Lowest winning percetange, minimum 400 starts
Posted by Andy on January 18, 2008
Do you know who it is? Click through for more info.
Courtesy of 88 Topps Cards, the answer is Mike Morgan.
Cnt Player **W-L%** GS From To Ages G CG SHO GF W L SV IP H R ER BB SO ERA ERA HR BF IBB HBP BK WP Teams
----+-----------------+---------+---+----+----+-----+----+---+---+---+---+---+---+------+----+----+----+----+----+------+----+---+-----+---+---+---+---+-----------
1 Mike Morgan .431 411 1978 2002 18-42 597 46 10 56 141 186 8 2772.1 2943 1431 1303 938 1403 4.23 97 270 11872 77 73 5 105 OAK-NYY-TOR-SEA-BAL-LAD-CHC-TOT-CIN-TEX-ARI
2 Bob Friend .461 497 1951 1966 20-35 602 163 36 56 197 230 11 3611 3772 1652 1438 894 1734 3.58 107 286 15214 115 46 13 50 PIT-TOT
3 Steve Trachsel .478 409 1993 2007 22-36 410 20 7 0 141 154 0 2461.1 2534 1286 1182 916 1575 4.32 100 338 10605 63 51 16 62 CHC-TOT-NYM
4 Mike Moore .478 440 1982 1995 22-35 450 79 16 6 161 176 2 2831.2 2858 1516 1381 1156 1667 4.39 95 291 12203 61 55 11 135 SEA-OAK-DET
5 Tom Candiotti .479 410 1983 1999 25-41 451 68 11 11 151 164 0 2725 2662 1299 1130 883 1735 3.73 108 250 11568 31 85 27 120 MIL-CLE-TOT-LAD-OAK-TOT
6 Bob Knepper .485 413 1976 1990 22-36 445 78 30 10 146 155 1 2708 2737 1258 1106 857 1473 3.68 95 228 11488 78 47 13 60 SFG-HOU-TOT-SFG
7 Bobo Newsom .487 483 1929 1953 21-45 600 246 31 71 211 222 21 3759.1 3769 1908 1664 1732 2082 3.98 107 206 16467 61 7 60 BRO-CHC-SLB-TOT-WSH-SLB-DET-PHA-NYG
8 Tom Zachary .493 409 1918 1936 22-40 533 186 24 84 186 191 22 3126.1 3580 1552 1295 914 720 3.73 106 119 13551 41 15 38 PHA-WSH-SLB-TOT-NYY-BSN-BRO
That's everybody under .500 for their careers (minimum 400 starts, since 1901.)
If we neutralize each guy, here's his new record:
Morgan 148-155 (.488) Friend 219-186 (.541) Trachsel 142-140 (.504) Moore 153-167 (.478) Candiotti 164-141 (.538) Knepper 144-150 (.490) Newsom 244-194 (.557) Zachary 204-156 (.567)
Wow, with the exception of Moore, every pitcher here gets better, and some (Morgan, Friend, Candiotti, Newsom and Zachary) get WAY better.
This affirms what should already be apparent: rarely does a pitcher get 400 starts in the major leagues without being a pretty good pitcher, despite what his record may say.
January 18th, 2008 at 9:05 am
I knew it immediately - went to high school with him. Extremely nice guy. Was SO happy to see him get his ring with Arizona in 2001.
Never posted a winning season in his first 10 YEARS! I doubt that has ever been done before or since.
January 18th, 2008 at 9:32 am
I was actually going to guess Mike Moore, but maybe my memory was confused.
January 18th, 2008 at 10:27 am
Mike, there has been 1 other pitcher - Ron Kline
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/SKsn
At least Morgan had a .500 season, Kline didn't even have that.
January 18th, 2008 at 11:09 am
Moore and Morgan were together for 3 seasons in Seattle and combined for a record of 61-77. I thought they were together longer and pitched worse.
January 18th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
WOW - I am shocked that Morgan doesn't hold that record by himself. Thanks Oscar.
January 18th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
That was a clever way of determining that stat, Oscar. You might just be "da man" when it comes to using the PI creatively.
January 18th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
On an unrelated note, I just came across something unbelievable. On April 12, 1989 Nolan Ryan broke Warren Spahns RetroSheet era record (by one day)
as the oldest pitcher to record a gamescore in the 90's (42 years 71 days). He then did it NINE more times! So in the last fifty one seasons this has been done 11 times. Ryan 10, Spahn 1, everyone else 0.
January 18th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Regarding #7
Here is the list of pitchers and their starts made above that age.
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/qhn3
The only real thing that jumps out at you is the type of pitchers (until recently) that had long careers and how unusual it was for Ryan, a fireballer to pitch so long. Since that Ryan's legacy, it is not all that surprising. Nonetheless, it is an interesting fact.
January 18th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
If we lower the age to 40 & keep the gamescore @ 90, it's still a very short list.
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/UYjN
January 18th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
And here are the total starts (3101) for starters age 40+
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/E3eZ
January 18th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
I'd like to change my opinion slightly based on this list.
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/eDAz
If you only looked at Ryan's games after the age of 42, he would still rank 12th among the career leaders (since 1957). Roger Clemens in his entire career only had 13 such games. Ryan was clearly made for high game scores.
January 18th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Ryan had a span of 21 years / 3 months from the first to the last. I would venture to say very few 10 year spans exist. Is there a way to figure that out? As good as Clemens has been late in his career, he hasn't done it since 1998.
January 18th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
This is semi-related to Oscar's unrelated note -
I was wondering what else you guys (Andy, Oscar, et al) could do with Game Scores.
I still don't have a PI account, so some of these lists are pretty makeshift, but I recently looked into Game Scores as a way to find the most dominant stretches of pitching:
http://terriblefriend.blogspot.com/2008/01/best-pitching-seasons.html
I also did worked with strikeouts:
http://terriblefriend.blogspot.com/2008/01/pedro-1999.html
Just curious to see what you guys can gather, if you haven't discussed it already. I know I've been gone for a few months.
January 18th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
OK - I did it by hand. Of the 188 pitchers who have had multiple 90+ gamescores in their careers, 17 have had spans of longer than 10 years from first to last. The only 2 that had 15 year spans were the above mentioned Ryan (21 yrs. 80 days) and his old Angel teammate Frank Tanana (15 years 320 days). Steve carlton missed by 2 days. Here are some interesting tidbits:
1) Milt Pappas did it 5 times in his career - three of those on September 2
2) David Cone did it 6 times in 6 different months
3) Al Jackson did it twice for the '62 Mets
4) TWo pitchers (Tommy Green & Steve Blass) did it just twice in their career, but in consecutive starts
5) Orel Hershieser did it in 3 of 4 starts (starts 5-8 of his career) then never again in his last 458
January 18th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
And because I feel guilty for hijacking Mike Morgan's thread, here are his top 12 career gamescores:
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/6s3a
January 18th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Hijack away...this is very interesting discussion!
January 18th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Yeah, even in Orel's last few starts in '88, he never cracked 90, and he even went under 70 once or twice.
January 18th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
I can see me buzzing in as soon as I hear Trebek say Hershieser.... "what is 1988 Alex" .....HUH - WHAA - 1984???
January 18th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
I had the same thought, Mike (well not specifically about JEOPARDY.) But the idea that you'd think any of Hershisher's career achievements came in any year but 1988.
January 19th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Is there any way to see won loss records of just games started? Morgan may have started 411 games, but pitched in another 186 games. I realized that with the mention of Ron Kline, who actually started just over 200 games, though he pitched in a good 500 or so more.
January 19th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Well, there isn't an easy way to search career totals for only starts or relief appearances. For any given player, that info is easy to see from his career splits, or individual games can be found using the Game Finder function and specifying the pitching role. (So it's possible to find out who has the most games as a starter with other criteria, such as pitching a certain number of innings, etc.)
January 21st, 2008 at 12:35 pm
From these searches, it looks like Morgan was 14-8 as a reliever in his career. That means as a starter his record was 127-178 (.416)!! Also, I wonder how many starters were 50+ games under .500 - that number has to be VERY low.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/shareit/ENnC
http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/shareit/A9cB