More shutouts than losses
Posted by Andy on November 12, 2009
The new PI arithmetic function (which is my new favorite thing in the world, by the way) allows us to do lots of quick searches for things we always wanted to know.
How about this?
Here are the 130 times since 1954 in which a pitcher had more shutouts than losses in a season. This includes guys with the same number of shutouts and losses, and I did this by setting the arithmetic criteria to SHO > .999 * L (if you don't know what I'm talking about, click here to review my last post on the new arithmetic function.)
(As an aside, I am willing to bet this feat was MUCH more common before 1954 as complete games were much more common. Guys tended to pitch a lot more shutouts but not necessarily lose a lot more games.)
As you can see, many of those seasons involved a guy having 1 shutout and 1 loss and aren't that interesting. So let's limit it to seasons with at least 4 shutouts:
Rk | Player | Year | SHO | L | Age | Tm | W |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | David Wells | 1998 | 5 | 4 | 35 | NYY | 18 |
2 | Bert Blyleven | 1989 | 5 | 5 | 38 | CAL | 17 |
3 | David Cone | 1988 | 4 | 3 | 25 | NYM | 20 |
4 | Orel Hershiser | 1988 | 8 | 8 | 29 | LAD | 23 |
5 | Orel Hershiser | 1985 | 5 | 3 | 26 | LAD | 19 |
6 | Dwight Gooden | 1985 | 8 | 4 | 20 | NYM | 24 |
7 | John Tudor | 1985 | 10 | 8 | 31 | STL | 21 |
8 | Fernando Valenzue | 1981 | 8 | 7 | 20 | LAD | 13 |
9 | Bob Knepper | 1981 | 5 | 5 | 27 | HOU | 9 |
10 | J.R. Richard | 1980 | 4 | 4 | 30 | HOU | 10 |
11 | Jerry Reuss | 1980 | 6 | 6 | 31 | LAD | 18 |
12 | Ron Guidry | 1978 | 9 | 3 | 27 | NYY | 25 |
13 | Tom Seaver | 1977 | 7 | 6 | 32 | TOT | 21 |
14 | Don Sutton | 1972 | 9 | 9 | 27 | LAD | 19 |
15 | Roger Nelson | 1972 | 6 | 6 | 28 | KCR | 11 |
16 | Luis Tiant | 1972 | 6 | 6 | 31 | BOS | 15 |
17 | Vida Blue | 1971 | 8 | 8 | 21 | OAK | 24 |
18 | Denny McLain | 1969 | 9 | 9 | 25 | DET | 24 |
19 | Jim Palmer | 1969 | 6 | 4 | 23 | BAL | 16 |
20 | Ray Culp | 1968 | 6 | 6 | 26 | BOS | 16 |
21 | Luis Tiant | 1968 | 9 | 9 | 27 | CLE | 21 |
22 | Denny McLain | 1968 | 6 | 6 | 24 | DET | 31 |
23 | Steve Blass | 1968 | 7 | 6 | 26 | PIT | 18 |
24 | Bob Gibson | 1968 | 13 | 9 | 32 | STL | 22 |
25 | Larry Jaster | 1966 | 5 | 5 | 22 | STL | 11 |
Here are the top 25 most recent such seasons. See what I mean about this new arithmetic tool finding hidden gems? Most of us could probably have guesses that this feat was achieved by Hershiser in 1988 or Fernando in 1981, but who had Knepper in 1980 or Reuss in 1980?
To have more shutouts than losses over a career is impossible. I checked and the most anybody since 1954 has is 1 shutout and 1 loss. However, some of the really great pitchers managed a shutout total as high as 30% of his career losses:
Rk | Player | W | SHO | L | To | From | Age |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Jim Palmer | 268 | 53 | 152 | 1965 | 1984 | 19-38 |
2 | Bob Gibson | 251 | 56 | 174 | 1959 | 1975 | 23-39 |
3 | Juan Marichal | 243 | 52 | 142 | 1960 | 1975 | 22-37 |
4 | Whitey Ford | 209 | 40 | 99 | 1954 | 1967 | 25-38 |
5 | Sandy Koufax | 165 | 40 | 87 | 1955 | 1966 | 19-30 |
6 | Jim Maloney | 134 | 30 | 84 | 1960 | 1971 | 20-31 |
7 | Denny McLain | 131 | 29 | 91 | 1963 | 1972 | 19-28 |
8 | Jim Wilson | 57 | 17 | 51 | 1954 | 1958 | 32-36 |
9 | Dick Hughes | 20 | 4 | 9 | 1966 | 1968 | 28-30 |
10 | J.A. Happ | 13 | 2 | 5 | 2007 | 2009 | 24-26 |
11 | Allie Reynolds | 13 | 4 | 4 | 1954 | 1954 | 37-37 |
12 | Karl Spooner | 10 | 3 | 6 | 1954 | 1955 | 23-24 |
Note that Ford, Wilson, and Reynolds played before 1954 as well and therefore the numbers above don't actually cover their entire careers. (Karl Spooner pitched in only 1954 and 1955 so his numbers are complete.)
Data for complete games is available way back, so check out the leaders for pitchers, over their career, with at least 50% more complete games than losses:
Rk | Player | CG | L | To | From | SHO | W |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Walter Johnson | 531 | 279 | 1907 | 1927 | 110 | 417 |
2 | Pete Alexander | 437 | 208 | 1911 | 1930 | 90 | 373 |
3 | Christy Mathewson | 433 | 185 | 1901 | 1916 | 79 | 373 |
4 | Eddie Plank | 410 | 194 | 1901 | 1917 | 69 | 326 |
5 | Warren Spahn | 382 | 245 | 1942 | 1965 | 63 | 363 |
6 | Ted Lyons | 356 | 230 | 1923 | 1946 | 27 | 260 |
7 | George Mullin | 353 | 196 | 1902 | 1915 | 35 | 228 |
8 | Cy Young | 331 | 146 | 1901 | 1911 | 44 | 225 |
9 | Vic Willis | 302 | 167 | 1901 | 1910 | 42 | 187 |
10 | Lefty Grove | 298 | 141 | 1925 | 1941 | 35 | 300 |
11 | Jack Powell | 294 | 194 | 1901 | 1912 | 33 | 167 |
12 | Bob Feller | 279 | 162 | 1936 | 1956 | 44 | 266 |
13 | Wilbur Cooper | 279 | 178 | 1912 | 1926 | 35 | 216 |
14 | Bill Donovan | 279 | 129 | 1901 | 1918 | 35 | 183 |
15 | Mordecai Brown | 271 | 130 | 1903 | 1916 | 55 | 239 |
16 | Doc White | 262 | 156 | 1901 | 1913 | 45 | 189 |
17 | Carl Hubbell | 260 | 154 | 1928 | 1943 | 36 | 253 |
18 | Chief Bender | 255 | 127 | 1903 | 1925 | 40 | 212 |
19 | Ed Walsh | 250 | 126 | 1904 | 1917 | 57 | 195 |
20 | Eddie Cicotte | 249 | 149 | 1905 | 1920 | 35 | 208 |
As expected, these are just about all names from long ago, with only Spahn and Feller pitching in the latter half of the 20th century. Limiting the years to the last 50 seasons (1960-2009) gives only 3 guys with more than 2 complete games: Marichal, Koufax, and Fidrych. Again, these are guys with at least 50% more complete games than losses.
Among active pitchers, nobody comes even close to qualifying for the list. In fact, we need to drop the ratio way down and look at the only 3 active pitchers who have half as many complete games as losses:
Rk | Player | CG | L | To | From | Age | G | GS | SHO |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Randy Johnson | 100 | 166 | 1988 | 2009 | 24-45 | 618 | 603 | 37 |
2 | Roy Halladay | 49 | 76 | 1998 | 2009 | 21-32 | 313 | 287 | 15 |
3 | J.A. Happ | 3 | 5 | 2007 | 2009 | 24-26 | 44 | 28 | 2 |
Incidentally, the list above is minimum 37 IP. Two guys (Wade Davis and Devern Hansack) each have 1 complete game and 1 loss.
November 12th, 2009 at 11:46 am
I like doing searches where the totals are equals. Something like "career games = career hits"
November 12th, 2009 at 11:48 am
I suspect the equals sign is more useful in the Game Finder for finding things like where all of a team's hits are homers (H = HR). I posted on that way way way way back like two years ago but had to do the search manually, i.e. find games with 1 hit and 1 homer, games with 2 hits and 2 homers, etc, but now it can all be done automatically.
Isn't Sean awesome?
November 12th, 2009 at 11:48 am
I wish there was a way to put in a number and list everything that is that number.
Like put in "478" and list everything or every person that has that number (career hits, career strikeouts, career HR...)
November 12th, 2009 at 11:51 am
Now you're just being silly, Dave. From a baseball stats standpoint, that's pure frivolity. (Nevertheless, I have made such posts...heh)
November 12th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
I don't understand why the SHO search can only be run since 1954. It's not dependent on play-by-play logs and SHO totals exist since the beginning of time.
November 12th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Yeah I didn't get that either, to be honest. I was hoping Gerry would chime in on that point.
November 12th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
How can we do searches like most HR in a season without hitting more than 1 in any game.
I recall we debated about that a while ago and found it was Piazza with 40.
Can that be done easier and more quickly now?
November 12th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
I just chatted with Raphy about #7 and reminded me that he recently posted the answer to this right here:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/blog/archives/1114
Indeed it is Piazza.
This could be done using the old version of the PI (and of course can still be done with the new version.) Neither Raphy nor I could think of any new tools in the PI that make this particular search any easier. The new PI Batting Game Finder makes it really easy to find, for example, multi-homer games and the player's total stats in those multi-homer games.
November 12th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Wow! I had no idea that (ShO >= L) had happened this frequently. I would have guessed this only happened a few times.
It's sad that the CG shutout is almost a thing of the past; only two 10-shutout seasons since 1968 and unlikely to ever happen again. And I forgot what a monster season Tudor had in '85. He had the bad luck to have it fall during one of Doc Gooden's best seasons, and then got outpitched by Saberhagen in the World Series, so his amazing season fell under the radar.
By the way if any admins are reading, the "oggifinogi" ad server is really killing player searches right now 🙁
November 12th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Not to beat a dead horse, but the 1954 limit is a bit perplexing. Seems to only affect comparative searches and only for pitchers. Batters work fine as seen by my "more walks than hits" query here:
http://bbref.com/pi/shareit/KEhP9
Maybe this limitation could be removed at some point?
November 12th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
I will make Sean aware of it. Never fear!
November 12th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Here's another fun one that comes up from time to time...
More HR than Strikeouts:
http://bbref.com/pi/shareit/Y4MqQ
Done only twice since the 50s.
Here we can only go back to 1913 as strikeout info is missing for a bit before then (double-checked retrosheet).
November 12th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
That Guidry 1978 season, 9 shutouts with only 3 losses, stands out. I did some unsystematic searching through the pre-1954 seasons and didn't find any other pitcher with that great a difference between shutout and loss totals.
November 12th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
By the way, if you want something really freaky, there have been a few pitchers with more shutouts than wins. According to a post by Wayne McElreavy to the SABR mailing list in 2002, Grover Lowdermilk of the 1911 Cardinals, Herb Bradley of the 1928 Red Sox, Ray Moss of the 1928 Dodgers, and Rip Coleman of the 1957 A's all finished the season with one shutout (in a scoreless tie) and no wins. He also notes that Neil Allen of the 1988 Yankees had more shutouts (1) than complete games (0).
November 12th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
To be fair, Raphy pointed out some of Gerry's post in #14 when he and I were chatting last night.
That Neil Allen thing is weird. Looks like he came in relief with no outs in the game linked below, and proceeded to throw 9 innings of scoreless relief. Hence a shutout but not a CG. Babe Ruth did that too, eh?
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/OAK/OAK198805310.shtml
Al Leiter must have gotten hit by the batted ball or sustained some other injury on the play.
November 12th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
Here's the rule that gives Allen the shutout:
10.18 SHUTOUTS
A shutout is a statistic credited to a pitcher who allows no runs in a game. No pitcher shall be credited with pitching a shutout unless he pitches the complete game, or unless he enters the game with none out before the opposing team has scored in the first inning, puts out the side without a run scoring and pitches the rest of the game without allowing a run...
Other than Allen the only other player since 1954 to pitch a shutout that was not a complete game was Bob Miller in 1955.
Andy, are you thinking of the game in which Ruth was tossed and Ernie Shore came in and was perfect?
November 12th, 2009 at 9:49 pm
Uh yeah, I had that backwards.
November 12th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
Miller has no shutout in his record for 1955. I don't know why. (Unless the rule was changed between Miller and Allen)