Pitcher Evaluation Tools- Part 1- Starter Standards 1905-2005

Thursday, December 22 2005 @ 08:00 AM EST

Contributed by: Mike Green

The winter meetings are done. Christmas is near, and it's time for Hall Watch to get rolling in earnest again. We will begin with the starters. Before we tackle the big questions such as "is Roger Clemens better than Walter Johnson?", we need some tools. The first step is getting a statistical handle on starting pitchers over the last 100 years.

The offence/pitching environment has gone through a number of changes over the last 100 years. New leagues, rule changes prohibiting certain pitches, efforts to keep cleaner balls in play, raising and lower of the mound, wars, the DH rule and performance-enhancing drugs have all played their part in the changing face of the battle between batter and pitcher. Within pitching staffs, the nature of the bullpen is completely different in 2005 than it was 1905 or even 1955, and there has been a move to a longer rotation over the years.

The comparisons of position players across the ages is much simpler than it is for pitchers for one simple reason. The changes to the game have not affected much the number of times that a player comes to the plate. 600 at-bats in a season and 9000 at-bats in a very good long career have been standards that batters can reasonably achieve throughout time. Pitchers' workload has changed dramatically over the ages. 320-340 innings would be perfectly reasonable seasonal totals for a starter in the years 1910-1920 or 1960-1970, whereas 220-240 innings would be a good total for a current starter.

Without further ado, here's the chart. The figures reflect the performance of the average of the 3rd-5th best starter in each category (except for home runs, which reflect the 3rd-5th highest figures.) The bracketed figures in the K/9, W/9 and HR categories are league average K/G, W/G and HR/G. DER stands for defensive efficiency rating and reflects the percentage of balls in play turned into outs (680 means that the defence turned 68 per cent of balls in play into outs). The basic data has been obtained from baseballreference.com.

Year    League   IP      K/9(Lg.)  W/9(Lg.)  HR(Lg.)  ERA+  DER
2005    NL       236     8.7(6.7)  1.7(3.3)  34(1.0)  151   693
        AL       227     8.1(6.1)  1.2(3.0)  32(1.1)  135   695

2000    NL       243     8.7(6.7)  1.8(3.8)  34(1.2)  154   689        
        AL       225     8.4(6.2)  1.9(3.7)  33(1.2)  136   684

1996    NL       237     9.1(6.7)  1.7(3.3)  29(1.0)  146   687
        AL       246     7.9(6.2)  2.4(3.8)  35(1.2)  142   682

1990    NL       233     8.4(5.7)  2.0(3.2)  22(0.8)  143   701
        AL       237     8.1(5.6)  2.1(3.4)  26(0.8)  140   699

1985    NL       270     8.0(5.5)  1.5(3.3)  26(0.7)  160   707
        AL       262     6.7(5.2)  2.1(3.3)  30(1.0)  141   704

1980    NL       263     6.9(5.1)  1.9(3.1)  23(0.6)  126   700
        AL       276     6.4(4.6)  2.0(3.2)  28(0.8)  138   698

1975    NL       278     7.2(5.0)  2.1(3.5)  24(0.6)  139   701
        AL       300     7.3(4.9)  2.2(3.5)  28(0.8)  135   703

1970    NL       291     7.8(5.9)  1.9(3.6)  30(0.9)  133   697
	AL       291     7.7(5.6)  2.2(3.5)  32(0.9)  131   711

1965    NL       297     8.3(5.9)  1.6(2.9)  27(0.8)  148   704
        AL       265     7.9(5.9)  1.8(3.3)  28(0.8)  134   715

(154 game schedule)

1960    NL       272     7.5(5.5)  1.6(3.2)  27(0.8)  132   704
        AL       255     5.9(4.9)  2.0(3.6)  26(0.9)  121   712

1955    NL       241     6.0(4.4)  2.2(3.4)  30(1.0)  121   714
        AL       239     6.0(4.4)  2.7(3.9)  22(0.8)  142   710

1950    NL       282     5.7(4.1)  2.3(3.7)  31(0.9)  136   707
        AL       255     5.3(3.7)  3.0(4.4)  25(0.8)  131   700

1945    NL       241     4.8(3.1)  1.8(3.4)  15(0.5)  142   702
        AL       255     4.5(3.4)  2.2(3.4)  12(0.4)  145   708

1940    NL       281     4.5(3.5)  1.8(3.1)  18(0.6)  133   701
        AL       270     5.5(3.8)  2.4(3.6)  21(0.7)  141   691

1935    NL       270     4.8(3.8)  1.6(2.7)  19(0.5)  134   686
        AL       276     4.8(3.2)  2.3(3.7)  17(0.5)  136   688

1930    NL       261     4.7(3.1)  1.9(3.0)  24(0.7)  123   668
        AL       289     5.6(3.3)  2.0(3.2)  19(0.6)  132   679

1925    NL       274     3.8(2.8)  1.7(2.8)  18(0.5)  134   675
        AL       259     3.7(2.7)  2.2(3.5)  15(0.4)  139   679

1920    NL       302     4.1(3.0)  1.5(2.4)  9 (0.2)  135   693
        AL       310     3.9(2.9)  2.2(3.1)  13(0.3)  139   680

1915    NL       297     5.3(3.8)  1.5(2.6)  8 (0.2)  129   704
        AL       305     5.4(3.9)  1.8(3.4)  6 (0.1)  153   695

1910    NL       304     5.2(3.6)  1.9(3.2)  7 (0.2)  142   689
        AL       315     6.1(4.2)  1.7(2.8)  7 (0.2)  167   693

1905    NL       337     5.1(3.6)  1.8(2.6)  7 (0.2)  140   685
        AL       329     5.5(4.1)  1.8(2.4)  7 (0.1)  139   708

If you look carefully in the statistics, you'll see Babe Ruth in the American League in 1920 and Rogers Hornsby in the National in 1925. You'll see the hitter's paradise of 1930, and the sloppy baseball of wartime. You can see differing strike zone patterns in each league for a decade or more.

We will come back to this chart over and over again this winter. For now, all we need to know is this. Starting pitchers today pitch in a high-homer, high strikeout environment by historical standards, and the magnitude of the differences are huge. The twenties was a high run-scoring environment, but strikeout and homer rates were at about 1/2 of what they are now. This means that pitchers generally played a much smaller role in run prevention as compared with defence than they do now, and perhaps explains the careers and post-career fame that Rabbit Maranville and Pie Traynor had.

Next, we'll look at measures of quantity- innings pitched, batters faced, across time.

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