Heroes and Bullies

Last article in the series.  A "bully", of course, is a pitcher who piles up wins against inferior opponents, but can’t beat a good opponent.  A "hero" is a pitcher who is at his best against the strongest and most threatening opponent. 

I figured a "Bully Score" for each pitcher in each season, and for each pitcher in his career.  The way you figure the Bully Score is simple; you add together:

His wins against #5s,

His wins against #6s,

His losses against #1s, and

His losses against #2s.

 

Then you subtract:

His wins against #1s,

His wins against #2s,

His losses against #5s, and

His losses against #6s. 

 

If he has lots of wins against weak opponents and losses against strong ones, he’ll have a high bully score. 

By the way, I should have mentioned this before.  Do you remember Paul Abbott, who went 17-4 for the 2001 Seattle Mariners? It turns out that he started 15 times against #6 starters that year, and was 12-0 against 6^th starters, despite a 3.75 ERA.  You probably suspected something like that. 

 

In raw terms, the highest Bully Score of all time was 89, by Robin Roberts.  These are Roberts’ career records against pitchers of each level:

Opp Starter	GS	IP	W	L	Pct	H	R	ER	SO	BB	ERA	CG	ShO
1	131	975.0	43	68	.387	962	405	363	467	196	3.35	49	4
2	122	912.2	48	56	.462	860	367	334	467	178	3.29	65	9
3	124	908.0	58	48	.547	930	412	380	468	177	3.77	59	12
4	87	614.2	32	35	.478	646	295	268	301	99	3.92	35	2
5	62	495.2	41	16	.719	441	166	158	267	99	2.87	40	7
6	62	497.1	41	10	.804	474	212	178	253	88	3.22	38	6

 

Robin Roberts had the two fantastic seasons against #1 starters, 1950 and 1955, when he was 15-1 against them (8-1 in 1950, 7-0 in 1955.)  But in the rest of his career, he was a 28-67 against #1 starters, whereas he was 41-10 against sixth starters.  His Bully Score is 89:

 

41 (wins against fifth starters), plus

41 (wins against sixth starters), plus

68 (losses to #1 starters), plus

56 (losses to #2 starters), minus

43 (wins against #1 starters), minus

48 (wins against #2 starters), minus

16 (losses to #5 starters), minus

10 (losses to #6 starters).

 

That works out to 206 minus 117, or +89. 

Almost everyone has a Bully Score greater than zero, since it is obviously easier to beat a 5^th/6^th starter than a#1/#2 starter.  Because most pitchers have Bully Scores greater than zero most years, the totals go up over time; thus, all of the highest raw Bully Scores are for pitchers who had long careers:

 

First	Last	Bully Score
Robin	Roberts	89
Nolan	Ryan	85
Early	Wynn	78
CC	Sabathia	76
Jack	Morris	73
Scott	Sanderson	72
Frank	Tanana	70
Zack	Greinke	68
Bert	Blyleven	65
Dennis	Martinez	62
Bob	Lemon	62
Max	Scherzer	61
Charlie	Root	61
Jeff	Suppan	61
Alex	Kellner	59
Si	Johnson	59

 

What we need, of course, is to make the raw Bully Score proportional to the number of starts that the player made.   When we do that, the bottom two names on the list above jump to the top of the list.  Alex Kellner had a bully score of 59 in 232 starts within our data.  59 divided by 232 is .254, which we will present at 254 for the sake of convenience.  I’m going to start with the top four:

 

First	Last	Starts	Bully	Score
Alex	Kellner	232	59	254
Si	Johnson	243	59	243
Chuck	Stobbs	236	55	233
Milt	Gaston	202	46	228

 

Kellner is an interesting contrast with Robin Roberts.  Both of them came to the majors in Philadelphia in 1948/1949.  Roberts, a rookie with the Phillies, pitched well but went 7-9 as a rookie in 1948, exploded as a star in 1950.  Kellner got into 13 games with the Philadelphia A’s in 1948, but was mostly a rookie in 1949, winning 20 games as a rookie (20-12).  Henever approached that level again. 

Kellner’s twenty wins as a rookie were a complete fluke; he wasn’t anywhere near that good, even as a rookie.  The 1949 Philadelphia A’s had a good year by their standards (81-73), and they happened to score a lot of runs for Kellner.  The A’s collapsed in 1950, Kellner LOST 20 games in his sophomore season and then settled in to a nice run of 11-12, 11-14 type seasons.  He was THEIR number one pitcher; Roberts was the number one for the Phillies, Kellner was the #1 for the A’s, although he was not A #1.  He eventually wound up as a teammate of Murry Dickson in Kansas City, almost ten years later.

Anyway, what I wanted you to notice was that Kellner, Si Johnson, Chuck Stobbs and Alex Gaston were all guys like that; they were all pretty good pitchers, not really good but decent, who were stuck for years on really awful teams.  And this is what I did not so clearly understand before; this is what I learned from doing that.  When you have a pitcher like that, a pretty good pitcher stuck for years on a bad team, he can beat the back of your rotation—but he will almost never beat a genuine #1 starter.  This is the data for Kellner:

 

Opp Starter	GS	IP	W	L	Pct	H	R	ER	SO	BB	ERA	CG	ShO
1	50	314.0	8	34	.190	348	208	188	140	147	5.39	13	1
2	52	328.0	12	30	.286	355	183	171	143	134	4.69	18	3
3	31	211.2	16	10	.615	223	102	94	87	70	4.00	12	1
4	41	281.0	18	10	.643	278	136	125	115	108	4.00	17	2
5	27	195.2	12	9	.571	217	106	96	84	84	4.42	12	1
6	31	223.1	18	6	.750	222	113	95	97	80	3.83	16	0

 

Kellner was a 3^rd/4^th starter, a true level of 3.75.  He was actually able to beat third, fourth starters, and he was 30-15 against 5^th and 6^th starters.  But when you put him up against true #1 starters, he was just out of his league.  He didn’t have a chance.  Chuck Stobbs, same era, same league, was the same way.  This is the data for Stobbs:

 

Opp Starter	GS	IP	W	L	Pct	H	R	ER	SO	BB	ERA	CG	ShO
1	41	219.2	5	31	.139	252	151	129	115	72	5.29	6	0
2	44	295.1	15	24	.385	288	148	113	128	103	3.44	15	3
3	44	266.0	11	25	.306	317	164	146	123	86	4.94	7	1
4	51	321.1	22	20	.524	347	174	161	113	127	4.51	14	0
5	27	195.1	16	6	.727	163	72	67	109	101	3.09	11	2
6	29	188.2	16	6	.727	202	105	95	86	71	4.53	11	1

 

Stobbs and Kellner would consistently beat the back of the rotation guys, but between them were 13-65 against #1 starters.  And this is a longer list of the bullies, on a percentage basis:

 

First	Last	Score
Alex	Kellner	254
Si	Johnson	243
Chuck	Stobbs	233
Milt	Gaston	228
Johnny	Sain	225
Charlie	Root	213
Jim	Tobin	212
Wes	Ferrell	205
Bump	Hadley	204
Wilson	Alvarez	202
Tony	Cloninger	201
Max	Scherzer	185
Virgil	Trucks	181
Bob	Lemon	178
Scott	Sanderson	177
Curt	Davis	176
Dizzy	Trout	175
Danny	MacFayden	175
Greg	Swindell	175
Doug	Fister	173

 

 

Now, the heroes.

There are two pitchers in history, and only two, who stand out from the crowd for their ability to consistently beat the best pitchers in the league.   There are others you can kind of argue for, guys who did as well against #1 starters as they did against the back of the rotation.  Guy Bush, Vicente Padilla, John Tudor, Claude Passeau, Mike Mussina, Clayton Kershaw, Jack McDowell. . . all of those guys did well against strong opposition.  This is the chart for Mike Mussina:

 

Mike Mussina
Opp Starter	GS	IP	W	L	Pct	H	R	ER	SO	BB	ERA	CG	ShO
1	107	715.1	43	38	.531	683	317	297	551	172	3.74	11	3
2	103	678.1	53	25	.679	659	288	264	563	148	3.50	8	2
3	100	668.0	55	26	.679	633	280	258	522	149	3.48	6	4
4	70	479.2	38	18	.679	459	190	185	374	96	3.47	10	4
5	58	382.2	30	17	.638	362	179	164	299	91	3.86	7	5
6	98	635.0	51	29	.638	657	303	288	503	129	4.08	12	4

 

When Mussina was a Hall of Fame candidate, there would be people who would say that he wasn’t a true #1, but as you can see, he very clearly was.  He was over .500 against #1 starters, and had a .679 winning percentage against twos, threes, and fours.  It is one of the better records in history.  Jimmie Key’s was even better than that:

 

 

Jimmie Key
Opp Starter	GS	IP	W	L	Pct	H	R	ER	SO	BB	ERA	CG	ShO
1	77	531.0	40	18	.690	474	192	183	314	123	3.10	9	3
2	79	521.0	39	24	.619	480	192	176	288	145	3.04	8	0
3	44	273.0	17	11	.607	279	134	121	156	59	3.99	1	1
4	65	411.0	21	27	.438	437	204	181	257	99	3.96	3	2
5	57	353.1	24	14	.632	339	139	128	213	93	3.26	5	3
6	67	419.1	38	18	.679	428	199	183	252	109	3.93	6	3

 

 

Key, like Mussina only more so, actually pitched better when he was facing a tough challenge than when it looked like a day at the beach.  He had his best Earned Run Averages when facing #1 and #2 pitchers, and we’re talking about 156 starts there, so it’s not that easy to blow it off as random data. 

But there are two pitchers, and only two, who separate themselves from the crowd in this respect.  One is Sandy Koufax:

 

Sandy Koufax
Opp Starter	GS	IP	W	L	Pct	H	R	ER	SO	BB	ERA	CG	ShO
1	60	413.1	27	20	.574	314	128	111	404	138	2.42	22	8
2	78	570.0	47	16	.746	426	178	151	610	158	2.38	39	12
3	60	414.2	28	16	.636	308	143	132	430	148	2.86	23	7
4	55	365.1	25	14	.641	296	144	134	376	140	3.30	23	8
5	34	253.0	17	13	.567	173	81	69	255	90	2.45	15	3
6	27	186.0	15	6	.714	138	76	66	199	67	3.19	12	2

 

Note that Koufax faced sixth starters only 27 times in his career.  I mentioned earlier that he faced sixth starters 9 times in 1963, but that was a fluke.  The 9 in 1963 was a third of his career total. 

You have to understand:  Sandy was just BETTER than everybody else.  Before Koufax—and mostly since Koufax—the Cy Young Award was a debatable thing.  One can reasonably argue that before Koufax, there wasn’t a single Cy Young Award winner who actually deserved the award.  None of the previous awards were unanimous.  Only one was close to being unanimous.  Some of the selections were pretty clearly wrong.   But Sandy won the award unanimously three times, because he was just clearly better than everybody else.  He would beat the other #1s because he was better than they were.  There haven’t been very many pitchers like that in history. 

But also, he rose to the challenge. Look at the data above.  His ERA went DOWN when he was challenged.  Other pitchers didn’t do that.  Bob Gibson didn’t do that.  Juan Marichal, as fantastic as he was, didn’t do that.  Koufax did.  Give him two runs, and he would beat you.

And the other guy whose data stands out in this respect is Bret Saberhagen.  There are seven pitchers in history who have negative bully scores, meaning that they beat the good pitchers even more than they beat the bad.  There are seven guys on that side of the ledger, but four of them are -3 or less.   Jimmie Key is -7, Bret Saberhagen is -13, and Sandy Koufax is -25. 

But Saberhagen’s record, in a sense, is almost more impressive than Koufax’. 

 

Bret Saberhagen
Opp Starter	GS	IP	W	L	Pct	H	R	ER	SO	BB	ERA	CG	ShO
1	80	562.1	35	25	.583	502	170	151	371	96	2.42	16	1
2	75	507.0	36	18	.667	482	205	196	339	97	3.48	15	3
3	62	393.1	23	24	.489	398	186	170	251	75	3.89	12	2
4	52	370.0	21	15	.583	341	143	131	283	72	3.19	12	6
5	43	294.2	21	15	.583	288	125	113	195	31	3.45	9	2
6	59	364.1	26	17	.605	386	180	168	242	82	4.15	12	2

 

Alex Kellner and Chuck Stobbs had much better records against #5 and #6 starters than Koufax and Saberhagen did.  Kellner and Stobbs were 28-15 against fives, 34-12 against sixes, winning percentages of .651 and .739.  Koufax and Saberhagen were 38-28 against fives (.576) and 41-23 against sixes (.641). 

Saberhagen had the same ERA when facing #1 starters that Koufax did, 2.42, and about the same winning percentage.   Koufax is number one on the hero chart, -25 to -13, and Saberhagen is number 2.    But notice this:  Koufax faced 60 #1 starters in his career.  Saberhagen, in a career of similar length, faced 80. 

Also, Bret Saberhagen was a great pitcher, but he wasn’t Sandy Koufax.  He had higher to jump to touch the rim than Sandy did.  Sandy had a 2.42 ERA against #1 starters, but it was in that ballpark even when he was kind of coasting.  Saberhagen’s ERA in starts against all other pitchers was 3.63.  He cut it by more than a full run when he was matched up against somebody on his level—and again, that’s 80 starts. 

I’ve tried to explain this before, but Saberhagen was the closest thing I ever saw to a perfect pitcher when he was healthy.  I don’t mean that he was better than Clemens or Pedro or Maddux or the Big Unit; he didn’t last as long, didn’t have as many great years.  But he was the only guy I ever saw who was at the top of the scale in every category.  His control was fantastic.  His fastball was really fast, probably 100 on a good day with a modern radar gun.  His changeup wasn’t Pedro’s or Maddux’s, but it was a top of the line change up.  His curve and his slider. . . just outstanding.  His pickoff move was tremendous.  He fielded his position brilliantly.  His "pitchability"—his understanding of how to pitch, when and where to throw each pitch—was at the level of Mussina or Maddux or David Cone, the best I ever saw.  

And when you needed him to be there, he was there.  In this study, he doesn’t get any points for pitching a shutout in the seventh game of the World Series. 

 

Thank you all for reading.  

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