Who were the top relievers of the 1970s?

If you ask the average fan, you’d likely hear Rollie Fingers, Sparky Lyle, Goose Gossage, Mike Marshall, Tug McGraw, Kent Tekulve and others before John Hiller. Hell, I’m a Tigers fan, and even I would have named a few guys ahead of my hometown hero.

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As a followup to this post, I thought I’d run a few tables of leaders at stranding inherited runners in recent years and all-time.

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What two-tiered achievement is shared by Mike Norris and Dave (Boo) Ferriss, and no other MLB pitcher?

(The mystery has been solved — congratulations to regular contributor Richard Chester. Click through for the answer.)

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At Andy’s suggestion (see comment #17 here), I did a quick-and-dirty study of late-career walk rates for players who finished with around 3,000 hits.

The hypothesis to be tested is that players approaching both 3,000 hits and the end of their career tend to walk less often than they did before.

Included in the study were 30 players who wound up with 2,800 to 3,200 hits. I excluded those whose careers ended before “3,000 hits” became an iconic target (i.e., Sam Crawford and Willie Keeler).

I calculated their walk rates (BB per 700 PAs) for 4 periods:

• Career minus their last 3 seasons;
• Last 3 seasons;
• Last 2 seasons; and
• Last season.

Any period with less than 200 PAs is presented as “n/a” in the table. (Apologies for the table formatting, which I can’t seem to control.)

Walk Rates for Players Who Finished with 2,800 – 3,200 Hits

Over all, I do not see a consistent pattern that would confirm the hypothesis. But the following players did have a marked decline in walk rate in their later years:

Compared to the 3 preceding years, Cal Ripken‘s walk rate fell by 54% in 1999, the year when he would have reached 3,000 hits if not for a couple of DL stints. (He got hit #2,991 in game #149, but played no more that year.) Ripken averaged 57 BB/700 PAs for the preceding 3 years, but that rate fell to 26 in 1999 (13 walks in 354 PAs). If he was pressing, though, it sure didn’t affect his hitting — his .340 BA, .584 SLG and .952 OPS were all career highs, and his SO rate was a couple of % points below his career rate.

Ripken got hit #3,000 in the 10th game of 2000. In the previous 9 games, he drew a normal 4 walks in 39 PAs.

George Brett‘s walk rate fell 46% from the prior 3-year average in 1992, the year in which he reached 3,000 hits on Sept. 30 with a 4-hit game. Brett averaged 71 BB/700 for the prior 3 years, but just 38 that year. And his BB rate was even lower in the run-up to that game — 7 walks in 229 PAs from August 1 to Sept. 30, and none at all in the 20 games immediately before the big one.

After a sterling ’92 capped by a go-ahead hit in WS game 7, Dave Winfield began 1993 needing 134 hits for 3,000, having averaged 72 BB/700 PAs for the previous 3 years. That rate fell to 53 in 1993, but coincided with a general decline in performance. There was no particular variance in his walk rate in the 20 to 50 games leading up to hit #3,000.

Craig Biggio began 2007 needing 70 hits for 3,000, having averaged just 42 BB/700 PAs for the prior 3 years (already well below his previous career average of 71). In 2007, his final year, Biggio’s walk rate dropped further, to 29 BB/700 PA. In the 30 games culminating in hit #3,000 (and a baserunning boo-boo), Biggio was hacking to the tune of 3 walks and 26 Ks in 118 PAs.

Well, I was going to write up a few more, but I ran out of time….

Last season, Baltimore closer Kevin Gregg turned in a season unique in the annals of relief pitching:

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Thanks to offseason transactions, Justin Verlander is now the only active 100-game winner who is still with his original team. Verlander is signed with Detroit for another three years.

As you see in the table below, there were two such pitchers at the end of 2011, both toiling in the Windy City:

But those 2011 leaders are now both with Miami: Mark Buehrle went free agent after 161 wins in the pale hose (#6 on the franchise list, 2 shy of Wilbur Wood), while Carlos Zambrano was mercy-traded to the Marlins after wearing out his welcome both on and off the Wrigley playing field. Big Z is #11 on the Cubs’ career list with 125 wins, 3 short of Pete Alexander.

Only three other active one-team pitchers have 80+ wins: Ervin Santana (87) and Jered Weaver (82) of the Angels, and Seattle’s Felix Hernandez (85), who is the active SP leader in WAR for his original team (29.1 to Verlander’s 27.2). All three are under contract for at least the next two years, though there is much trade speculation about King Felix.

Buehrle’s departure from the South Side means that Ron Guidry remains the one-franchise leader in the free-agent era with 170 wins:

From 1920 through 1974 — comprising 958 team-seasons — there were 30 pitchers with at least 200 wins, of which 15 won 200+ on behalf of one team (whether or not they also pitched elsewhere). But since the dawn of free agency in 1975 (comprising 1,024 team-seasons), only 3 out of 23 pitchers with 200 wins did so for one team: teammates Tom Glavine (244) and John Smoltz (210) with Atlanta, and Andy Pettitte (203) with the Yankees. Three more came close: Jack Morris won 198 with Detroit, Greg Maddux 194 with Atlanta and Roger Clemens 192 with Boston.

Sidebar: Verlander and Weaver have been linked ever since they were drafted in 2004:

• Verlander went #2 over all that year, while Weaver (the collegiate player of the year) slipped to #12 due to “signability concerns” (Latin name: Borasthesia).
• Both were MLB fixtures within 2 years; Verlander broke camp with the 2006 Tigers and wound up as Rookie of the Year, while Weaver was called up in late May and placed 5th on that ballot.
• Each has at least 11 wins every year since 2006; they rank #1 and #4 in AL wins in that span.
• Verlander led the majors in strikeouts last year, Weaver the year before.
• Verlander edged Weaver for the AL ERA crown last year, 2.40 to 2.41.
• Verlander also holds a slim edge in their 5 career face-offs, with a 3-2 record and 3.89 ERA, compared to 2-3, 4.50 for Weaver.
• Their career bWAR values are virtually the same — 27.2 for Verlander, 26.8 for Weaver.

Following our post on the young position stars, here are the pitchers’ top bWAR values over the past 2 years by those who will be 26 or under in 2012.

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In case you’ve forgotten, here are the top bWAR seasons over the past 2 years by players who will be 26 or under in 2012.

All seasons of at least 3.9 WAR are listed. No SS or 2B reached that level, so in order to round out a lineup (see the top 8 in the table), I’ve included the top figure at each position. (Dustin Ackley’s 2.5 WAR in 90 games does project to 4.5 per 162G.) Lastly, I included Brett Lawrie’s 2011 on the grounds of  his tremendous rate of 10.5 WAR per 162 games. Continue reading →