437 6.4
James Baldwin CHW 14 5 .737 11.4 8.6 .570 6.2
Shawn Estes SFG 14 4 .778 11.3 7.2 .611 5.9
If you've checked the league leaders in run support lately, you'll see a lot of the above names. In fact, other than Eldred and
Blair, who don't yet have the innings to qualify for the ERA title,
each of the pitchers on this list ranks sixth or higher in his league in run support. And no, that's not a coincidence.
To put Elarton and company's luck in historical perspective, here are the luckiest seasons of the post-war era, among all pitchers who started at least half their games:
Pitcher Year Team W L Pct EW EL EPct Luck
Storm Davis 1989 OAK-A 19 7 .731 11.1 14.9 .426 15.9
Whitey Ford 1961 NY-A 25 4 .862 17.3 11.7 .596 15.5
Bob Welch 1990 OAK-A 27 6 .818 19.4 13.6 .589 15.1
Catfish Hunter 1973 OAK-A 21 5 .808 14.0 12.0 .537 14.1
Mike Cuellar 1970 BAL-A 24 8 .750 17.0 15.0 .533 13.9
Dave Ferriss 1946 BOS-A 25 6 .806 18.1 12.9 .583 13.9
L. Christenson 1977 PHI-N 19 6 .760 12.1 12.9 .484 13.8
Jack Morris 1992 TOR-A 21 6 .778 14.2 12.8 .525 13.6
Steve Stone 1980 BAL-A 25 7 .781 18.6 13.4 .583 12.7
Denny McLain 1968 DET-A 31 6 .838 24.6 12.4 .666 12.7
I thought this list might be filled with Yankees from the '40s, '50s, and '60s, but another club with a tradition of strong offense, the Oakland A's, has three representatives to the Yankees' one. Topping the list is Storm Davis's (in)famous 1989. Despite allowing nearly five runs per game in a pitchers' park that year, Davis came within a late-season blown save of winning 20 games.
Given the BBWAA's fascination with pitcher W/L records, it should come as no surprise that this list is heavy with Cy Young Award winners. Ford, Welch, Stone and McLain all took home the trophy, and you find several more Cy Young seasons if you expand the list further than the top 10: Gaylord Perry's 1978 (21-6 actual W/L record vs. 15-12 expected), Don Newcombe's 1956 (27-7 vs. 21-13), Don Drysdale's 1962 (25-9 vs 20-14), Pete Vuckovich's 1982 (18-6 vs 13-11), and Rick Sutcliffe's 1984 (16-1 vs 11-6) all rank within the luckiest 100 all-time seasons by this method.
Here are the luckiest career records since 1900, again considering
pitchers who started at least half their games:
Pitcher Years W L Pct EW EL EPct Luck
Lew Burdette 1950-67 203 144 .585 175 172 .505 56
Vic Raschi 1946-55 132 66 .667 107 91 .538 51
Whitey Ford 1950-67 236 106 .690 212 130 .619 49
Allie Reynolds 1942-54 182 107 .630 158 131 .548 47
J. Billingham 1968-80 145 113 .562 122 136 .474 45
Chief Bender 1903-25 208 111 .652 186 133 .582 45
Art Nehf 1915-29 184 120 .605 162 142 .534 43
Dwight Gooden 1984-99 188 107 .637 167 128 .564 43
Herb Pennock 1912-34 240 162 .597 219 183 .544 43
Juan Marichal 1960-75 243 142 .631 223 162 .578 41
The Yankees I didn't find in the single season list show up in spades here. Raschi, Ford, Reynolds, and Pennock all spent most of their careers in pinstripes supported by guys named Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio and Mantle. And the Yankees aren't the only offensive
dynasty represented here; we also have the Aaron/Mathews Braves
(Burdette), the Big Red Machine (Billingham), and the Mays/McCovey
Giants (Marichal).
As I said above, the BBWAA loves to reward a good W/L record. That
was reflected in a high percentage of Cy Young awards in the luckiest season list, and we can see it here in a high percentage of Hall of Famers. Ford, Bender, Pennock, and Marichal are all in (although Bender made it via the Veterans Committee, not the BBWAA), and Gooden has an outside chance to make it eventually.
Each of these guys has HOF qualifications beyond just an inflated W/L record, but obviously the inflated record didn't hurt. In fact, for these four and a few other HOFers who fall on the lucky side of the ledger, it's easy to find a non-HOFer who has a comparable expected W/L record, but who didn't have the same support from his team:
HOFer EW EL W L Non-HOFer EW EL W L
B. Grimes 252 230 270 212 F. Tanana 250 226 240 236
J. Marichal 223 162 243 142 B. Pierce 226 154 211 169
H. Pennock 219 183 240 162 R. Reuschel 229 177 214 191
W. Ford 212 130 236 106 B. Adams 202 132 194 140
C. Hunter 209 181 224 166 C. Osteen 206 185 196 195
J. Haines 198 170 210 158 D. Leonard 207 165 191 181
C. Bender 186 134 208 111 D. Stieb 187 126 176 137
B. Lemon 192 143 207 128 D. Trout 193 138 170 161
I'm not trying to argue that all the guys on the left side are
undeserving of the Hall, or that all the guys on the right should be in. But it's clear that, for pitchers with solid careers, W/L record luck can be the factor that decides the outcome of the HOF ballot. Lefty Gomez, also a Hall of Famer who had good luck with his record, is credited with saying "I'd rather be lucky than good." But when it comes to winning postseason trophies or making it to Cooperstown, it's better to be lucky and good.
Michael Wolverton may be reached at mwolverton@baseballprospectus.com. | |