Rabbit’s Foot Seasons

         So let’s start with Bob Caruthers in 1889. Bob Caruthers and Dave Foutz, as many of you will know, were pitcher/outfielders with the St. Louis Browns of the American Association, the team which later became the St. Louis Cardinals.   Both Caruthers and Foutz were outstanding hitters as well as outstanding pitchers, both hitting around .350. 

              By 1889 Caruthers and Foutz were both pitching for the Brooklyn Bridegrooms, the team later known as the Dodgers, or maybe they had become the Dodgers by 1889, I have no idea.  In 1889 Caruthers was only a pitcher, playing just a few innings at other positions, but pitching 445 innings.  He also he hit just .250, although he was still one of the better hitting pitchers of the year because he took an enormous number of walks.  

              Caruthers in 1889 had a 3.13 ERA, better than the league ERA or 3.84, but pitching in a park with a park factor of .86, not all that much better than the league average.    Among the six pitchers in the league who pitched 420 or more innings, Caruthers missed by .01 of having the worst ERA.   Still, Caruthers finished 40-11, by far the league’s best won-lost record.   He was lucky. 

              How lucky?   The Won-Lost record he deserved, probably, was 29-21.   He beat that by 11 wins and 10 losses.   I score his "luck" for the season at +20.4—20.4 half-games—and this would make him, in a raw calculation, the luckiest pitcher of all time.

              For fairly obvious reasons, he is not a good candidate to be described as the luckiest pitcher of all time. 

              1)  19^th century baseball was not really major league baseball,

              2)  The American Association was an inferior league, even in the 19^th century,

              3)  Caruthers was a very good hitter, and about 20% of the discrepancy between his deserved and actual won-lost records is due not to luck, but to his excellence with the bat, and

              4)  Of course pitchers who pitch 445 innings and have 50+ decisions are going to have larger discrepancies between actual and projected records than modern pitchers who rarely pitch half as much.  

              So then, who was the luckiest pitcher of all time?

              Bob Welch, 1990.  

              Bob Welch in 1990 "won" 27 games, the most wins of any major league pitcher in the last 40 years, while losing only 6.    He wasn’t actually quite that good.   Actually, he wasn’t anywhere near that good.   The won-lost record he deserved, as best I can figure it, was 14-13.   He beat that by 13 wins and 7 losses, which makes him +20.   Other than Caruthers, he is the only pitcher in history who was +20.

              Third on the list is another Oakland A, Catfish Hunter in 1973; he was 21-5 when he probably should have been about 13-16.    Let’s do this by teams, alphabetically by city name, starting in the NL West.   Arizona:

              The luckiest pitcher/season in the history of the Arizona Diamondbacks was by Ian Kennedy in 2011.   Kennedy went 21-4.   He pitched extremely well, but probably deserved a won-lost record of 17-9, rather than 21-4.   SINCE 2011, the luckiest D’Back was Rubby de la Rosa in 2015, going 14-9 when he should have been about 10-12.    Colorado Rockies:

              The luckiest pitcher in the history of the Colorado Rockies was Shawn Estes in 2004, going 15-8 with a deserved record of 10-13.   SINCE 2004, their luckiest pitcher was Livan Hernandez in 2008, and since 2008, their luckiest pitcher has been Jorge de la Rosa in 2013, going 16-6 with a deserved record of 12-8.    Dodgers:

              Vicente Padilla in 2009 was actually 4-0 with the Dodgers; he was 8-6 before he was traded to the Dodgers.

              The luckiest Dodger ever was Bob Caruthers in 1889; since 1889, Tom Lovett in 1890.   Since 1890, the luckiest Dodger pitcher was Don Newcombe in 1956.   Of course, we should point out that Newcombe and Drysdale made some of their own luck by being excellent hitters, particularly Drysdale in 1965.    Newcombe in ’56 hit just .234, and Drysdale in ’62 hit .198 with no homers, but Drysdale in ’65 had one of the best seasons any pitcher has ever had with the bat, hitting .300 with 7 homers.   We should also point out that, in the following seasons, no pitcher on these charts (so far) has been able to replicate his won-lost performance.   Caruthers, after going 40-11 in 1889, was 23-11 in 1890.  Lovett, after going 30-11 in 1890, was 23-19 the next season—about the record he deserved in 1890.   Newcombe, after going 27-7 to win the first Cy Young Award, was 11-12 the next season.   Podres, after going 18-5 in 1961, was 15-13 the next season.  Drysdale was 19-17 after going 25-9, and 13-16 after going 23-12.   Ramon Martinez, after going 17-7 in 1995, was 15-6 the next year, the closest any Dodger has come to sustaining his good luck.  Hideo Nomo followed his 16-6 record with 16-13.    Jose Lima followed 13-5 with 5-16.    Vicente Padilla followed 12-6 with 6-5.   Danny the Rabbit followed 13-11 with 11-9.    San Diego:

And the Giants:

Moving now to the NL Central, the Cubs:

The Cincinnati Reds:

              Let’s hang up on the Bob Purkey season for a moment.    I was a 12-year-old baseball fan in 1962, and that Cy Young race helped to shape my thinking about the game.   If you’ll forgive me for shaving a few rough edges off of the facts to illustrate my point, Don Drysdale went 25-9 that season (.735), Jack Sanford went 24-7 (.774) and Bob Purkey went 23-5 (.821).   In the Cy Young voting, the top three were Drysdale, Sanford, and Bob Purkey.

              What does that mean?  What it meant to me as a 12-year-old was that one win counts a little bit more than two losses.   Thinking about the game over the years, I have found this to be generally true; in the minds of award voters, one win counts about as much as two losses.   I used that principle in yesterday’s article; I still use it often, because it still describes how people think about won-lost records.  

              In retrospect, the 1962 Cy Young race was a race between three exceptionally lucky pitchers.   Drysdale and Purkey have shown up on these charts.   Jack Sanford didn’t, but he was actually luckier than either Drysdale or Purkey.     They were all good pitchers, but none of them were anywhere near as good as their won-lost records:

              So who actually deserved the Cy Young Award in 1962?   Well, Drysdale is not a BAD selection, but probably the best answer would have been Bob Gibson.   Gibson, just emerging as a star pitcher in 1962, had a won-lost record of just 15-13—but a deserved record of 18-9 (which was his actual won-lost record in 1963.)  Gibson also had a much better year with the bat than Drysdale did, hitting .263 with 2 homers.    But, of course, he wasn’t mentioned in the Cy Young voting, because (1) there is no way a 15-13 pitcher was going to be considered for the Cy Young Award in that era, and (2) he was not a recognized star at that time.   Of course, I didn’t understand any of this stuff in 1962, either.   None of us did.

              OK, Milwaukee Brewers:

              Braden Looper went 14-7 in a season when he probably should have gone 8-15.    But after that season the Brewers did not pick up Looper’s option for 2010; he became a free agent, attracted no interest, and never threw a pitch in the majors after that season.    That’s the difference between 1962 and 2009.   

              Greinke’s kind of a fluke on the list, in that he really has been a great pitcher most of his career; he just wasn’t actually a great pitcher that year.   The Pirates:

              It’s always a little confusing, because guys don’t pitch at the same level every year.   Steve Blass was a tremendous pitcher in ’68 and ’72, but in ’69 he had a 4.46 ERA against a league norm of 3.59, had a bad strikeout/walk ratio and gave up a career-high 21 bombs, but the Gods were with him, so he still got his Ws.    And the Cardinals:

              Foutz was NOT a great hitter in 1885, so that’s really got nothing to do with it.   Wainwright is still winning this season, so. . . .well, we’ll see.  A lot of times the #2 name on the list is the "real" name; the top guy was a 19^th century guy, but the REALLY lucky pitcher was Purkey or Forsch or somebody.   Brett Tomko’s one season with the Cardinals saw him post the best won-lost record of his career (above) despite a 5.28 ERA. 

              Moving on to the NL West, the Braves:

              Klobedanz hit .324 with 20 RBI in 1897, and Ortiz made some of his own luck in 2003, hitting .257 with 2 homers and 10 RBI.   That actually doesn’t have that much to do with it.   A pitcher whose record is six games better than it ought to be; that’s 60 runs.   Ortiz wasn’t 60 runs better as a hitter than an average National League pitcher/hitter.   More like six runs.   It’s just. . . I have to worry about it because I know some of you will worry about it.   The Marlins:

Mets:

Phillies:

And the Expos/Nationals:

              I realize that I am sort of implicitly making a pro-won-and-lost argument here, in that many of these discrepancies—which are the largest discrepancies in the history of the team—are not that remarkable.   Bryn Smith went 18-5 when he deserved to go 14-11—that’s the best you’ve got?   That’s the limit of good luck?   Doesn’t that show that the Won-Lost records ARE a pretty good indicator of how the pitcher has pitched, with the exception of an extreme case like Larry Christenson or Braden Looper? 

              I’m not making that argument; I’m just noting that it is implicit in the data.    Moving on now to the American League West, the luckiest pitcher in the history of the Angels was Clyde Wright in 1972:

              The Astros have a one-pitcher list, since their luckiest pitcher ever was recent:

              The Mariners, I’m going to vary the form to make a point you will see immediately:

              Jamie Moyer had the second-, third-, and fourth-luckiest seasons in the history of the Mariners.   There is an argument that goes "If a pitcher does something year after year after year, doesn’t that prove that it isn’t luck?" 

              Well. . .no.   Maybe; I don’t know.   It’s not year after year after year; it’s three years in a seven-year span.   The Mariners had a loaded offense in those days, with Griffey and A-Rod and Olerud and Ichiro and Buhner and Edgar and Mike Cameron.    Moyer was a good pitcher, pitching for a tremendous team.   If pitchers in general were able to sustain luck, that would prove that it wasn’t luck.   If one pitcher is sort-of able to sustain good luck, I’m not sure that proves anything.  

              The Philadelphia-Kansas City-Oakland Athletics/A’s; the answers are all in Oakland:

              The Rangers have a one-pitcher list, as all of the Texas teams do:

              While the White Sox have a long list of .500 pitchers who got lucky:

              Bob Feller was a great pitcher until 1947.   By 1951 he was just another pitcher, but he got really lucky and added a 20-win season.  

              Cliff Lee, after a couple of fortunate seasons with the Indians, ended his career with six straight unlucky seasons:  -6.4 (luck), -4.7, -2.5, -8.6, -2.3 and -0.4 from 2009 to 2014.     Denny McLain in 1968 deserved to win "only" 25 games, but got lucky:

              The Kansas City Royals:

              Paul Splittorff won 20 games in 1973 with a strikeout/walk ratio of 110 to 78.    I’d like to see somebody do that now.   Paul Splittorff died a few years ago, after years as the Royals’ TV color analyst.   Off the air, Splittorff was a really funny guy, with a biting sense of humor.   On the air he was a competent analyst but as dull as dandelions.  He just would not cut loose on the air, because he was afraid of a Dennis Eckersley/David Price type moment.   Minnesota Twins: 

              The ’65 Twins had a hellacious offense, leading the league in Runs Scored by almost a hundred.   The Twins, of course, were the Senators until 1961.   Monte Weaver went 22-10 with the Senators in 1932, should have been 14-13, but he wasn’t as lucky as Mudcat in ’65, so no Senators make the list, either with the Twins or the Rangers. 

              Moving on now to the American League East. . . .the Orioles are like the Twins, in that they used to be somebody else, but the somebody else doesn’t count here because nobody was lucky to pitch for the St. Louis Browns:

              The luckiest Browns pitcher ever was General Crowder, 1928, 21-5 when he should have been 16-12.     The Boston Red Sox:

              Gaylord Perry in 1972 had about the same "deserved" record as Joe Wood in 1912, but whereas Wood added Luck to his very impressive actual accomplishments, Gaylord went the other way.    Can you imagine if that was reversed, and Gaylord had gone 34-5 in 1972?   That would have changed history.   Gaylord’s spitball, rather than being a kind of impish misbehavior, would have become a full-fledged scandal. 

              The world is getting even with Rick Porcello this year.   Porcello DID deserve the Cy Young Award last year; he was lucky, but if you take the luck out of it, he was still the best pitcher in the league, or as good as anyone.  A number of pitchers have been very lucky to pitch for the Yankees: 

              The Rays have a one-man list:

              And the Blue Jays to complete the list. 

              Tomorrow I’ll list the UN-luckiest pitchers in a season. . .appreciate your staying with me.