Quiz – Pitching Potpourri (solved) |

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

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 8/21/2013.

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.

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Insert Name Here

12 years ago

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…

Author

Doug

Reply to Insert Name Here

One the right track.

Just to clarify the “career” accomplishment, think more than a season, but can be less than an entire career.

Voomo Zanzibar

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’?

Reply to Voomo Zanzibar

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.

Hartvig

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.

Reply to Hartvig

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… Read more »

Lawrence Azrin

@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).

Evil Squirrel

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