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Worst pitchers all time with over 200 decisions.
Goldenage
Posts: 3,278 ✭✭✭✭✭
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I don’t even know where to begin.
Will be an interesting learning experience if
someone can come up with a few.
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Goldenage
Posts: 3,278 ✭✭✭✭✭
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Also, is Rick Porcello the worst pitcher ever to win the Cy Young award, or is there someone worse than him ?
RA Dickey perhaps
Randy Jones from the Padres was 100-123 with a 3.42 ERA.
What’s fascinating about Randy was that he had two years that were amazing. The rest of his years not so much.
Randy had an 8-22 season with a 4.45 era, and the next year he was 20-12 with an era in the 2s.
He was 1-8 with the Mets towards the end of his career.
This guy had two very good years, but the rest of his career stunk.
Looks like possible arm trouble.
trevor bauer there yet? 😉
Jamey Wright was pretty horrible
He was like 97- 130 with a 4.81 ERA, 1.55 WHIP and almost as many walks as strikeouts.
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Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
Milt Gaston
via Imagekind.com
Despite showing no signs of improvement (and in fact getting worse as he went along), for some reason Milt Gaston was handed the game ball for over a decade, allowing him to rack up some of the worst career pitching stats of all time, including a 97-164 record and a 0.74 strikeouts to walk ratio. From 1925-34, he finished with at least 12 losses each season yet only reached double digits in wins five times, with a low of 2 (compared to 13 losses) in 1931.
Even though he was terrible, Gaston was surrounded by greatness throughout his career. He has the distinction of having played with the most Hall of Fame players and managers of all time. Apparently talent isn’t contagious.
Is Wilbur Wood at 164-156 with a 3.24 lifetime ERA the worst ever pitcher with over 300 decisions ?
I would think there is someone worse than that.
That's a good one. Usually if a guy is that bad he won't last too many decisions, let alone 300 when all's said and done.
Nolan Ryan - 324-292 (.526 winning percentage). Most of his big numbers are due to longevity. Wilbur Wood like numbers (3.19 vs 3.24 ERA, .526 winning percentage versus .516 to name a few), just more of them. Flame away...
Nolan Ryan May certainly be the worst pitcher all time with over 500 or 600 decisions. Sounds really strange saying that though.
Jim Lonborg was 157-137, but his lifetime ERA was 3.86
The guy got GREAT run support when he pitched, and only had one season with an ERA under 3.00
He had quite a few seasons with an ERA over 4.00
Almost certainly not. Porcello is an average major league pitcher. No better, but also no worse. More than any other award, Cy Young is littered with really bad pitchers who had one incredible (or even grossly overrated) year.
Mark Davis and Mike McCormick are good places to start.
Mark Davis.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/davisma01.shtml
@Goldenage said:
Is Wilbur Wood at 164-156 with a 3.24 lifetime ERA the worst ever pitcher with over 300 decisions ?
Charlie Hough: 216-216 with a 3.75 lifetime ERA might qualify..........
Maybe Chick Fraser at 175-212 with a 3.67 ERA (ERA+ of 92) while leading the league in walks 3 times, HBP once, and wild pitches twice.
Among more recent guys, Jamie Moyer had nearly 500 decisions with a 4.25 ERA.
Big Daddy Rick Reuschel 214-191
I consider Reuschel a borderline HoFer, and far better than A LOT of starting pitchers enshrined.
Joe Niekro, who was a childhood favorite of mine, has got to be close to the worst with 400 decisions. The problem with determining the worst pitchers with fewer, even as many as 300, is that there are so darn many. For instance, according to JAWS, Paul Splittorff is the worst pitcher with 300 decisions in the top 500 at number 483. There are two problems with this. 1) JAWS is indicative but not determinative. 2) The distribution of players with 300 decisions suggests to me that it is likely that there are several below 500. For example, it is hard to believe that Mike Torrez (number 452) is noticeably better than Splittorff.
I was going to say that none of the above named (other than Niekro in the 400 decisions category) is likely to be close, but that was before I looked up how bad Fraser really was. FWIW, his JAWS rank is 679. On another note, Fraser somehow got one HoF vote in 1939. Seven future HoFers also got precisely one vote in 1939.
Which ones?
Glad you asked. Let's briefly discuss methodology. For the sake of demonstrating that Reuschel is a borderline HoFer, I'll ignore players whose induction has widely been considered a mistake, though I'll note that there was some speculation that one of these would be the first 300 game winner left out. To demonstrate "far better", we'll stipulate that the HoFer have a JAWS no more than one greater than Reuschel and that his career RAA must be at least 50 lower.
Here is a list of seven: Marichal, Drysdale, Lyons, Ruffing, Bunning, Three Finger Brown, Sutton. Koufax also fits and is indeed a special case. He was a legitimately great pitcher his last four years, if never quite as good as Reuschel was in 1977, and a very good pitcher the prior two, like as good as Bartolo Colon was in his twenties. Still, to keep this relevant, for the first six years of his career he was essentially Rick Porcello. Until Reuschel's rotator cuff injury he was consistently very good to great. After the surgery he was still very good, but less consistent. Before his surgery he had more RAA than Koufax. After he added another 57. I'm comfortable saying he was considerably better.
You are managing a game 7 against my team that I'm managing. I will take Koufax and you can take Reuschel. Both at their peaks too.
1977 Reuschel vs. 1966 Koufax would be quite a game.
A final word re Reuschel. Like (Phil) Niekro and Blyleven, Reuschel has been horribly underrated. Reuschel isn't nearly as good as the other two, of course, but much better than the other candidates on the various Veteran's Committees' ballots like Tiant and John. No great shame in leaving him out (I'm not one to say that everyone better than Catfish Hunter or Harold Baines should be enshrined) but he'd fit in just fine somewhere slightly below the median.
BTW, John definitely belongs in, but in the builder's wing along with Flood and Messersmith.
Was Reuschel on bad teams early in his career? I seem to remember him on good teams with SF at the end of his career, if so he may have been a 300 game winner if say he pitched for the late 70's big red machine. I agree with you on Tommy John for the combination of his on field performance with being the initial "Tommy John" surgery candidate which saved/extended so many pitching careers going forward.
Cubs were above .500 his rookie year and then not again until he was 35.
Gaston would be a very strong contender except that he was actually really good his first two years as a Red Sox. The team was so bad that his combined 25-39 record was far above expected! If he didn't have those two years I shudder!
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I wouldn't go so far as to call Reuschel a "borderline HOFer", but he was a damn fine pitcher. He gave up a lot of hits and didn't give up too many runs, didn't walk many guys either.
Damn fine pitcher. Maybe not a great "thrower".