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Friday, September 15
Thank you for your support

By Michael Wolverton
Special to ESPN.com

Editor's note: The team of writers from the Baseball Prospectus (tm) will be writing twice a week for ESPN.com. You can check out more of their work at their web site at baseballprospectus.com.

Back in the early 1980s, before Roger Clemens and Bret Saberhagen arrived on the scene, the American League was hurting for star starting pitchers. Aside from Dave Stieb, who received little attention for a variety of reasons, nobody in the league was consistently putting up the top-flight run prevention numbers you expect from an elite starter.

Partly as a result of that, three AL Cy Young awards in a four-year period went to starters who had gaudy W/L records but so-so ERAs: Steve Stone in 1980 (25-7, 3.23), Pete Vuckovich in 1982 (18-6, 3.34), and La Marr Hoyt in 1983 (24-10, 3.66). None of them had ever or would ever again receive a significant number of votes for the award. Were these one-year wonders who suddenly raised their games to an elite level? Or, were they good-but-not-great pitchers who turned powerhouse offensive support and media fascination with W/L records into baseball's highest pitching honor?


	Scott Elarton is averaging 7.44 runs of support per game, the second-highest total in the NL behind Shawn Estes.

Those of you who read my previous column for the Insider know what side of that debate I'm going to come down on. Pitchers don't win games, teams do. A pitcher can only prevent runs, and a pitcher whose W/L record is significantly better (or worse) that you'd expect from his run prevention is generally the beneficiary (or victim) of luck. In the earlier article, we looked at the pitchers who had the toughest luck -- those who had crummy records despite good or even great pitching. Today we'll look at the other side of the coin -- pitchers who got all the breaks they needed, and then some.

We'll use the same method of estimating luck as we did last time. We start by computing an expected win (EW) and expected loss (EL) total for the pitcher based only on how he pitched: how many innings he went, how many runs he gave up, the pitcher- or hitter-friendliness of the parks he pitched in, and (when we have the data) the number and location of the runners he left on base when he was removed from the game. The EW/EL record is a "fair" W/L record for the pitcher in that it assumes he had a league average offense and bullpen behind him. We have two different ways of coming up with the EW/EL record: a tool called the Support-Neutral W/L record is used for the 2000 season, and a method based on Bill James' Pythagorean formula is used for the historical numbers.

I won't go into any more detail than that, and will instead invite anyone interested to read the earlier bad luck article or visit the Starting Pitcher Report on the Baseball Prospectus web site for more description of the methods and discussion of luck.

Here are the luckiest starters of 2000 by this method, through games of September 11. Only the pitchers' starts are considered; any relief appearances are ignored.

Pitcher         Team  W  L  Pct    EW   EL  EPct   Luck
Scott Elarton   HOU  16  5 .762   9.9  9.5  .510   10.6
David Wells     TOR  19  6 .760  13.7  9.8  .583    9.1
Tom Glavine     ATL  19  7 .731  13.1  9.3  .585    8.2
Andy Pettitte   NYY  18  7 .720  12.0  8.7  .580    7.7
Tim Hudson      OAK  16  6 .727  11.5  9.2  .556    7.6
Cal Eldred      CHW  10  2 .833   6.8  5.8  .540    7.0
G. Stephenson   STL  16  8 .667  11.0  9.8  .529    6.8
Willie Blair    DET   8  3 .727   4.5  5.8  .437    6.4
James Baldwin   CHW  14  5 .737  11.4  8.6  .570    6.2
Shawn Estes     SFG  14  4 .778  11.3  7.2  .611    5.9

If you've checked the league leaders in run support lately, you'll see a lot of the above names. In fact, other than Eldred and Blair, who don't yet have the innings to qualify for the ERA title, each of the pitchers on this list ranks sixth or higher in his league in run support. And no, that's not a coincidence.

To put Elarton and company's luck in historical perspective, here are the luckiest seasons of the post-war era, among all pitchers who started at least half their games:

Pitcher        Year Team    W  L  Pct    EW   EL   EPct  Luck
Storm Davis    1989 OAK-A  19  7 .731  11.1 14.9  .426   15.9
Whitey Ford    1961 NY-A   25  4 .862  17.3 11.7  .596   15.5
Bob Welch      1990 OAK-A  27  6 .818  19.4 13.6  .589   15.1
Catfish Hunter 1973 OAK-A  21  5 .808  14.0 12.0  .537   14.1
Mike Cuellar   1970 BAL-A  24  8 .750  17.0 15.0  .533   13.9
Dave Ferriss   1946 BOS-A  25  6 .806  18.1 12.9  .583   13.9
L. Christenson 1977 PHI-N  19  6 .760  12.1 12.9  .484   13.8
Jack Morris    1992 TOR-A  21  6 .778  14.2 12.8  .525   13.6
Steve Stone    1980 BAL-A  25  7 .781  18.6 13.4  .583   12.7
Denny McLain   1968 DET-A  31  6 .838  24.6 12.4  .666   12.7

I thought this list might be filled with Yankees from the '40s, '50s, and '60s, but another club with a tradition of strong offense, the Oakland A's, has three representatives to the Yankees' one. Topping the list is Storm Davis's (in)famous 1989. Despite allowing nearly five runs per game in a pitchers' park that year, Davis came within a late-season blown save of winning 20 games.

Given the BBWAA's fascination with pitcher W/L records, it should come as no surprise that this list is heavy with Cy Young Award winners. Ford, Welch, Stone and McLain all took home the trophy, and you find several more Cy Young seasons if you expand the list further than the top 10: Gaylord Perry's 1978 (21-6 actual W/L record vs. 15-12 expected), Don Newcombe's 1956 (27-7 vs. 21-13), Don Drysdale's 1962 (25-9 vs 20-14), Pete Vuckovich's 1982 (18-6 vs 13-11), and Rick Sutcliffe's 1984 (16-1 vs 11-6) all rank within the luckiest 100 all-time seasons by this method.

Here are the luckiest career records since 1900, again considering pitchers who started at least half their games:

Pitcher          Years   W   L   Pct   EW   EL  EPct  Luck
Lew Burdette   1950-67  203 144 .585  175  172  .505    56
Vic Raschi     1946-55  132  66 .667  107   91  .538    51
Whitey Ford    1950-67  236 106 .690  212  130  .619    49
Allie Reynolds 1942-54  182 107 .630  158  131  .548    47
J. Billingham  1968-80  145 113 .562  122  136  .474    45
Chief Bender   1903-25  208 111 .652  186  133  .582    45
Art Nehf       1915-29  184 120 .605  162  142  .534    43
Dwight Gooden  1984-99  188 107 .637  167  128  .564    43
Herb Pennock   1912-34  240 162 .597  219  183  .544    43
Juan Marichal  1960-75  243 142 .631  223  162  .578    41

The Yankees I didn't find in the single season list show up in spades here. Raschi, Ford, Reynolds, and Pennock all spent most of their careers in pinstripes supported by guys named Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio and Mantle. And the Yankees aren't the only offensive dynasty represented here; we also have the Aaron/Mathews Braves (Burdette), the Big Red Machine (Billingham), and the Mays/McCovey Giants (Marichal).

As I said above, the BBWAA loves to reward a good W/L record. That was reflected in a high percentage of Cy Young awards in the luckiest season list, and we can see it here in a high percentage of Hall of Famers. Ford, Bender, Pennock, and Marichal are all in (although Bender made it via the Veterans Committee, not the BBWAA), and Gooden has an outside chance to make it eventually.

Each of these guys has HOF qualifications beyond just an inflated W/L record, but obviously the inflated record didn't hurt. In fact, for these four and a few other HOFers who fall on the lucky side of the ledger, it's easy to find a non-HOFer who has a comparable expected W/L record, but who didn't have the same support from his team:

HOFer        EW  EL   W   L    Non-HOFer    EW  EL   W   L
B. Grimes   252 230  270 212   F. Tanana   250 226  240 236
J. Marichal 223 162  243 142   B. Pierce   226 154  211 169
H. Pennock  219 183  240 162   R. Reuschel 229 177  214 191
W. Ford     212 130  236 106   B. Adams    202 132  194 140
C. Hunter   209 181  224 166   C. Osteen   206 185  196 195
J. Haines   198 170  210 158   D. Leonard  207 165  191 181
C. Bender   186 134  208 111   D. Stieb    187 126  176 137
B. Lemon    192 143  207 128   D. Trout    193 138  170 161

I'm not trying to argue that all the guys on the left side are undeserving of the Hall, or that all the guys on the right should be in. But it's clear that, for pitchers with solid careers, W/L record luck can be the factor that decides the outcome of the HOF ballot. Lefty Gomez, also a Hall of Famer who had good luck with his record, is credited with saying "I'd rather be lucky than good." But when it comes to winning postseason trophies or making it to Cooperstown, it's better to be lucky and good.

Michael Wolverton may be reached at mwolverton@baseballprospectus.com.


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