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So I attempted a search on team ERA+ > 124 and G > 150. No one has ever done that. Unless I misused the search...the Mariners are a true unicorn if they finish the season that strongly.
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Diderot sez,
I like a pitcher who can get his ERA under 3 ... right now, the whole TEAM is under 3!
Has anyone done that for a whole season since they lowered the mound?
... answered my own question: Dodgers and Mets in 1988. Of course, pitchers batted in that league ...
Daddy O sez,
When the league ERA gets down towards 3, they do stuff like adding DH's and changing the mound :- )
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Dr D sez,
ERA+, for those who don't care about glossaries, adjusts for the park and for the league (and the DH). Pitching in a big park like Safeco, it's harder to get a good ERA+. Pitching against the LA Angels, it's hard to get a good ERA, period.
I don't ever specifically remember seeing a team ERA+ of 125, from any team, since WWII. Am sure there have been a couple.
In fairness, I have seen teams -- like the Doc Gooden Mets, the 1972 A's, and others -- where it seemed like you knew you were going to see a lockdown every night.
The M's 3-6 starters are not as stable as some historical staffs have been. The rotation doesn't feel epic, so the staff hasn't felt as epic as the star-studded rotations sometimes do.
.......
Here are the active pitchers with career ERA's over 120:
| Clayton Kershaw | 150 |
| Johan Santana | 136 |
| Adam Wainwright | 132 |
| Felix! |
131 |
| 2014 MARINER STAFF, 19 GUYS | 125 |
| Cole Hamels | 125 |
| Tim Hudson | 124 |
| Justin Verlander | 124 |
| Jered Weaver | 124 |
| Johnny Cueto | 123 |
| David Price (ahem) | 122 |
| Jon Lester (hrm, hoom) | 120 |
| CC Sabathia | 120 |
Implying that David Price would have made the pitching staff worse. ;- ) More seriously, the 2014 Mariners over the course of 1,056 innings have shown you the same kinda run prevention that you've seen over the course of Justin Verlander's 1,929 innings. The Justin Verlander staff.
Somebody might want to compare the M's ERA+ to some of the famous staffs, like the Maddux/Glavine/Smoltz Braves.
........
Of course, Felix will probably botch it tonight.
Pitchers with career ERA's under 120:
- Cliff Lee
- Max Scherzer
- Zack Greinke
- CJ Wilson
- James Shields
I was surprised to see that Chris Young is #33 among active pitchers with a career ERA+ of 108.
You wonder if the Mariners feel any pressure to capitalize on such a staff. They certainly didn't feel any pressure in the 1990's, to capitalize on Griffey, ARod, Unit, Edgar, and Buhner.
.........
Like we sez, this is a roster config that is capable of winning the World Series. They've got two 100-RBI men, and they just need the background scenery in the batting order. Their run differential is +74 right now; if you finish at +100 you were a legit contender.
The good news is, the M's are better than 125+ now. Earlier in the year, Maurer, Erasmo, and others were getting shelled at the back of the rotation. The last 28 days, the team ERA is 2.30.
The bad news is, Taijuan fired 13 K's the other night.
The Mariners' pitching is much farther away from mediocre than their hitting is. M's P's > > > > > "average" > > M's hitting. Get that straight.
BABVA,
Dr D
Comments
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Using which database?
Seems like I'd seen a 127 back before WWII. But generally, it seems like when you're at 120 on the dot, you've got a once-in-3-year staff.
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Sorry...I was checking to see if you were right about post-WWII and saying you were (I included after 1945 in the search).
I didn't check earlier than that. Just went searching in my personal Access DB
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Although, at this point, it starts to become interesting to go a little more fine-grain as to where this pitching staff rates.
Appreciate the check you did. So 125 would be the top ERA+ since WWII, eh. And they're gaining momentum ...
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Your broad point is still very much correct, of course, but there are two caveats when comparing the Mariners' pitching staff to others in baseball history:
1) They're benefiting from a well-above-average defense, especially in the outfield
2) They're benefiting from a park that has a much larger negative influence on run scoring than the park-factors currently say (because the Mariner offense is very bad, but bad in such a way as to favor it appearing less bad at Safeco due to the left-handedness of the power they possess, other than the Safe-breaking power of Mike Zunino). You can deceive a simple ratio factor based on (Mariner runs at home + opponent runs at home) / (mariner runs on road + opponent runs at home) if the Mariners are not equally good/bad at home vs. on the road. Which has been true to some extent in both of the last two seasons.
This despite the fact that Seattle has a bad record at home.
Using DNRA, which can now go back to 1939 thanks to the increasing availability of play by play data...the Mariners are (defense independently) the 13th best team pitching staff since 1939. Their team DNRA+ is 119.2 (!)...the most recent time a team beat that mark was in 2005 (Chisox)...the time before that was the 1996, 1995, and 1993 Braves. :)
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According to baseball-reference, the '85 Blue Jays had an ERA+ = 128. The '95 Braves ERA+ = 123, so close to 125. The Chicago Cubs of the aughts are the kings of run prevention with a peak ERA+ = 151 and many years over 140.
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I missed the '85 Jays in my prior searches! Very cool.
They had some big names: Stieb, Key, Alexander...those three are all in my top 150 pitchers of all time. And Caudill and Lamp were a heck of a top of the pen, too.
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Especially agree with the remark about Safeco Field.
........
Hard to say where the defense is:
Dewan's Runs Saved has them about average
Sometimes the pitching causes good D-numbers**
It looks to my eye that, Since Opening Day!, the defense has been average/solid***
etc
**Chris Young gets lots of air under his BIPs; Iwakuma gets real weak swings; the bullpen likewise...
***Have to include Almonte, James Jones, early Ackley, questionable SS/1B, and it's not like there are Brendan Ryans and Ichiros out there
.......
That pushes the triangle in by several notches. Gracias.
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Funny how we're comparing this pitching staff to all-time staffs, a la the current comparisons of Seahawk defenses historically...
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Ya, good catch -- the 1985 Jays' ERA+ is surprising. That's got to be one of yer great no-strikeout staffs. They were 8th in strikeouts in the AL, actually a tad below average.
The year before, their ERA+ was 107; the year after, it was 104. You wonder what happened there, exactly; those pitchers weren't as good as all that. But of course you can aim that logic at the 2014 M's pitching (and 2001 M's team) also ...
Great ERA+ that year; not so great a staff, as such. Wonder why.
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They had a 126, and they weren't even the four 20 game winners. The Oreos of that era were among my favs.
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1984: 105.1
1985: 106.9
1986: 105.6
The '85 Jays benefited from (a) an inaccurate park factor adjustment and (b) very strong team defense. That year, they had Tony Fernandez in his defensive prime, George Bell and Jesse Barfield at the COF slots (both of whom were well above average defensively that season) and Lloyd Moseby in CF. Their catcher was Ernie Whitt learning his game calling skill from Buck Martinez. And oh BTW...they were one of the fastest teams in the AL...good team speed usually leads to good team defense.
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Saw that team a lot on cable TV (Labatts Blue Jays baseball - Tony Kubek, I even started drinking Labatts beer). Great defense, excellent pitching, Tony F and Barfield. A wonderful team. It was my first season of rotisserie baseball (I created a league that still meets in a living room to this day to run its auction), and I had those two and George Bell in my lineup - and Roger Clemens. Since the Blue Jays were on national TV, I saw a quite a bit of them and it made it a fun season for me. There was a lot of speed in that lineup. It's kinda too bad they didn't make it to the World Series to play the Cards (lost game seven to the Royals, IIRC). Tony vs. Ozzie, Moseby vs. Willie McGee...would have been some great storylines. But St. Louis-Kansas City was a great series as well - the I-70 series, right?
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I decided to procrastinate and look for teams. By baseball-reference.com numbers there are a few teams above an ERA+ of 130 since WWII. I found the following:
2002 Braves ERA+ = 133
1997 Braves ERA+ = 131 plus the '93, '96, and '98 teams all equaled or exceeded the 125 mark.
1954 Indians ERA+ = 134
1954 Giants ERA+ = 132
The WWII Cardinals were around 130 for multiple years, but that was against substandard competition.
So ERA+ > 125 is obviously excellent, but not historic. So Matt, would you say the Braves had stronger pitching or defense during there run for '93 to '02?
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At least as my analytics currently claim - the Braves of the 90s were both fantastic defensively and fantastic with pitching. Maddux, Smoltz, Glavine, Millwood, Avery...at the same time in many cases? But also...Andruw Jones, Mark Lemke, Sid Bream, Terry Pendleton, Ron Gant early on before he got slow...the Braves were probalby a bit more pitching than fielding, since the core of their defense was a mix of awful (Blauser, Chipper Jones, Javy Lopez, Fred McGriff, David Justice) and historically great (A. Jones, Lemke, Galarraga, Perez, Gant early, Belliard, Marcus Giles, Quilvio Veras etc).
DNRA thinks those 90s Braves ripped off 5 seasons with a team DNRA+ of 116 or higher in that period, FWIW.