Do you know who Jim Whitney is?

 

No…of course not. Jim Whitney, a.k.a. ‘Grasshopper Jim’, was a major league pitcher from 1881 to 1890. Here are the teams he played for: Boston Red Caps, the Boston Beaneater, the Kansas City Cowboys, the Washington Nationals, the Indianapolis Hoosiers, and the Philadelphia Athletics…of the American Association.

 

Jim Whitney’s record, as a rookie, was 31-33…thirty-one wins, thirty-three losses: he actually led the league in both categories. He also led the league in games, starts, complete games, innings pitched, hits allowed, walks allowed, and wild pitches…you could say that he was a useful call-up.

 

Grasshopper Jim, tall and skinny, was a tremendous hitter: during his second season with the Red Caps, he led the team in batting average, homeruns, and walks…and wins, strikeouts, and ERA. He was Babe Ruth when Babe Ruth was still a glint in his father’s eye.

 

Jim Whitney died of tuberculosis in 1891, at the age of thirty-three… this article isn’t about Jim Whitney. He had some great, weird, forgotten seasons: maybe I’ll come back to them later.

 

No, I bring up Jim Whitney because he is one of two men to post a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 10-point—something over a full season as a starter. Whitney hit the mark right on the nose in 1884: he notched 270 strikeouts, and gave up 27 walks.

 

The other pitcher to post a strikeout-to-walk ratio of ten-point-something-something was Clifton Lee, whom I’m confident you’ve heard of. He did it last year, 2010...I bet you’ve heard of that, too. 2010, I mean. I think they made a movie about it. Anyway, Cliff Lee’s strikeout-to-walk ratio was 10.2778…he collected 185 strikeouts, and allowed 18 walks.

 

This article is not about Cliff Lee, either. Nobody’s forgotten about him.  

Instead, this article is about the one man who bested both Jim Whitney’s 1884 season andCliff Lee’s 2010 season; the one pitcher who has posted a strikeout-to-walk ratio better than ten-to-one.

 

This is about Bret Saberhagen.

 

Strikeout-to-walk ratio is not the best stat to evaluate pitchers. I would not use it to pick a Cy Young Award, and it has nothing over Win Shares, or Fielding-Independent Pitching, or either incarnation of Wins Above Replacement. A list of the pitchers with the best strikeout-to-walk ratio would not list Roger Clemens or Greg Maddux or Walter Johnson or Lefty Grove or Tom Seaver among the top- twenty pitcher of all-time. It is not a perfect metric.

 

It is, however, a satisfying statistic, as it sets the best outcome for a pitcher (the strikeout) against the outcome that the pitcher is the most directly at fault for (the walk). A homerun is, of course, a more regrettable outcome than a walk. But a home run is also a more capricious event: a dinger hit in Denver is a lazy fly out in San Diego. But a walk…that’s on the pitcher.

 

It is also a statistic that communicates astonishing command; astonishing control. For most pitchers, walks and strikeouts occur in tandem: high strikeout pitchers typically have high walk totals, while low strikeout pitchers generally have low walk totals. This makes intuitive sense: if you’re striking out major league hitters, you’re not putting every pitch in the zone. If you’re not striking out hitters….well, you damned well better not be walking them, either.

 

But a pitcher who gets strikeouts and avoids walks….that is a rare, special pitcher.

 

 

Here’s Bret Saberhagen's career line, through his Age-25 season:

 

 

Saberhagen had won two Cy Young Awards at this point (1985 and 1989), and had pitched even better during the first half of 1987 (15-3 record, selected as the starter for the All-Star game), but a shoulder injury, probably triggered by overuse, cost him the Cy Young.

 

His record, through age twenty-five, was absolutely a ‘Hall-of-Fame trajectory’…he was on track to reach Cooperstown.

 

Another way to look at it: Saberhagen’s most comparable player, through age twenty-five, was Dennis Eckersley. At 26 his closest comparable was…Dennis Eckersley. At 27 his best comparable was Greg Maddux. At twenty-eight it was Fergie Jenkins. Good company…Hall-of-Fame company.

 

His record, famously, had an ‘off-on-off’ pattern: during his eight seasons with the Royals, Saberhagen posted a brilliant 74-30 record during even-numbered seasons, but he went just 36-48 during the odd-numbered years.

 

He was twenty-seven when the Royals traded him and Bill Pecota to the New York Mets for Gregg Jeffries, Kevin McReynolds, and Bill Miller. During his first two seasons in Queens, Saberhagen was a disappointment, posting a 10-12 record with a 3.57 ERA and 237 innings pitched during two injury-shortened seasons.

 

Saberhagen opened the 1994 season as the #5 starter on the New York Mets. By then, Saberhagen’s career had lost its Hall-of-Fame trajectory, and there was considerable doubt that he’d ever play a full season.

 

Sabes’ first start of the season gave a sign of things to come: against the Pittsburgh Pirates, Saberhagen threw a complete game, allowing just five hits (and two solo homeruns) in an 8-2 victory over the Bucs. He threw 107 pitches, 73 for strikes. More significantly, he walked no batters. Two days later he celebrated his thirtieth birthday.

 

During his second start of the season, Saberhagen walked two batters: this would be wildest game of his season: seven innings pitched, two walks. During his fifth start, on April 29^th, Saberhagen again walked two batters (this time over eight innings). He didn’t walk even two batters in any of his remaining nineteen starts.

 

Here’s a table of that:

 

 

In most of Saberhagen’s games in 1994, he didn’t walk anyone. That’s amazing control.

 

Here’s my favorite fact about Saberhagen’s 1994 season: 696 batters came to the plate against Saberhagen….and only six of them saw the count reach 3-0.

 

3-0 is the best scenario for a hitter…in 2010, major league hitters who work the count to 3-0 have a cumulative on-base percentage of .748. The odds very much favor the hitter who gets the count to 3-0.

 

Here’s what happened to the six batters who reached 0-3 against Saberhagen in 1994:

 

-One of them got a hit. A double.

-Two of them put the ball in play for outs.

-Two of them struck out.

-Oneof them walked.

 

Only two of the six reached base. Only one of them walked. It’s a small sample size, but it’s still amazing.

 

Saberhagen’s best start of 1994 came on July 15^th, against the Padres. This was an amazing game…it must’ve been the best pitched game of 1994.

 

Andy Benes was the starter for San Diego: he went eight innings, allowing two hits, one walk, and no runs. He struck out 14 hitters. His Game Score was 91.

 

Saberhagen started for the Mets. He went ten innings, allowing five hits, no walks, and no runs. He struck out eleven hitters, and posted a Game Score of 93.

 

The bullpens held the game scoreless until the 14^th inning…in the top of the 14^th Tony Gwynn hit a solo shot off of Mike Maddux, to give the Padres a 1-0 lead. Phil Plantier followed with another homerun….this must’ve been jarring, so much offense happening so suddenly. The Mets managed to plate a run in the bottom of the inning, but it wasn’t enough.

 

Saberhagen’s yearly tally, balls and strikes:

 

 

This is not a record: I don’t know who holds the record for highest percentage of strikes thrown in a single season, but I know that Saberhagen doesn’t have that record. Cliff Lee threw 71.1% of his pitches for strikes in 2010.

Wrapping this up…

Saberhagen posted the best strikeout-to-walk ratio of any starting pitcher in baseball history…I think that it is very likely that he would not have maintained the record had the season continued.

 

There are two reasons I think this is true. For one, Saberhagen’s strikeout and walk rates were both much better than his career rates. His rates were better than they were a year before, and they were better than they were a year later:

 

 

He was over his head in 1994: he was striking out batter at a rate that he had matched just once in his career, and he was walking fewer hitters than he had ever walked.

 

The strike cost baseball about fifty games…that’s eight or ten starts for Saberhagen. This is a guess, but I’d guess that Saberhagen’s ratio would’ve come down to earth if he’d gotten eight more starts.

 

The other reason I think Saberhagen wouldn’t have maintained his pace was how staggeringly narrow his lead over Jim Whitney was. Whitney had a strikeout-to-walk ratio of ten-to-one…Saberhagen’s strikeout-to-walk ratio was eleven-to-one, one strikeout ahead.

 

But...that’s a staggeringly tenuous lead. If, during his next appearance, Saberhagen walked just two batters and struck out six, he would’ve slipped below Whitney….149 strikeouts, fifteen walks. It wouldn’t have taken a bad game to drop Saberhagen below Grasshopper Jim…he might’ve dropped below Whitney with a good game.

 

One of the things that people bring up about the 1994 strike were the records that might’ve been broken had the games been played. Matt Williams might’ve passed Roger Maris. Tony Gwynn might’ve given us our first .400 season since Ted Williams.

 

Saberhagen’s record ratio in 1994 is, I think, maybe the only record that the strike protected. I think he would’ve slipped below Grasshopper Jim Whitney, and Cliff Lee’s magnificent 2010 season would be our record holder.

 

And…I think Saberhagen has the record legitimately. He pitched 177.3 innings in 1994, which was the third-highest total in the National League. That a player’s strike happened to occurr during his record-setting season was a fluke thing; an odd event which Saberhagen had no control over, which happened to give him a major league record.

 

And I’m glad he has it. Saberhagen didn’t end up having the Hall-of-Fame career that his early seasons promised, but he had one season of pitching perfection that has been unmatched over the long arc of baseball history. In 1994, Saberhagen broke a record that had lasted over a century; a record set by a man who threw a dirty baseball from a distance of fifty feet; a man who is mostly forgotten to history.