Yesterday, when I wrote about bases-loaded walks, I noted that Levale Speigner had the second-most such walks last year. I must admit--I had not heard of him before writing that stat. Turns out he was a rookie pitcher (mainly reliever) for Washington last year, and he finished with 40 IP and an 8.78 ERA. Yuck.

Here are the worst ERAs since 1901 for a pitcher in any of his first 3 seasons, minimum 40 IP:

  Cnt Player              **ERA**    IP  Year Age Tm  Lg  G  GS CG SHO GF  W  L  W-L% SV  H   R   ER  BB  SO ERA+ HR  BF   AB  2B 3B IBB HBP  SH  SF GDP  SB CS Pk BK WP   BA   OBP   SLG   OPS  OPS+  Pit  Str
+----+-----------------+----------+-----+----+---+---+--+---+--+--+---+--+--+--+-----+--+---+---+---+---+---+----+--+----+----+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+--+--+--+-----+-----+-----+-----+----+----+----+
    1 Roy Halladay         10.64    67.2 2000  23 TOR AL  19 13  0   0  4  4  7  .364  0 107  87  80  42  44   48 14  349  300 21  3   0   2   2   3   6   3  3  0  1  6  .357  .435  .587 1.022  153 1391  815 
    2 Micah Bowie          10.24    51   1999  24 TOT NL  14 11  0   0  2  2  7  .222  0  81  60  58  34  41   44  9  265  223 12  2   2   2   3   3   1  10  3  1  2  4  .363  .447  .556 1.003  162           
    3 Andy Larkin           9.64    74.2 1998  24 FLA NL  17 14  0   0  0  3  8  .273  0 101  87  80  55  43   42 12  373  307 20  3   3   4   5   2  10  13  2  0  0  3  .329  .435  .531  .966  166           
    4 Glen Cook             9.45    40   1985  25 TEX AL   9  7  0   0  1  2  3  .400  0  53  42  42  18  19   45 12  187  162  7  1   1   3   0   4   4   1  2  0  0  1  .327  .396  .605 1.001  169           
    5 Edgar Gonzalez        9.32    46.1 2004  21 ARI NL  10 10  0   0  0  0  9  .000  0  72  49  48  18  31   50 15  228  199 13  2   4   5   5   1   9   3  1  0  1  3  .362  .426  .673 1.099  179  814  499 
    6 Reggie Grabowski      9.23    65.1 1934  26 PHI NL  27  5  0   0  7  1  3  .250  0 114  72  67  23  13   51 13  328                  3                        1  4                            0           
    7 Nick Bierbrodt        9.14    43.1 2003  25 TOT AL  18  5  0   0  4  0  2  .000  0  64  47  44  27  29   48  9  223  184 16  1   3   5   2   5   4   5  1  0  1  4  .348  .434  .592 1.026  173  852  511 
    8 Bryan Rekar           8.95    58.1 1996  24 COL NL  14 11  0   0  0  2  4  .333  0  87  61  58  26  25   59 11  289  252 16  6   1   5   3   3   4   1  2  0  0  4  .345  .413  .587 1.000  145           
    9 Herman Besse          8.83    53   1940  28 PHA AL  17  5  0   0  7  0  3  .000  0  70  56  52  34  19   50 10  262                  3                        0  2                            0           
   10 Levale Speigner       8.78    40   2007  26 WSN NL  19  6  0   0  3  2  3  .400  0  58  39  39  23  19   48  4  198  170 14  1   2   0   2   3   4   0  1  0  0  1  .341  .413  .506  .919  147  729  432 
   11 Glenn Liebhardt       8.78    55.1 1936  25 SLB AL  24  0  0   0 12  0  0        0  98  58  54  27  20   61  4  291                  2                        0  2                            0           
   12 Jim Converse          8.69    48.2 1994  22 SEA AL  13  8  0   0  1  0  5  .000  0  73  49  47  40  39   56  5  253  207 12  6   4   1   2   3   3   3  4  0  0  3  .353  .454  .541  .995  153           
   13 Mike DeJean           8.41    61   1999  28 COL NL  56  0  0   0 17  2  4  .333  0  83  61  57  32  31   69 13  288  248 11  3   8   2   3   3  12  15  2  0  0  3  .335  .411  .560  .971  126           
   14 Kyle Davies           8.38    63.1 2006  22 ATL NL  14 14  1   0  0  3  7  .300  0  90  60  59  33  51   53 14  312  271 19  2   0   3   3   2   5   4  1  1  0  3  .332  .408  .572  .980  155 1235  739 
   15 Jimmy Haynes          8.29    89   1996  23 BAL AL  26 11  0   0  8  3  6  .333  1 122  84  82  58  65   60 14  435  366 18  4   1   2   4   5  10   6  3  1  0  5  .333  .422  .519  .941  136           
   16 Jesus Colome          8.27    41.1 2002  24 TBD AL  32  0  0   0 15  2  7  .222  0  56  41  38  33  33   53  6  204  164  8  2   5   2   4   1   4   9  4  1  0  5  .341  .455  .524  .979  162  855  468 
   17 Roberto Ramirez       8.26    40.1 1999  26 COL NL  32  4  0   0  6  1  5  .167  1  68  42  37  22  32   70  8  209  185 15  2   2   0   2   0   4   6  0  0  0  4  .368  .435  .600 1.035  141           
   18 Chad Durbin           8.21    72.1 2000  22 KCR AL  16 16  0   0  0  2  5  .286  0  91  71  66  43  37   62 14  349  302 21  1   1   0   1   3   6   5  0  0  0  7  .301  .385  .517  .902  124 1368  784 
   19 Willie Adams          8.18    58.1 1997  24 OAK AL  13 12  0   0  0  3  5  .375  0  73  53  53  32  37   54  9  282  238 22  3   2   4   3   5   2   5  2  1  0  2  .307  .391  .538  .929  143           
   20 Brad Havens           8.18    80.1 1983  23 MIN AL  16 14  1   0  0  5  8  .385  0 110  75  73  38  40   52 11  378  330 23  5   3   0   1   9   4  10  1  0  0  6  .333  .393  .533  .926  149           

Speigner checks in at 10th. I'm surprised he wasn't higher. The bad news for Speigner is that this list is populated mainly by recent pitchers who flamed out early in their careers.  The obvious exception is Roy Halladay, who might be the best starting pitcher in the American League now that Santana has gone to the Mets. Outside of Halladay, there are no great careers on there, although a number of guys are still active and might do something.

In case you're interested, searching on the same criteria (first 3 years, minimum 40 IP) but ranking by WHIP instead of ERA pushes Speigner further down the list, to 40th, despite his 2.025 WHIP.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 30th, 2008 at 8:45 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.