Best Power Pitchers

With the recent, near-unanimous election of Randy Johnson to the Hall of Fame, I started thinking about power pitchers. After all, Johnson blew into Cooperstown the same way he blew away batters. But was he the best power pitcher of all-time? It's close, but I don't think so.

The candidates (based purely on strikeouts and K/9):

Nolan Ryan
The Ryan Express fanned an unfathomable 5,714 hitters over the course of his 27-career. He also holds the single-season record with 383 whiffs in 1973, a record that seems unlikely to ever be broken in the age of five-man rotations (Ryan completed 326 innings that year). Ryan won 11 strikeout titles and led the league in K/9 a dozen times. His 6.6 H/9 rate is also the best of all-time.

Randy Johnson
Johnson's 4,875 strikeouts are second-highest all-time and most ever for a lefty. He won nine strikeout titles (10 including 1998, when he switched leagues midway through the season), topping 300 in a season seven times and 290 three other times. Eight times he had the highest strikeout rate in baseball, and his 10.6 K/9 rate is the best of all-time. Had the Big Unit pitched as many innings as Ryan, he would have totaled 6,349 strikeouts.

Roger Clemens
Clemens is third on the all-time list with 4,672 punchouts. Rocket led the league in that statistic five times and three times had the highest strikeout rate. Though he never reached 300 strikeouts in a single season, he surpassed 200 12 times.

Bob Feller
Even before missing four prime seasons to World War II, Feller's legacy as one of the all-time great power pitchers was secure. The Heater from Van Meter (Iowa) paced the majors in strikeouts in the four seasons before the war and in the three seasons immediately after, including a record 348 in 1946 (since broken). Rapid Robert also led the loop in K/9 five times, and when he retired in 1956 only Cy Young and Walter Johnson had accumulated more strikeouts. Unlike the others, who all remained great pitchers deep into their 30s and 40s, he peaked very early and never won a strikeout title after turning 30. His lack of longevity will hurt him in these rankings.

Walter Johnson
Johnson was like the Babe Ruth of pitchers, with strikeouts instead of home runs. The Big Train won eight consecutive strikeout crowns from 1912-1919 and a dozen in all. He had the Junior Circuit's highest K/9 rate seven times. True, those were the days when 150 strikeouts were enough to lead the league, but Johnson regularly exceeded 200 during his prime (seven straight years from 1910 to 1916) and even topped 300 twice. 300 strikeouts back then would be equivalent to around 500 today. He retired second in strikeouts behind the one and only Cy Young. Of course, much of Johnson's best years came during the deadball era, so I have to discount his statistics significantly. Once the live ball was introduced in 1920, he wasn't nearly as dominant, though I'm sure age and insane workloads had something to do with that as well.

The list:
1. Ryan
2. R. Johnson
3. W. Johnson
4. Clemens
5. Feller

Working the Count Works

Some sportswriters, Tom Verducci among them, have called out the passive approach of major league hitters who take pitches in the hopes of grinding out at-bats and drawing walks. Because hitters are striking out more than ever before, the critics say the "Moneyball approach" not working.

Never mind the fact that hitters are seeing the same amount of pitches per plate appearance as they did 20 years ago, or that contact rates have more or less held steady. I came across some interesting numbers in today's Boston Globe, numbers that made me think. Here are the four players who have taken the most called strikes this year:

1. Matt Carpenter (.324/.408/473)
The leadoff man for Mike Matheny's St. Louis Cardinals is a patient hitter, and even though he leads the league in called strikes he doesn't whiff very often with a 12.6 K%.rate. He can afford to take pitches because he's so great at making contact; Carpenter gets the bat on the ball on over 97 percent of pitches in the strike zone that he swings at.

2. Joe Mauer (.327/.415/.482)
Plunging contact rates on pitches outside the strike zone have cause Mauer's strikeout rate to rise every year since 2010, but that hasn't stopped him from producing excellent results at the plate. More K's haven't translated into more power from Mauer, who hasn't come remotely close to matching the 28 bombs from his '09 MVP campaign.

3. (tied) Mike Trout (.301/.375/.547) and Mike Napoli (.262/.347/.467)
Trout's numbers are down slightly from his superlative rookie season even though he's trimmed his strikeout rate from 21.8% to 18.1%. Napoli's fanned in over one-third of his plate appearances so far, but he's always been a feast-or-famine hitter. Chris Carter is the only player who's struck out more this year, but Napoli's made up for it with lots of doubles and RBI.

Those are four tremendous ballplayers. Mauer's an MVP, Trout should have been MVP, and Napoli's a former All-Star. Carpenter deserves to make the All-Star team this summer, as do Mauer and Trout. Doesn't sound like taking strikes is adversely affecting their performance at the plate. Maybe more, not fewer, hitters should do the same.

Best Pitching Season of the 1920s

Dazzy Vance 1924 (10.3 bWAR)

Coming off back-to-back 18 win seasons, Vance enjoyed the best year of his Hall of Fame career at the age of 33. He won the major league pitching Triple Crown by topping both leagues with 28 wins, 262 strikeouts and a 2.16 ERA, which worked out to be an ML-best 174 ERA+. He completed 30 of his 34 starts, amassed over 300 innings pitched and still maintained the sport's best WHIP, hit rate, strikeout rate and K/BB ratio.

On August 23rd, Vance set the then-NL-record for strikeouts in a nine-inning game by fanning 15 Chicago Cubs in his complete game victory. A month later, he again made history at Chicago's expense by fanning three Cubbies on nine pitches, becoming the fifth National League pitcher/seventh major leaguer to toss an "immaculate inning."

Though his Brooklyn Robins were unable to unseat John McGraw's New York Giants in the National League standings, Vance beat out Rogers Hornsby for league MVP honors. I can't say I agree with that one considering Hornsby batted .424--still the modern record--and was worth 12 (!) wins above replacement. Rajah was most likely penalized because his St. Louis Cardinals finished two dozen games below .500, though without him they probably would have been three dozen games under .500. Interestingly, Walter Johnson took home the AL trophy. The only other time both MVP awards went to non position players? 1968, the Year of the Pitcher, when Denny McLain and Bob Gibson won.

Some more notes from Vance's terrific campaign:

• Opponents batted just .213/.269/.279 off Vance that year
• His average GameScore was a 69
• Brooklyn went 29-6 (.829) when Vance pitched, 63-56 (.529) when he didn't 
• Of Vance's ML-best 30 complete games, just three were shutouts
• Went beyond nine innings on five occassions. On May 17th in St. Louis, he lasted 13 innings to earn the complete game W
• Surrendered multiple home runs in a game just once all year
•  His 262 strikeouts were more than any two pitchers combined and nearly twice as many as runner-up Burleigh Grimes. He also compiled more than two times the bWAR of any NL hurler
• By himself, Vance accounted for almost eight percent of the Senior Circuit's strikeouts
• Had eight games in which he whiffed ten or more batters
• Won 14 games at home and 14 on the road
• Earned run breakdown

        0 runs--7 starts 

        1 run--7 starts

        2 runs--6 starts

        3 runs--7 starts

        4 runs--3 starts

        5+ runs--4 starts

Best Offensive Season of the 1920s--Babe Ruth (1921)

Best Pitching Season of the 1940s

Bob Feller 1946 (9.4 bWAR)

After serving in the U.S. Navy for four years, Rapid Robert picked up where he left off in his first full season back from World War II. At the age of 27, he reclaimed his status as the sport's premier flamethrower and most electrifying pitchers. With the ink still drying on his freshly signed $50,000 contract, Feller won two-thirds of the pitching Triple Crown by leading both leagues with 26 wins and 348 strikeouts. In most years his 2.18 ERA would have been good enough to lead the league as well, but in '46 it placed him third behind Hal Newhouser and Spud Chandler among American League hurlers.

At Yankee Stadium on April 30th, Feller twirled the second no-hitter of his career to get the best of Bill Bevens in a 1-0 pitcher's duel. Though he walked five, Feller fanned eleven Yankees and stymied a loaded lineup featuring future Hall of Famers Joe DiMaggio, Bill Dickey, Joe Gordon, and Phil Rizzuto. Bullet Bob retired Tommy Henrich, Joltin' Joe and Charlie Keller in the bottom of the ninth to clinch his no-no. He went on to throw a pair of one-hitters later in the summer, narrowly becoming the first and only pitcher to have a trio of no-hitters in the same season.

Feller was selected to his fifth All-Star team and started the Midsummer Classic (as did Ken Keltner and Feller's batterymate, Frank Hayes) and delivered three shutout innings, earning the win as the American League cruised to a 12-0 rout. Feller allowed just two hits (both singles) and fanned three. Shortly thereafter, Feller embarked on a stretch in which he permitted just two earned runs in 69 innings from July 20th through August 17th.

Aside from Allie Reynolds, player-manager Lou Boudreau didn't have much of a rotation that year, so he leaned heavily on his ace. As a result, Feller pitched every fourth day, regardless of rainouts and off days. Feller went on to lead the majors with 48 appearances, 42 starts, 36 complete games, 10 shutouts and 371 and a third innings pitched, almost 80 more than the next closest pitcher (Newhouser). He even saved four games, enough to rank him fifth in the American League.

Though his Cleveland Indians finished the year 18 games below .500, Feller still managed to finish sixth in the MVP race that year (which was won by Ted Williams, one of the few batters to consistently frustrate Feller).

Here are some more interesting facts from Feller's record-setting year:

• Limited opponents to a .208/.291/.225 batting line
• Average GameScore was a 68
• The Tribe were 30-18 (.625) when Feller pitched, 38-68 (.358) when he didn't
• Went beyond nine innings three times, including eleven in a 2-1 win over the Philadelphia A's on June 16th
• Bookmarked his season with complete game efforts
• His K total set a new American League record, breaking Rube Waddell's 1904 mark of 344, that stood until Nolan Ryan punched out 383 batters 27 years later. Feller shattered Waddell's record in his final start of the season, a complete game victory over the Detroit Tigers in which he whiffed five to move past Waddell in the record books
• Had a dozen starts in which he struck out at least ten batters, though ten of those performances came before the All-Star Game
• Incredibly, Feller surrounded just 11 home runs all year long (good for a 0.3 HR/9 rate) and just three in his 23 home starts (where his ERA was 1.40). He did not allow a single long ball in April or August, and had just one game all year--July 11th at the House that Ruth Built--in which he served up multiple gopher balls (both to the immortal Aaron Robinson)
• Had 30 starts in which he allowed two earned runs or less. Check out his earned run breakdown:

         0 runs--12 starts

         1 run--9 starts

         2 runs--9 starts

         3 runs--6 starts

         4+ runs--6 starts

Best offensive season of the 1940s--Ted Williams (1941)