History Class – All-Time Fantasy Baseball Team: Pitchers

Welcome back, class. As a follow up to our last History Class post, today, we look at the best pitching seasons of all time, through the lens of a standard fantasy baseball scoring system.  Again, we start with every season since 1871, apply standard fantasy points to each season, remove all of the season before 1912 (again, I’m the boss here, oh and back in the day no one had any respect for labrums, elbow ligaments, rotator cuffs, or generally any pitcher’s health – leading to some even more ridiculous seasons), and see how the proverbial apple falls. Our squad has 5 SPs and 2 RPs.  We actually probably wouldn’t have needed any relievers, as these starters straight eat innings, but the game hass changed, so I included.

The Squad:

At some point along the way, when pitch counts and innings limits became all the trend, pitchers stopped throwing a lot. Obviously the only way to make it to the top of the starting pitcher list was to rack up some serious innings. Hence, not so many players in the last 50 years on the starting pitcher side. On the reliever side, Gagne’s ’03 was a truly astounding season, even if it seems dubious given recent evidence, while Radatz’ 1964 can only be described with words like horse, animal, machine, beast,  and Chyna of WWE fame.

Without further ado, player introductions:

Alexander, 1915: Making 42 starts, and 49 appearances, Alexander amassed a 1.22 ERA over 376 innings. His 241 Ks may not be extremely impressive, but his 31 wins and 36 complete games much more so. His .84 WHIP most certainly also impresses. More fascinating, however, is how a guy named Grover Cleveland Alexander get the nickname Old Pete? In my research, no one knew the answer, but made me wonder, who wants to be called Old Pete?  If you’re putting up numbers like those, you get to be called whatever you want.

Johnson, 1913: 36 starts & 48 appearances, Johnson’s 1.14 ERA and .78 WHIP over 346 IP are actually superior to Alexander’s, he just fell 30 innings short of Alexander’s numbers. 36 wins and 11 shutouts. For more perspective on 11 shutouts in one season: of active pitchers, Tom Glavine (if throwing a 84 MPH fastball with a few other sub par pitches can be called active) has 25 shutouts total in his career (Randy Johnson leads at 37). That’s 22 seasons.

Koufax, 1965: As part of the dynamic duo with Don Drysdale, Koufax put up the 5^th best season ever in 1965.  (Simple logic indicates Johnson & Alexnder combinee for the best 4 seasons of all time).  Koufax amassed 335 & 2/3 IP and 382 Ks [second most ever] along with 26 wins and 2.04 ERA en route to his 2^nd World Series MVP.

Wood, 1912: 34 Wins & 5 Losses over 43 appearances and 10 shutouts – a pretty standard season for the 1910-1914 period (jokes and jokes).  Though if I never would have imagined Wood would have the 4th best season at the beginning of this excercise – unsung, thats for sure.

Feller, 1946: 26 wins and 348 Ks with a 2.18 ERA over 42 starts and 371 innings gets a guy the 5^th spot in our rotation.  A touch better 5th starter than Jeff Weaver.

Gagne, 2003: 55 saves as part of a streak of 84 straight converted saves are most certainly serious stats. However, his 15 Ks per 9 IP was truly astounding. His .69 WHIP was also decent.

Radatz, 1964: Radatz earned his nickname the Monster (or the Monstahhhh for the Bostoners) with seasons like ’64. He racked up 157 IP over his 79 appearances averaging 2 IP per appearance. The 29 saves are not uber-impressive, but adding in 16 wins is something current closers would never come close to matching – and would have ranked 15th in the MLB last season – for a reliever, how the times have changed. Oh he also racked up 181 Ks in the 157 IP.

Many readers are likely wondering how recent seasons have stacked up, as they are clearly under represented as apparently pitchers were standing 25 feet away from home plate in the early years, or batter were hitting with the yellow wiffle ball bats. Since 1990, Randy Johnson has had the best 3 seasons, 2002, 1999, and 2001 respectively – ranking 81, 121, and 155 best ever, followed by Roger in ’97 with the Jays and Pedro in the same year with the Expos. The post 1990 top ten is rounded out by Schilling in ’02, Randy in 2000, Pedro in 2000 and 1999, and Smoltz in ’96. The best season since 2004? Chris Carpenter in ’05. Finally, the best seasons of the 80s and of the 70s? Doc Gooden’s 1985 ranked 43^rd of all time, when he went 24-4, and Nolan Ryan’s 1973 season, when he had 383 Ks, the most ever, adding 2 No hitters to boot was the best of the 70s.

Class dismissed.

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