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Was the 1974 Oakland As World Series pitching performance the best ever ?
Goldenage
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in Sports Talk
World Series only.
Beat the Dodgers 4-1.
Team era of 2.05
Four of the five pitchers they used under a 1.50 era
I’m sure there is a better pitching performance by a staff and would just like to know. Thanks
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2nd question.
Was Catfish Hunters postseason numbers from 1972,1973, and 1974, including all playoff games, the greatest postseason pitching performance in the history of baseball by a pitcher who had 3 consecutive World Series appearances ? Those numbers look pretty dam impressive.
The 1930 A's are the gold standard. In a year when the NL averaged 5.7 runs per game, and the Cardinals averaged 6.5, the A's beat the Cardinals 4-1 with a staff ERA of 1.73. Grove and Earnshaw started all 5 games, got all 4 wins, and their combined ERA was 1.02.
Best postseason pitcher who had 3 consecutive World Series appearances? I'm not going to do much research to answer that one since it's so random, with the "3 consecutive" requirement eliminating 99% of all pitchers. But since I was already looking at Lefty Grove, and he happens to meet your random requirement, I'll nominate him. In 1929-1931, the highest scoring period in MLB history, he threw 51 innings with an ERA of 1.75, 4 complete game victories, and 36 K's vs. 6 walks.
Greatest left hander of all time. Not surprised. Thanks.
So Lefty and Catfish and those two As staffs are tough to beat.
The Cardinals and Yankees won four in a row twice. The Orioles appeared in three in a row. The Yankees appeared in like 15 out of 18 or something like that. That’s a lot of pitchers to look at and way too much time also.
The 1974 World Series is the most memorable World Series for me, in my lifetime. I was there. An incident happened in that series that at the time, in real time, when it happened, I thought was the most bone-headed, stupid thing that I ever saw a player do. A Dodger did it. I called it, at the time........people heard me...they remember. I knew it would be a disaster and cost the Dodgers the series.....and to this day I still think it......often!......anybody know what it was?........It was STUPID!
P.S.. The answer to your question, Goldy, is NO!!!.....NO WAY! The A's were a good team....but......best pitching ever?......in a World Series?......don't make me laugh.
1966 Orioles had a 0.50 ERA in their sweep of the Dodgers.....and as for trivia, Jim Palmer is the only pitcher with a World Series win in three different decades.
Now,.....I'm only talking about World Series pitching performances that I have personally seen....Watching on T.V. and reading about it after the fact means NOTHING! I have no opinion on any particular baseball game if I was not there.
AND.....in my opinion Catfish Hunter was a damn good pitcher. Very under rated and forgotten today.....that man could hit the spots!....he had the drop on the corners....un-hit-able when he was on!..That A's team was good! The pitching was good. But best in a World Series?..... in that era?.......1964-74.......no way.......Koufax....Gibson....nuff said.
That 1966 Dodger team was very likely the WORST hitting team in MLB history up to that time.....pathetic...... they got into the series because of their genius manager Walter Alston. The Dodger team, entering the series was a spent force. The last two weeks of the season they went with a three man rotation because of a tight race with the Giants.....Koufax, Drysdale, and Claude Osteen. I think the season ended in a tie and they played a tiebreaker with the Giants. Koufax started on two days rest and Drysdale relieved.......they were worn out...DONE!.....In the series, Dodger centerfielder, Willie Davis, committed 3 errors in one inning! A record. That took the heart out of the team.....THEY WERE TIRED...WORN OUT! The Dodgers were a tired , tired, team going into that series........EASY PICKINS'......THE METS COULD HAVE SWEPT THE DODGERS........everyone knows that!...The Dodgers were toast from the first pitch of the first game. That Orioles pitching staff might as well have been pitching to the Rookie League Lansing Lugnuts! It was over before it started.
P.S. Koufax retired after the 1966 World Series.....at the height of his career.....those final weeks of the season and the World Series wrecked him....A real TROOPER!
They were a mediocre offense by then, though Dodger stadium made them look worse than they really were as it was a pitchers park. Worst in history is quite a stretch.
Trivia?.....Palmer beat Koufax in the last game Koufax pitched. Not a bad way to go out.......Two great throwers!!!!!!
P.S......Example.....in one game in 1966, the Dodger lead off hitter drew a walk in the first inning. Then he stole second. He was sacrificed to third for the first out. Then after an attempted failed sacrifice fly to left for the second out that fell short so he couldn't advance home ....... he stole home in the next batters turn at the plate!......Final score?....1-0......Walter Alston was the best manager, EVER!.....He took power house hitting Brooklyn teams all the way and then he adjusted to horrible hitting ,pitching rich, Los Angeles teams.......He worked with what he had available like nobody ever......SMOKEY!!!!!
I should just let this go, but I am flawed, and I can't. The game you describe never happened.
Prove it.
And Dallas, kept in mind, "Details are but trifuls, but details make for perfection, and perfection is no triful.".....we are all flawed......
This quote; I do not think it means what you think it means.
But I'll tell you why these imaginary games bother me. I am a big fan of several players on those Dodger teams of the 1960's, and they weren't anywhere near as bad hitters as you make them out to be. The "essence" - the one you're not seeing - is that Ebbets Field made a very good hitting team look great, and Dodger Stadium made a good hitting team look bad. The difference between the two Dodger squads was the difference between a very good hitting team and a good hitting team, not a great hitting team and a bad hitting team.
In 1905 the Giants had a 0.00 ERA. Mathewson had three complete game shutouts. A 41% cWPA. I completely understand that runs were harder to come by in 1905 than 1974, but even so, I don't think its even close.
No. Hunter's numbers weren't even the best on his team. Fingers was far better in five of the six series.
Question for you. 1973 season Fingers had a 1.8 ERA with a 7-8 W-L record. Hunters ERA was over 3.0 with a W-L record of 21-5.
Which pitcher pitched a better season ?
Fingers pitched 126 innings. Or 14 nine inning games.
Catfish 256 innings. Or 28 nine inning games.
Fingers was 7-8, losing more than half his games.
Catfish was 21-5, which is awesome in any day and age.
Fingers had the better ERA. Which pitcher pitched better for his team ?
In the 1972 and 1974 regular season Catfish had both a higher winning percentage and lower ERA than Fingers for the entire season.
In the 1972 World Series Catfish (2-0) beat the Reds 3-2 and 2-1. Fingers had a better ERA in that series but was 1-1, blowing a crucial game, as the series went 7 games.
Which pitcher pitched better ?
You said Fingers was “far better” than Hunter.
Explain how Fingers was “far better” in this World Series.
Same thing in the 1973 World Series. Fingers had a better ERA but lost a crucial game in a series that went 7 games. Catfish was 1-0 while Fingers was 0-1.
How was Fingers “far better” in this World Series ?
And alas, in their third consecutive World Series championship in 1974, both pitchers were 1-0 against the Dodgers, with Catfish having a 1.19 ERA and Fingers having a 1.96.
How was Fingers “far better” in
this World Series ?
😳
1973 ALCS against a team one poster feels is the greatest of all time Catfish was 2-0 with a 1.65 ERA.
Winning a crucial Game 2 in Baltimore and shutting out the Os in the critical Game 5, after Fingers lost Game 4.
Fingers was 0-1 with a 1.93 ERA.
How was Fingers “far better” than Hunter in this 3-2 Series win against Baltimore ?
1973 Orioles are without their main man Frank Robinson. Boog was diminished. Brooks diminshed. Sort of a transitional Oriole team from one 'era' to the next. Not quite the 1970 Orioles that were being discussed, still a good team though.
Good series for Hunter in '73 nonetheless. Still wasn't as good as Ryan, Blyleven, or Palmer for that season. Yes, I agree Hunter was better than Fingers as the IP differential more than makes up for the ERA difference between the two.
Hunter benefited pitching in Oakland, which was a good pitchers park. Remember when you lambasted Ron Santo for hitting in Wrigley? The same applies for Hunter in Oakland.
In that season you speak of, Hunter had a 4.37 ERA away from the pitchers park.
Catfish only had 5 great years of pitching, as the window to win and be great for many pitchers is small, but during the As great championship teams he was 7-1 with a nice ERA against a very good but older Orioles team, against the Big Red Machine team also, and a few other teams.
He pitched awesome in key moments and he is far and away THE REASON the 72-74 As were one of the best teams ever.
With all due respect to Fingers, Tenace, Blue, Jackson, and Holtzman.
I think it means that you are probably correct and that my error lies in the details. And......again I say with all due respect, Prove It. Then the issue is settled......I'm wrong about things often. Doesn't bother me a bit. I think that game did happen. Perhaps I got the wrong year. 65/66? Or the final score was not 1-0 but maybe 2-0, or 2-1? Details. That's where my error lies.... in details...... I have been looking into it and I'm not getting anywhere.....You have me doubting my memory. After all, 56 years is a long time ago. So,....at this point I'm asking for your help.....Prove It......problem is that proving something didn't happen is a tricky task...i.e., proving a negative? Good Luck my friend.
The Dodgers played five 1-0 games in 1966. The leadoff hitter didn't score in any of them.
Yes, that's pretty much what I'm finding too. Thanks for looking into it......so, so,many stats....thanks!
So I'm not sure why we needed so many posts to respond to my claim that Hunter was the second best pitcher on his team in those three postseasons, but nevertheless I'm going to combine all into one answer.
First, At no point was I comparing Fingers' and Hunter's performance in the regular season. Over the course of a regular season, a starting pitcher is going to be more impactful than a reliever. There just aren't that many high leverage opportunities for a reliever of the course of a season to make up for the vast bulk that a starting pitcher accumulates. So Hunter was (much) better in 1972 and 1974 but worse in 1973. Fingers was pretty much the same all three years but in 1973 Hunter, like the rest of the A's pitchers (except Holtzman) were bad to terrible. Raw numbers don't show this because Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum was such a bad place to hit in 1973, even compared to the rest of the era.
In a short series, though, the inherent advantage of the starter to have an effect on the title disappears. For example, staying in 1973, Fingers actually pitched more innings in the World Series than Hunter did. You just can't compare "traditional" stats in series like this. Instead it is useful to use cWPA, that is the percentage of every play each player made that contributed to the championship, so that the first at bat in the top of the first is valued more than an at bat with two out in the sixth and an eight run lead but less than one with a one run lead in the ninth bases loaded one out. And, of course, world series games are weighted higher than regular season games.
So cWPA shows that between them Fingers and Hunter were responsible for a little more than two championships all by themselves in those three years, with 13.8% of that in the regular season. Fingers was responsible for about 5/8 of that. So Hunter was very good and very key to the A's winning those three World Series, but Fingers was much better. Hunter's best coincides with Fingers' worst, in the 1973 ALCS. Fingers was so dominant in the 1972 WS that it actually accounts for all the difference between the two over the six series. That is, if you replace Fingers' 1972 World Series with, say, Joe Horlen, Fingers and Hunter are about equal.
It needs to be said, though, that Hunter had four good seasons 1967, '72, '74, and '75. 1975 was very good, but not great. It is in the neighborhood of the best seasons (during Hunter's career) of Candelaria, Hands, Messersmith, and Reuschel. Other than those four, his average season is something like the 2021 Tyler Anderson or Blake Snell. His range was average to really, really bad. There is a very long list of pitchers better than Hunter who didn't have the fortune of playing in such a profoundly pitcher friendly environment who are not in the HoF.
And this my friend is why the 72-74 As are if not the greatest “team” ever. The least talented group of players that just had no desire to lose. Even Catfish said himself that there were better players on championship teams than his, but not better teams. The 72-74 As were the best team ever. They were the least talented of any team that won it 3 or more years in a row.
You're welcome. I didn't bother looking for a game in 1965 or at any 2-0 or 2-1 games or whatever.
Here's what I say: Be not troubled by the possible inaccuracy of your memory!
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