A guest column by Jamie Selko
There have been thirty-five pitchers who have had at least six twenty-win seasons in Major League history without the aid of PEDs. (Technically, there was one other pitcher who had six twenty-win seasons, but three of his twenty-win seasons came after he started using performance enhancing drugs, so I am not including him in this group.) Eleven of them (31%) are not in the Hall of Fame. This is their story, and an argument for or against their HOF worthiness. Most seem to me to be no-brainers one way or the other and only a few sit on the fence. Here, following, are the players alphabetically and by number of twenty-win seasons:
Tommy Bond: In the six years from when he was eighteen until he was twenty-two (1874–1879), Mr. Bond went 195–116 (.627) with an ERA of 1.91. He won forty games three times and averaged 462 IP per year, including three over 500. He was top-ten in wins, complete games, shutouts and strikeouts seven consecutive years and top-five in ERA and WAR for pitchers for six consecutive years, including five straight years at 10.4 or above and twice leading the league: with 14.3 in 1879 (twelfth all-time) and 13.9 in 1878 (thirteenth all-time).
His arm started to go in 1880 when he worked in 493 innings (at age twenty-three) and was gone completely the next year as he went 13–16 with a 3.60 ERA and only ninety innings combined in 1881–82 and 1884.
Hall-of-Fame chances: Zero. Does he belong in the Hall-of Fame? Yes. If he had pitched in the 1890–1920 Era, he likely would have had three thirty-win seasons and at least three more twenty-win seasons. If he pitched in the Modern Era and was top-ten in wins and strikeouts seven consecutive years and was top-five in ERA and WAR six consecutive years, he’d be regarded in the same light as two other pitchers whose career ended early due to arm trouble, Sandy Koufax and Dizzy Dean.
Bob Caruthers: Just as with Bond above, he started young (twenty) and was burnt out by twenty-seven (averaging 378 IP per year over that span). In his seven good years, he went 209–87 for an astounding .706 winning percentage. His ERA over those seven years was 2.73 and he finished in the top six in WAR for pitchers five straight years, in top-seven in ERA five straight years, and top-ten in wins six straight years. (He also hit .282 for his career with fifty triples, twenty-nine home runs, at least 152 steals (with a high of 49) and 359 RBIs. .
Just as with Bonds above (and many to follow), it was massive overwork that put paid to his arm. His last year, when he was only 28, he went 2–10 with a 5.84 in a mere 102 innings.
Hall-of-Fame chances: Zero. Does he belong in the Hall? I believe so, although not as strongly as I do for Bonds. Again, his performance before he threw his arm out is comparable to Koufax and Dean. He is a far better candidate than some pitchers who are enshrined.
Wes Ferrell: He is the only pitcher with six twenty-win seasons in the twentieth century not in the Hall. He won twenty games the first four full years he pitched in the American League, had two down years and then won twenty the next two years. At age twenty-eight, after eight full years in the majors, he was 161–96 with a 3.72 ERA, not bad for the period. He then pitched for five more years, going 32–32 with 5.43 ERA. (Odd tidbit from the Baseball Reference salary section: After winning 25 games in 1930, he got a raise to $20,000. He won 22 games in ’31 and his salary was cut to $18,000. He then won 23 games and had his salary cut again to $12,000. Times sure have changed.)
Hall-of-Fame Chances: Zero. If Ferrell had had one more good year and won twenty games again, possibly. But he didn’t. What he did have was a lot of support. In 1930, the Indians scored at least six runs in eighteen of his starts (and he only pitched in ten games in which his team didn’t score at least three runs). In 1931, he started sixteen games in which his team scored at least six runs and only eleven in which they didn’t score at least four. So, he was a better than average pitcher pitching for a team that gave him tons of support. Has he been overlooked by selectors? I think not.
Deacon Phillippe: He won at least twenty games in each of his first five years after getting a late start at age twenty-seven, going 106–60 (.643) with a 2.56 ERA. He was still a good pitcher the next seven years (81–49 (.623), 2.60, but his innings pitched dropped from 291 per year to only 163. After age 35, he began suffering from arm problems and in 1908 had a finger broken and pitched only ten innings.
Hall-of-Fame chances: Very slim. If he had gotten an earlier start and not been hurt, I can see a possibility of him being named to the Hall, but he didn’t do either of those things, so, no.
Jack Stivetts: In the five years between when he was twenty-two and twenty-six he won 141 games, twenty-eight a year while pitching 379 innings a year. All told, he had only nine seasons with over a hundred innings pitched (albeit three consecutive over 400). He was an excellent hitter, hitting .298 while pitching, playing in the outfield (141 games) as well as forty-four games distributed among all four infield spots. In 1894, he drove in 64 runs in only 68 games. Again, he lost his effectiveness young, winning no games at all after he turned thirty.
Hall-of-Fame chances: Zero. A good player, he was not of Hall quality. Across pitching eras, I’d compare him to Mike Garcia. Very good, not a “super-star.”
Jesse Tannehill: He won twenty games six times over eight seasons, but like all the other pre-1910 pitchers, he was done early, winning only twenty-two games over his last five seasons. Winning almost sixty-three percent of his decisions and finishing his career with a fine 2.80 ERA, he was top-ten in both wins and ERA six times.
Hall-of-Fame chances: Zero. A good but not great pitcher (and a good hitter as well), he was steady and reliable but never attained the upper echelon of moundsmen in his era.
Charlie Buffinton: Charlie won at least twenty games seven times from 1883 to 1891, including 1885 when he won 48 percent of his team’s 46 victories (with 22), a team that played .380 ball when he was not the pitcher of record. (Steve Carlton set the “modern” record in 1972 by earning 27 of his team’s 59 victories, or 46 percent.) Buffinton only won seven games in 1885 when he was bothered with arm troubles (after pitching 1354 innings the previous three seasons: 451 per season, including a phenomenal 587 in 1884 when he won 48 games). His only other non-twenty-win season was 1890 when he won nineteen games for the Philadelphia Quakers of the Players’ League. A decent hitter, he played 68 games at first and 137 in the outfield during his career. His last good year came in 1891 when he turned thirty and went 29–9 for the Boston Reds of the American Association, leading the league in wins and winning percentage (.763) while finishing third in ERA with a 2.55 mark. The next year, plagued with arm trouble, he retired shortly after his 31st birthday.
Hall-of-Fame chances: Zero. One spectacular year (1884) and one excellent year (1891) do not a Hall of Famer make (unless you’re Jack Chesbro).
Gus Weyhing: Gus won at least twenty games his first seven years in the majors. Unfortunately, four of them were spent in the American Association and a fifth in the Players’ League. He had four consecutive thirty-win seasons (two in the AA, one in the PL, and one in the NL). During those seven seasons, he went 200–140, averaging 29 wins and 345 innings. During that eight-year span, he was top-ten five times in ERA, six times in fewest hits per nine innings, seven times in wins, and eight times in strikeouts. His last seven years were pretty bad (64–92 with a 5.07 ERA), but he did spend time with the 1898–1899 Washington Senators, a team that lost 199 games those seasons. (As a side note — very possibly of interest to no one but me — the Senators drew 189,642 paying customers those two seasons, a decidedly cool 1,231 fans per game.)
Hall-of-Fame chances: Zero, mostly because of his AA years, years which are almost completely forgotten except by scholars nowadays and which are totally forgotten by scribes and other deciderers [sic] and “influencers” (shudder) who control the Cooperstown gates. My opinion? Yes, Gus should have a plaque. How can a guy have four thirty-win seasons and whose career was basically done before he turned thirty (as was the style at the time) garner so little attention?
Bobby Mathews: 297 wins. Eight seasons with at least twenty wins, four with at least thirty. His crime? Four of those seasons were in the National Association and three were in the American Association. Look, those leagues were either Major Leagues or they weren’t. If the AA is indeed a major league in the eyes of Major League Baseball, the Hall of Fame, Elias, Bill James and the foremost baseball historians, then treat it like a major league (I understand that the MLB, via its Special Baseball Records Committee ruling of 1969, demoted the NA). If the AA is unworthy because starters frequently pitched over 400 innings, well, I say today’s starters today are unworthy because they only pitch a third of that. Comparing today’s styles and customs with those of 150 years ago is folly. Judge players for what they did in their time, not against what is done in ours. Seriously, how can a pitcher with 297 wins not be in the Hall?
Hall-of-Fame chances: I still hold out hope (a futile one, I know), that Mr. Mathews’ great-great grandchildren will be invited to his plaque ceremony. In any case, he is definitely Hall-worthy.
Jim McCormick: 265 wins in a ten-year career; won over twenty in eight of those years, including going over thirty four times and over forty twice. Suffering two broken fingers in his first season almost certainly cost him a twenty-win season that year. His final season (when he was just thirty, of course) was ruined by salary squabbles, missing training, and drinking, which had plagued him his entire career (biographical details from Chris Rainey’s piece on the SABR Bio site, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/jim-mccormick/). Now, I am more than willing to discount Mr. McCormick’s 21 wins in the 1884 Union Association (which has always astounded me by being called a major league at all), but the rest of his career stands on its own. Taking only his eight full seasons into account he was top-ten in WAR eight times, ERA eight times, wins eight times, WHIP eight times, and strikeouts eight times.
Hall-of-Fame chances: Purt near zero. If I controlled the keys to the kingdom, it wouldn’t even have been necessary to include him in this piece.
Tony Mullane: 284 wins; eight seasons with at least twenty wins, five with at least thirty. There are two reasons why he is not in the Hall today. Number one, he sat out the entire 1885 season over a salary squabble which cost him the glory that comes with 300 wins. Number two, he spent seven years in the American Association, the Norma Shearer of baseball leagues.
Hall-of-Fame chances: I shudder to think. Personally, I think the two biggest omissions from the Celestial Heights are Tony and Harry Stovey. Their future is not bright for all the reasons enumerated in the Bobby Mathews section above.
And thus endeth the exposition.
Except for this: Larry Corcoran started pitching for Chicago in the National League in 1880, when he was nineteen. By 1884, when he was twenty-four, he had already won 170 games for them (170–83, .672), having won 43 games as a rookie and then winning 32, 27, 34, and 35 over the next four years. He was in the top-ten in ERA all five years (2.23 average) as well as top-five in strikeouts (215 average). However, he also averaged 456 innings a season over that span, and, if you read about many of the pitchers directly above, you know the rest of the story. In the final three years of his major- league career, he was 7–6 with a 4.92 ERA and he pitched a total of 113 innings.
So, did Mr. Corcoran (who basically drank himself to death at age thirty-two) win twenty or more games six times? No, he did not. But, I thought it necessary to remind readers about a blazing star who flared briefly and then flamed out. Hey hey, my my.
6X20 = 0 was originally published in Our Game on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.