Worst Pitching Seasons

Previously in this blog I looked at the worst pitching starts in MLB history, and I have looked at other notable pitchers, including those who would have won the Cy Young Award in seasons prior to the award's existence.  Recently, however, I decided to take a look at some of the worst pitching seasons in baseball history.  With the help of my friend Ryan, we looked through some downright terrible seasons, and settled upon a top ten list that appears below.

First, allow me to explain our methodology.  We began by sorting all pitching seasons in MLB history by ERA, provided that the pitcher had at least one inning pitched per team game played (so, 162 innings pitched for modern pitchers, 154 for most pre-1961 seasons, etc.).  This gave us a list of some impressively bad seasons, but we also checked a list of the worst ERA+ seasons, using the same innings pitched criteria, in order to identify poor pitching seasons that happened in time periods when ERAs were relatively low (1900-1920, the 1960s, etc.).  For example, an ERA of 5.00 in 2000 would barely be noticed, yet the same ERA in 1915 would certainly put that pitcher's season in contention.

Beyond that, our choices were largely subjective, primarily using ERA, ERA+, WHIP, and in some instances win-loss record to evaluate each season.  In the event of a tie (or close to it) we tended to give preference to the season with more innings pitched; having an ERA of 5.00 in 225 innings is worse than the same ERA in 175 innings. We also tried to include a good mix of pitchers from different eras, with three pre-1900, three dead ball era, and one each from the 1930s, 1960s, 1980s, and 2000s.  However, there were still more pre-1920 than post 1920, which might be accounted for by changes in the way the game is played; modern teams would probably be less likely to stick with a struggling starter all season, thus denying him the chance to pitch the required number of innings to make the list.

In any case, here's our list:

#10 Mark Davis, 1984 San Francisco Giants
5-17, 5.36 ERA, 66 ERA+, 1.460 WHIP, 174.2 innings pitched

Davis is the only Cy Young Award winner on this list, but other than two and a half impressive seasons as a closer for the Padres, he had a remarkably unspectacular career, the worst of which was his last of two seasons as a full-time starter. It's amazing that he managed to make 27 starts with numbers like those, but the rest of San Francisco's rotation wasn't much better, and they finished with a 66-96 record.

#9 Jack Lamabe, 1964 Boston Red Sox
9-13, 5.89 ERA, 65 ERA+, 1.647 WHIP, 177.1 innings pitched

Lamabe had previously been a successful relief pitcher in his first two major league seasons, but in 1964 Boston decided to switch him to the rotation.  Given that he played for the Red Sox in the mid-60s, they probably didn't have too many other options, but it didn't end very well.  He somehow managed a better winning percentage than two of the other regular starters, but his ERA was shockingly high, especially in a time period that was dominated by pitchers.

#8 Dan Griner, 1913 St. Louis Cardinals
10-22, 5.08 ERA, 64 ERA+, 1.533 WHIP, 225.0 innings pitched

How bad must the 1913 Cardinals have been if they stuck with Griner for 225 innings?  Pretty bad, considering Griner finished second on the team in wins, and fellow teammate Pol Perritt was one of the last cuts when we were making this list.  Griner, unbelievably, was not the worst on his team in any of the four categories listed above, yet we chose him over Perritt simply because of the number of innings pitched, he pitched 50 innings more than Perritt and was only marginally better in most categories.  Plus, it's hard to ignore a 10-22 win-loss record.


#7 Gene Wright, 1903 Cleveland Naps and St. Louis Browns
6-15, 4.98 ERA, 58 ERA+, 1.654 WHIP, 162.2 innings pitched

Wright split his season between two teams, but had more innings pitched (and pitched the worst) for the Naps, who, despite their non-threatening name, were actually contenders in the AL that season, having three pitchers who were actually good, plus Wright.  Wright pitched his first 101.2 innings with them, going 3-10 with a 5.75 ERA before they somehow managed to trade him to the Browns for Red Donahue, a moderately decent pitcher.  Wright's pitching improved slightly for the Browns, but he was still pretty bad, and after one atrocious start for them at the beginning of the 1904 season, he was done in the majors for good.

#6 Les Sweetland, 1930 Philadelphia Phillies
7/15, 7.71 ERA, 71 ERA+, 1.982 WHIP, 167.0 innings pitched

It's impressive that Sweetland didn't finish higher on this list considering his 7.71 ERA is the all-time record for ERA by qualifying pitchers.  However, it also happened during a major surge in offense, when the league ERA was 4.97.  So, his ERA, while bad, is not as bad as it would have been in, say, the 1960s.  Sweetland also had a teammate, Claude Willoughby, who had a similar, 7.59 ERA, but he finished the season one inning shy of qualifying for this list. 

#5 Jack Wadsworth, 1894 Louisville Colonels
4-18, 7.60 ERA, 67 ERA+, 2.104 WHIP, 173.0 innings pitched

Overall, 1894 was a bad year for pitchers.  Only a year after the pitcher's mound was moved back to its current location 60 feet 6 inches from home plate, a lot of pitchers were having trouble adjusting.  The league ERA in 1894 was an incredible 5.33, but no pitcher had a worse time of it than Jack Wadsworth, of the last place Colonels.  Sadly, it was arguably the highlight of his career; in four MLB seasons, it was one of only two in which he pitched enough innings to qualify, and his 1890 season was almost as bad.  He pitched two more games after 1894 and retired with a record of 6-38, with a 6.85 ERA and an ERA+ of 63.  If I was making a list of "worst pitchers in MLB history,' he would certainly be a contender.

#4 John Coleman, 1883 Philadelphia Quakers
12-48, 4.87 ERA, 63 ERA+, 1.523 WHIP, 538.1 innings pitched

John Coleman started his career as a pitcher, but finished as an outfielder, for reasons that should be clear based on his 1883 pitching performance.  His 4.87 ERA doesn't look terrible, but based on the league average, it's atrocious, with just a 63 ERA+.  However, what really makes his season stand out is the unbelievable 48 losses, by far a single-season baseball record that is unlikely to ever be broken.  He saw significant pitching time in just one other season, 1884, in which he somehow managed to be even worse, although in far fewer innings.

#3 Jose Lima, 2005 Kansas City Royals
5-16, 6.99 ERA, 62 ERA+, 1.660 WHIP, 168.2 innings pitched

This is the only one of these seasons that I personally remember, but even I didn't realize just how bad it was until I compared it to some of the other all-time worst seasons.  Sadly, Lima had not just one but two seasons that were being considered for this list, although his atrocious 2000 season ended up being one of the last cuts from this list.  He went on to pitch four games the next season, with an ERA of 9.87, and never played in the majors again.

#2 Rube Bressler, 1915 Philadelphia Athletics
4-17, 5.20 ERA, 56 ERA+, 1.688 WHIP, 178.1 innings pitched

An ERA of 5.20 is pretty bad nowadays, but back in the dead ball era, it was practically unheard of.  However, Rube Bressler managed to do so in 1915, his only season in which he pitched enough innings to qualify for the ERA title.  Interestingly, Bressler had the longest career of any pitcher on this list, playing 19 MLB seasons - mostly as an outfielder.  Although he was neither as good of a pitcher nor hitter as a certain other player who was switched from the pitcher's mound to the outfield in 1919, he retired in 1932 with a respectable .301 career batting average and a World Series championship with the Reds in 1919.


#1 Frank Bates, 1899 Cleveland Spiders & St. Louis Perfectos
1-18, 6.90 ERA, 53 ERA+, 2.202 WHIP, 161.2 innings pitched

The 1899 Cleveland Spiders have long since gone down in history as the ultimate farce in MLB history, but of all the farce pitchers on their team, none could quite match Frank Bates.  At the time, the same people owned both the St. Louis and Cleveland teams (something that we call a "conflict of interest" today), so they essentially traded all of Cleveland's good players to St. Louis for all of their lousy players.  A very angry Bates was one of those lousy players, and apparently in order to indicate his displeasure, he compiled the worst pitching season in baseball history, winning just one of his 19 starts, a 10-9 victory in which he allowed 17 hits.  It was the final major league season for both the Spiders and for Bates, who in two MLB seasons accumulated a 3-19 record, with a 6.33 ERA and an ERA+ of 58.