27 Responses to “Fewest career wins by a lefty to win 20 games in a season”

1. Scott Says:
   April 16th, 2011 at 8:38 am

   Haha not the place I'd like to see an old neighborhood boy like covaleski but nice to see his name. I was surprised that a pre 1920 player was first

2. Sam Hicks Says:
   April 16th, 2011 at 10:07 am

   It's pretty amazing how Dontrelle Willis fell off a cliff.

3. Jonas Says:
   April 16th, 2011 at 10:33 am

   I know the Herb Score story, but what happened to Gene Bearden? Did he get hurt, or did he get Dontrelle Willis disease? Cleveland couldn't get a break in the 50s.

4. J.R. Says:
   April 16th, 2011 at 12:15 pm

   Am I the only one who thought Teddy Higuera had a much more "productive" career? Surprising he had less than 100 Ws.

5. Andy Says:
   April 16th, 2011 at 12:28 pm

   You're not the only one. Many of these guys might be overrated since they had the 'fame' of a 20 win season but not a lot of long-term success.

6. Paul Drye Says:
   April 16th, 2011 at 1:06 pm

   @3: Bearden was a knuckleball pitcher, and some of them seem to do well at first and then drop off. See the start of Tim Wakefield's career before he managed to figure things out.

   But I think the main reason was drinking. He apparently had severe migraines after being injured in the Pacific War, and self-medicated with alcohol. His Wikipedia entry is coy and calls his "medicine" ETOH, but that's just how doctors write that tactfully on medical reports.

   @5: Andy: Higuera was one of the top pitchers in baseball for four years, '85-'88, when the first-tier starting pitcher corps was weak. Two top-6 Cy Young finishes and a second in the RoY will do that for you.

7. Jeff Says:
   April 16th, 2011 at 1:09 pm

   Bill Veeck talks about Bearden in Veeck as in Wreck. Veeck had his choice of a couple different players in a trade with the Yankees, and because Bearden was playing out in Oakland, Veeck figured he was the one the Yankees knew the least about. Stengel recomended him to Veeck too. As soon as Stengel went to the Yankees, Bearden stopped winning. Veeck thought Stengel must have known something about Bearden and his knuckler that he kept to himself.

8. --bill Says:
   April 16th, 2011 at 1:33 pm

   Noodles Hahn won 39 games in 1899-1901, ending his career with 130 wins.

9. Juan sin Miedo Says:
   April 16th, 2011 at 2:13 pm

   Very Cool, any list with the Babe listed as a pitcher has to be very cool. I think you just created an answer to a new trivia question. What does Teddy Higuera and Babe Ruth have in common? They both had a 20 win season and they both won 94 games in their careers.

10. Andy Patton Says:
    April 16th, 2011 at 2:31 pm

    Any list with Herb Score, Dontrelle Willis, and Babe Ruth on it is a list I'm a fan of. All three had very different routes post 20 win season. Score had his tragic accident, Willis had his tragic "forget how to throw a strike" syndrome, and Ruth, well, Ruth spelled tragedy for every other MLB pitcher for the next decade.

11. jason Says:
    April 16th, 2011 at 4:07 pm

    chien ming wang was two wins away from being on this list (and high on the list too) with 2 20-win seasons. how many of these guys have 2 20-w seasons?

12. Richard Chester Says:
    April 16th, 2011 at 5:07 pm

    @11

    Nick Altrock was one. He had a strange career. It spanned 19 seasons and he had three decent ones. In many seasons he made token appearances such as one at bat.

13. Albert7 Says:
    April 16th, 2011 at 5:19 pm

    #11

    Wang is right hander. This list is about left handers.

14. Neil L. Says:
    April 16th, 2011 at 5:31 pm

    @2
    Jonas, I totally agree. Dontrelle stands out on the list among his generation and them some. His "rise" (read hype) and fall might be unique in baseball history.

    @12
    Richard, your post made me want to pull up Nick Altrock's career. You are right that his numbers suggest a strange story. What is it with the gaps in his ML service time? And if you include his 1898 season, his career spanned 26 years, although not continous.

15. Albert7 Says:
    April 16th, 2011 at 5:56 pm

    From Altrock's wikipedia page:

    An arm injury after 1906 ruined his career, but he hung on with the White Sox and Washington Senators until 1924, though he pitched very little after 1908 and made sporadic pinch-hitting appearances after that, including one in 1933 (facing Rube Walberg of the Philadelphia Athletics) at 57 years of age.

    Altrock became a coach for the Senators in 1912 and remained on the Washington staff until 1953, a 42-year skein that represents the longest consecutive-year tenure of a coach with the same franchise in baseball history.

    During that time, he was noted for his antics in the coaching box and teamed with Al Schacht, the "Clown Prince of Baseball," for a dozen years to perform comedy routines on baseball fields in the days before official mascots. Schacht and Altrock also took their antics to the vaudeville stage where they appeared in a comedy routine.

16. Richard Chester Says:
    April 16th, 2011 at 6:01 pm

    @14

    I meant that he made a ML appearance in each of 19 seasons. His career actually
    spanned from 1898 to 1933, a 36 year period. His 1933 AB was when he was 57 years old and at the time he was the oldest player to participate in the ML.

17. Neil L. Says:
    April 16th, 2011 at 6:15 pm

    @15
    Albert, so he was a kind of playing coach for the Senators after 1912? The arm injury would explain the sudden drop off in IP after 1907.

    If wikipedia is correct and that is questionable, where is his 1933 plate appearance in the BR database?

    Musta been a colorful character in his time to be a "Rick Dempsey" even without a rain delay. (lol)

18. Neil L. Says:
    April 16th, 2011 at 6:18 pm

    Oops, just noticed it! (~red face~)

19. Gerry Says:
    April 16th, 2011 at 7:03 pm

    @17, Altrock's 1933 plate appearance is right there on his BR page. The top half of the page is his pitching, you have to scroll down to the batting stuff. I wouldn't say he was a "playing coach," I'd say he was a coach who got put into some meaningless end-of-season games from time to time to as a stunt. This was not so uncommon up to the 1930s.

    Ruth is not the only player on the list to disappear as a pitcher and reappear as a position player - Reb Russell did this, too. Not at Ruth's level, of course, but in 1922 in 250 PA he hit 368/423/668.

    Dickie Kerr and Lefty Williams on the same list - Williams' promising career ended early for his role in throwing the 1919 World Series, of course, while Kerr was 2-0 for the White Sox in those games (Williams was 0-3).

    I once made a list of guys who had 2 or more 20-win seasons but fewer than 100 career wins, I'll have to see if I can find it. I remember Frank Mountain was a stand-out . Looking him up, I see he won 26 in 1883, and 23 the next year, and only 58 in his career. But he was a righty. The most amazing guy was Charley Ferguson; 4 20-win seasons, 99 career wins. Another righty.

20. Richard Chester Says:
    April 16th, 2011 at 7:22 pm

    @19

    It was a stunt. It occurred the last day of the season and Altrock pinch-hit and made the last out. You are right about these stunts not being uncommon in that era.

21. Neil L. Says:
    April 16th, 2011 at 7:57 pm

    @12 @15 @16 @19 @20
    Part of me pines for a simpler, more naive time in baseball like the early twentieth century, before baseball was a business. You could pull stunts, have base coaches entertain crowds etc. Just sentimentality I guess.

    On second thought, I guess it was still a business then..... the owners held all the cards.

22. DavidRF Says:
    April 16th, 2011 at 8:56 pm

    @19
    I'd imagine there was a lot of multiple 20-game winners with very short careers in the 19th century. Normally I don't like the 1901 cutoff used around here, but pitchers got so many decisions in the 1800s. It took me 10 seconds to find Dan Casey, Nixey Callahan and Hugh Daily. Gotta be many more.

    I looked up Charlie Ferguson to see what happened to him. He died of typhoid fever at age 24.

23. Ed Says:
    April 16th, 2011 at 11:46 pm

    Harry Coveleski had a pretty strange career as well. Three seasons of 20+ wins but no other season above 6 wins.

24. John Autin Says:
    April 17th, 2011 at 12:47 am

    The presence of Federal Leaguers like Al Schulz and Frank Allen on lists such as the one above are pretty strong evidence of the below-major-league caliber of the Federal League. Frank Allen went 24-13 in the Federal League, but 26-53 in the established majors. Al Schulz went 30-26 with the Feds, 17-37 with the big boys.

    There are many other cases like those two.

    I think the Federal League should not be considered a major league. They called themselves a major league, they hired a number of legitimate major-league players, and under different circumstances they might have become a major league. But the overall caliber of play was clearly not up to the standards of the AL and NL.

25. Gerry Says:
    April 17th, 2011 at 1:45 am

    @22, that's Hugh "One Arm" Daily to you. 23 wins in 1883, then 28 and 27 the next two years, then bupkes (or pretty close to it). 73 career wins. Callahan had 4 seasons as a starting outfielder after he won his last game as a pitcher.

26. Fewest career wins by a lefty to win 20 games in a season | jpbaseball Says:
    April 17th, 2011 at 8:06 pm

    [...] Source: http://www.baseball-reference.com/blog/archives/10723 [...]

27. Larry R. Says:
    April 18th, 2011 at 9:23 am

    The biggest of Bearden's 45 wins...beating Boston in the '48 1-game playoff, putting the Tribe into, and eventually winning, their first WS in 28 years.