What do Rafael Betancourt and Dennis Eckersley have in common? Uncommon control. Control that leads to the six best strikeout/walk ratios in the history of the game for relievers.
Last week, we highlighted Cliff Lee’s remarkable 2010 strikeout to walk ratio of 10.28, as he joined Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt, and Cole Hamels to form a potentially dominant starting rotation in Philadelphia. After seeing that, Stat of the Week follower Tom Artz sent us an e-mail mentioning Dennis Eckersley’s many seasons of superlative strikeout/walk performances as a reliever. When we researched it, it turned out that Eck had the five best SO/BB relief seasons of all-time with Betancourt sixth entering the 2010 season. Betancourt’s 2010 season of 14.8 strikeouts per walk made it up to fourth place giving him another spot in the top ten. Here are the all-time leaders:
|
Best Single Season SO/BB Ratio Among Relievers
|
| Pitcher |
Season |
Games |
Strikeouts |
Unintentional WalWalks
|
Ratio |
| Dennis Eckersley |
1990 |
63 |
73 |
3 |
24.3 |
| Dennis Eckersley |
1992 |
69 |
93 |
5 |
18.6 |
| Dennis Eckersley |
1989 |
51 |
55 |
3 |
18.3 |
| Rafael Betancourt |
2010 |
72 |
89 |
6 |
14.8 |
| Dennis Eckersley |
1991 |
67 |
87 |
6 |
14.5 |
| Rafael Betancourt |
2007 |
68 |
80 |
6 |
13.3 |
| Mariano Rivera |
2008 |
64 |
77 |
6 |
12.8 |
| Wilton Lopez |
2010 |
68 |
50 |
4 |
12.5 |
| Dennis Eckersley |
1996 |
63 |
49 |
4 |
12.3 |
| Trevor Hoffman |
2000 |
70 |
85 |
7 |
12.1 |
Note: since 1900, minimum 50 appearances in relief
Eckersley has half of the top ten seasons for relief pitchers and now Betancourt has two.
Here are the leaders for just the 2010 season:
|
MLB Relievers
|
|
SO/BB Ratio Leaderboard (2010)
|
| Pitcher |
SO/BB |
| Rafael Betancourt |
14.8 |
| Wilton Lopez |
12.5 |
| Edward Mujica |
12.0 |
| Joe Thatcher |
9.0 |
| Matt Belisle |
8.3 |
What’s in the water in the National League West? Four of the top five pitchers on this year’s list pitch in the NL West. Matt Belisle joins Betancourt from the Rockies while Edward Mujica and Joe Thatcher are from the Padres.
One of the stunning things about this list is that the players are relatively unknown by most average baseball fans. Even more stunning is the fact that, in addition to Rafael Betancourt’s 2010 season being fourth best of all time, the impressive 2010 SO/BB seasons of Wilton Lopez (Houston) and Edward Mujica rank 8th and 11th all-time, respectively.
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