Which Hall of Fame pitcher had the greatest difference between his win-loss % and the win-loss %of the teams he pitched for?
A greater difference between one pitcher’s win–loss % and that of the teams he pitched for and the difference between ANOTHER pitcher’s win-loss % and that of the teams HE pitched for would be a strong argument for the former being the greater pitcher (e.g., Steve Carleton vs. Whitey Ford).
Without doing exhaustive research on this subject, I suspect Walter Johnson might be the title holder.
From SABR:
*"Washington’s improved performance during the second decade of the twentieth century was due mostly to Walter Johnson’s pitching. This can be illustrated by a breakdown of its won-lost record into games where Walter was awarded the decision and games won or lost by other pitchers:
Johnson: 265-143, .650
Others: 490-594, .452
Total: 755-737, .507
That Johnson recorded as many losses as he did was due to the mediocre quality of his team’s batting and fielding. This lack of support is reflected by the fact that he holds major-league records for number of 1-0 wins (38) as well as losses (26)."*
For a single season it would be hard to beat Steve Carlton. In 1972 he went 27-10 (W-L% .730) while the Phillies were 59-97 (.378)
The Phillies finished with the worst record in the NL while Carlton won the Cy Young award, receiving all 24 first-place votes.
In those 27 wins his ERA was 1.11 and 24 were complete games, including 8 shutouts. He really earned those wins.
Next to Carlton, the single-season choice is Ned Garver, who in 1951went 20-12 for the St. Louis Browns, a team with a record of 52-102. He won 38% of the team’s victories. He also hit .305.
Not in the HOF, of course, but still an impressive achievement.
Looking at the ‘72 Phillies’ stats on Baseball Reference. Wow. As already noted, Carlton accounted for almost half of his team’s wins.
Carlton started 41 games, and completed 30 of them. Meanwhile, the other three primary starters went a combined 10-39. It wasn’t like they had awful ERAs, though (4.26, 4.36, 5.09). Only two regulars (Tommy Hutton and Greg Luzinski) hit better than .250.
Just think of the season he could’ve had if he played for a mediocre team.
Carlton slumped to 13-20 with a ERA of 3.90 the following season but the Phillies “improved” to 71-91 and finished “only” 11 1/2 games behind the first place Mets. Thus, in the scheme of things, it would’ve been better for the Phillies if Carlton had his crappy season in 1972 and his jaw-droppingly great season in 1973.
I am pretty sure the OP is asking for career, though.
The highest career winning percentages by Hall of Fame pitchers are:
All generally pitched for good teams.
This is a hard question to answer; I don’t know how to reliably figure it out and in fact we would have to define how to measure it. I think Walter Johnson could be the answer but Grover Cleveland Alexander and Tom Seaver are also possible.
Ted Lyons would be up there as his White Sox teams in the 1920s and 1930s (and some in the 1940s) weren’t very good. Although he pitched a lot which probably brought down his winning percentage. But intuitively I’d say Walter Johnson altough the Senators did become reasonably good around 1912 and Johnson pitched for them until 1927.
I scrolled through the Senators’ seasons and they weren’t as bad as I think people are assuming. That said, if you consider Walter won a lot of those games the delta between him and his teammates was pretty large. Pete Alexander is much the same.
There was a vaudeville joke: “Washington: first in war, first in peace, and last in the American league”.
And, they led the league in Cubans (if nothing else). They had a lot of Cuban ballplayers, even Fidel Castro once tried out for the team.
The Walter Johnson example in post #2 only covers his 1910-19 seasons, so I did a full career chart for him first:
Walter Johnson: 417-279, .614
Others: 1142-1330, .462
Total: 1559-1609, .492
122-point winning% gap between himself and the teams he pitched for, and Johnson accounted for 26.7% of his teams’ wins.
Then I did one for Ted Lyons, throwing out his first and last seasons since he didn’t pitch much in those. The results:
Ted Lyons: 257-225, .533
Others: 1073-1339, .449
Total: 1330-1564, .460
73-point winning% gap between Lyons and the teams he pitched for, and he accounted for 19.32% of his teams’ wins… but take that latter statistic with a grain of salt because he played in a later era when starters pitched a lower percentage of complete games.
Here’s Pete Alexander, not counting his last season when he didn’t pitch much. 1926 was a split season between the Cubs and Cardinals and the math gets hairy there, but I used the Cubs’ record up to June 21 and then the Cardinal’s record from June 22 when they acquired him.
Pete Alexander: 373-205, .645
Others: 1168-1121, .510
Total: 1541-1326, .537
108-point winning% gap between himself and the teams he pitched for, and he accounted for 24.2% of his teams’ wins.
Here’s Seaver:
Tom Seaver: 311-205, .603
Others: 1279-1430, .472
Total: 1590-1635 .493
110-point winning% gap and he accounted for 19.6% of his teams’ wins. It’s been rarer to see that second stat up high in the last 50 years since the five-man rotation has come in.
Carlton was still on the Phillies when they became really good later on, so I knew his career numbers wouldn’t look anything like 1972 for this question. I calculated them anyway though. His first and last seasons weren’t counted.
Steve Carlton: 329-243, .575
Others: 1493-1419, .513
Total: 1822-1662, .523
52-point gap, accounted for 18.1% of his teams’ wins.
And a likely future HoF’er that nobody’s named yet, not counting his first year:
**Roy Halladay: **202-105, .658
Others: 1040-1082, .490
Total: 1242-1187, .511
147-point winning% gap and he accounted for 16.26% of his teams’ wins. Looking over the numbers of those 2000s Jays teams, the hitting usually wasn’t too bad but they were thin on pitching early in the decade and had some bad Pythagorean luck as well. When you’re looking at a fairly short career I guess that luck factor can make the numbers kind of swingy.
I would have thought Fergie Jenkins would have been up there. Great pitcher on some truly wretched teams.
I dunno, there’s a lot of noise in that signal. You’d be measuring how good each team’s other pitchers are, which doesn’t tell you anything about the two guys you’re trying to compare.
Jenkins’s Cubs teams were only bad his first two years and last two years. His other teams in Texas and Boston were usually pretty good.
Bobo Newsom would be difficult to figure because he got traded in mid season a lot (he was difficult to get along with). But with a lifetime record of 200-209, his bad teams would really have to be lousy although the Browns and Senators might be up As down?) to it. But Ol’ Bobo (as he dalled himself) was pretty good with good clubs like the 1940 Tigers and 1947 Yankees.
Of recent players, while Roy Halladay was notable for the delta between himself and his team’s success, I think that Felix Hernandez and the rest of the Mariners also should be mentioned.
King Felix: 160-114 .584
Others: 822-1010 .448
Total: 982-1124 .466
16.3% of his team’s wins is actually higher than Halladay’s, although it’s less impressive given how much worse the teams he’s been on have been. He neither had any offensive support, and god knows how he didn’t throw his back out carrying Miguel Batista and Jarrod Washburn all those years.
Ned Garver was the first guy I thought of but as noted, he’s not in the HOF and only one season is referenced here. He was a good pitcher on some really awful St. Louis teams.
Now I’m going to tell a fun story, which is pretty much just me bragging. Mr. Garver lived not far from my hometown and happened to be in attendance when I pitched the game of my life in high school and beat the best team in the state 2-1. I didn’t know he was at the game until the next day at school my coach pulled me out of a class and said someone wants to talk to me. It was Ned Garver, he wasn’t able to see me after the game but really wanted to tell me he was impressed with my pitching so he drove 40 minutes to my high school to meet me! Pretty cool guy and I’ll never forget that.
That’s very impessive!
There’s a huge difference - for purposes of this stat - as to why the “bad team” the good pitcher is on is bad.
You can have a bad team with good hitting but with a lousy pitching staff with the exception of this one guy, and that’s where you’ll put up the big differential stats. But some bad teams are bad because their hitters are bad, and the W-L differential between the ace and the rest of the staff is not going to be all that much.
With that in mind, has anyone looked into Warren Spahn (of “Spahn and Sain and pray for rain”)?