5+ Seasons Since 1973 With 200+ IP and ERA+ >=120
Posted by Steve Lombardi on July 26, 2011
How many pitchers, since 1973, have 5+ seasons with 200+ IP with an ERA+ of 120 or more?
Here's the list -
.
CC Sabathia should join the list this season. And, how about Mark Buehrle?
July 26th, 2011 at 1:06 pm
Ya know, I always knew Buerhle was underrated, but until I saw his name here, I wasn't even sure if he was still tossing this year. I literally hadn't heard his name mentioned one time that I can remember. Yet, there he is, chugging along with a 126 ERA+.
July 26th, 2011 at 1:09 pm
In looking at Buerhle's player page, I see no mention of his no-hitter or perfect game. Did I miss it? Or is this not included? If it isn't, I'd argue in favor of noting this somewhere on the player page, perhaps in the Awards or Honors section. There are probably other achievements that should be noted on the page (4-HR games, cycles maybe). We wouldn't want to get too crazy, but things that are noteworthy should be noted, no?
July 26th, 2011 at 1:17 pm
Maddux had 159 ERA+ in 199.1 innings in 2002. Not a bad year.
July 26th, 2011 at 1:28 pm
Seaver had 5 more from 67-71, putting him 2nd on this list, but only had a 115 ERA+ over 262 IP in 1972.
Blyleven had 1 more in 1971, putting him in 4th on this list, and pitched 287.1 IP with a 119 ERA+ in 1972.
Palmer had 3 more from 70-72.
Niekro had 4 more, 67, 69 (2nd place Cy Young voting) and 71-72
July 26th, 2011 at 1:33 pm
Steve Rogers again....nice.
July 26th, 2011 at 1:35 pm
#1 - Buerhle has never really had any super dominant years. He has only cracked the Cy Young voting one time, garnering a 4% share. He gives up a lot of hits and averages just over half a K per inning (despite this his K/BB is still a solid 2.48 career). This is likely why he is underrated.
That being said, he has been one of the most consistent pitchers of this era and a serious workhorse. I have always thought of him as a less dominant version of Halladay.
At $14mil a year though, he doesn't seem too underrated by his club.
July 26th, 2011 at 2:16 pm
Every time I watch Buerhle pitch, I wonder why other pitchers don't get the memo and hurry up and throw the damn ball. It certainly seems to work for Mark.
July 26th, 2011 at 2:19 pm
EricW-
Good points. Buerhle is far from a super-star, based on either talent or "persona" but has carved out a far better career than most people realized. Again, I hadn't even heard him mentioned once all year! Granted, I haven't been paying much attention to baseball because of other things going on, but I'd like to think I'd know whether or not a guy of his caliber was still in the league!
Buerhle is a guy who might very well present an interesting HOF case. He's got 156 wins, a 120ERA+ over 2400 innings, and has made 30+ starts every year but his rookie year and this year (though he is on pace to). He's got a WAR of 45 and, since becoming a starter, has had over 4 WAR in 7 out of 10 full seasons, with a good bet to make it 8 out of 11 this year. He's had an ERA+ of 120 in 9 of 12 years and has only been below 100 once. He's made 4 All-Star games, won 2 Gold Gloves, and has thrown a no-hitter and a perfect game. He was the ace of a WS winner and has pitched fairly well in the playoffs, though he didn't pitch particularly well during the WS itself.
I don't know what his career numbers will end up looking like, since I'm not really sure who is a good comp for him in terms of approach and style. Whether he deserves it or not, I wouldn't be surprised to see some interesting conversations around his candidacy in 15 years time if the backend of his career is anything like the front end. His contemporary perception will likely be the hardest thing for him to overcome if he does indeed deserve it.
July 26th, 2011 at 2:46 pm
Buehrle always talks about retiring, so the big question is how many more years he'll stick around. He certainly has a chance to make a HOF case based on impressive career totals.
Tommy John is a similar pitcher who was able to last a long time -- lefty, low K-rate, low BB and HR rates, keep the ball down, hold runners. But one wonders just how few batters Buehrle can strike out and remain successful. If his Ks drop even further, can he still survive? Over the past 3 seasons he is at 4.5 K/9, which is about 66% of the AL average, and 51st of 52 AL pitchers with >300 IP. From 1979 to 1989, John averaged 3.0 K/9, compared to AL average of about 5.1, so 59% of average. I'm not sure if a straight proportion is the best way to look at it though.
July 26th, 2011 at 2:48 pm
And it should be noted John's ERA+ was only 104 over those seasons. He only had about 2 or 3 top quality seasons, near the beginning of that stretch.
July 26th, 2011 at 4:09 pm
And Hall of Famer Catf--- Hunter had only three.
July 26th, 2011 at 4:59 pm
In seasons in which Clemens pitched 200+ innings, he only missed a 120 ERA+ once, with 113 ERA+ in 2003.
He did, though, miss the 120 ERA+ mark in 5 of the 8 seasons he did not make it to 200 innings (including his first and last seasons). Only in his rookie season was his ERA+ under 100 (it was 97).
In his famous 20-3 season in 2001 (it started out 20-1), his ERA+ was "only" 128.
July 26th, 2011 at 5:30 pm
Dave Stieb...what an arm.
July 26th, 2011 at 5:33 pm
The thing about Buehrle is that he isn't a strikeout pitcher; he's always been more of an induce a pop-up or groundout sort of guy. Amazing that he's gotten a no-hitter and a perfecto to his credit. But seeing as how he's likely going to finish with 250, I could see him winding up a hall-of-famer.
July 26th, 2011 at 5:46 pm
some moose love! tied for third with HoFer blyleven, future HoFer randy johnson, future HoFer glavine... i really hope moose gets in, but it'll probably take 4-7 years, i think. if he'd stuck around for 2009, though, he'd be first ballot for sure. love mussina!
July 26th, 2011 at 6:07 pm
also, the tragical history of brandon webb, written and directed by christopher marl- i mean, dr. keith meister
July 26th, 2011 at 8:31 pm
@9 So Buehrle is HoF material, but not Jack Morris?
July 26th, 2011 at 8:58 pm
Hmm, I reread #9, and I don't see where I wrote that. Maybe in 10 years he will be. Not now.
July 26th, 2011 at 10:03 pm
Can't believe Carlton isn't on this list. He had 6, including 1972 & 1969, but that's it. '81 would have counted with 10 more IP. I'm certainly surprised. He seems better than that.
July 26th, 2011 at 10:22 pm
Carlton had sort of a weird career for an elite SP. His 4 CYAs were the record for a while, but he had a lot of blah seasons mixed into his prime. I have no idea why.
July 26th, 2011 at 10:39 pm
And judging solely by WAR, Carlton probably "only" deserved 2 of the 4 he won, though also probably deserved a 3rd from another year.
July 27th, 2011 at 12:51 am
@17 Buerhle's a better pitcher than Morris right now, and probably will remain so unless his twilight years are surprisingly bad. It's quite possible he can pitch 1000 more quality innings and collect another 20-25 WAR, which would put him the mid-to-high-60s. That's not automatic HoFer level, but there's quite a few shoo-ins milling around.
July 27th, 2011 at 5:44 am
BSK,
Which year do you think Carlton should have won the Cy but didn't, 1981? It's very close between Valenzuela and him.
I remember even thinking back then that he shouldn't have won the CY Young in 1977. The only pitching category he led was "wins" and he didn't even finish second in any other category.
In retrospect Reuschel should have won but back then I always thought Seaver got robbed of the '77 Cy Young. I felt that that part of the problem was that he was traded in mid season so the full impact of his season was never fully realized. I remember a lot of the papers would break-up his season into Mets stats and Reds stats so you didn't really get the full impact of his season.
In 1982 Rogers should have won but Carlton had the most wins in the NL (23) which was pretty much the de-facto Cy Young back in those days. Rogers just missed winning 20 that season (19).
Carlton always pitched a lot of innings every year plus he was on some really good Phillies teams so he was usually in good shape to post some great win totals.
July 27th, 2011 at 6:25 am
@20 Twisto
That's a very good point about the strange Career of carlton. It's very strange to see an elite pitcher with so many peaks and valleys. In many ways it's kind of like a Tommy John career with Two Sandy Koufax seasons mixed in the middle.
He only had 3 seasons above 6+ WAR but those three seasons are: 12.2, 9.4, and 7.2. Then he had 7 full seasons with anywhere from 198 innings pitched to 293 innings pitched and his WAR numbers ranged from 2.2, 2.3, 2.3, 2.5, 2.6, 2.8, and 2.9.
He was lucky in some ways that he played for some very good teams that masked some of those mediocre pitching seasons: '67-68 Cardinals, '78-79 Phillies and the 1976 Phillies actually turned his 3.7 WAR season into a 20 win season.
July 27th, 2011 at 6:36 am
Steve Carlton
July 27th, 2011 at 8:16 am
Thanks all for the Carlton detail.
@24 John Q, interesting point about his teams making him look good. I would guess general perception is the opposite because of his 1972 season on a horrendous team.
July 27th, 2011 at 1:19 pm
@26 Tristram,
Carlton in 1972 is actually kind of interesting. The Phillies were a horrible offensive team but oddly they actually gave Carlton somewhat decent run support that year. He was averaging 3.8 runs per game which was 28/50 qualifying pitchers. So Carlton was actually getting something like average run support in '72.
Seaver, Koosman and Matlack had worse run support even though the Mets won 20 more games than then the Phillies.
The '72 Phillies defense was about average so it's not like he had the '62 Mets behind him.
The part of the story of the '72 Phillies that's left out is that the entire pitching staff other than Carlton was horrible.
July 27th, 2011 at 1:25 pm
@22 I think your wrong, Buerhle has an ERA of 3.81 and I think he is a fine pitcher, but not better than Morris. I'm looking for the WS heroics for Mark but don't see them. Not to mention he would have to pitch 8 more years to get to 260 wins. He averages 14 wins a year. I'll take Morris.
July 27th, 2011 at 7:05 pm
Oh, Timmy P...
1977-1994 for Jack Morris. 3.90 ERA. Runs scored per AL game for those seasons: 4.53 4.20 4.67 4.51 4.07 4.48 4.48 4.42 4.56 4.61 4.90 4.36 4.29 4.30 4.49 4.32 4.71 5.23. Giving equal weight for simplicity I come up with 4.51 as the average.
2000-2011 for Buerhle. 3.81 ERA. Runs scored per AL game for those seasons: 5.30 4.86 4.81 4.86 5.01 4.76 4.97 4.90 4.78 4.82 4.45 4.33. Again, equal weight, 4.82 average.
Granted, one could be more precise in order to get more accurate figures, such as reducing the weight of Morris' strike-shortened 1981 (and his strike-shortened 1994 as well), as well as the fact that Morris didn't get much action in 1977 and Buehrle didn't get much action in 2000, but whatever. I didn't want exact figures, I wanted to ballpark the figures.
Buerhle may well play more than another half decade, and appears likely to do so in a run-scoring environment that may end up dragging his environment to about the same as Morris' if Buerhle's career is long enough, and of course Buerhle hasn't actually had the veteran's slow descent into mediocrity and worse, but as it stands now. Buerhle has been better in a notably tougher pitching environment.
I could've just spit out their ERA+ for their respective careers (120 - 105 Buerhle), or even further note that although Morris' ERA was 3.59 his first 12 seasons, his ERA+ was still inferior to Buerhle's first "12" seasons (120 vs. 113), but I know you aren't too keen on them newfangled stats, Timmy P.
So just tell me... 3.81 ERA in an environment where teams averaged a run more per game or a 3.90 ERA in an environment where teams teams didn't even score three-quarters of a run higher?
(lessthanforwardslashtrollbaitgreaterthan)
July 28th, 2011 at 12:29 am
i've never thought much of steve carlton, i dont know who was a worse 300-game winner, him or don sutton; i was shocked when i once saw him in the top 10 of pitchers on the ELO rater, and promptly voted until i drew him and voted him down. that took a while.
has anyone looked in to the defenses carlton had behind him? his BABIP and LOB% fluctuate wildly through the years. mike schmidt manned 3B behind him for many, many years, but who else was there?
July 28th, 2011 at 1:50 am
newfangled stats
Please get the Orwellian terminology right. Newstats.
***
i've never thought much of steve carlton, i dont know who was a worse 300-game winner, him or don sutton
Wow, I've never heard Carlton described like that. When I was a blooming young fan in about 1983, I remember being aware of Four Big Pitchers: Carlton, Palmer, Ryan, and Seaver. Not that they were equivalent or necessarily the 4 best of that era, but as a youth who was just learning about the game, somehow those names got into my head. From my current perspective, albeit as one who didn't see those guys in their prime, I can say Seaver seems clearly the best. Ryan was probably the worst, but perhaps the most fascinating. Palmer was a great one but it's hard to say how much the super Orioles defenses affected his performance. And then Carlton, as mentioned, was a bit up and down, but had the amazing '72 season, the 4 CYAs, jockeyed for the all-time K record with Ryan. Sutton didn't win any CYAs and never came close. He's the guy I hear considered a "compiler" whose career was eventually just too much to overlook for the HOF. I've never thought of Carlton as similar. Can you expand on that at all?
has anyone looked in to the defenses carlton had behind him? his BABIP and LOB% fluctuate wildly through the years. mike schmidt manned 3B behind him for many, many years, but who else was there?
WAR (a very rough estimate) says his defenses were about average over his career. Terrible with the early '70s Cards, good through most of the '70s with the Phillies. Those Phillies also had Maddox, who was superb, Bowa was solid, Boone behind the plate was good. Luzinski was terrible. It looks like generally an above-average bunch, and that's how Total Zone rates them.
BABIP does tend to fluctuate for all pitchers, which is why it was once thought they had no impact on it, though they do have some.
July 28th, 2011 at 3:26 am
@31
well, i've only recently (past 4 years) became a serious baseball fan, and as a rockies fan, i hate the phillies with a passion, which may have something to do with it, i'll admit. so, lets see, what do i not like about carlton: my favorite statistic for pitcher valuation is K/BB, it's where i look first for anyone, and carlton only has 3 seasons with a mark over 3, and i find that extremely unimpressive for someone with as much love as he gets in many circles. i know K/BB wasn't a thing that pitchers really excelled in until more recently than carlton pitched, given the historical journey the strikeout rate has taken. even so, he only had 2 seasons in which he led the league, and neither was tops in MLB. similarly, he only has 2 ERA+ titles, which perhaps not coincidentally, occurred in his K/BB title years of 72 and 80. but he didn't win the ERA title in 80, which is odd, because he led the league in ERA+, K/BB, K, W, IP, and starts, but lost to don sutton (grr) and his 2.20 mark.
carlton was never a postseason hero, with 16 starts, a 6-6 record, and only 1 complete game, in which he gave up 4 runs; you'd think a guy with his pedigree would be able to kick it up a notch in the postseason, but nope.
his career 115 ERA+ is frankly a joke for someone in the hall of fame, as it's tied for 195th all time. an 87 career ERA- and 86 career FIP- are similarly unimpressive.
outside the years he spent leading the league in Ks, 72 74 80 82 83, his K numbers are very unimpressive given how many innings he threw.
he's 9th all time in HR allowed, with 414. ew.
never once did he lead the league in WHIP, only once with a total below 1.000
only once did he lead the league in shutouts, and that was only with 6.
there's other things too. I just add it all up and it screams unimpressive. he's a lot like nolan ryan: yeah, i guess he should be in the hall of fame, but there's lots of other pitchers i'd take in an 'any given start' situation.
July 28th, 2011 at 11:08 am
I started following baseball around 1973 so I'll give you my perspective on Carlton & Sutton.
During the mid 70's Carlton was never viewed as one of the great pitchers in the sport. He was seen as kind of a flakey pitcher who was good/very good and that he had an unbelievable flukey 1972 season.
The big/popular pitchers of the mid 70's were: Seaver, Hunter, Palmer Ryan, Sutton, Messersmith, Blue, Perry, Tiant, P. Niekro, R. Jones, Koosman, and Matlack.
Sutton was a very big pitcher of the time period and frankly I don't really understand why he's derided as some sort of mediocre pitcher that stubbled into the HOF. He won over 320 games and had 3500 k's. He led the N.L. in Whip 4 times, finished in the top 10 in K/BB 16 times, top 10 in k's 13 times, top 10 in k/9 12 times, and top 10 in BB/9 13 times.
Maybe it had something to do with the end of his career and that he bounced around 6 different teams in 9 seasons (1980-1988) Dodgers, Astros, Brewers, A's, Angels, and Dodgers again.
Maybe it something to do with his post-season career from '78-86. Maybe it something to do with only winning 20 games once? I never really understand the whole 20 win season/HOF thing when Whitey Ford only won 20 games twice and he's often regarding by the same people as one of the all time greats.
July 28th, 2011 at 11:27 am
@32 Jim,
Steve Carlton didn't really become "STEVE CARLTON" until the 1980 season and then basically from 1980-1983.
I think Carlton was better than Sutton but that really isn't as wide as people believe it to be.
To me Carlton had basically a Tommy John type career with two (1972, 1980) Sandy Koufax seasons right in the middle.
I think overall you're a bit too hard on Carlton. Yes he did have a 115 era+ but some of that came from a poor decision on his part to continue pitching from 1984-1988 especially 1986-1988. He also had about 8 seasons in his career from 1967-1984 when he was a pretty average pitcher with WAR scores ranging from 2.1-2.9.
On the flip side when he was good he was dominate. His top 7 seasons of era+ are impressive: 182, 164, 162, 156, 153, 151, and 126. His top 7 seasons of WAR are equally impressive: 12.2, 9.4, 7.2, 5.8, 5.7, 5.5, and 5.4. It should be noted that the 5.4 season came during the strike of '81.
He was a dominate K pitcher as well. He had 8 seasons in the Top 3 in K/9, 11 seasons in the top 5 in K/9, and 16 seasons in the top 10 in K/9.
Like Twisto said before it's an odd career for a elite pitcher.
July 28th, 2011 at 1:42 pm
Thanks for the added perspectives guys, from someone who was there and from a newer fan.
Jim, I think you're being a little limited in focusing only on the times Carlton led the league. Even when he didn't lead the league, he was often right among the leaders. I don't know how you can call his strikeouts unimpressive when he ranked in the top 5 of K/9 eleven times (only four pitchers have ever topped that). He actually had four seasons of a 3:1 K/BB ratio, and only five pitchers had more from 1965-1985, a time when 2:1 was considered good. As for his ERA+, the median HOF starter since 1920 pitched about 3900 IP with a 119 ERA+. Carlton had a 121 over 4700 IP from 1967 through '84. That's an entire career right there. He just had a few more seasons at each end of it.
Interesting to see that Sutton never pitched 300 IP in a season during an era when so many did. Of course, the Dodgers were (I think) the first team to move to a 5-man rotation, and Sutton never missed a start in his career.
July 28th, 2011 at 5:17 pm
@35 Twisto,
Excellent point, I think the Dodgers started with the first 5 rotation around 1972, so that cost Sutton something like 3-4 extra starts each season. Also it's not like he missed 20 win seasons by much. He had one 20 win season, two 19 win seasons, one 18 win season and three 17 win seasons. He only missed Four 20 seasons by 4 wins so it's not like it's really a big deal. I think sports people get too hung up on round number milestones.
I think Bill James did something like this by taking away four wins from other seasons in Sutton's career and then adding them to the two 19 win seasons and the one to the 18 win season. It didn't really change anything but suddenly visually he looked like a much better pitcher.
I think he did the same thing with Jerry Koosman. Koosman had two 20 win seasons and a 19 and a 17 win season. He moved around 4 games and suddenly Koosman was a 4 time 20 game winner. Although nothing had really changed in his value he suddenly looked like a much better pitcher.
And like you said Carlton was a workhorse so he was able to spike his win total by 2-3 wins which was just enough for him to win the Cy Young in '77 & 82 or to have a 20 win season in '76.
July 29th, 2011 at 9:01 am
@35
I'm not sure if Bill James did that for Koosman, but he certainly did for Jim Kaat. The case was that you could turn Kaat into a HoFer by rearranging his wins. Sutton is already in the Hall and therefore needs no additional help.
@30 - being the worst 300-game winner is still pretty high praise. Carlton did not have a continuous period of dominance like Maddux or Pedro but he did post one of the 5 or 10 greatest seasons of all time in 1972. His career ranks somewhere around the 15-25th best of all time.
July 29th, 2011 at 9:10 am
@37 - I should clarify that I do NOT think Carlton was the worst 300-game winner. Assuming I can't pick any of the old guys (looking at you, Mickey Welch) I'd have to go with Early Wynn.
July 29th, 2011 at 10:11 am
@37 DavidS,
You're right it was Jim Kaat. I knew it was someone from the 70's but I wasn't sure if it was Kaat or Sutton. I think James' point was a excellent point and just a fascinating point on how we perceive things.
I've never really understood the Don Sutton bashing on sports talk radio or by mainstream baseball writers. I think it goes back to the end of his career the way he bounced around. But a big thing is the 20 win season and the over importance of round number milestones. Blyleven was bashed the same way for only having one 20 win season.
Yet the same main-stream people will include Whitey Ford and Nolan Ryan as two of the all time greats even though they never won 20 games more than twice in their careers.
If you switch 4 wins around Don Sutton's career he had 4 twenty win seasons. Switch 4 wins around Jerry Koosman's career and he had 4 twenty win seasons. Switch 2 wins around Luis Tiant's career and he had 5 twenty win seaons. Factor in the strike of '94-95 and Cone has 4 twenty win seasons.