Quiz – Puzzling Pitchers
Posted
Tuesday, November 27th, 2012 at
6:56 pm by Doug
Here is a list of pitchers representing 3 distinct eras: before 1920; the 1960s; and the past 20 years.
What is it that pitchers have achieved only in these periods, and that only these pitchers have accomplished in a qualifying season (min. 162 IP) since 1901?
| Player |
|---|
| Walter Johnson |
| Smoky Joe Wood |
| Rube Waddell |
| Don Drysdale |
| Dean Chance |
| Francisco Liriano |
| Dan Haren |
| Kevin Brown |
| Gavin Floyd |
| Felix Hernandez |
Hint: Three of these pitchers accomplished this feat in multiple seasons, including one who did so in consecutive seasons.
Congratulations to Artie Z! He correctly identified (in just 59 minutes) that these are the only pitchers since 1901 with a season (min. 162 IP) of double-digit wild pitches and hit batters, combined with a K/BB ratio of 3.0 or better (in fact, nobody has done that in fewer than 162 IP, either). Here are those seasons.
Subscribe to: RSS feed
More batters struck out than hits allowed?
That’s not it…492 such seasons found.
At first glance, I figure it’s about high K total and/or K rate…maybe with K/BB better than 3, HR/9 lower than 1 and double-digit HBP?
That’s on the right track.
I thought I was onto something with seasons with more than 200 strikeouts but fewer than 0.4 home runs per 9 until I got to Haren.
It looks like it has something to do with double digit WP and HBP.
Has to be more to it though. AJ Burnett has done that twice.
It’s 10+ WP, 10+ HBP and a K/BB ratio of 3.0 or better.
Bingo! Well done Artie Z. And in under an hour.
Bravo.
Just lucky that some of the regular solvers didn’t happen to be online
And that Liriano only had one qualifying season of 162 or more innings.
Speaking of Quiz, I just put down $1000 bucks on the Royals to win the world series in 2013. After yesterday’s powerball drawing, it might be their year.
Timmy, I’d love to see you win that bet!
Unfortunately, I think Jeremy Guthrie winds up the only KCR Powerball winner this year.
For those that didn’t hear, the POWERBALL winning numbers were all Royals HoF uniform numbers with the exception of 16, and that number was worn by the great Bo Jackson when he played in KC. One of the tickets was purchased in Missouri and I’ll bet the guy is a Royals fan in his 50′s.