{"id":33678,"date":"2021-03-26T14:53:27","date_gmt":"2021-03-26T18:53:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/?p=33678"},"modified":"2021-04-05T15:59:31","modified_gmt":"2021-04-05T19:59:31","slug":"the-best-starting-pitching-staffs-in-the-last-100-years-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2021\/03\/26\/the-best-starting-pitching-staffs-in-the-last-100-years-part-i\/","title":{"rendered":"The Best Starting Pitching Staffs in the Last 100 Years: Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pitching, pitching, pitching. You may have heard the saying, \u201cYou can never have enough pitching.\u201d Of course, if you are going to have good pitching it begins with your starting pitching staff.<\/p>\n

Which starting pitching staff was the best ever? A few that come to mind right away were the Atlanta Braves of the \u201890s. Beginning in 1991, the Braves made the post-season in 13 of the next 14 seasons. Despite their great starting pitching, the Braves won only one World Series.<\/p>\n

Similarly, the \u201971 Baltimore Orioles with four 20-game winners is another group that is often mentioned. They also did not win the World Series that year. Likewise,the 1954 Cleveland Indians starting pitching staff is legendary as well, but they did not win the World Series either.<\/p>\n

I guess that\u2019s proof that starting pitching will give your team a chance. Then again a team needs more than just starting pitching.<\/p>\n

I considered and reviewed every team that made it to the World Series and some other notable ones that did not. After viewing all the statistics, teams after the Dead Ball Era were only considered. Comparatively, considering teams before and after 1920 is more an apples-to-oranges comparison than an apples-to-apples one.<\/p>\n

\"Bill<\/a>

Bill Hallahan<\/p><\/div>\n

All the statistics listed below were found in baseball-reference.com as well as the players listed as starting pitchers for their respective teams. If you disagree with someone that is listed as a starting pitcher, take that up with baseball-reference.com.<\/p>\n

How do you compare and rate starting pitching staffs? Do you base it on how good a pitching staff was by the number of 20-game winners it had? If a team had one 20-game winner and the other starters won 13 games each but another team had four 19-game winners, do you still think the team with the one 20-game winner had the superior pitching staff?<\/p>\n

Is a starting pitching staff like a chain and only as strong as its weakest link? Do you judge a starting pitching staff on its weakest link? If so, that doesn\u2019t bode well for the \u201973 Oakland Athletics. They had three 20-game winners: Jim Catfish Hunter (21), Ken Holtzman (21) and Vida Blue with 20. But their fourth starter was John Blue Moon Odom, and he went 5-12 that year with a 4.49 ERA. How could any World Series winner and particularly the 1973 A\u2019s have a starter seven games under .500?<\/p>\n

If that is a major factor in your decision on basing the best of starting pitching staffs, those eliminated would include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
YEAR<\/strong><\/td>\nTEAM<\/strong><\/td>\nPITCHER<\/strong><\/td>\nRECORD<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1934<\/td>\nSt. Louis Cardinals<\/td>\nBill Hallahan<\/td>\n8-12<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1942<\/td>\nNew York Yankees<\/td>\nMarv Breuer<\/td>\n8-9<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1951<\/td>\nCleveland Indians<\/td>\nBob Chakales<\/td>\n3-4<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1961<\/td>\nCincinnati Reds<\/td>\nKen Hunt<\/td>\n9-10<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1961<\/td>\nNew York Yankees<\/td>\nBob Turley, Bud Daley<\/td>\n3-5, 8-9<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1964<\/td>\nChicago White Sox<\/td>\nRay Herbert, Fred Talbot<\/td>\n6-7, 4-5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1968<\/td>\nSt. Louis Cardinals<\/td>\nLarry Jaster<\/td>\n9-13<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1969<\/td>\nNew York Mets<\/td>\nDon Cardwell, Jim McAndrew<\/td>\n8-10, 6-7<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1972<\/td>\nOakland Athletics<\/td>\nVida Blue<\/td>\n6-10<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1973<\/td>\nOakland Athletics<\/td>\nBlue Moon Odom<\/td>\n5-12<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1974<\/td>\nOakland Athletics<\/td>\nGlenn Abbott<\/td>\n5-7<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1974<\/td>\nLos Angeles Dodgers<\/td>\nAl Downing<\/td>\n5-7<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1977<\/td>\nNew York Yankees<\/td>\nKen Holtzman<\/td>\n2-3<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1980<\/td>\nHouston Astros<\/td>\nKen Forsch<\/td>\n12-13<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1985<\/td>\nLos Angeles Dodgers<\/td>\nRick Honeycutt<\/td>\n8-12<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1985<\/td>\nKansas City Royals<\/td>\nBud Black<\/td>\n10-15<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1988<\/td>\nNew York Mets<\/td>\nBob Ojeda<\/td>\n10-13<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1989<\/td>\nOakland Athletics<\/td>\nCurt Young<\/td>\n5-9<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1992<\/td>\nAtlanta Braves<\/td>\nMike Bielecki<\/td>\n2-4<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1993<\/td>\nAtlanta Braves<\/td>\nPete Smith<\/td>\n4-8<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1999<\/td>\nAtlanta Braves<\/td>\nOdalis Perez<\/td>\n4-6<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2002<\/td>\nAtlanta Braves<\/td>\nJason Marquis<\/td>\n8-9<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2002<\/td>\nNew York Yankees<\/td>\nTed Lilly<\/td>\n3-6<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2003<\/td>\nNew York Yankees<\/td>\nJeff Weaver<\/td>\n7-9<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2011<\/td>\nPhiladelphia Phillies<\/td>\nRoy Oswalt<\/td>\n9-10<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2014<\/td>\nDetroit Tigers<\/td>\nDrew Smyly<\/td>\n6-9<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

COMING SOON: Part II<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pitching, pitching, pitching. You may have heard the saying, \u201cYou can never have enough pitching.\u201d Of course, if you are going to have good pitching it begins with your starting pitching staff. Which starting pitching staff was the best ever? A few that come to mind right away were the Atlanta Braves of the \u201890s. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1873,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4235],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-top-stories"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1873"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33678"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33705,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33678\/revisions\/33705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}