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The Turk Farrell Award (Part III)

By Bill James
May 2, 2007
Suppose that, in 1956, when they started giving out Cy Young Awards, they had also started giving out Turk Farrell Awards. That would have been remarkable foresight because, at that time, Turk Farrell was in the minor leagues. If they had started giving out Turk Farrell Awards at that time, they would probably have called them Ned Garver Awards or Murry Dickson Awards.

  This is ducking the question, which is: Who would have won them? Awards which exist only in theory are, in general, not quite as prestigious as those awards which are actually presented. Also, awards which are given out at the time are generally preferred over those which are "given out" only as electronic hyperspace bubbles 50 years later, and awards which are supported by an actual consensus of opinion are preferred awards compared to those which are determined by addition and subtraction of statistical totals.

This award, then, is the worst of the worst of the worst, the serial child molester or the baseball awards universe. Without further ado, the winner of the 1956 Turk Farrell Award is: Ron Kline. Kline was 14-18 with a 3.38 ERA. Hey, he lasted a lot longer than Don Newcombe did. Newcombe, who won the first Cy Young Award that year, pitched 268 innings with a 3.08 ERA. Kline pitched almost the same number of innings (264) with a not-dissimilar ERA (3.38), but whereas Newk finished 27-7, Kline was 14-18. Newcome was 37-42 in the rest of his career, 3.84 ERA. Kline was 94-106 for the rest of his career, 3.69 ERA, and also registered more than 100 saves. We win.

The full list of Turk Farrell Award winners is given below; we only give one per season. A few notes thereon:

1957: Through the first half of the 1950s, Robin Roberts was the best starting pitcher in baseball, and Warren Spahn was the second-best starting pitcher in the National League. In ’57 Spahn became the first future Hall of Famer to win the Cy Young Award—and Roberts, going 10-22, became the first Hall of Famer to win the Turk Farrell Award.

The frequency with which future Hall of Famers win the Turk Farrell Award is not as high as the frequency with which they win the Cy Young Award, but it is not negligible, either. Future Hall of Famers have won six Turk Farrells so far, and that number will go up when Roger Clemens, Bert Blyleven and Jose DeLeon are elected to the Hall of Fame.

1959: In 1957 Robin Roberts won the Farrell Award, with Bob Friend second; in ’59 it was Friend first and Roberts second. Friend was also fourth in the standings in ’61 and won the award again in ’64, while Roberts was also third in the standings in 1960.

1961: Pedro Ramos, who was a perennial contender for the Farrell award from 1958 on, finally broke through with an 11-20 mark in 1961. He had finished second in 1960 (the standings going Bunning, Ramos, Robin Roberts.) Ramos was a colorful Cuban who liked to claim that he was the fastest runner in baseball—he was pretty fast—and talked openly about how much he would like to pitch for the Yankees some day, said he would win 20 games a year if he was a Yankee, which is not entirely true but not entirely nonsense, either. He was always challenging Mickey Mantle to a footrace, trying to show everybody how fast he was. His Cuban running mate, Camilo Pascual, was also a Turk Farrell Award contender for several years.

1962: In ’62, when Farrell himself won the award, there were three National League pitchers on the two expansion teams who would have won the award in a more normal year—Farrell, Roger Craig, and Ken Johnson. Craig had a famous long losing streak in 1963, losing I think eighteen straight games to fall to 2 and 20 at one point—this after he had lost 24 games the year before. He wasn’t a good pitcher, but he wasn’t that bad; he got to 2 and 20 with an ERA under 4.00. Ken Johnson lost so many 1-0 games in Houston that they had a "runs for Johnson" night, at which any woman who came to the game with a run in her stocking was admitted for half price or something. Johnson pitched and lost the game, 1-0. At least as I remember.

1967: Gaylord Perry won the Award, with two other Hall of Famers, Don Drysdale and Catfish Hunter, finishing second and third. Drysdale was also the runner-up in ’66.

1969: I have commented in other places that there is a superficial similarity in the career records of Don Sutton and Steve Carlton. Sutton was second in the Turk Farrell standings in 1969 and again ten years later, 1979, and appeared on the lists as early as 1967 and as late as 1983. Carlton who finished third in 1970, won the award in ’73 and won it again ten years later, in 1983. Mickey Lolich was also a serious Turk Farrell contender numerous times between 1970 and 1976.

1971: Dave Roberts had a famous tough-luck season in 1971, finishing 14-17 with a 2.10 ERA. It was a remarkable season, and he could be seen as ranking much higher on this list than we have him. Although he did win the Turk Farrell Award in 1971, he could very well be seen as hard-luck pitcher of the decade for the 1970s, and even as the equal of Turk Farrell. The formula isn’t knocked out by him because his strikeout/walk ratio wasn’t that good, but he was a ground ball pitcher, supported by a league-leading 37 ground ball double plays that year.

1976: Blyleven in ’76 had nine starts in which he pitched 76 innings with a 2.12 ERA, but finished 0 and 9.

1977-78: Jerry Koosman became the first pitcher to win the award in back-to-back seasons, the two tough-luck seasons bookended by 20-win seasons. Koosman would win a third Turk Farrell Award in ’81—the only three-time winner. Friend, Carlton, Jose DeLeon and Javier Vazquez have won it twice.

1986: Bob Welch won the Award, winning only 7 games despite a 3.28 ERA in 33 starts. But he more than got even in 1990.

1993: Doug Drabek with Barry Bonds on his team: 22-6, Cy Young. Doug Drabek without Barry Bonds: 9-18, Turk Farrell. Seven pitchers have won the Turk Farrell Award and also, in other seasons, the Cy Young Award—Gaylord Perry, Steve Carlton, Fernando Valenzuela, Frank Viola, Bob Welch, Doug Drabek and Roger Clemens. Robin Roberts, Jim Bunning, Bert Blyleven, Nolan Ryan, Jerry Koosman, Frank Tanana, Mike Mussina and Curt Schilling won the Turk Farrell Award—but never the Cy Young.

2002: Ben Sheets, who had the remarkable year in 2004, also was second in 2002.

2003: In the early days of the Turk Farrell Award, many of the award winners were 20-game losers. After 1980 the switch to five-man rotations and the hypersensitivity of managers who didn’t want to "embarrass" their pitchers led to the disappearance of 20-game losers, until Mike Maroth managed to lose 21 in 2003.

This set up a Turk Farrell battle between Curt Schilling, who was a very good pitcher but lost only 9 games, and Mike Maroth, who lost 21 games but wasn’t really a very good pitcher. Schilling, who was openly disappointed not to get the Cy Young Award in 2002, was no doubt pleased to receive the Farrell award in 2003—or would have been, if he’d heard about it.

First Last Year G IP   Won   Lost   SO BB ERA Turk Farrell Score
Ron Kline 1956 44 264.0   14 - 18   125 81 3.38 166
Robin Roberts 1957 39 250.0   10 - 22   128 43 4.07 244
Jack Harshman 1958 34 236.0   12 - 15   161 75 2.90 189
Bob Friend 1959 35 235.0   8 - 19   104 52 4.02 193
Jim Bunning 1960 36 252.0   11 - 14   201 64 2.79 217
Pedro Ramos 1961 42 264.0   11 - 20   174 79 3.95 219
Turk Farrell 1962 43 242.0   10 - 20   203 55 3.01 296
Roger Craig 1963 46 236.0   5 - 22   108 58 3.78 247
Bob Friend 1964 35 240.0   13 - 18   128 50 3.34 195
Jack Fisher 1965 43 254.0   8 - 24   116 68 3.93 242
Dick Ellsworth 1966 38 269.0   8 - 22   144 51 3.98 255
Gaylord Perry 1967 39 293.0   15 - 17   230 84 2.61 245
Ray Sadecki 1968 38 254.0   12 - 18   206 70 2.91 246
Denny Lemaster 1969 38 245.0   13 - 17   173 72 3.16 201
Bob Johnson 1970 40 214.0   8 - 13   206 82 3.07 203
Dave Roberts 1971 37 269.2   14 - 17   135 61 2.10 216
Pat Dobson 1972 38 268.0   16 - 18   161 69 2.65 208
Steve Carlton 1973 40 293.1   13 - 20   223 113 3.90 207
Frank Tanana 1974 39 268.2   14 - 19   180 77 3.12 219
Rick Reuschel 1975 38 234.0   11 - 17   155 67 3.73 187
Bert Blyleven 1976 36 297.2   13 - 16   219 81 2.87 230
Jerry Koosman 1977 32 226.2   8 - 20   192 81 3.49 245
Jerry Koosman 1978 38 235.1   3 - 15   160 84 3.75 196
Bob Shirley 1979 49 205.0   8 - 16   117 59 3.38 176
Brian Kingman 1980 32 211.1   8 - 20   116 82 3.83 183
Jerry Koosman 1981 27 121.1   4 - 13   76 41 4.01 148
Bruce Berenyi 1982 34 222.1   9 - 18   157 96 3.36 184
Steve Carlton 1983 37 283.2   15 - 16   275 84 3.11 244
Fernando Valenzuela 1984 34 261.0   12 - 17   240 106 3.03 221
Jose DeLeon 1985 31 162.2   2 - 19   149 89 4.70 205
Bob Welch 1986 33 235.2   7 - 13   183 55 3.28 207
Nolan Ryan 1987 34 211.2   8 - 16   270 87 2.76 266
Mike Moore 1988 37 228.2   9 - 15   182 63 3.78 197
Frank Viola 1989 36 261.0   13 - 17   211 74 3.66 211
Jose DeLeon 1990 32 182.2   7 - 19   164 86 4.43 190
Greg Swindell 1991 33 238.0   9 - 16   169 31 3.48 237
Melido Perez 1992 33 247.2   13 - 16   218 93 2.87 206
Doug Drabek 1993 34 237.2   9 - 18   157 60 3.79 212
Andy Benes 1994 25 172.1   6 - 14   189 51 3.86 207
Tom Candiotti 1995 30 190.1   7 - 14   141 58 3.50 173
Roger Clemens 1996 34 242.2   10 - 13   257 106 3.63 182
Kevin Appier 1997 34 235.2   9 - 13   196 74 3.40 184
Jon Lieber 1998 29 171.0   8 - 14   138 40 4.11 172
Steve Trachsel 1999 34 205.1   8 - 18   149 64 5.57 162
Mike Mussina 2000 34 237.2   11 - 15   210 46 3.79 221
Bobby Jones 2001 33 195.0   8 - 19   113 38 5.12 185
Javier Vazquez 2002 34 230.1   10 - 13   179 49 3.91 178
Curt Schilling 2003 24 168.0   8 - 9   194 32 2.95 186
Ben Sheets 2004 34 237.0   12 - 14   264 32 2.70 285
Javier Vazquez 2005 33 215.2   11 - 15   192 46 4.42 191
Jake Peavy 2006 32 202.1   11 - 14   215 62 4.09 187

Bill James
Ft. Myers, Florida
March 28, 2007
 
 

COMMENTS (2 Comments, most recent shown first)

slh112358
It appears your memory is correct regarding Ken Johnson in 1962. I ran a "Tracer" (tip of the hat to Neyer) at Baseball Reference for the Colt .45's in 1962 and found a boxscore from Wednesday, September 12th. Dodgers 1, Houston 0. WP: Roebuck LP: Johnson S: Perranoski

No mention of a "Runs for Johnson" promotion, but the attendance was 28,669, which was the high water mark for the Colt .45's that season with the exception of a Sunday June 10th doubleheader (also against the Dodgers). The Colt .45's had won six consecutive prior to this game. I would have to guess that some type of promotion was in place to account for such a dramatic turnout in the middle of the week for a team that was 38.5 GB going into the game.
7:27 PM Jan 8th
 
chuck
If I've done my math correctly, I have Matt Cain as the winner of the 2007 Turk Farrell award.... a Turk Farrell score of 185 on: 200 ip / 163 k's / 79 bb / 3.65 e.r.a. and a 7-16 record. He had one cheap win and eight tough losses. I'd like to see some hardware designed for this award- like the old Laugh-In one... the Farrell Finger of Fate, perhaps.
1:28 PM Mar 5th
 
 
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