Ultimate Pitching

I want to follow up about Johan Santana’s value this year and the value and consistency of super starting pitchers. There will be a lot of historical pitching lines in this piece, but I’d like to start with a challenge: Here are the pitching lines of a Hall of Famer in consecutive years. Can you name him? Answer at the end, but try this, and don’t peek!

Year 1 – 323 IP, 23 Wins, 1.75 ERA, 1.075 WHIP
Year 2 – 326 IP, 24 Wins, 2.01 ERA, 1.079 WHIP

Pretty fantastic, and incredibly consistent. I’ll even give you a hint: He was 21 and 22 years old in these years. That makes these lines more than pretty fantastic.

On to Santana. I’m going to admit something that I am not embarrassed about. Until this summer, I didn’t know who he was. Really. I really do follow baseball, but as I have said many times, I only follow NL baseball (baseball and NL baseball is redundant). AL? Feh. I was not conscious of a guy who won the Cy Young award 2 of the last 4 years until the Twinkies were negotiating with NL teams. So I had to look up his figures in Baseball Reference to understand what they were talking about. Here are the last 4 years:

2004 – 228 IP, 20-6, 2.61 ERA, 0.921 WHIP – Cy Young
2005 – 231 IP, 16-7, 2.87 ERA, 0.971 WHIP – 3rd in CY
2006 – 233 IP, 19-6, 2.77 ERA, 0.997 WHIP – Cy Young
2007 – 219 IP, 15-13, 3.33 ERA, 1.073 WHIP – 5th in CY

These are some pretty great stats, in a league where they have a DH instead of a pitcher hitting in the lineup. 2007 was a drop in every category, and yet, unless you really did pay $42, you’d be fairly happy with those numbers up to around $30. I don’t know if there were injuries that caused the drop off, but the Mets seemed comfortable giving him their Swiss bank account. I imagine they are expecting a return to the sub-3 ERA and sub-1 WHIP form.

(Note: WHIP for you non fantasy types is hits plus walks divided by innings. A WHIP of 1.00 is spectacular.)

I am particularly impressed with those sub-1 WHIP numbers. With enough innings, that can really hold a fantasy pitching staff together, even with a few Bullingers thrown in. In looking at some of the great pitchers of the past 20 years, even in some of their greatest seasons, you won’t see too many sub-1 WHIPs, even with low 2 ERAs.

That’s one of the things that made Maddux so special. Though he hasn’t been sub-1 for a while, even in 2007, at the age of 41, with an ERA of 4.14, Maddux had a 1.242 WHIP, which is pretty darn good. And that was his highest WHIP since 1990!

With Roger Clemens in the news, I took a look at some of his best seasons. I’m particularly interested in his consistency from year to year, because if you’re going to bid huge on someone after a great season, I’d like to get some idea on what you can count on. Clemens was pretty good at back to back seasons:

1986 – 254 IP, 24-4, 2.48 ERA, 0.969 WHIP
1987 – 281 IP, 20-9, 2.97 ERA, 1.175 WHIP

1990 – 228 IP, 21-6, 1.93 ERA, 1.082 WHIP
1991 – 271 IP, 18-10, 2.62 ERA, 1.047 WHIP

1997 – 264 IP, 21-7, 2.05 ERA, 1.030 WHIP
1998 – 234 IP, 20-6, 2.65 ERA, 1.095 WHIP

Roger won the Cy Young in five of those seasons. He was runner-up in 1990 to this line:

1990 – 238 IP, 27-6, 2.95 ERA, 1.22 WHIP

That’s Bob Welch, for those of you playing along in the home version of our game. Roger kicked his ass in every category except wins. I’d be inclined to take that sub 2 ERA from Roger on my fantasy team. But kudos to Welch, who I didn’t realize had a year like that in him. He pitched for the A’s that year, and followed his masterpiece season with a record of 12-13. Just in time for those fantasy players to bid $32.

I had in my head that Ron Guidry had one ridiculous season in him. I was right:

1978 – 273 IP, 25-3, 1.74 ERA, 0.946 WHIP

I particularly like the high IP, which makes those great ERA and WHIP numbers monsters. He followed it up with an 18-8 season with great numbers, finishing 3rd to Mike Flanagan and Tommy John in the Cy Young voting. All of his numbers were better except his won-loss record (Flanagan and John had over 20 wins). Guidry also had 2 saves that year.

Randy Johnson, the pre-eminent power pitcher since Nolan Ryan retired, had that streak of Cy Young seasons. Here are a couple of back to back seasons that are pretty spectacular:

1997 – 213 IP, 20-4, 2.28 ERA, 1.052 WHIP – 2nd to Clemens in CY
1998 – 244 IP, 19-11, 3.28 ERA, 1.183 WHIP – N/A, switched from AL to NL

2001 – 249 IP, 21-6, 2.49 ERA, 1.009 WHIP – won NL CY
2002 – 260 IP, 24-5, 2.32 ERA, 1.031 WHIP – won NL CY

Great numbers, though I guess the power pitchers must give up a few more walks than the finesse pitchers. That had to be a great Cy Young race in 1997 – uh, nope. Not even close. Clemens got 25 first place votes, Johnson got only 2. The difference wasn’t strikeouts – Clemens had 292, Johnson 291. Interestingly, somebody else might have even had a better year in 1997, the NL Cy Young winner, Pedro Martinez, who had a phenomenal run from 1997-2000:

1997 – 241 IP, 17-8, 1.90 ERA, 0.932 WHIP – won NL CY
1998 – 233 IP, 19-7, 2.89 ERA, 1.091 WHIP – 2nd to Clemens in AL CY
1999 – 213 IP, 23-4, 2.07 ERA, 0.923 WHIP – won AL CY
2000 – 217 IP, 18-6, 1.74 ERA, 0.737 WHIP – won AL CY

Man, look at those numbers in 2000! The league ERA in 2000 was 5.07. The next best WHIP (Mussina) in the AL that year was 1.178. As it turns out, Pedro is 3rd all-time with a 1.030 WHIP behind 2 guys no one can remember who pitched at the beginning of the 20th century. I’ve never looked at this list before. Maddux, who I assumed was way up there, is 46th. Marichal was 17th, Koufax 22nd, Seaver 30th. Schilling is 44th, Johnson is 76th, Smoltz is 82nd and Clemens is 86th. And it’s always good to know how ol’ Cy Young did. Pretty fantastic, given the ridiculous number of innings he pitched – he is 35th at 1.130.

Coming full circle, here is an important stat: Johan Santana is 16th. He’s second among active pitchers behind Pedro. He has the advantage of still being young. Maddux’s WHIP has increased over the last 10 years from its pristine level in the early part of his career. I’m sure he used to be way up on that list. This is one of the critical things you are buying when you say $42, or whatever on Santana. He’s a guy whose bad WHIP year is 1.073. And he’s only 28, just coming into his prime pitching years.

I think that’s enough pitching stats for today. So here is the answer to who that guy is at the top of this piece. It’s Babe Ruth. What a stud. And by the way, he’s 70th on that WHIP list and 14th in career ERA at 2.28. And just for kicks, he hit 714 homers. Those years were in 1916 and 1917, when he was still with the Red Sox. Remember this the next time you decide to go see No No Nanette.