All-Time Pitching Leaders by Franchise

Following are lists of all-time leading pitchers, by franchise, for a variety of common pitching metrics.

Ever wanted to know which pitcher had the most 200 strikeout seasons playing for Cleveland? You’ll find that out and lots more after the jump.

Let’s start with the most basic, back of the baseball card, stats. Below are pitchers with most seasons reaching the indicated milestones for each team.

[table id=115 /]


You can sort or search the table above as you like. Franchise records go all the way back to the beginning of each current team, including teams that moved from the NL to the AA and back again in  the 19th century.

Now for qualifying seasons reaching strikeout and WHIP milestones. Most impressive here are pitchers whose names show up for more the one franchise, particularly Randy Johnson and Nolan Ryan.

[table id=114 /]


Now, let’s look at ERA. To normalize for periods, the table below shows pitchers with the most qualifying seasons meeting specified ERA+ milestones.

[table id=111 /]


We’ll finish this section with pitchers who most frequently put it all together and were unhittable on a particular day, or nearly so. These records are only for the searchable era, since 1916.

[table id=116 /]


Now let’s turn to teams. Below are the teams for each franchise with the most pitchers reaching specified win totals.

[table id=112 /]


Finally, here are the teams with the top rotations for each franchise. This table shows the teams for each franchise with the top ERA+ score achieved in a qualifying season by each of 2, 3 or 4 pitchers on one team.

[table id=113 /]


Any surprises?

 

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Mike
Mike
10 years ago

Surprise! Silvio Martinez leads with w/3 one-hitters in 97 forgettable starts for the Cardinals.

oneblankspace
oneblankspace
10 years ago

Interesting to see which franchises have yet to have a 250K pitcher (most have had a $250K pitcher).

Russell
Russell
10 years ago
Reply to  oneblankspace

I noticed the Yankees don’t have a 250K pitcher. I guess Clemens couldn’t achieve that for them. Have they not emphasized high K power pitching over their history? So a great offense won all those WS titles.

no statistician but
no statistician but
10 years ago
Reply to  Russell

Russell:

On the contrary, most of the Yankee WS teams have had very good to excellent pitching, just not huge numbers of strikeouts. The 1927 staff was the best by far in the AL, for instance. The Reynolds-Lopat-Raschi led staff of the early Stengel era were the difference against the hitting heavy Dodgers. Just 2 examples.

e pluribus munu
e pluribus munu
10 years ago

Doug, There’s a week’s worth of reflection in these tables – thanks for a great post! I’m going to show my appreciation by going way off on a tangent. My eye was caught by the 1907 Cubs staff, since I think of Brown and Overall before Pfiester and Lundgren, and, more particularly, I think of the ’06 staff before the ’07 staff – after all, the ’06 staff went 116-36, the winningest staff in history, along with the 2001 Mariners. Going to explore the details of the two Cubs staffs I discovered something I’d never known: the ’06 Cubs staff… Read more »

e pluribus munu
e pluribus munu
10 years ago
Reply to  Doug

Yeah, I remember that. It rankled, as did the loss to the Yankees (and the ’54 Tribe was the first WS team I rooted for).
But, of course, the ’06 Cubs met their post-season match in the ChiSox, who, apart from being wonderful in their hitlessness, had a staff ERA+ over 30 points lower than the Cubs’. Something jinxish about these record-setting W-L years.

Evil Squirrel
10 years ago
Reply to  Doug

The Mariners could have had 117 wins that year, but for this embarrassment….

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CLE/CLE200108050.shtml

e pluribus munu
e pluribus munu
10 years ago
Reply to  Evil Squirrel

I don’t recall this one at all, ES. Amazing – look at that win probability curve! (Perhaps equally amazing is that the M’s immediately returned to winning.) Thanks.

It would be interesting (fun) to compile a Hall of Unlikely Outcomes: a small number of the most improbable game results in history, filled with exhaltation and despair. This one might be a real candidate, especially given that losers were a .727 team in August.

Evil Squirrel
10 years ago

I’d like to nominate this game for the HoUO, one I actually attended:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SLN/SLN199808260.shtml

Note that was the post-fire sale Marlins who lost 109 games that year….

John Autin
Editor
10 years ago

@15, ES — What a weird vibe there must have been in the top of the 9th. Three straight HRs to open, but the Marlins still down by 3. What did it feel like being there?

Evil Squirrel
10 years ago

JA Since this was the year of Big Mac’s HR chase, the stadium had pretty much cleared out after McGwire got left on deck to end the bottom of the 8th with a 6 run lead. There weren’t many people left to witness the improbable comeback by the Fish, but I do recall a large round of booing for Frascatore after the third straight bomb (St. Louis fans not booing their own players is a common myth). Speaking of booing, once it got down to Jeff Brantley having to come in for the “save”… well, it was a lot like… Read more »

John Autin
Editor
10 years ago

ES — Wow, I’d forgotten that Piazza pinch-HR in ’98. And if you’d told me that Jorge Fabregas ever hit a HR for the Mets, I’d have said “pull the other one, then!” But Fabregas went deep off Brantley right ahead of the Pizza man — the one HR he hit in 20 games with NYM.

‘Course, you guys won it in the 14th.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SLN/SLN199808120.shtml

Evil Squirrel
10 years ago

Yes we did… and back in that ancient era of 1998, a manager actually had the gall to use his closer, with others available in the ‘pen, for multiple innings, in a tie game, on the road!!! Of course, it was off Franco that the winning run was scored, but it’s fun to look at how things once were…

Evil Squirrel
10 years ago

Here’s another game that was played just a week before the Mariners/Indians game that inspired this tangent… another 100 loss team with an improbable comeback. What makes this comeback even more impressive was that the bottom of the 9th started with 2 flyouts…

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PIT/PIT200107281.shtml

Doug
Doug
10 years ago
Reply to  Evil Squirrel

Can anyone help me on this game? I think it was late 70s or early 80s. Cubs won 6-5 at home, after being down 5-0 in the 9th with two outs and the bases empty. I think LA was the opponent, but not sure about that.

Anyway, I can’t seem to find the game in the boxes. Does anyone else remember this one?

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
10 years ago
Reply to  Doug

I don’t know what kind of PI search you did but here’s what I did. I went to Team Pitching Game Finder, set the years to 1916-2013, selected Opponents Cubs, R = 6 and IP = 8.2. There were 16 games won by the Cubs 6-5 with 2 outs in the 9th and there were no games in which the Cubs scored 6 runs in the 9th. Perhaps the score of that game was other than 6-5.

birtelcom
Editor
10 years ago
Reply to  Doug

Here’s a game in Atlanta that the Cubs won in 1979, after trailing 5-0 with two outs in the top of the ninth (though Chicago did get two men on to start the inning before two pop fly outs). The biggest blow for the Cubbies was a Bobby Murcer three-run homer, off Gene Garber, to take the lead. http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/ATL/ATL197904290.shtml

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
10 years ago
Reply to  Doug

On 7-24-78 the Astros scored 6 runs in the bottom of the 9th for a 6-5 win over the Expos but 2 of the runs were scored prior to two outs.

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
10 years ago
Reply to  Doug

And now the biggest 9th inning comeback ever. On 4-25-01, the second day of AL baseball, the Tigers overcame a 13-4 deficit to Milwaukee to to walk away with a 14-13 victory. It was the Tigers’ first AL game.

e pluribus munu
e pluribus munu
10 years ago
Reply to  Doug

Richard, I’m sure you’re right, but for a comeback in extremis, perhaps the Cleveland Blues’ performance against the Senators two days short of one month later might be more dramatic – the Blues only scored 9 runs to win 14-13, but they did it after the first two men in the ninth went down.

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
10 years ago
Reply to  Doug

epb: Hmm, it looks like someone has finally taken my advice and consulted the Charlton Chronology. And on the same day in the White Sox-A’s game Nap Lajoie became one of a few players to receive an intentional walk with the bases loaded.

e pluribus munu
e pluribus munu
10 years ago
Reply to  Doug

Very much on your advice, and very good advice it is.

brp
brp
10 years ago

Remarkable how few good pitchers a lot of the modern expansion teams have produced. It’s easy to forget that Florida/Miami and Colorado are in their 21st season already. The Brewers are pretty sad on this whole list; a couple good years by Teddy Higuera away from almost a vacuum. Kind of surprised the Blue Jays never had a 4-man rotation even at league average ERA+, but I guess Jack Morris was to busy pitching to the score to lift them up any further. But how’s about Doug Davis showing up in the rotation list twice? And the 1889 Cardinals… Ice… Read more »

Steven
Steven
10 years ago

Icebox and Brickyard. Great nicknames. They were nicknames, weren’t they?
Whenever I see Gibson, Carlton, St. Louis together, I think of what might have been for the Cardinals from 1972-74, if not for the Spring 1972 Purge of The Lefthanded Starters (including Jerry Reuss).

yippeeyappee
yippeeyappee
5 years ago

The tables have all disappeared