Last week, I looked at the all-time top 20 Tigers position players based on Sean Smith's WAR database. This week, I'll present the pitchers based only on their time with the Tigers (Table 1).
Wins Above Replacement (WAR) for pitchers is based mostly on innings pitched, strike outs, walks and home runs.
The Tigers pitchers are less impressive than the batters as the number one hurler, Hal Newhouser (55.3 WAR) would have finished only 8th on the position player list. Newhouser is followed by Tommy Bridges (50.7), Mickey Lolich (44.2), Dizzy Trout (42.2) and Jack Morris (34.5). There is one current Tiger on the list with Justin Verlander coming in 18th at 17.2. Note that I took Verlanders 2009 WAR from FanGraphs as Smith's database only goes up through 2008 at this point.
Table 1: Top Twenty Tigers Pitchers by WAR
Rank | Pitcher | WAR |
1 | Hal Newhouser | 55.3 |
2 | Tommy Bridges | 50.7 |
3 | Mickey Lolich | 44.2 |
4 | Dizzy Trout | 42.2 |
5 | Jack Morris | 34.5 |
6 | Frank Lary | 28.9 |
7 | Bill Donovan | 28.6 |
8 | John Hiller | 28.2 |
9 | Jim Bunning | 27.9 |
10 | Virgil Trucks | 26.7 |
11 | Hooks Dauss | 26.7 |
12 | George Mullin | 26.0 |
13 | School Boy Rowe | 23.3 |
14 | Fred Hutchinson | 22.7 |
15 | Ed Killian | 19.3 |
16 | Earl Whitehill | 19.1 |
17 | Denny McLain | 18.9 |
18 | Justin Verlander | 17.2 |
19 | Bobo Newsome | 17.2 |
20 | Al Benton | 16.5 |
I would like to suggest that when you present these stats that you give a sentence or two about what things like WAR stand for and how it is used.
ReplyDeleteis it Wins against Replacements? if so, what does that mean?
Titus
You're absolutely right Titus and I'm usually good about that. I did explain it a few weeks back and should have linked to it. WAR is Wins Above Replacement. It's the number of wins a player is worth compared to a replacement player (somebody like Armando Galarraga this year)
ReplyDeleteSweet. I was hoping you were going to do this, Lee. How are you going to handle the OF?
ReplyDeleteMan, the Tigers just don't really have that great of a pitching history, do they?
ReplyDeleteWhere's Joe Coleman?!? He always seemed to be on the mound in 1974
ReplyDeleteJoe Coleman was #22 on the list.
ReplyDelete