Here is an oddball assortment of pitchers, including a HOFer and an All-Star caliber pitcher, but mainly journeymen and the truly obscure. Yet, all of them share a common career accomplishment. What is the peculiar career feat that only these live-ball era (since 1920) pitchers can boast of?
| Player |
|---|
| Eddie Rommel |
| Dave Koslo |
| Bill Swift |
| Elam Vangilder |
| Paul Hartzell |
| Vito Tamulis |
| Dizzy Dean |
| Ralph Birkofer |
| Rosy Ryan |
Congratulations to koma! He/she identified these players as the only pitchers since 1920 to record 3 consecutive seasons with 12 or more starts and also 12 or more games finished. Paul Hartzell was the last to do this, for the Angels in 1976-78. Since then, Tom Gordon came closest to matching this feat, with the Royals in 1991-93. with 3 consecutive seasons of 11+ starts and 11+ games finished. Gordon also has the only season since 1937 with 25 starts and 15 games finished, with Boston in 1997.
These players tend to have about as many starts as relief appearances (exceptions are Dean and Ryan), more GF than wins (Dean being the only exception), and at least about 1/5 as many saves as wins (Birkofer being the only glaring exception, with Rommel also falling short).
Not sure what to make of this… something along the lines of more relief appearances than starting pitching wins in a career of at least X total games (let’s say 130), and at least 30% of appearances being starts?
That’s rather complicated, but it’s my starting point for this one…
One the right track.
Just to clarify the “career” accomplishment, think more than a season, but can be less than an entire career.
I love that Dizzy led the league in complete games And saves in 1936.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.cgi?id=deandi01&t=p&year=1936
With the 13 man staffs shortening the bench, where is the manager who makes the obvious move of letting a starter get some outs on his ‘throw day’?
I’d say that type of management died with the end of player-managers. Dean’s manager in 1936 was his teammate, fellow HOFer Frankie Frisch.
Al Lopez (who replaced Lou Boudreau) used Mike Garcia & Early Wynn in relief about the same time that Casey was doing it with Allie Reynolds in New York in the early 50’s. Don Drysdale was still picking up the occasional save even when he was making 40 plus starts for the Dodgers in the early 60’s. But unless I’m forgetting someone by that time it was much less common than before.
John Stuper with the Cardinals in 1983 is the last pitcher with 30 starts and 10 relief appearances. But, if you look at the game logs, those 10 relief appearances were in 3 clumps where it appears that he was briefly out of the rotation.
Bob Stanley in 1979 had a similar season. With him, it appears that if he happened to miss a start (it was a 5-day rotation then, not a 5-man rotation) they would send him out to pitch an inning here or there, presumably to stay sharp. There was one period when he was out of the rotation for about 3 weeks. Ironically, he was “demoted” right after pitching a shutout.
In looking at these seasons, I found Jim Perry pitching for Billy Martin’s Twins in 1969. Perry went 8 2/3, then pitched the last 2 innings of an 18-inning game on two days rest (the game was suspended, so most likely it was a night game), then pitched a shutout the very next day in what I presume was a day game (it was a Sunday). Times have changed.
@5/Hartvig,
The Yankees also did this with Whitey Ford. He had saves as late as 1965, finished four games in a season three times, and finished games every year except 1961, 1962, and 1967 (his last).
It’s happened at least once as recently as 1996. I was at a game where the Bullpen Genius Tony LaRussa actually let Andy Benes come in and get the final out of a save on his throw day. It was Benes’ only career save….
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SLN/SLN199605290.shtml
Guillen did this with Buehrle in the 2005 World Series (in the 14th inning)
3 consecutive seasons with more than 12 GS and GF
>= 12 of course
You’ve got it, koma!