Finish what you started
Posted by Andy on July 2, 2007
Here's a trivia question:
What did Rick Camp's 1982 season and Phil Niekro's 1967 season have in common, that was not shared by any other pitcher's season in the last 50+ years?
The title of the post gives a clue, but don't take it too literally.
The answer is after the jump.
Using the PI Pitching Season Finder, we learn that Camp in '82 and Niekro in '67 are the only two seasons where a pitcher started at least 20 games and finished at least 20 games. Keep in mind that this uses the official "games finished" stat, which does not include games in which that same pitcher was also the starter (i.e. complete games.)
Here's the full list of everyone in history to do it:
Cnt Player Year GS GF Age Tm Lg G CG SHO W L W-L% SV IP H R ER BB SO ERA ERA+ HR BF HBP
+----+-----------------+----+--+--+---+---+--+---+--+---+--+--+-----+--+-----+---+---+---+---+---+------+----+--+----+---+
1 Rick Camp 1982 21 20 29 ATL NL 51 3 0 11 13 .458 5 177.1 199 84 72 52 68 3.65 103 18 761 1
2 Phil Niekro 1967 20 20 28 ATL NL 46 10 1 11 9 .550 9 207 164 64 43 55 129 1.87 177 9 827 7
3 Bob Hooper 1950 20 22 28 PHA AL 45 3 0 15 10 .600 5 170.1 181 108 95 91 58 5.02 90 15 763 1
4 Jack Wilson 1937 21 23 25 BOS AL 51 14 1 16 10 .615 7 221.1 209 111 91 119 137 3.70 129 13 979 3
5 Claude Passeau 1936 21 22 27 PHI NL 49 8 2 11 15 .423 3 217.1 247 118 84 55 85 3.48 130 7 955 4
6 Bob Smith 1935 20 22 40 BSN NL 46 8 2 8 18 .308 5 203.1 232 105 89 61 58 3.94 96 13 893 3
7 Phil Collins 1932 21 20 30 PHI NL 43 6 0 14 12 .538 3 184.1 231 117 108 65 66 5.27 84 21 820 6
8 Firpo Marberry 1929 26 21 30 WSH AL 49 16 0 19 12 .613 11 250.1 233 100 85 69 121 3.06 139 6 1028 6
9 Jack Scott 1926 22 24 34 NYG NL 50 13 0 13 15 .464 5 226 242 118 109 53 82 4.34 86 13 957 3
10 Rube Walberg 1925 20 23 28 PHA AL 53 7 0 8 14 .364 7 191.2 197 99 85 77 82 3.99 117 11 829 2
11 Eddie Rommel 1925 28 20 27 PHA AL 52 14 1 21 10 .677 3 261 285 127 107 95 67 3.69 126 10 1154 7
12 Eddie Rommel 1923 31 20 25 PHA AL 56 19 3 18 19 .486 5 297.2 306 141 108 108 76 3.27 126 14 1292 1
13 Walt Kinney 1919 21 21 25 PHA AL 43 13 0 9 15 .375 2 202.2 199 110 82 91 97 3.64 94 7 858 8
14 Bob Shawkey 1916 27 23 25 NYY AL 53 21 4 24 14 .632 8 276.2 204 78 68 81 122 2.21 130 4 1064 6
15 Tom Hughes 1915 25 22 31 BSN NL 50 17 4 16 14 .533 9 280.1 208 88 66 58 171 2.12 122 4 1069 11
16 Chief Bender 1913 21 21 29 PHA AL 48 14 2 21 10 .677 13 236.2 208 80 58 59 135 2.21 125 2 975 3
17 Mordecai Brown 1911 27 24 34 CHC NL 53 21 0 21 11 .656 13 270 267 110 84 55 129 2.80 117 5 1108 6
Some very interesting names on that list. Incidentally, if you relax the qualifications to, say, 15 starts and 15 finishes, the list grows much, much longer. Make it 10 and 10, and there are more than 40 such pitcher seasons in the last 10 full seasons alone.