In 1962 a pitcher named Turk Farrell lost 20 games for the Houston Astros. He wasn’t a bad pitcher; he was a good pitcher pitching for a bad team. An effective reliever in ’57, ’58 and ’60, Farrell had a bad year in ’61, and found himself in the starting rotation of a first-year expansion team in ’62. Pitching 242 innings, Farrell struck out 203 batters (fourth in the league), walked only 55 (he was sixth in the league in fewest walks/9 innings), and posted a 3.01 ERA (seventh best in the league). He finished 10 and 20.
In the spring of ’63 the Saturday Evening Post printed an article entitled, as I recall, "It takes a Hell of a Pitcher to Lose 20 games." (Even in 1963, media entities liked to push the boundaries of taste. But in 1963, using the word "Hell" in the title of an article was considered pushing the boundaries. Seriously.)
Anyway, that season and that article made quite an impression on me. I was young at the time. (God was young at the time.) In my mind, Turk Farrell, 1962, has always represented the epitome of a really good pitcher stuck with a really bad record because his team couldn’t plant their spikes on home plate. It always seemed to me that there should be some sort of recognition for these pitchers, and so, with the Bill James On Line, we have decided to start one: The Turk Farrell Award.
The Turk Farrell Award will be "given" each year (don’t expect hardware) to the pitcher who best represents the idea that a really good pitcher doesn’t have to have a really good record, necessarily. To be eligibile for the Turk Farrell Award, the pitcher must
a) make fifteen or more starts, and
b) have a losing record.
That will give us a fairly long list of eligible turkeys. I started out thinking that I would just name the BEST eligible pitcher of each year as the Turk Farrell winner, choosing the best by the season score method. But the season score method gives the pitcher credit for wins, subtracts points for losses. For our purposes, that’s backward. Suppose that two pitchers each pitch the same number of innings, have the same strikeouts, the same walks, the same ERA, the same saves. If one of those guys goes 14-15 and the other one goes 10-22, the season score method would give the award to the guy who goes 14-15. That’s not right; we’re trying to find the guy who has a really BAD record despite pitching well.
I modified the scoring system so that the pitcher’s "Turk Farrell score" is his season’s score, plus 15 times (Losses minus Wins). In 1910 Ed Walsh pitched 369.2 innings with a 1.27 ERA, striking out 258 batters and walking only 61. Despite this Gibsonesque ERA, Walsh wound up the year with a losing record, 18-20, and the highest Turk Farrell score of the 20th century, 389.
Since then, the highest Turk Farrell score was by: Turk Farrell, 1962. Turk Farrell had a Turk Farrell score of 296.
Bill James
Ft. Myers, Florida
March 28, 2007 |