Friday, January 5, 2024

The 1989 and 1990 Texas Rangers Pitching Staffs That Featured Five Hurlers Who Would Each Retire with 200-Plus Victories


The 1989 and 1990 Texas Rangers teams are most remembered for the pitching exploits of ageless hurler Nolan Ryan who, despite being in his early forties, continued to overpower hitters with his blistering fastball on his way to racking up 324 career victories.  However, Ryan was not the only pitcher on those Rangers clubs who retired with a lofty win total as the fireballer’s teammates Charlie Hough, Jamie Moyer, Kevin Brown, and Kenny Rogers would each go on to finish their careers with 200-plus victories.  In the history of MLB, this quintet stands alone, as no other combination of five existing or future 200-win pitchers have played together on the same team.

On July 11, 1980, the Rangers made what seemed at the time like an inconsequential move by purchasing the contract of 32-year-old right-handed knuckleball pitcher Charlie Hough from the Los Angeles Dodgers.  A veteran of parts of 11 big league seasons, Hough had initially broken into the majors with Los Angeles in August 1970.  After spending the bulk of 1971 and 1972 in the minors, Hough established himself as an effective member of the Dodgers relief corps, most notably contributing to the club’s pennant-winning drives in 1977 and 1978.  However, when he began to struggle during the first half of 1979, the team attempted to convert him into a starter.  The righty posted a fine 6-3 record in 14 starts but was battered to the tune of a 4.84 ERA.  Thus, to open the 1980 campaign, he was relocated back to the bullpen where his troubles continued as he registered a woeful 5.57 ERA before being sold to the Rangers.


Upon joining his new club, Hough rediscovered some of his form, producing a 3.96 ERA across 61 1/3 innings as a low-leverage reliever for Texas.  Pitching at a similar level as the Rangers mop-up man in 1981, Hough was given another shot at starting during the final month of the season and made the most of the opportunity, going 4-1 with a minuscule 1.83 ERA in five starts.  With his strong finish to 1981, Hough earned a spot in Texas’ starting rotation for 1982 and began the year in glorious fashion, earning a complete-game victory as the team’s Opening Day starter.  Finally getting the chance to become a full-time starter at age 34, the knuckleballer never looked back, cementing himself as a workhorse pitcher and beginning a seven-season run in which he threw an average of 252 innings.  Often taking the mound in front of uncompetitive Rangers clubs, Hough still managed to post a 111-95 record and 3.58 ERA over this stretch while winning at least 14 games each year.  In the process of accumulating a career-high 18 wins during the 1987 campaign, Hough notched his 94th victory as a member of the Rangers to pass Ferguson Jenkins and become the franchise’s all-time leader in wins.

While the 1980 acquisition of Hough drew little attention, the December 1988 free-agent signing of veteran righty Nolan Ryan created an ample amount of buzz around the Rangers and represented a pivotal turning point in the history of the franchise.  Nicknamed “The Ryan Express,” he was noted for attacking opposing hitters with his blazing fastball, a stark contrast to the soft-throwing of the knuckleballer Hough.  Set to turn 42 before the start of the 1989 season, Ryan was a year older than Hough and still going strong despite having thrown 4,500-plus innings over parts of 22 big league campaigns.  Already established as MLB’s all-time leader in strikeouts with an incredible 4,775 on his ledger, Ryan brought 273 career victories to Texas with designs on reaching the vaunted 300-win plateau.


Ryan initially broke into the majors with the New York Mets in 1966 and earned a World Series ring as a member of the team three years later.  However, he did not truly hit his stride until he was traded to the California Angels for the 1972 season.  Upon joining the Angels, Ryan worked with pitching coach Tom Morgan who focused on improving his delivery and enhancing his curveball to complement his fastball.  Ryan immediately benefitted from Morgan’s guidance, winning 19 games in 1972 while leading the AL with 329 strikeouts.  The righty continued dominating opposing batters in 1973, picking up 21 victories while setting a MLB record with an astounding 383 strikeouts.  Ryan’s banner 1973 included throwing a pair of no-hitters, becoming just the fourth pitcher to accomplish the feat multiple times in the same season.  The fireballer’s run of dominance carried into 1974 as he tossed a third no-hitter, paced the junior circuit with 367 strikeouts, and also reached the 20-win plateau for the second consecutive campaign despite pitching in front of a last-place Angels team.  However, Ryan’s eye-popping strikeout totals were tempered by control issues as he simultaneously became a perennial leader in walks.  Ryan added a fourth no-hitter while experiencing a down year in 1975 but came back to top the circuit in strikeouts during each of the next four seasons, the final of which saw the Angels franchise secure its first playoff appearance after capturing the AL West division title.  The righty then left the Halos to sign a lucrative free agent contract to pitch in his home state of Texas for the Houston Astros.

Despite turning in what was, by his standards, a mediocre performance during his initial campaign with the Astros, the club finished 1980 atop the NL West.  Thus, for the second year in a row, Ryan helped a franchise reach the postseason for the first time.  Houston returned to the playoffs during the following year with Ryan making a much more significant contribution as he accomplished a familiar feat by throwing his record fifth no-hitter while also achieving a new feat by leading the senior circuit with a microscopic 1.69 ERA.  Ryan spent seven additional seasons with the Astros, over which he produced an 84-79 win-loss mark and 3.24 ERA as the club generally hovered just above or below .500, save for the 1986 campaign when the team captured the NL West crown.  While pitching for Houston, Ryan managed to bring his wildness under better control and began relying less on his fastball after perfecting the changeup.  On April 27, 1983, he became MLB’s strikeout king, eclipsing the career mark of Walter Johnson who had stood as the all-time leader in the category for more than six decades.  In 1987, at age 40, Ryan claimed his second NL ERA title and also returned to the top of his respective league’s strikeout leaderboard for the first time since 1979.  The following season saw Ryan cap his nine-year stint with the Astros by once again pacing the senior loop in strikeouts.

While Ryan brought 273 career victories to the Rangers, his grizzled veteran colleague Hough entered 1989 with 164 wins.  On the opposite end of the pitching staff’s experience spectrum, 26-year-old southpaw Jamie Moyer looked to solidify himself as a member of the rotation after being acquired during the offseason as part of a nine-player trade with the Chicago Cubs for whom the young hurler had gone 28-34 with a 4.42 ERA over his initial three major league campaigns.  Possessing a below-average fastball, Moyer relied on changing speeds to remain effective.  In addition, the righty-lefty rookie combo of Kevin Brown and Kenny Rogers opened the 1989 season as 24-year-olds hoping to establish themselves on the Rangers roster, the former having earned a pair of wins during brief cups of coffee in 1986 and 1988 while the latter had yet to make his big league debut.  Selected by Texas with the fourth overall pick in the first round of the June 1986 Amateur Draft, Brown boasted a hard sinker that stymied opposing batters and caused them to hit the ball into the dirt.  By contrast, Rogers was considered a long shot to even make the majors, having been selected by the Rangers in the 39th round of the June 1982 Amateur Draft.  Rogers did not possess a standout pitch like Brown’s sinker, though he was able to make due with a decent repertoire that included a fastball, changeup, and curve.


Ryan pitched masterfully in 1989, going 16-10 with a 3.20 ERA while pacing the AL with 301 strikeouts—marking the tenth time in which he led his respective league in the category and the sixth occasion where he reached 300.  On August 22, he added to his already impressive list of milestones by recording his 5,000th strikeout.

After defying old age for so long, Hough finally started to slow down during 1989, seeing his ERA rise by more than a run over the previous year’s 3.32 figure while his inning total decreased by 70 as he concluded the campaign with a 10-13 record and 4.35 ERA across 182 frames.  Though the knuckleballer kicked off the season in style by hurling an Opening Day shutout versus the Detroit Tigers, he struggled to find his rhythm over the remainder of the year.  Always susceptible to giving up the long ball, Hough dubiously led the AL by allowing 28 home runs.

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Moyer also began the campaign in grand fashion, earning victories in each of his initial three starts, only to drop his next five decisions before suffering a lat strain at the end of May that kept him on the sidelines until early September.  Upon his return, Moyer pitched poorly in four of his final five starts to finish the season at 4-9 with a 4.86 ERA.

Brown lived up to the promise of his first-round pick status, putting together a solid rookie effort, going 12-9 with a 3.35 ERA over 28 starts.  In contrast to his veteran rotation-mate Hough, Brown proved to be one of the toughest pitchers to take deep, yielding just 10 home runs across 191 innings.  Yet, despite turning in one of the 1989 season’s finest freshman performances, he did not factor into the AL Rookie of the Year vote, only drawing a pair of third-place tallies to classify sixth in the election.

Rogers made his own strong freshman showing, spending the entire campaign in the bullpen where he worked a set-up role and maintained a 2.93 ERA over 73 2/3 frames.  Like his rookie colleague Brown, he was stingy about surrendering the long ball, being victimized just twice during the season.

The Rangers finished 1989 with an 83-79 record and slotted fourth in the AL West, 16 games behind the division-champion Oakland Athletics.  This marked a 13-game improvement from the prior year for Texas and represented only the team’s second winning season since 1982.  Also, with Ryan attracting large crowds for his starts, the Rangers’ attendance at Arlington Stadium increased by nearly half a million from the previous campaign as the franchise drew over 2 million fans for the first time.


The quintet of Ryan, Hough, Moyer, Brown, and Rogers remained with Texas for 1990.  The now 43-year-old Ryan showed no signs of breaking down, posting a 13-9 record and 3.44 ERA while leading his respective league in strikeouts for the eleventh time in his career, racking up 232 across 204 innings.  Already the author of a MLB record five no-hitters, on June 11, the fireballer added a sixth masterpiece to his collection when he held the defending World Series champion Athletics hitless on the road in Oakland.  Ryan issued just a pair of walks and struck out 14 in the Rangers’ 5-0 victory, in the process eclipsing Cy Young as the oldest hurler to toss a no-hitter.  Later in the season, Ryan achieved another milestone when he defeated the Milwaukee Brewers on July 31 to become the twentieth member of the 300-win club.

Hough bounced back somewhat from his middling 1989, finishing 1990 with a 12-12 mark and 4.07 ERA over 218 2/3 frames.  However, he once again paced the loop in a dubious statistic, plunking an AL-high 11 batters.  Because his fluttering knuckleball occasionally got away from him, Hough had regularly ranked among the leaders in hit batters, topping the junior circuit once prior in 1987.

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Moyer’s struggles compounded in 1990, as he lost his spot in the starting rotation before the season was even a month old and found himself relegated to a mop-up relief role.  Returning to the rotation at the end of July, the southpaw produced insufficient results and was sent back to the bullpen in September.  Moyer’s final line for 1990 saw him register an uneven 2-6 record and 4.66 ERA with only 10 of his 33 appearances coming as a starter.

Brown followed up his solid rookie campaign with a comparable sophomore offering, going 12-10 with a 3.60 ERA over 180 innings.  On June 20, the 25-year-old hurler spun his first career shutout, holding the Minnesota Twins to just four hits in the Rangers’ 8-0 victory.

Rogers remained in the bullpen during 1990, spending the bulk of the season as the club’s main relief specialist after closer Jeff Russell went down with an injury in late May.  Rogers chalked up a team-leading 15 saves while compiling a 10-6 record and 3.13 ERA across 69 appearances and 97 2/3 frames.  The young lefty’s campaign included making his first starts of his career: a rocky spot start in late April and a pair of excellent late September starts for his final two outings of the season.

The Rangers finished 1990 with an 83-79 record that was identical to the year before, this time moving up to third place in the AL West but a full 20 games in arrears to the division-winning Athletics.  For the second consecutive campaign, Arlington Stadium drew over 2 million fans as large crowds continued to come out to witness “The Ryan Express” in action.

During the offseason, the Rangers parted ways with Charlie Hough, allowing the knuckleballer to leave the team to sign a free agent deal with the Chicago White Sox.  Hough spent a pair of campaigns pitching in the Windy City, crossing the 200-win mark in late 1992.  The veteran hurler then migrated south to join the expansion Florida Marlins for the 1993 season.  Hough took the hill as the Opening Day starter in the Marlins’ inaugural game and remained with the club through the 1994 campaign, after which he finally retired at age 46, leaving baseball with 216 victories to his name, 139 of which he accrued while pitching for the Rangers.  With parts of 25 major league seasons under his belt, Hough stands as one of just 10 men to play that long.  Unlikely as it may have seemed in 1980 when he joined Texas as a struggling 32-year-old reliever, Hough continues to sit atop the franchise leaderboard in wins with no current Rangers hurler having amassed even half his victory total.  What’s more, Hough also ranks number one in a slew of other categories for the franchise including innings pitched, complete games, strikeouts, and pitcher WAR.


Nolan Ryan remained with the Rangers and continued to make a mockery of Father Time, putting together a fine 1991 effort in which he improved his win-loss mark to 12-6 while reducing his ERA to 2.91.  On May 1 of that year, the flame-throwing righty broke his own record by hurling a seventh no-hitter at age 44.  On this occasion, he victimized the Toronto Blue Jays at Arlington Stadium, racking up an astounding 16 strikeouts in the 3-0 victory.  Despite seeing a lighter workload in comparison to his prior two campaigns with Texas, Ryan still managed to accumulate 203 strikeouts across 173 innings—marking the 15th time he reached 200 strikeouts in a season.

However, he took a step backwards in 1992, posting a 5-9 record and 3.72 ERA.  Ryan’s performance continued to decline during a difficult 1993 campaign in which he was beset by a combination of knee, hip, and rib cage injuries that limited him to just 13 starts over which he went 5-5 with a 4.88 ERA.  In what proved to be his final start, on September 22, he suffered a UCL tear in his right elbow and decided to call it a career.  At long last closing the book on 27 major league seasons, Ryan retired with 324 career victories, a total that slotted him alongside Don Sutton for 12th-most all-time and has since been surpassed by only Roger Clemens and Greg Maddux.  Ryan left the game as the holder of dozens of records and, to this day, his 5,714 strikeouts is still 839 more than the total of second-place Randy Johnson and 2,347 ahead of the leading active pitcher Max Scherzer.  In 1999, Ryan was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with 98.8% of the vote.

The conclusion of the 1990 campaign saw the Rangers cut ties with Jamie Moyer, releasing the beleaguered southpaw.  Moyer signed with the St. Louis Cardinals for 1991 where his difficulties persisted as he went 0-5 with a 5.74 ERA before being demoted to the franchise's Triple-A affiliate in late May, where he remained for the balance of the campaign.  He attempted to return to the Cubs for 1992 but failed to make the team out of spring training and spent the entire year pitching for the Detroit Tigers’ Triple-A affiliate Toledo Mud Hens.  Moyer signed with the Baltimore Orioles for 1993 and began the season back in the minors.  However, after going 6-0 with a 1.67 ERA, he earned the call-up to Baltimore in late May where he put together a solid rebound effort, registering a 12-9 record and 3.43 ERA.  The lefty experienced some degree of stability, remaining with the Orioles through 1995, though he suffered a downturn in performance each year.  Moyer then caught on with the Boston Red Sox for 1996 but soon found himself on the move yet again when he was swapped to the Seattle Mariners in late July.

After years of bouncing around, the journeyman hurler was able to gain his footing and became a steady presence in Seattle’s starting rotation.  Moyer spent the next decade with the Mariners, over which he posted an excellent 145-87 record.  Finally having perfected changing speeds, his run in Seattle included a pair of 20-win seasons, the latter of which came at age 40 in 2003.  Traded to the Philadelphia Phillies in August 2006, he helped the club secure the 2008 World Series title when he collected a team-high 16 victories.  Moyer toed the slab for the final time with the 2012 Colorado Rockies, retiring from the game just a few months shy of his 50th birthday, ranking 35th all-time with 269 wins, and having matched his former rotation-mate Charlie Hough by pitching for 25 major league seasons.


Kevin Brown slumped to a 9-12 record and 4.40 ERA for Texas during 1991 but came back strong the following year, going 21-11 with a 3.32 ERA, leading the AL in victories while also earning his first All-Star selection.  The sinkerballer put together a sound 1993 effort, only to flounder in 1994, after which he left the Rangers to sign a one-year free agent contract with the Orioles.  Following a solid campaign in Baltimore, he inked a deal to join the Florida Marlins for 1996 and immediately paid dividends, pacing the senior circuit with a dazzling 1.89 ERA and finishing runner-up for the NL Cy Young Award.  The 1997 season saw Brown turn in another brilliant campaign with the righty joining the ranks of his former rotation-mate Nolan Ryan by spinning a no-hitter against the San Francisco Giants on June 10.  Brown capped the year by winning the World Series championship as the Marlins outlasted the Cleveland Indians in a closely-contested Fall Classic.  With Florida’s championship club immediately being dismantled, he signed with the San Diego Padres for 1998 and pitched phenomenally, going 18-7 with a 2.38 ERA.  Brown’s sterling effort helped lead the Padres to the Fall Classic where they were ultimately defeated by the New York Yankees.

Eligible for free agency once again, the nomadic hurler joined his fifth team in six seasons, this time finally inking a long-term deal, signing baseball’s first nine-figure contract to be paid $105 million over seven years by the Los Angeles Dodgers.  Brown pitched well for Los Angeles, picking up his second NL ERA title in 2000, but missed ample time with injuries in both 2001 and 2002.  After failing to make the playoffs during each of the first five years of Brown’s contract, the Dodgers opted to trade the superstar pitcher, sending him to the Yankees.  Injuries and postseason failures sullied Brown’s time in the Bronx and at the conclusion of the 2005 campaign, he chose to retire.  During his 19-year career, Brown compiled an impressive 211-144 record with a 3.28 ERA which translated into an ERA+ of 127 that is better than the majority of the pitchers in the Hall of Fame.  However, in 2007, his name appeared in the Mitchell Report for purchasing human growth hormone, thus dooming his chances of being voted into Cooperstown.  Additionally, Brown’s stellar pitching was sometimes overshadowed by his reputation as one of baseball’s orneriest characters as he often developed poor relationships with the press and became notorious for violent outbursts.

Kenny Rogers opened the 1991 season as a member of the Rangers starting rotation but floundered in the role and returned to working set-up duties out of the bullpen in mid-June.  After remaining in the bullpen for all of 1992, he was given another crack at starting in 1993 and this time cemented his spot in the rotation with a respectable campaign in which he logged a 16-10 record and 4.10 ERA.  Rogers was aided by Rangers pitching coach Claude Osteen who helped hone the lefty’s skills by improving his curve and encouraging him to use his fastball more aggressively.  Rogers built on his promising 1993 showing, putting together similar results during the strike-shortened 1994 campaign.  A couple of weeks before the strike brought a halt to the season, he accomplished a feat that had even eluded Nolan Ryan when he became just the fourteenth AL/NL pitcher to throw a perfect game.  Rogers turned the trick on July 28 at Arlington Stadium against the California Angels, with his perfecto marking the first of its kind by a junior circuit southpaw.  He rode the momentum into 1995, earning his first All-Star selection while crafting a 17-7 record and 3.38 ERA.

The 1996 campaign saw Rogers and the Rangers each make their first postseasons—albeit on opposing sides as the hurler faced off against Texas in the ALDS, having departed the team via free agency at the conclusion of 1995 to sign a four-year contract with the Yankees.  Following a mediocre regular season performance, Rogers pitched poorly versus his former club in the ALDS, walking the only batter he faced in a Game Two relief outing before surrendering a pair of runs while lasting just two innings in his Game Four start.  Nevertheless, New York won each of these contests and took the ALDS in four games to eliminate the Rangers from the playoffs.  The lefty’s postseason struggles continued into the ALCS and Fall Classic but the end result still saw the Bronx Bombers repelling all challengers to claim the World Series championship.  More disappointments followed for Rogers as he was left off the Yankees’ 1997 playoff roster after putting together a lackluster regular season effort.  Shipped to the Oakland Athletics for 1998, he rebounded with an impressive campaign and finished out his contract by splitting 1999 between the A’s and the New York Mets.  Back on the free agent market, the hurler returned to his original team, signing on with the Rangers for 2000.  Rogers sandwiched a pair of respectable seasons around a difficult 2001, as the next three years saw him produce a 31-28 record and 4.64 ERA for Texas.

The southpaw then inked a one-year deal to join the Minnesota Twins for 2003 before making his way back to the Rangers for a third stint.  Rogers turned in some of his finest performances over the next two seasons with Texas, including picking up a career-high 18 victories in 2004.  Unfortunately, Rogers’ sharp mound work often took a backseat to his temper.  Like his former rotation-mate Kevin Brown, Rogers tarnished his reputation with violent outbursts and cultivated a poor relationship with the press.  Most famously, in 2005, Rogers earned a $50,000 fine and served a 13-game suspension for shoving a cameraman to the ground at Arlington Stadium.  Following the 2005 campaign, the mercurial hurler departed the Rangers for the final time, signing as a free agent with the Detroit Tigers.  Over the span of a dozen seasons spread across three tours of duty with the Rangers, Rogers accumulated 133 victories for the club, leaving him second all-time on the franchise wins list, just six behind Charlie Hough.  Rogers shined in his first season in Motown, crossing the 200-win mark while notching 17 victories en route to helping the Tigers capture the AL pennant.  He spent two more years with Detroit, retiring after the 2008 campaign with 20 big league seasons to his name, over which he posted a sturdy record of 219-156.  The latter stages of Rogers’ career saw him recognized for his defensive prowess as he collected five Gold Glove Awards, four of which were split between his second and third stints in Texas with his final one coming in his initial year in Detroit.


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During the course of their lengthy and distinguished careers, the quintet of Nolan Ryan, Charlie Hough, Jamie Moyer, Kevin Brown, and Kenny Rogers combined to earn 1,239 victories.  Since the two seasons in which these five hurlers shared the Rangers pitching staff, no team has simultaneously housed more than four existing or future 200-game winners with the most recent instance being the 2006 Boston Red Sox where Jon Lester, Curt Schilling, Tim Wakefield, and David Wells plied their trade alongside each other.  The past few decades have seen pitcher usage change with starters tossing fewer innings and complete games becoming a rarity.  Consequently, starting pitchers’ win totals have also dropped, which has led to a much lower number of pitchers reaching 200 victories.  Thus, even the once semi-regular occurrence of having three existing or future 200-game winners pitching together on the same staff has become a thing of the past, as no team since the 2009 Red Sox, which featured John Smoltz along with aforementioned hurlers Lester and Wakefield, has boasted such a trio.

Going into the 2024 campaign, Justin Verlander, Zack Greinke, Max Scherzer, and Clayton Kershaw represent the only active pitchers with 200 victories.  Respectively set to be ages 41, 40, 39, and 36 at the start of the 2024 season, Verlander, Greinke, Scherzer, and Kershaw are running out of opportunities to pitch alongside each other or with future 200-game winners.  Moreover, few active hurlers have a realistic shot at even approaching the 200-victory mark as slotting well behind Verlander, Greinke, Scherzer, and Kershaw in fifth-place on the active career wins list is Gerrit Cole who has 145 victories to his name.  At age 33, Cole is the only active hurler who is halfway to 200 wins with a decent chance at reaching the milestone.  The remaining pitchers who have 100 or more victories are older and less effective than he is and in most cases have suffered more injuries during their careers as well.  Thus, it is likely that Ryan, Hough, Moyer, Brown, and Rogers will stand alone as the sole quintet of existing or future 200-game winners to share the same pitching staff.


----by John Tuberty

Follow me on Twitter/X @BloggerTubbs

Stat links to main players mentioned: Nolan Ryan, Charlie Hough, Jamie Moyer, Kevin Brown, Kenny Rogers, Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, John Smoltz, Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, Zack Greinke, Clayton Kershaw, Gerrit Cole, Jon Lester, Tim Wakefield, David Wells, Walter Johnson

Sources:
All statistics are drawn from Baseball Reference and Stathead

Talmadge Boston, “Nolan Ryan,” SABR Biography Project

Justin Krueger, “Charlie Hough,” SABR Biography Project

Frederick C. Bush, “Jamie Moyer,” SABR Biography Project

Thomas E. Schott, “Kenny Rogers,” SABR Biography Project

Nick Aguilera, “2 no-nos in 1 year? These guys did it,” MLB.com

Tim Kurkjian, “Good As It Gets,” Sports Illustrated, August 8, 1994, p.32-33. Accessed via SI Vault

Manny Randhawa, “The oldest pitchers to throw a no-hitter,” MLB.com

Baseball Prospectus Nolan Ryan Player Card/Injury History

Tom Verducci, “Nasty Stuff That’s What Made Kevin Brown Worth $105 Million To The Dodgers. His Nasty Disposition Is Thrown In For Free,” Sports Illustrated, March 29, 1999, p.64-72.  Accessed via SI Vault

Jay Jaffe, “JAWS and the 2014 Hall of Fame ballot: Kenny Rogers,” SI.com

Marc Topkin, “Rogers left out of opening round,” Tampa Bay Times, October 30, 1997.

Peter Alfano, “Ryan’s Struggle to Glory,” The New York Times, May 2, 1983.

“Rookie Walton’s First Year Is Almost Perfect,” The Sporting News, November 20, 1989, p.44. Accessed via Paper of Record

George J. Mitchell, “Report to the Commissioner of Baseball of an Independent Investigation into the Illegal Use of Steroids and Other Performance Enhancing Substances by Players in Major League Baseball,” December 13, 2007, p.214-217.

Fivefold Cards of Nolan Ryan, Charlie Hough, Jamie Moyer, Kevin Brown, and Kenny Rogers: 1989 Topps/1989 Topps Traded, 1990 Topps, 1991 Topps, 1990 Fleer

Additional cards: Charlie Hough 1977 Topps, 1984 Fleer, 1986 Donruss; Nolan Ryan 1970 Topps, 1974 Topps, 1982 Topps; Charlie Hough 1992 Topps, Charlie Hough 1993 Topps, Nolan Ryan 1994 Topps, Jamie Moyer 1998 Pinnacle, Kevin Brown 1997 Fleer Ultra, Kenny Rogers 1994 Bowman


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Monday, November 27, 2023

After Missing Hall of Fame Election by a Single Vote in His Most Recent Appearance on the Era Committee Ballot, Will This Finally Be the Year Lou Piniella Receives the Call to Cooperstown?

 


In 2003, the Baseball Hall of Fame began releasing voting percentages for the Veterans and Era Committee elections.  Since that time, seven candidates—Dick Allen, John Fetzer, Marvin Miller, Tony Oliva, Lou Piniella, Allie Reynolds, and Ted Simmons 
have each missed gaining entry into Cooperstown by a single vote.  Of those seven candidates, Miller, Oliva, and Simmons were elected on a later ballot but the remaining four candidates still sit outside of the Hall of Fame.  The elections of Oliva and Simmons were particularly notable as they were voted in on the next ballot they were eligible to appear on after falling a single check mark shy.  Piniella will have the opportunity to continue this trend as he is one of eight candidates who has been selected to appear on the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee Ballot for executives, managers, and umpires which will be voted on during the Baseball Winter Meetings on December 3.  This upcoming vote will mark Piniella’s first chance at Hall of Fame election since missing by a single tally five years ago on the Today’s Game Era Committee.  Piniella’s near miss at Cooperstown immortality was overshadowed by the controversial election of Harold Baines who collected the exact 75% required for election by the Today’s Game Era Committee.  However, during the spring of 2022, the Hall of Fame restructured the Era Committee process and put player and non-player candidates on separate ballots.  This change helps Piniella who put together a long and distinguished managerial career.  After coming so close to election, will this finally be the year Piniella receives the call to Cooperstown?

Prior to taking the managerial reigns, Piniella had a fine playing career that spanned parts of 18 seasons.  Piniella won the 1969 AL Rookie of the Year as a member of the expansion Kansas City Royals but spent the majority of his career with the New York Yankees.  Piniella primarily played left field and was a part of four pennant winners and captured two World Series rings as a member of the Yankees.  Nicknamed “Sweet Lou” to describe his swing, the moniker proved to be somewhat paradoxical for him as he was known for his fiery temperament that occasionally resulted in the slugger destroying water coolers, batting helmets, and other inanimate objects.  However, Piniella’s competitiveness and drive to win endeared him to teammates.  Yankees second baseman Willie Randolph said of Piniella, “He was one of the most fiery and competitive players you'd ever want to be with.  He was a total team player and his attitude and will to win rubbed off on a team.”


As his playing career was winding down, Piniella joined the Yankees coaching staff.  In 1986, at age 42 and less than two years removed from taking his final at bat, Piniella replaced his former manager Billy Martin as the Yankees skipper.  Piniella took over a Bronx Bombers team that had finished second in the AL East during the prior year, having been narrowly edged out for the division title by the Toronto Blue Jays despite winning 97 games.  Under Piniella, New York repeated as AL East runner-up with a 90-72 record in 1986.  The following season, Pinella steered the Yankees to a similar 89-73 mark but slid back to fourth place in the division.  At the conclusion of the 1987 campaign, Yankees owner George Steinbrenner moved Piniella to the front office to serve as the club’s general manager and brought Martin back to skipper the team for a fifth time.  Piniella soon became unhappy with the confinement of the office job which took him away from the field and, in late May 1988, stepped down as general manager and moved into a scouting and player evaluation role.  Yet, less than a month later, Piniella found himself back at the manager’s helm when Martin was fired on June 23.  Martin had once again worn out his welcome with the Yankees as his mishandling of the pitching staff, clashes with the front office and all too familiar off-the-field controversies once again culminated in the volatile manager’s dismissal.  Piniella inherited a second place Yankees team that was just two and half games out of the AL East lead with a 40-28 record but was coming off an abysmal stretch in which the club had lost six of its last seven games.  Piniella was unable to right the ship as the Bronx Bombers went 45-48 following the managerial change 
to finish the season at 85-76, in fifth place, three and a half games behind the division champion Boston Red Sox.  At the conclusion of the campaign, Piniella was relieved of his manager duties and replaced by Dallas Green.  Still under a personal services contract to the Yankees, Piniella was moved into a broadcasting role by the organization.  New York’s AL East rival Toronto attempted to hire Piniella after firing manager Jimy Williams early in the 1989 season but was blocked by Steinbrenner when the two teams were unable to agree on which player to send to the Yankees as compensation for letting Piniella out of his contact.  However, a few months later, Piniella permanently left Steinbrenner’s managerial circus when the controversial owner let him out of the final year of his personal services contract to manage the Cincinnati Reds for 1990.

Piniella assumed leadership of a Reds club which had registered four consecutive second-place finishes from 1985 to 1988, under the direction of franchise icon Pete Rose.  Most recently though, the Reds had slumped to a 75-87 record during the tumultuous 1989 campaign in which Rose was banned from baseball for gambling.  In Piniella’s first year as Cincinnati’s skipper, the Reds not only rebounded but finally got over the hump—leading the division from the first day of the season onward and taking the NL West crown with a 91-71 record.  After defeating the Pittsburgh Pirates in the NLCS, Cincinnati faced the 103-win defending World Series champion Oakland Athletics in the Fall Classic.  Piniella and the Reds shocked the baseball world by not only defeating the heavily-favored A’s but sweeping them in the process.  The Reds experienced a post-championship malaise in 1991, sliding back to a 74-88 mark.  The club re-emerged the following season, nearly matching their 1990 record with a 90-72 finish for 1992.  However, Cincinnati’s 90 wins were not enough to capture the NL West as the team concluded the campaign eight games behind the Atlanta Braves.  Despite winning a championship and producing a second-place finish in his three years at the Reds’ helm, in a surprising move, Piniella rejected Cincinnati’s contract extension and left the franchise to become manager of the Seattle Mariners.


Piniella had always been known as an intense competitor during his playing career and further solidified this reputation as a manager.  Piniella’s animated, often amusing tirades directed at umpires became legendary as the sight of the quick-tempered skipper storming out of the dugout to argue with officials, tossing and kicking his cap, dislodging and throwing bases, and kicking dirt on both home plate as well as on the men in blue all provided fodder for highlight and blooper reels.  However, Piniella’s temper led to a couple of infamous incidents during his tenure with Cincinnati.  Late in the 1992 season, Piniella engaged in a locker room wrestling match with closer Rob Dibble that was witnessed by reporters and recorded by television cameras.  Despite the tussle, the two combatants patched things up the next day with Piniella even putting his arm around Dibble and kiddingly throwing fake punches at Dibble’s stomach after the hurler closed out the game and earned the save.  The fracas proved to be an isolated incident as Piniella was generally well-liked by his players—even Dibble.  "We butted heads once.  It's way more famous than it should be.  We've been family ever since,” Dibble reflected years later.  “During batting practice every day, Lou would go to every guy just to see how you were doing—not as a player, but as a person.  I'll always respect him for that.  I always thought that was one of the best qualities about him, that he always cared about you as a person first, a baseball player second."

While the Piniella/Dibble locker room battle will forever live on as part of the fiery manager’s highlight reel of outbursts, an incident the previous year had a much more lasting impact on Piniella’s tenure with the Reds.  During a 7-4 loss on August 3, 1991, Piniella was ejected from the game after home plate umpire Gary Darling overruled Dutch Rennert’s call of a home run by Cincinnati second baseman Bill Doran, saying the ball was foul.  Piniella criticized Darling after the game, stating: “I honestly feel that Darling has a bias against us and won’t give us a call all year.  It’s time he gets his act together now.  We have more complaints against him than against any other umpire.”  A few days later, Darling and the Major League Umpires Association filed a $5 million lawsuit against Piniella, contending that the Reds manager “severely damaged” his reputation.  Piniella found himself forced to pay for legal services as the notoriously cheap Reds owner Marge Schott refused to assist with the lawsuit.  Ultimately, an out of court settlement was reached during the offseason.  Nevertheless, the lack of support Piniella received from Schott resonated with the skipper and played a key role in his decision to leave Cincinnati when his contract expired after the 1992 campaign.  “When I got sued by the umpires, I got no backing from the organization,” Piniella explained.  “That started the wheels turning. I think any organization would back their manager.  I got nothing, financial or anything.  I went back in '92 and fulfilled my contract, but when it came time to extend, I chose not to."

Unlike the Yankees and Reds, the Mariners club Piniella took over in 1993 had no real track record of success as a franchise.  In fact, the Mariners had just one winning season—an 83-79 campaign in 1991—in their 16-year existence and were coming off a disastrous 64-98 record.  Seattle’s roster featured a young nucleus of future Hall of Famers in Ken Griffey Jr., Edgar Martinez, and Randy Johnson who had been teammates since 1989 yet had achieved little success together.  Intent on changing the losing culture that existed within the Mariners franchise, Piniella brought the club back above .500—going 82-80 during his initial season at the helm.  Just three years into his tenure with Seattle, Piniella led the club to its first postseason, winning the AL West in a one-game tiebreaker against the California Angels to advance to the ALDS, where he faced his old team, the Yankees.  After dropping the first two games on the road in New York, the Mariners roared back to win the final three games—the third in dramatic fashion with Edgar Martinez’s bottom of the eleventh inning double driving in Ken Griffey Jr. to score the Series-ending run.  Seattle subsequently fell in six games to the 100-win Cleveland Indians in the ALCS.  Nevertheless, with their division title and ensuing playoff run, the 1995 Mariners are often credited with saving baseball in Seattle.  Piniella drew praise for leading the franchise to its first postseason and was named AL Manager of the Year.


Piniella and Seattle won their second AL West crown in 1997 but were defeated by the Baltimore Orioles in the ALDS.  Piniella then watched as the Mariners lost three of its core players in successive years as staff ace Randy Johnson was dealt to the Houston Astros in July 1998, Ken Griffey Jr. was traded to the Cincinnati Reds at the conclusion of the 1999 season, and young phenom Alex Rodriguez left to sign a blockbuster free agent contract with the Texas Rangers following the 2000 campaign.  Despite losing these key players, Piniella was able to weather the storm and lead the Mariners to the playoffs as the AL Wild C
ard in 2000 and AL West champions in 2001.  Seattle’s 2001 campaign was particularly impressive as the team put together a dominant 116-46 mark—easily capturing the division title and tying the record set by the 1906 Chicago Cubs for most wins in a season.  However, the Mariners were unable to capture the pennant as the club was defeated in the ALCS in both 2000 and 2001 by the playoff-tested Yankees who were in the midst of an incredible run which saw the Bronx Bombers win five pennants and four World Series championships between 1996 and 2001.  Nevertheless, Piniella was once again recognized for his leadership abilities as he picked up his second AL Manager of the Year Award in 2001.  Piniella and the Mariners followed up their record-matching 2001 with a solid 2002, just missing the playoffs despite winning 93 games.

However, after a series of family events, including a car accident involving his daughter and granddaughter in September 2002, Piniella expressed a desire to manage a team closer to his West Tampa home for the 2003 season.  Seattle agreed to let Piniella out of the final year of his contract to manage his hometown team, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, after the two clubs worked out a deal which sent Piniella and prospect Antonio Pérez to the Devil Rays in exchange for one of Tampa Bay’s best players, center fielder Randy Winn.  In ten seasons with Seattle, Piniella posted an excellent 840-711 record and played a key role in helping the Mariners evolve from a struggling franchise that regularly finished towards the bottom of the division into a perennial contender.

With his move to Tampa Bay, Piniella, for the second time in his career, assumed control of a team with no history of winning.  The Devil Rays had finished last in the AL East during each of the franchise’s five seasons in existence—the most recent of which was a 106-loss campaign.  In Piniella’s first season at the helm, Tampa Bay made a modest improvement, increasing from 55 to 63 wins.  The following year, Piniella led the Devil Rays to a franchise-best 70-91 record and their first finish outside of the AL East cellar.  However, when new ownership bought into the Devil Rays during the 2004 season, the franchise decided to build for the future rather than improve the current team.  As Tampa Bay took a step back and struggled in 2005, Piniella became fed up with the mounting losses and the lack of commitment from ownership to increase the club’s payroll—which was by far the lowest in MLB.  Tampa Bay went 67-95 in 2005 and slid back into the AL East cellar.  At the end of the season, Piniella and the Devil Rays decided to mutually part ways with the team buying out the final year of the veteran skipper’s contract.


After sitting out the 2006 campaign, Piniella returned to the managerial ranks when he signed with the Chicago Cubs for 2007.  In his first year on the Northside, Piniella improved the club from 66-96 to 85-77 and won the NL Central.  Although the Cubs were swept by the Arizona Diamondbacks in the NLDS, Piniella proved he was still capable of leading his team to the playoffs.  The following season, Piniella joined Tony La Russa, Bobby Cox, and Jim Leyland as the fourth skipper to be named Manager of the Year in both leagues when he was bestowed the honor after piloting the Cubs to an NL-best 97-64 record.  Despite their excellent regular season, Piniella and Chicago were once again swept in the NLDS, this time by the Los Angeles Dodgers.  Even though the 2008 campaign ended with another quick playoff exit, it marked the first time since 1908 that the Cubs had made the postseason in consecutive years.  After regressing to an 83-78 record in 2009, the club outright struggled in 2010.  With Piniella in the final year of his contract, the 66-year old skipper announced in July that he intended to retire at the conclusion of the 2010 season.  However, 
on August 22—with the Cubs well out of the NL Central and wild-card races—Piniella decided to step down as manager to go home to care for his ailing mother.

Piniella finished his managerial career with an overall record of 1835-1713.  The longtime skipper’s lofty win total ranks 17th all-time and places him ahead of several Hall of Fame managers including Tom Lasorda, Dick Williams, Earl Weaver, and Whitey Herzog—each of whom were still piloting teams when Piniella made his managerial debut.  Moreover, only four non-Hall of Fame managers—Dusty Baker, Bruce Bochy, Terry Francona, and Gene Mauch—have a higher career win total than Piniella.  In addition to his impressive victory mark, Piniella is one of nine skippers to be named Manager of the Year three or more times.  The crowning accomplishments of Piniella’s career were leading an underdog Reds team to a shocking sweep over the heavily-favored A’s and transforming the woefully-uncompetitive Mariners franchise into a consistent winner.  What’s more, Piniella guided three different franchises to the postseason and engineered eight 90-win campaigns spread across four organizations.  The only managerial stop in which Piniella failed to find any measure of success was Tampa Bay where he found little support from ownership.  If Piniella’s three difficult seasons with the Devil Rays are omitted from his ledger, his career record would shift to 1635-1428 and his win-loss percentage would jump from .517 to a more illustrious .534.

However, Piniella was a contemporary of Tony La Russa, Bobby Cox, and Joe Torre—the respective second, fourth, and fifth-winningest managers of all-time and in many ways his career suffers in comparison to those three legendary skippers.  Piniella also had the misfortune of becoming eligible for the Hall of Fame at the same time as La Russa, Cox, and Torre.  As a result, Piniella was not included on the December 2013 Expansion Era ballot in which La Russa, Cox, and Torre were unanimously voted into Cooperstown.  Three years later, Piniella was selected to appear on the Today’s Game Era ballot.  With La Russa, Cox, and Torre each already elected, Piniella shared the ballot with just one other manager, Davey Johnson.  Like Piniella, Johnson had a World Series championship to his credit, having led the 1986 New York Mets to a memorable Fall Classic victory over the Boston Red Sox.  Johnson held a significant edge in career win-loss percentage over Piniella—.562 to .517—though Johnson’s superior mark came in just 2,445 games managed, more than 1,000 fewer than Piniella’s 3,548 total.  Piniella picked up 7 of 16 tallies for 43.8% of the vote, the third-highest drawing candidate—trailing former executive John Schuerholz and former commissioner Bud Selig who were easily elected with 100% and 93.8% of the vote, respectively.  It appeared the electorate had valued the sum of Piniella’s lengthy career over Johnson’s higher win-loss percentage as his managerial peer was listed among the remaining seven candidates as having received fewer than five votes.

Piniella returned to the ballot when the Today’s Game Era Committee convened for their second election in December 2018.  Once again, Piniella was joined on the ballot by Davey Johnson along with a second manager candidate, Charlie Manuel.  Similar to Johnson, Manuel had a better career win-loss percentage than Piniella while equaling his one World Series championship.  However, Manuel managed just 1,826 games—barely half of Piniella’s total.  As the highest drawing holdover from the December 2016 Today’s Game Era ballot, Piniella seemed to have the advantage over the other returning candidates.  Moreover, with Schuerholz and Selig elected and no longer on the ballot and Lee Smith being the only newly-eligible candidate with strong BBWAA support, Piniella appeared poised for at the very least an increase in support.  In the ensuing election, Piniella picked up 11 votes, leaving him just one tally shy of Cooperstown.  Once again Piniella collected the third-highest vote total, finishing behind the unanimously-elected Smith and the controversially-elected Harold Baines who garnered exactly 75%.  Piniella easily outpaced his managerial peers, Johnson and Manuel, who were among the seven candidates listed as having received fewer than five votes.

After checking up a single vote short of Cooperstown, Piniella was slated to be eligible for the next Today’s Game Era ballot scheduled to be released in fall 2022.  However, during the spring of that year, the Hall of Fame restructured the Era Committee process and made several changes to the format, including separating player and non-player candidates.  Although these changes resulted in Piniella having to wait an additional two years before his next opportunity for election, by being moved to the Contemporary Baseball Era ballot for executives, managers, and umpires, the former skipper avoided having to share the ballot with an incoming crop of newly-eligible player candidates highlighted by Fred McGriff and a trio of impressive yet controversial figures in Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Curt Schilling.  In addition to Piniella, the eight-candidate Contemporary Baseball Era ballot features Cito Gaston, Jim Leyland, Ed Montague, Hank Peters, Joe West, and Bill White as well as Davey Johnson popping up alongside Piniella for a third-straight vote.  Peters and White are primarily on the ballot for their work as executives while Gaston, Johnson, and Leyland are recognized for their managerial achievements, and Montague and West for their multiple decades as umpires.


As the top returning managerial candidate who missed election by a single tally in his previous appearance on the Era Committee ballot, Piniella carries momentum into the forthcoming Contemporary Baseball Era vote.  While the returning Johnson presents little challenge to Piniella, the other two managerial candidates each bring impressive career accomplishments that rival Piniella’s.  Forging a similar path to Piniella, Gaston began his MLB career as an outfielder and smoothly transitioned into a successful post-playing career, first making his mark as batting coach for the Toronto Blue Jays, before taking over the club’s managerial reigns during the 1989 season.  Coincidentally, prior to settling on Gaston as the team’s skipper, Blue Jays general manager Pat Gillick had attempted to hire Piniella for the position but was blocked by Yankees owner George Steinbrenner.  Gaston led Toronto to back-to-back World Series championships in 1992 and 1993.  By accomplishing this feat, he broke new ground as the first Black manager to pilot his team to a World Series title.  Gaston managed a total of 12 seasons, each of which came during two separate stints for the Blue Jays and retired with 894 wins and a .516 winning percentage.

While Gaston’s victory total represents less than half of Piniella’s, Leyland brings a comparable number of wins to the ballot, checking in one spot behind “Sweet Lou” on the all-time list with 1,769 triumphs on his ledger.  Leyland managed for 22 seasons, leading the Pittsburgh Pirates, Florida Marlins, and Detroit Tigers to the postseason at different points in his career.  Leyland matches Piniella with three Manager of the Year Awards to his name but trails Piniella by 66 victories, and lags behind his .517 winning percentage with .506.  However, Leyland was able to capture three pennants to Piniella’s one while equaling his World Series triumph by taking the Marlins all the way in 1997.  What’s more, Leyland piloted Team USA to the 2017 World Baseball Classic championship.

If Piniella fails to be elected on the forthcoming Contemporary Baseball Era vote, he will face stiff competition on future ballots as recently retired skippers Dusty Baker and Terry Francona will both be eligible in three years when the committee plans to hold its next vote for non-players.  With Baker and Francona set to hit the Contemporary Baseball Era ballot for the 2026 election, Piniella could face a tough road to gain entry into Cooperstown if he is not voted in on December 3.  But, regardless of how many impressive new candidates become eligible, Piniella put together a solid managerial career and has a strong enough Hall of Fame case that if he is not elected this fall, he will continue to remain a relevant candidate on future ballots.

----by John Tuberty

Follow me on Twitter/X @BloggerTubbs

Stat links to main players mentioned: Lou Piniella, Dick Allen, Tony Oliva, Ted Simmons, Pete Rose, Ken Griffey Jr., Edgar Martinez, Randy Johnson, Álex Rodríguez, Bill White, Harold Baines, Fred McGriff, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Curt Schilling, Allie Reynolds, Jim Leyland, Cito Gaston, Dusty Baker, Terry Francona

Sources and Quote credit:

All statistics are drawn from Baseball Reference

Murray Chass, “Lou Piniella: Yankees’ Last Angry Man Puts Reins on His Tempestuous Nature,” The New York Times, March 6, 1974.

Michael Martinez, “Piniella Changes His Job With Yanks,” The New York Times, May 30, 1988.

“Quinn to Get Yankee Job,” The New York Times, June 8, 1988.

Michael Martinez, “From Spring Training to End, Martin Was Same Old Billy,” The New York Times, June 24, 1988.

Murray Chass, “BASEBALL; Piniella Is No. 1 Choice for Blue Jays’ Job,” The New York Times, May 27, 1989.

The Associated Press, “Umpire Files Lawsuit Against Piniella,” The New York Times, August 8, 1991.

The Associated Press, “BASEBALL; Dibble and Piniella Avoid Round 2,” The New York Times, September 19, 1992.

Murray Chass, “BASEBALL; A Sweet Lou Primer On Marge and Loyalty,” The New York Times, February 22, 1993. (includes Lou Piniella’s quote about leaving the Reds)

Ronald Blum, “Yankees Dismiss Martin a 5th Time; Piniella Is Named,” Los Angeles Times, June 24, 1988.

L.A. Times Archives, “Umpire Accused of Bias Against Reds,” Los Angeles Times, August 5, 1991. (includes Lou Piniella’s quote about Gary Darling)

Dave van Dyck and Tribune staff reporter, “New manager tempers his temper with smarts,” Chicago Tribune, October 17, 2006. (includes Willie Randolph’s quote about Lou Piniella)

Deseret News, “YANKS WON’T LET PINIELLA GO TO JAYS,” Deseret News, May 28, 1989.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer News Services, “Dibble keeps his promise,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, December 18, 2001.

David Andriesen, “A decade of Lou,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, October 16, 2002.

Archive, “Piniella-Dibble rift repaired in meeting,” Tampa Bay Times, September 19, 1992.

Frank Deford, “SWEET & LOU,” SI Vault, March 19, 2001.

Michael Bamberger, “SAFE AT HOME WHY WOULD LOU PINIELLA LEAVE A WINNER IN SEATTLE TO MANAGE THE TAMPA BAY DEVIL RAYS, THE WORST TEAM IN BASEBALL? TO BE WITH HIS FAMILY” SI Vault, March 3, 2003.

ESPN.com news service, “MLB - Mets, Devil Rays call Mariners regarding Piniella,” ESPN, October 15, 2002.

Associated Press, “Piniella wants owners to answer for D-Rays struggles,” ESPN, June 12, 2005.

Associated Press, “Devil Rays buy out Piniella’s final season for $2.2M,” ESPN, September 30, 2005.

ESPN.com news services, “Piniella to retire as Cubs manager,” ESPN, July 20, 2010. (includes Rob Dibble’s quote about Lou Piniella)

Associated Press, “Agent for chagrined Piniella talks to Rays,” The Spokesman-Review, June 17, 2005.

Bob Hunter, “Bob Hunter commentary: Volatile Piniella was a rare breed of manager,” The Columbus Dispatch, August 24, 2010.

Peter Schmuck, “Umpire Darling’s lawsuit against Piniella is nothing but legal stunt,” Baltimore Sun, August 11, 1991.

“CONTEMPORARY BASEBALL ERA COMMITTEE CANDIDATES ANNOUNCED,” Baseball Hall of Fame, October 19, 2023.

Cards: Lou Piniella cards-1987 Topps, 1991 Kahn’s Cincinnati Reds, 1996 Mother’s Cookies, 1976 Topps, 1983 Topps, 1986 Topps Traded, 1990 Topps Traded, 1991 Topps, 1992 Topps, 1993 Mother’s Cookies, 1994 Mother’s Cookies, 2001 Keebler Seattle Mariners, 2002 Keebler Seattle Mariners, 2004 Topps, 2009 Topps Heritage, 2008 Topps; Cito Gaston 1992 O-Pee-Chee, Jim Leyland 1997 Pacific Nations-Bank Florida Marlins


Other Articles by Tubbs Baseball Blog:

The Oddly Productive 2023 Campaign of Sub-.200 Hitter Kyle Schwarber

2023 MLB Season Quick Hits: Ronald Acuña Jr., Luis Arraez, Freddie Freeman, Trea Turner, and More

Rod Carew’s Seven Batting Titles and the Players He Denied the Honor by Annually Capturing the Crown

Tuesday, November 7, 2023

The Oddly Productive 2023 Campaign of Sub-.200 Hitter Kyle Schwarber

 


Perhaps no slugger fits the definition of “three-true-outcomes hitter” more accurately than Philadelphia Phillies left fielder Kyle Schwarber, as a large percentage of his plate appearances result in either a home run, walk, or strikeout.  During the 2022 season, Schwarber led the NL with 46 home runs and 200 strikeouts while drawing 86 walks and batting a paltry .218.  For 2023, Schwarber’s propensity to have his plate appearances end in one of the “three-true-outcomes” reached new heights as he finished the campaign with 47 home runs, 126 walks, and 215 strikeouts—once again pacing the senior circuit in the latter category.  Schwarber’s rise in walks and strikeouts was accompanied by a drop in batting average which saw him fall below the dreaded Mendoza Line to .197.  However, he did not allow his low batting average to keep him from being one of the game’s most productive hitters as he reached triple digits in both RBI and runs scored—a feat accomplished by only seven other players in 2023.  By reaching those plateaus, Schwarber earned the unique distinction of becoming the first player to drive in or score 100 runs while hitting below .200.  Additionally, Schwarber established new benchmarks for sub-.200 hitters in nearly every traditional statistical category including hits, home runs, and OPS.

Since signing with the Phillies as a free agent in 2022, Schwarber has seen the majority of his plate appearances come from the leadoff spot in the batting order.  As a thickly-built, slow-footed, power-hitter who regularly strikes out, Schwarber seemed to be an odd choice for leadoff.  Yet, in both 2022 and 2023, he ignited the offense and helped the club capture NL wild cards in back-to-back seasons.  After making 123 starts as Philadelphia’s leadoff hitter in 2022, Schwarber opened 2023 by splitting time between batting out of the two and three-holes.  The 30-year-old slugger returned to the leadoff spot for a few games in early May before being shifted to fifth in the order where he slumped heavily.  With Schwarber sporting an anemic .160 average, the Phillies decided to send him back to leadoff at the beginning of June.  The move quickly paid dividends as he rediscovered his tempo and hit a more palatable .215 from that point forward with each of his remaining 104 starts coming out of the leadoff spot.  Following the move back to leadoff, Schwarber belted 34 home runs while amassing 80 runs scored and 77 RBI.  He was particularly home run-happy during the latter stages of the campaign as he launched 10 long balls over the fence in both August and September.  Philadelphia’s season closely matched Schwarber’s as the team overcame a bleak month of May to reassert themselves as a contender and secure the top NL wild card seed.  Though he finished with a sub-.200 average, his 47 round-trippers slotted runner-up to the 54 of Atlanta Braves first baseman Matt Olson, while his 126 walks only trailed San Diego Padres left fielder Juan Soto’s 132.  Additionally, Schwarber ranked a respective seventh and ninth among senior circuit batters with 108 runs scored and 104 RBI.

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Schwarber played in 160 games during 2023 with 108 of his starts coming out of the leadoff spot.  By batting at the top of the order and accruing so much playing time, Schwarber stepped to the plate an inordinately-high number of times for a low-average hitter.  While his .197 batting mark classified 53 points under the NL average, because he racked up so many walks, his .343 OBP checked in 20 points above the NL average.  Thus, the combination of Schwarber’s ability to get on base in front of a potent Phillies offense coupled with his capacity to drive himself in via the long ball, set the stage for him to become the first sub-.200 hitter to reach triple digits in runs scored.  Prior to Schwarber, the lowest batting figure registered during a 100-run campaign came in 1891 when shortstop Shorty Fuller hit .212 for the St. Louis Browns of the American Association.  An almost polar opposite to the “three-true-outcomes” batting style of Schwarber, the light-hitting Fuller played during the high-scoring late 19th century when teams plated an average of five or even six-plus runs per game despite home runs being a rare occurrence.  Slotted behind Fuller is another 19th century player, right fielder Hugh Nicol who not only reached triple digits in runs scored but also set the pre-Modern Era stolen base record despite logging a meager .215 average for the 1887 Cincinnati Reds.  During the era in which Nicol played, the definition of what constituted a stolen base was more liberal than what it is today.  Nevertheless, only Rickey Henderson has approached Nicol’s 138 swiped bags.  The remainder of the bottom-five is rounded out first by Schwarber’s 2022 campaign in which he batted .218, followed by an additional light-hitting 19th century player in Emmett Seery who furnished a .224 mark for the 1887 Indianapolis Hoosiers.  Similar to his 2023 stat line, Schwarber’s 2022 effort saw him produce slightly higher OPS+ and Rbat figures.  Although it may be considered a dubious honor to post the lowest and fourth-lowest batting averages for a 100-run season, Schwarber’s offensive output in both 2022 and 2023 was far superior to the respective performances of Fuller, Nichol, and Seery who each put together sub-100 OPS+ marks and compiled negative Rbat during their low-average/100-run campaigns.


Standing just outside the bottom-five are two more 19th century hitters, Tom Brown and William Robinson, followed by the first 20th century player to appear, Detroit Tigers shortstop Donie Bush.  While Robinson’s and Bush’s respective 1888 and 1912 campaigns much more closely resemble Fuller’s 1891 season than Schwarber’s 2022 or 2023 showings, the pair racked up walks at an equivalent rate to the Phillies left fielder.  Checking in behind Bush with a .232 average is the first player who possessed a comparable skill set to Schwarber, New York Yankees center fielder Curtis Granderson.  Finishing the 2012 season with 43 home runs, 75 walks, and 195 strikeouts, Granderson embodied the “three-true-outcomes” batting style that has come to define sluggers like Schwarber.  What’s more, prior to Schwarber, Granderson’s .232 average from 2012 represented the lowest batting mark for a player to reach triple digits in both RBI and runs scored.  Yet, Granderson still fell shy of the OPS+ or Rbat numbers that Schwarber produced in 2022 or 2023.  In fact, Schwarber’s 122 and 131 OPS+ figures stand tall among more than two dozen of the lowest-average 100-run campaigns as you have to go all the way back to 28th-ranked Jay Buhner who notched a 132 mark while batting .243 for the 1997 Seattle Mariners before finding a hitter with a higher OPS+ than Schwarber’s.  Also, after Schwarber and Granderson, Buhner’s .243 average ranks next-lowest among batters who put together the 100 run/100 RBI combo.  

By becoming the first player to reach triple digits in RBI with a sub-.200 batting average, Schwarber simultaneously earned the dubious distinction of posting the lowest average for a 100-RBI campaign.  While spending the majority of the season batting out of the leadoff spot undoubtedly helped the 30-year-old slugger reach the century mark in runs scored, hitting at the top of order also decreased his chances of attaining 100 RBI as he was guaranteed to have at least one plate appearance with no runners on base.  In fact, over the course of the 2023 campaign, Schwarber stepped into the batter’s box with 396 runners on base—40 fewer opportunities than the number an average MLB hitter with his 720 plate appearances would see.  Nevertheless, he did not allow the lower number of opportunities to keep him from consistently driving in runs as he finished the season with 104 RBI, 77 of which came while batting out of the leadoff spot.  Schwarber utilized his power to rack up RBI as he drove in 76 runs with his 47 round-trippers.

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While the players who registered the lowest batting averages during 100-run campaigns were mostly light-hitting 19th century players of the distant past, the bulk of the players with the lowest batting marks in 100-RBI seasons have come in recent times.  As hitters began placing a greater emphasis on power and a reduced focus on batting average, the once rare combination of a player driving in 100 runs while logging a woefully-poor batting mark has become much more common.  Indeed, seven of the 10 worst batting averages maintained during 100-RBI campaigns have occurred within the past 15 years.  Three of those took place in 2023 as, in addition to Schwarber, Los Angeles Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy and New York Mets first baseman Pete Alonso reached triple digits in RBI while posting respective batting figures of .212 and .217 that were only slightly less anemic than the Phillies slugger’s .197 mark.  With his paltry batting average, Schwarber established a new level of futility for a 100-RBI season, shattering the previous low of .212 that had been set two years before by Seattle Mariners third baseman Kyle Seager.  What’s more, because Muncy’s .212 average worked out to a .2116 mark that was a fraction lower than Seager’s .2123 figure, the Dodgers slugger slotted directly behind Schwarber while Alonso’s .217 average classified fourth-lowest.  Another unique aspect of Muncy’s 2023 campaign was that he accrued more RBI than hits during the season.  Prior to Muncy, only Mark McGwire reached the 100-RBI plateau with a greater number of RBI than hits.  McGwire achieved this odd statistical combination while playing for the 1999 St. Louis Cardinals.


Although Schwarber earned the dubious distinction of producing the lowest batting mark in a 100-RBI campaign, by consistently hitting home runs and drawing walks, he was more than able to offset his meager .197 average and finish 2023 with a solid 122 OPS+.  Schwarber’s 122 figure put him alongside Alonso whom the Phillies slugger owned a small edge over in Rbat but slightly trailed in traditional OPS.  Among the 10 players who registered the lowest batting averages in 100-RBI campaigns, only Carlos Peña of the 2009 Tampa Bay Rays notched an OPS+ or Rbat number higher than Schwarber’s and Alonso’s 2023 totals.  What’s more, the 11th through 30th-lowest batting marks featured just three players who bested Schwarber’s and Alonso’s OPS+ and Rbat figures.  By contrast, when Seager set the record-low batting mark in 2021, he did so while only logging a league-average 100 OPS+ and accruing -2 Rbat, well below Schwarber’s numbers in both categories.  Prior to Seager, the dubious honor of owning the lowest batting mark was held for nearly four decades by Tony Armas who collected 107 RBI while batting .218 for the 1983 Boston Red Sox.  Though Seager and Armas were power-hitters who racked up high strikeout totals like Schwarber, they lacked the patience at the plate which enabled the Phillies slugger to maintain above-average OBP and OPS+ figures.  Interestingly, before Armas, the previous holder of the lowest batting mark for a 100-RBI campaign was Roy Sievers who hit .232 for the 1954 Washington Senators.  A free-swinger during an era in which strikeouts were much less common, Sievers’ 77 strikeouts actually ranked third-highest in the AL in 1954.


In addition to becoming the first player to drive in or score 100 runs while batting below the Mendoza Line, Schwarber also established new benchmarks for sub-.200 hitters in a slew of other categories, some of which had been recently set, as well as a few that had stood for several decades.

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With his 108 runs scored, Schwarber surpassed Joey Gallo’s total of 90 from 2021.  A near carbon-copy of Schwarber in his batting approach, Gallo equally personifies the definition of a “three-true-outcomes hitter.”  The owner of a .208 career-average going into 2021, Gallo began the season with the Texas Rangers and was in the process of putting together a solid campaign when he was sent to the New York Yankees in a late-July trade deadline deal.  While Schwarber did his best hitting during the final months of the 2023 season, the opposite proved to be the case for Gallo as he batted a woeful .160 after the trade to finish the year just below the Mendoza Line at .199.  Nevertheless, in addition to runs scored, Gallo set new benchmarks for sub-.200 hitters in home runs, walks, OBP, slugging percentage, OPS, OPS+, total bases, and Rbat.  During 2023, Schwarber surpassed Gallo in each of those categories, save for OBP as his .343 mark checked up shy of Gallo’s .351 figure.  Schwarber also wiped his free-swinging peer’s name off the top of a dubious category as his 215 strikeouts exceeded the 213 of Gallo.

With his 104 RBI, Schwarber eclipsed the total of third baseman Mark Reynolds who accrued 85 RBI while batting .198 for the 2010 Arizona Diamondbacks.  A “three-true-outcomes hitter” in the same vein as Schwarber and Gallo, Reynolds’ overall skill set even more closely resembled the Phillies left fielder’s as both struggled on defense.  During Reynolds’ and Schwarber’s respective 2010 and 2023 campaigns, the former produced -6 DRS (defensive runs saved below average) at third base while the latter compiled an unsightly -20 DRS that ranked worst among NL outfielders.  A different fielding metric, total zone, viewed Schwarber’s defense less harshly, crediting him as -10 fielding runs below average, a number that only slotted 10th-worst among NL outfielders.  By contrast, during the 2021 season, Gallo took home his second Gold Glove Award after providing steady defense as a right fielder for the Rangers and a left fielder for the Yankees, racking up 15 defensive runs saved above average and 12 fielding runs above average—the third-highest total among AL outfielders in each metric.  The 2010 campaign represented a step backwards for Reynolds following a solid 2009 effort which saw him smack 44 home runs and collect 102 RBI while batting .260 despite setting a dubious MLB record that still stands by striking out an astounding 223 times.  Although the 2010 season was a disappointing one for Reynolds, he was able to establish new benchmarks for sub-.200 hitters in home runs, RBI, slugging percentage, OPS, and total bases.  Not surprisingly, Reynolds also set a new high for strikeouts by a sub-.200 hitter with his 211 topping Rob Deer’s 175 from 1991.  In 2021, Gallo overtook Reynolds in each of these categories excluding RBI.  This pattern repeated itself in 2023 when Schwarber eclipsed Gallo in each of those categories while also bettering Reynolds’ RBI total.


During 2023, Schwarber only missed two contests and finished the season with 160 games played, matching the sub-.200 hitter mark set by Carlos Peña in 2012.  Because Schwarber rarely missed a contest and the Phillies were comfortable with batting him out of the leadoff spot, he was able to establish new benchmarks for sub-.200 hitters in plate appearances, at bats, and hits—each of which had been set by New York Yankees shortstop Frank Crosetti in 1940.  Noted more for his slick fielding and competitive spirit than his hitting, Crosetti had already been part of a handful of World Series championship Yankees teams, winning his first ring as a rookie in 1932 and four more in consecutive years from 1936 to 1939.  The primarily leadoff hitter for New York since 1934, Crosetti carried just a .255 career mark into 1940 but offset his low average by regularly drawing walks.  In contrast to Schwarber, Gallo, and Reynolds, Crosetti was not a serious power threat as he generally hit only around 10 home runs per season.  Yet, like each of those three sluggers, Crosetti experienced the dishonor of leading the league in strikeouts, pacing the AL on two occasions with 105 in 1937 and 97 in 1938.  Remaining at the top of the batting order for 1940, the veteran shortstop slumped heavily, hitting below .200 for much of the spring and summer before the team decided to drop him back to the eight-hole in early August.  Crosetti finished the year with a .194 average but managed to set new highs for sub-.200 hitters in a host of categories.  Crosetti held onto many of these benchmarks for multiple decades until Gallo surpassed his runs scored total in 2021 and Schwarber eclipsed his numbers in the aforementioned categories of plate appearances, at bats, and hits in 2023.  New York’s 1940 struggles were not solely limited to Crosetti as the four-time defending champions fell to third in the AL pennant race.  During the following season, Crosetti lost his starting role at shortstop to future Hall of Famer Phil Rizzuto but remained with the Yankees and won two more World Series rings with the team as a bench player.

Schwarber continued to exhibit his colossal power in the 2023 postseason, blasting five home runs, each of which came during the NLCS where the slugger batted an uncharacteristically-high .364 and was arguably Philadelphia’s top hitter in the club’s upset loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks.  This followed a 2022 playoffs which saw him belt six long balls in 17 games en route to helping the Phillies claim the NL pennant.  A solid postseason performer throughout his career, Schwarber passed Reggie Jackson to set the record for playoff home runs by a left-handed batter.  With 20 postseason long balls, Schwarber currently ranks alongside Derek Jeter in a tie for fourth all-time, trailing only the 29 of Manny Ramírez, 27 of Jose Altuve, and 22 of Bernie Williams.  However, Schwarber has launched his playoff round-trippers at a much more prolific rate than the sluggers ahead of him, racking up his 20 long balls over a mere 65 playoff games and 259 plate appearances.  With the Phillies positioned to remain a contender and the 30-year-old Schwarber signed to the team through 2025, it is likely he will continue to add to his playoff home run total.
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----by John Tuberty

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Sources:
All statistics are drawn from Baseball Reference and Stathead



Cards:  Kyle Schwarber cards-2022 Topps Update Series 1987 Topps Baseball, 2022 Topps Heritage High Number, 2022 Topps Archives 1978 Topps Design, 2023 Topps Big League, 2023 Topps, 2022 Topps Stadium Club, 2022 Topps Update; Shorty Fuller 1887-1889 Old Judge Cabinets, Curtis Granderson 2013 Topps, Max Muncy 2013 Topps Series 2, Pete Alonso 2023 Topps, Kyle Seager 2022 Topps, Tony Armas 1984 Topps, Roy Sievers 1954 Topps Archives, Joey Gallo 2019 Topps Vintage, Mark Reynolds 2010 Topps, Frank Crosetti 1936 Goudey Wide Pen Premiums


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