Baseball History Comes Alive Now Ranked #2 by Feedspot Among All Internet Baseball History Websites and Blogs!
Guest Submissions from Our Readers Always Welcome!
Please note: As we compose new blog entries, we will now send each one out to all our subscribers as we post them. Here’s a link to see the entire Blog Archives -GL
THE BASEBALL HISTORY COMES ALIVE BLOG
Please note: As we compose new blog entries, we will now send each one out to all our subscribers as we post them. Here’s a link to see the entire Blog Archives -GL
New Blog Topic:WILL WE EVER SEE THE RETURN OF THE ROUTE-GOING ACE
Just recently, I wrote about baseball’s attempt to limit the length of extra-inning games by implementing the rather un-baseball-like rule of putting a runner on second base to begin the tenth inning and continuing the practice until the game’s conclusion. After watching the Mets opening night game against the Phillies, something else struck me about today’s game, something that has slowly been happening for years now. That is the disappearance of the complete game, the use of the bullpen becoming so extensive that baseball fans have all but lost the joy of watching a route-going performance by an ace pitcher.
In the Mets’ opener, Jacob deGrom threw six innings of 3-hit, 7-strikeout shutout ball and left with a 2-0 lead, only to see it coughed up by the bullpen. Once again
deGrom got a no-decision for his herculean effort. This has become commonplace for deGrom who, along with Gerrit Cole of the Yankees, is considered one of the two best starters in the game today. Many feel deGrom is the best. Only there’s something missing and it isn’t deGrom’s fault.
In both 2018 and 2019 Jacob deGrom was the National League’s Cy Young Award winner, judged the best pitcher in the league. His won-lost record those two years, 10-9 and 11-8. His earned run averages were a microscopic 1.70 in ’18 and a solid 2.43 the next year. He also had 269 and 255 strikeouts respectively in those seasons, well more than a strikeout per inning. That’s all definitely ace-like. Yet why just a 21-17 record for the league’s best pitcher?
I think the answer is pretty simple. In those two seasons combined deGrom had just a single complete game. In fact, he’s finished what he started just three times in 184 career starts. I read a stat the other day that said the Mets’ bullpen has blown 31 saves after deGrom left a game with a lead in his career, and he’s also suffered defeats when he’s pitched well but received little run support. His career record since his rookie year of 2014 is just 70-51. Not much to show for being an ace, an obvious dominant pitcher.
What happened with Jacob deGrom is emblematic of baseball’s over-reliance on bullpens and teams only asking their best pitchers to throw six or seven innings per start. In the past, a pitcher labeled an ace was expected to finish what he started and often did. I won’t go back to 1920, when Leon Cadore of the Dodgers and Joe Oeschger of the Braves each went the distance in an epic 26-inning game. But I will refer to the Giants/Braves came of 1963 when 42-year old Warren Spahn of the Braves and 25-year-old Juan Marichal of the Giants each pitched 16 innings in a game that ended up 1-0 on a Willie Mays home run. Did pitching all 16 innings hurt either pitcher? Doesn’t seem so. Spahn won 23 games that year and Marichal 25.
Spahn led the league that year with 22 complete games, the seventh straight season he was tops in that category. He finished his Hall of Fame career with 363 wins and 384 complete games. Marichal had 18 route-going performances that season and 244 for his career that saw him notch 243 wins. Were their careers impacted by throwing all those complete games? I think not. In fact, in that era of great pitchers, the complete game by an ace and even a non-ace were pretty much commonplace.
Here’s a small sampling of some numbers compiles by true aces. Tom Seaver, 231 complete games, 61 shutouts. Bob Gibson, 255 CG, 56 shutouts. Steve Carlton, 254
CG, 55 shutouts. Ferguson Jenkins, 267 CG, 49 shutouts. Jim Palmer, 211 CG, 53 shutouts, Nolan Ryan, 222 CG, 61 shutouts. Compared to Jacob deGrom, today’s ace, 3 CG, 1 shutout.
What has changed and is it good for baseball? Today analytics says that a quality start is six innings and three runs. It also tells those who run the game that pitchers can’t navigate a lineup a third time without getting into trouble. Perfect case in point, Blake Snell being lifted from a World Series game last season after totally dominating the Dodgers for Tampa Bay. Hello relievers, goodbye ballgame. And tell the aforementioned pitchers above that they couldn’t navigate a lineup a third time. Not only does their record prove they could. I’m also sure that some of the answers to that question wouldn’t be printable.
Today’s great athletes who are pitchers are perfectly capable of learning to go the distance. But they aren’t being taught how to go deep into games. Instead, it’s a matter of throwing as hard as they can for six innings and let the bullpen take care of the rest. Plus they are babied when it comes to pitch counts and innings limits. Throwing a lot of pitches and accruing 250 plus innings didn’t hurt the aces of the past. And how many of them blew out their elbows before the advent of Tommy John surgery? Something is very wrong today and MLB doesn’t seem to be taking any steps toward fixing it. Just accepting the way it is.
Have they ever had the surviving pitchers who won more than 300 games (and I’m including more modern pitchers like Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, Randy Johnson and Roger Clemens) hold a symposium to discuss how they trained and what they did to pitch so often and still complete games year after year without the pitch counts and innings limits? And have they made a real study to find out why so many young pitchers today are requiring Tommy John surgery, some as young as high schoolers and many college hurlers? There has to be a reason why some 25 percent of major league pitchers have had the surgery while the great aces of the past never needed it.
You can certainly make a case for today’s bullpen use with all the hard throwers being paraded into a game over the final three innings. But you never know when even a top reliever is going to have a bad day and certainly when you use four or five of them, someone might not have it. For the older baseball fan nothing was more exciting than seeing the ace pitcher on your favorite team dominate for nine innings and walk off the mound with a complete-game victory to a standing ovation.
There used to be an old saying about aces. You better get them early or you won’t get them at all. The great ones often got stronger as the game went on. They knew how to pitch and to pace themselves to go nine. And in many cases they stayed on the mound if the game went into extras. That’s what an ace did and that’s one of the things the game is missing today.
Bill Gutman
As always, we enjoy reading your comments
Here’s a link to see the entire Blog Archives
Spot on, Bill. If a guy could throw 300+ innings in the early 20th century, why not now, with medical advances? Imagine telling Christy Mathewson, “We’ll pay you 50 times as much for a third of the work.”
Thanks, Dave. I remember reading once that a top pitching coach said his pitchers essentially threw every day, not all out obviously, but they threw consistently. The only other thing they did was run and work on their legs. No weight lifting or use of today’s special machines. Nolan Ryan, after completing a game and maybe throwing 140 pitches, would immediately ride a stationary bike in the clubhouse after the game. He always wanted to keep his legs strong because they were a huge part of his pitching motion. And the guy threw high octane fastballs well into his forties. No Tommy John surgery needed. Why wouldn’t a young pitcher learn about this and follow that same routine? Probably because he’s told not to.
In my opinion, you are not a complete pitcher until you can pitch a complete game. I am very old-school.
Agree with you, James. They act today that it’s an impossible thing to do. But have they ever asked the pitchers who did it year after year how they managed to do it and be relatively injury free? Doesn’t see so because it’s going from bad to worse.
Times have changed. It use to be when the manager gave the pitcher the ball, he would say “Don’t Give It Back”. But now pitchers are content to go just 6 innings and hand the ball over. They have been conditioned to go hard until their arms fall off. They don’t pace themselves for the long hall. Today if a pitcher gets a complete game, he is looked at as an exception when back in the day, this was normal. The way the game is going now, just go 6 innings and leave it up to the bullpen. That is good during the early part of the regular season, but what happens when its late in the year and your bullpen is run down from the early season work? You can’t always leave it up to your bullpen.
Agree with you, Sean. Pitchers aren’t taught how to go deep into games anymore since six innings and three runs is considered a “quality” start. I rather see a Bob Gibson or Tom Seaver go nine than a parade of four relievers to cover the final three innings. You never know when one of them won’t have it and blow the game.
I apologize for the double comment, wanted to edit did not know it would duplicate.
No problem Sean, I’ll take care of it.
I started following baseball in 1968, and was lucky to catch Denny McLain’s 31 win season. I was recently reading about Billy Martin’s car accident and recalled Catfish Hunter, the first “really big money” free agent thanks to Charlie Finley.
1974, 41 starts with 23 CGs, and then 39 starts and 30 CGs in 1975 with NY. 30! Nobody has topped that figure since. Players today barely get 30 starts all season. I guess Steinbrenner wanted to make sure he got his money’s worth from Hunter @$640,000 a year.