The Yankees A.J. Burnett, with 77 walks, 17 wild pitches, and 9 batters plunked this season has been a bit of a wild child on the mound this year. So, what if we used some numbers close to these (...say, BB>=77, WP>=11 and HBP>=7) just to see how many other pitchers in baseball history have been this wild? Via Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Pitching Season Finder, here's the pitchers who have done it at least three times:

                   From  To   Ages Seasons Link to Individual Seasons
+-----------------+----+----+-----+-------+------------------------------+
 Nolan Ryan        1972 1989 25-42       7 Ind. Seasons
 Matt Clement      1999 2004 24-29       5 Ind. Seasons
 A.J. Burnett      2002 2009 25-32       4 Ind. Seasons
 Charlie Hough     1984 1987 36-39       4 Ind. Seasons
 Phil Niekro       1976 1979 37-40       4 Ind. Seasons
 Larry Cheney      1912 1916 26-30       4 Ind. Seasons
 Chuck Finley      1995 1999 32-36       3 Ind. Seasons
 David Cone        1992 2000 29-37       3 Ind. Seasons
 Gaylord Perry     1969 1972 30-33       3 Ind. Seasons
 Sam McDowell      1967 1970 24-27       3 Ind. Seasons
 Jean Dubuc        1912 1915 23-26       3 Ind. Seasons
 Vic Willis        1902 1905 26-29       3 Ind. Seasons

Of course, the trick here is that you have to be doing something else, that's good, for teams to keep giving you a chance to pitch.  Otherwise, guys like Daniel Cabrera and Jaime Cocanower would own a list like this one.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 23rd, 2009 at 10:07 am and is filed under Season Finders. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.