Almost perfect: no-hitters where the only baserunners came on errors

Posted on July 11, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

On Friday night Jonathan Sanchez of the San Francisco Giants pitched a no-hitter against the San Diego Padres, striking out eleven while not walking a batter.  The only baserunner for the Padres came on an eighth-inning error by third baseman Juan Uribe (who had entered the game as a defensive replacement — oof).

This got me wondering about how many other no-hitters there have been where the pitcher did not issue a walk or hit a batter, but didn’t get a perfect game because of an error.  After doing some checking, I think I have a complete list of such occurrences since 1901.

[There are a few games in the 1880s that are also possibilities, but I can’t find information that would confirm their status as perfectos-but-for-error(s).  One reason for this is that hit by pitches are often not listed, as opposed to walks, in simplified box scores and writeups.  It may well be that Pud Galvin would have thrown two perfect games but for errors, but I don’t really have a way to check (unless I have failed spectacularly as a google-meister).  Other 19th-century pitchers who may qualify in this category include “Old Hoss” Radbourn, Charlie Buffinton, and John Clarkson.]

Anyway, here is the list since the founding of the American League.  Again, it’s always possible I missed one, particularly in the first half of the 20th century, but I think I got them all:

  • Christy Mathewson of the New York Giants, 6/13/1905, against the Cubs.  He beat Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown in this game to pick up his second career no-hitter.  Two Cubs reached base via errors.  Mathewson won 31 games in 1905, and of course famously threw three shutouts in the World Series that year as well (the last one on one day’s rest).  In their next matchup, Brown began a streak of nine straight wins over Mathewson.
  • Nap Rucker of the Brooklyn Superbas (later Dodgers), 9/5/1908, against Boston (known as the Doves at that time).  Three baserunners reached on errors.  Rucker, who struck out 14 batters in this game, was a fine lefty with the misfortune of pitching for some bad Brooklyn teams.  He finished with a career record of 134-134.  Rucker was later in life the mayor of Roswell, Georgia.
  • Walter Johnson of the Washington Senators, 7/1/1920, against the Red Sox in Boston.  The only baserunner for the Red Sox reached on an error by second baseman Bucky Harris in the seventh inning (who had driven in the game’s only run in the top of the frame).  This was Johnson’s first career no-hitter.  Unfortunately, it was also his last victory in 1920, as he developed a sore arm following the game and only made two more appearances on the mound the rest of the season.
  • Bill McCahan of the Philadelphia Athletics, 9/3/1947, against Washington.  The only baserunner for the Senators came with one out in the second inning, when first baseman Ferris Fain botched a toss to McCahan on a pitcher-covering-first play.  McCahan had starred in baseball and basketball at Duke, and in addition to pitching for the Athletics played in the National Basketball League (a forerunner of the NBA) for the Syracuse Nationals.
  • Dick Bosman of the Cleveland Indians, 7/19/1974, against Oakland.  The only baserunner of the game for the A’s came on Bosman’s own throwing error in the fourth inning.  The following year, he was actually traded to Oakland.  Bosman, who won the AL ERA title in 1965, is also known for starting the first game for the Texas Rangers (and the last one for Washington before that version of the Senators moved to Texas).  He was also a pitching coach in the majors for a number of years.
  • Jerry Reuss of the Los Angeles Dodgers, 6/27/1980, against San Francisco.  Reuss beat the Giants 8-0 at Candlestick, striking out only two batters but allowing only one baserunner, which happened when shortstop Bill Russell committed a throwing error in the first inning.  1980 was a great year for Reuss, who won 18 games, finished second in the Cy Young voting to Steve Carlton, and was selected by The Sporting News as its Comeback Player of the Year.  He was also the winning pitcher in that year’s All-Star Game.
  • Terry Mulholland of the Philadelphia Phillies, 8/15/1990, against San Francisco.  This was the 8th no-hitter pitched in 1990.  The only baserunner allowed by Mulholland came on a seventh-inning error by third baseman Charlie Hayes.  However, Hayes caught a line drive by Gary Carter to end the game, preserving the no-hitter.  In June of 1989, Mulholland and Hayes had been traded to Philly — by the Giants (in the Steve Bedrosian deal).
  • Jonathan Sanchez of the San Francisco Giants, 7/10/2009, against San Diego.

[Edit, 10/3/15: Since I wrote this post, this particular feat has happened twice more. Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers threw a no-hitter on June 18, 2014 against the Rockies; the only Colorado baserunner reached on an error in the 7th inning. Kershaw had 15 strikeouts in the contest.

On October 3, 2015, Max Scherzer of the Nationals no-hit the Mets with a 17-strikeout performance in which the only New York baserunner came on a throwing error in the sixth inning.]

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In defense of Rabbit Maranville’s Hall of Fame plaque

Posted on January 25, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

A few weeks ago I was reading a column by Chicago-based sportswriter Rick Telander, who as a longtime member of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) gets a Hall of Fame vote every year.  This was his (presumably) annual column about his vote.  One of the benefits of being a BBWAA member is that every year you get an easy column by just writing about your ballot.

Telander’s column is a bit of a ramble.  He whines about steroids, decides he’s getting old, and also mentions the “grandeur” of the Hall.  He writes:

When you go to Cooperstown, there is not a player enshrined (other than maybe Rabbit Maranville) who doesn’t blow your socks off.

There it is again.  Somebody who doesn’t understand why Rabbit Maranville is enshrined in Cooperstown.

It’s not like Telander’s the only one.  I remember reading an article on the Hall of Fame back in 1989 by Steve Wulf, then writing for Sports Illustrated.  While leading up to a paragraph about Abner Graves (!), Wulf wrote:

Some are more deserving than others, but once you walk into the Hall of Fame Gallery—the wing that holds the famous bronze plaques—you know you are in a place of worship, and you could never begrudge a man his place there. You might wish that Phil Rizzuto, Richie Ashburn, Leo Durocher, Roger Maris, Nellie Fox, Bill Mazeroski, Ron Santo, etc., could be there too, but you wouldn’t wish to unscrew Rabbit Maranville’s plaque to make room for another, even if Maranville did hit just .258 lifetime.

Besides, there’s no sense in trying to read the minds of the baseball writers who vote for the Hall of Fame candidates (in the first election, in 1936, 11 of them left Ruth off their ballots). And there’s no benefit in chastising the veterans’ committee, which, in trying to undo past injustices, has perhaps relaxed the standards a bit; Jake Beckley may not be a household name, but that’s not to say his name doesn’t belong here. No, the overwhelming feeling you get in that splendid room is one of gratitude. Thanks, fellas, for filling up the afternoons and evenings of so many, for bringing them to their feet, for the memories.

The story was accompanied by a picture of Maranville’s plaque.  I don’t remember the caption under the photo, but I am fairly sure it was something along the lines of “he only hit .258 and shouldn’t really be in the Hall, but don’t sweat it”.

Re-reading that passage, I think it’s interesting that of Wulf’s list of players “you might wish” would also be enshrined, all of them have now been elected except for Maris and Santo.  (Poor Santo.  A quarter-century of being the woulda-coulda-shoulda guy when it comes to the Hall.)

The thing that kills me, though, is that he says that while Jake Beckley “may not be a household name” that doesn’t mean he doesn’t belong in the Hall, even though he mentions Beckley while mildly criticizing the Veterans Committee.  He says that and then talks about Maranville as something of a lesser pick than Beckley, despite the fact that Maranville wasn’t a VC pick — he was elected by the BBWAA.  It’s obvious that Wulf doesn’t know anything about Maranville either, other than his .258 career batting average.

Wulf was only three years old when Maranville was elected to the Hall (in 1954).  Still, a little research wouldn’t have hurt any.  Of course today finding out about past players is much easier than it was in 1989, so Telander has even less of an excuse.  The thing is, though, Maranville still comes up on lists of “least deserving” or “not deserving” Hall of Famers, even among people who follow the sport fairly closely.  At first glance he looks like a guy who didn’t hit for average, had little power, and just hung around a long time.  All of that is true, and yet…

Maranville debuted in the majors in 1912, for the Boston Braves.  He was 20 years old and appeared in 26 games that season.  In 1913, he became the everyday shortstop for the Braves, batting .247 in 143 games, with two homers.  His OPS+ that season was 83, right around his career average (82).  Not impressive, at first glance…but then you realize that in 1913, at the age of 21 and playing his first full season in the major leagues, Maranville finished third in the MVP voting, just ahead of the great Christy Mathewson (who won 25 games that year with a 2.06 ERA).  So how does a guy batting .247 with no power finish so high in the MVP voting?

Well, he was a great defensive shortstop, and a great defensive shortstop can be tremendously valuable, especially if he can hit just a little (and it’s arguable that such a player had more value in the Dead Ball era than at any other time in baseball history).  This was the first of several years in which Maranville fared very well in the MVP voting without obvious offensive numbers to justify it.  That in itself probably is a good indication of just how good a fielder Maranville was.

Another indication, of course, is just how long a career he had.  Maranville had a 23-year career in the majors, playing a total of 2670 games, all but four of which were as a middle infielder (80% of those appearances came as a shortstop).  Maranville held the record for chances for a shortstop for decades and still holds the record for putouts by a shortstop.  At age 41, Maranville batted .218 in 143 games, with no homers (OPS+ of 60)…and finished in a tie for 12th in the MVP voting, ahead of Frankie Frisch (who batted .303 that year with an OPS+ of 111).

Maranville was the runner-up in the MVP voting in 1914 to his middle infield partner, Johnny Evers, as the “Miracle Braves” won the pennant and swept the World Series.  Maranville batted cleanup on that team.  He also finished seventh in the voting in 1924 (OPS+ of 86) and had two other top-10 finishes.

From 1915 through 1923, there was no MVP award for the National League.  It just so happens that Maranville’s seven best offensive seasons (in terms of OPS+) came during that stretch.  I think it’s likely that he would have finished in the top 10 in the MVP voting (if not the top 5) in most, if not all, of those seasons.  If you add, say, five top 10 and two Top 20  finishes (which is probably a bit conservative) to his already impressive MVP history, you would have a player who in his career compiled ten seasons in which he finished in the Top 10 of the MVP voting and another five seasons in the Top 20.

I compared that to some of the players on his “most similar batters” list, courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.  Ozzie Smith finished second in the ’87 MVP voting (he probably should have won it; that was a weird year) and had three other Top 20 finishes.  Luis Aparacio had two top 10 finishes and four other finishes in the top 20.  Like Smith and Maranville, Aparacio was also an MVP runner-up, in 1959.

Tangent:  the top of the 1959 AL MVP vote mirrored the top of the 1914 NL MVP vote.  For both, the top three finishers played for the pennant winner, and the order was second baseman (Nellie Fox/Evers), shortstop (Aparicio/Maranville), and pitcher (Early Wynn/”Seattle Bill” James).  Also, the fourth place finisher both times was an outfielder.  The 1959 outfielder was Rocky Colavito, who played in 1841 career games.  The 1914 outfielder was George Burns, who played in 1853 career games.

Next on Maranville’s most-similar list is Omar Vizquel, who has one Top 20 MVP finish in his entire career.  Part of why I’m posting about Maranville is that I suspect Maranville’s name is going to pop up more and more as people continue discussing the Hall of Fame candidacy of Vizquel.  They are going to be compared, and my hope is that folks are able to start understanding Maranville’s career a little better.

Nellie Fox follows Vizquel on the comp list, and here finally we have a player who shares Maranville’s propensity for getting MVP votes.  Fox finished in the top 10 six times (as mentioned above, winning in 1959) and had three other Top 20 finishes.  Fox was elected by the Veterans Committee after narrowly missing election by the BBWAA; really, the writers should have elected him.  He’s not as big a miss by them as Arky Vaughan or Johnny Mize, but it was still a mistake.

One other player on the similar-list to note:  Dave Concepcion had two Top 10 MVP finishes and another in the Top 20.

I realize that the MVP voting is not the end-all and be-all.  There is a danger that you can compound a mistake by referencing an error of the past (i.e. the 1987 AL MVP vote, which still haunts Alan Trammell).  Still, when you have a player whose statistical batting line does not immediately suggest greatness, it’s worth it to check the historical record.  In the case of Maranville, in his time he was obviously considered to be something special.  Generally speaking, the MVP voting tends to favor offensive-minded players (especially HR-RBI guys).  This is why a comparison to Maranville’s peers is appropriate; I think most people consider Ozzie Smith to have been a great player, but other than one season he never did very well in the MVP race.  Yet despite the historical tendency by MVP voters to not recognize defensive specialists, Maranville still did well.

Of course, there was another thing about him that probably is reflected in his MVP voting — he was famous, for he was a great player who also happened to be a clown of the highest order.

There are many, many Maranville stories, and a lot of them are actually true.  If you needed a player to wax another player’s bat with soap, or swallow a goldfish, or jump into a hotel pool fully clothed, or offer a pair of eyeglasses to an umpire after a bad call, Maranville was your man.  If you needed a player to go drinking with Jim Thorpe, and swing through tree branches screeching like Tarzan, or to be dangled outside the 15th floor of a Manhattan hotel by Thorpe (with one arm), Maranville was your man.  If you needed a player to paint iodine streaks on a hapless ump, or to throw buckets of ice at fellow train passengers (which he did as a player-manager), or trick a teammate into thinking he had accidentally killed him, Maranville was your man.

Maranville once got a hit off Carl Mays by making him laugh so hard he couldn’t maintain his control.  He was in the dugout during the infamous Babe Herman-three men on third base play; when Wilbert Robinson asked Maranville what had happened, Maranville said, “There’s three men on third and if they hang on long enough I’ll go down and make a quartet out of it.”

Once during a pitcher-vs.-batter fight, Maranville distracted everyone, including the fans, by going into the first base coach’s box during the fracas and pantomiming a fight against himself, pretending to knock himself out.  (Judge Landis thanked him later for that one.)  Entertaining the crowd during a slow part of the game with various pantomime activities was one of his specialties.

When Maranville caught a popup, he usually caught it by holding his glove open at his navel, allowing the ball to strike him in the chest, and having it roll down his shirt into his glove.  He called it his “vest pocket catch”.

Bill James (not the Boston Braves hurler), in his New Historical Baseball Abstract, refers to Maranville having a “Marx Brothers life”, and I think there’s a lot of truth to that.  He was probably on Chico’s level, but definitely ahead of Zeppo.

Maranville was elected by the BBWAA in 1954, shortly after his death.  The fact he had recently died had little to no impact on his election; he had risen in the balloting gradually over the preceding decade, finishing tenth in 1949, ninth in 1950 and 1951, seventh in 1952, and fifth in 1953.  Two players were elected in 1953, meaning that Maranville was in the top three of those on the ballot who had not been elected, along with Bill Dickey and Bill Terry.  All three of those players were elected in 1954.  Maranville actually jumped ahead of Dickey and Terry in the voting to finish first overall that year.  Keep in mind that the Hall had only been around for a few years and there were many outstanding players on the ballot.  Nineteen of the top 20 vote-getters from 1954 are now in the Hall (the exception is Hank Gowdy).

After his career in organized baseball was over Maranville helped run youth baseball programs in Detroit and New York.  One of the kids he taught was Whitey Ford.

Anyway, to sum up:  Maranville wasn’t a great hitter, but he was a great player.  His specialty was in preventing runs as opposed to producing them, and this was recognized by his contemporaries.  He was considered something of a clutch hitter (although I tend to find most claims of being “clutch” not involving George Brett to be somewhat dubious).  He had an incredibly long career, and he was enormously popular.  Thinking of him as just being a .258 hitter is small-minded, to say the least.

I’m not saying he was the greatest player who ever lived.  All I’m saying is that if you’re a writer and you’re trying to reference a player who doesn’t belong in the Hall, Maranville is not the right guy to name.  Look, you want suggestions?  Try Chick Hafey or George Kelly, or Rube Marquard if you need a pitcher (don’t get him confused with Rube Waddell, though).  You’ll be safe criticizing those selections — unless a member of one of their families is reading your column.

Just leave Maranville’s plaque alone…

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Mike Mussina and Bob Caruthers

Posted on November 23, 2008 by Sandlapper Spike

Mike Mussina retired last week.  Mussina finished his career with a 270-153 record and a 3.68 ERA, pitching his entire career in the American League for two teams, the Baltimore Orioles and the New York Yankees.  He won 20 games this past season, the first (and as it turns out, only) time in his career he reached the 20-win milestone.

There has been considerable discussion in the press about whether or not Mussina deserves to be in baseball’s Hall of Fame.  In an article by Tyler Kepner of The New York Times, several writers interviewed by Kepner expressed reservations about voting for Mussina, mostly because he wasn’t perceived as a dominant pitcher.  One of them, Dom Amore of The Hartford Courant, stated that while he hadn’t ruled out voting for Mussina, “his candidacy would be based on longevity, and longevity candidates need 300.”

This is probably the typical line of reasoning behind people not supporting Mussina’s candidacy, but there is a problem with it, namely that Mussina isn’t strictly a “longevity candidate”.  Rather, he is a different sort of peak candidate.  He never had a big-win season or won an ERA title, but he was really good almost every season, and as a result posted a career .638 winning percentage, which is extremely impressive.  Sometimes you hear longevity-type Hall of Fame candidates dismissively referred to as “compilers”.  A pItcher with a career winning percentage of .638 is definitely not a compiler.  As pointed out in the article, the only pitchers with as many wins as Mussina and a better winning percentage are his former teammate Roger Clemens and four immortals of the distant past: Lefty Grove, Grover Cleveland Alexander, Christy Mathewson, and Walter Johnson.

Of course, all of them were demonstrably better than Mussina, with longer careers, but it speaks to the unusually successful nature of his career.  Wins aren’t everything, obviously, and are often overrated, particularly in individual seasons, but over a long career wins generally give you a good idea of the value of a pitcher.

Even if you dispute that, there is no arguing that wins and winning percentage are key considerations for most writers who have a Hall of Fame vote.  That leads me to this point:  Mussina, by the Hall’s own standards, is a no-questions-asked Hall of Famer.  He is 113 games over .500 in his career as a pitcher.  That’s a very large win-loss differential, and every Hall-eligible pitcher who has finished his career at least 100 games over .500 has a plaque in Cooperstown.  Every pitcher except one, that is.  The lone exception, the man on the outside looking in, is Bob Caruthers, who had a career win-loss record of 218-99.

Caruthers debuted with the St. Louis Browns of the American Association late in the 1884 season, after starting his pro career with Grand Rapids, a minor league club in the Northwestern League.  He was only 5’7″ and weighed less than 140 pounds, but the 20-year-old Caruthers impressed his new team immediately, appearing in 13 games with 7 starts and compiling a 7-2 record (125 ERA+).  St. Louis finished fourth that season, but thanks to Caruthers and teammate Dave Foutz, the Browns would dominate the AA in 1885, winning the pennant by 16 games.  Caruthers went 40-13 (158 ERA+), pitching 482 innings.  He started and completed all 53 games he pitched.  He led the league in wins, ERA, shutouts, and winning percentage.

During the winter he held out for more money.  Caruthers had traveled to Europe, and did his negotiating from Paris via telegraph.  That aspect of the contract dispute led to his nickname, “Parisian Bob”.  Caruthers eventually returned and led the Browns to another pennant, with a 30-14 record and 148 ERA+ in 387 innings.  Caruthers led the league in winning percentage and was second in ERA.  He was more than just a pitcher, though — a lot more.  That season, Caruthers played 43 games in the outfield when he wasn’t pitching (and also made two cameo appearances at second base).  He batted .334 (with a .448 OBP) and a .527 slugging percentage.  That added up to an OPS+ of 200.  Caruthers led the league in OBP, OPS, and OPS+, was second in slugging, and was fourth in batting average.

Caruthers missed three weeks of the 1887 season with malaria, but still managed a 29-9 record with an ERA+ of 138 (341 innings), leading the league in winning percentage.  As a batter, he continued to shine, batting .363 with a .453 OBP and a slugging percentage of .547, playing 54 games in the outfield and 7 games at first base when he wasn’t pitching.  Caruthers finished third in OPS, OPS+, and OBP, and fifth in batting.  The Browns won their third consecutive pennant.

The Browns lost a postseason exhibition series to the NL’s Detroit Wolverines, which angered eccentric (I’m being kind here) St. Louis owner Chris Von der Ahe.  He accused the players of playing too hard off the field, and sold the contracts of those he considered blame-worthy.  One of those players was Caruthers (a known cardsharp and an excellent pool player).  Caruthers went to Brooklyn with Foutz and catcher Doc Bushong for $18,500.

Brief digression Number One:  Bushong was a dentist as well as a catcher, and is credited by some sources as the inventor of the catcher’s mitt.  Bushong was an alumnus of Penn who never let anyone forget that dentistry was his longterm career path, not baseball.

In 1888 Caruthers went 29-15 for Brooklyn (128 ERA+), pitching 391 innings.  Caruthers also played 54 games in the outfield, but his batting declined substantially, with a .230 batting average (still an OPS+ of 111, though).  Brooklyn finished second in the AA, as St. Louis managed to hang on for its fourth straight pennant.

The next season, Caruthers would win 40 games for the second time in his career.  His 40-11 record wasn’t quite as impressive as his sensational 1885 season.  In 1889 his ERA+ was only 112, although that was in 445 innings.  He finished in the top three in the league in WHIP for a fifth consecutive season.  He led the AA in wins, winning percentage, and shutouts.  Caruthers rarely played the outfield this season, although his hitting was still quite respectable (OPS+ of 126).

Brief  (okay, maybe not so brief ) Digression Number Two:  The pennant race in 1889 would be a memorable one.  Brooklyn had to play all its games on the road for a month after its home grandstand burned to the ground, but recovered to catch St. Louis in the standings in August.  A crucial two-game series at home in early September against the Browns would turn into a farce.

In the first game, St. Louis led 4-2 in the eighth, with darkness approaching.  Von der Ahe set up a row of lighted candles in front of the visitors bench in an effort to intimidate the umpire into calling the game for darkness, which would have given the Browns the victory.  The umpire refused to take the bait, and the game continued even after Brooklyn fans threw beer at the candles and started a small fire.  The Browns refused to take the field for the ninth inning, and the game was forfeited to Brooklyn.  In protest, Von der Ahe also would not allow his team to play the next day.

After considerable deliberation, the AA president decided to call the two-game series a split, with the first game awarded to the Browns (because of darkness) and the second to Brooklyn (because of forfeit).  Brooklyn would eventually win the pennant by two games, but in part because of the club’s unhappiness over how the situation was handled by the league office, Brooklyn resigned from the AA after the season and joined the National League.

In his first year in the NL, Caruthers went 23-11 in 300 innings (112 ERA+).  He would finish in the top 10 in wins, winning percentage, and WHIP.  Caruthers also played 39 games in the outfield.  His batting average for the season was .265, with a high OBP (.397) and an OPS+ of 114.  Brooklyn would win the pennant in its first season in its new league.

Caruthers would slip to 18-14 in 1891, although his pitching statistics were very similar to the year before, with the exception of WHIP (which rose noticeably).  Caruthers only played 17 games in the outfield, although his batting improved from the 1890 season (.281 BA and an OPS+ of 120).  Brooklyn would collapse to sixth in the standings, 25 1/2 games out of first.

Caruthers returned to St. Louis (which had by then joined the NL) in 1892, but he could no longer pitch effectively.  His pitching career ended ignomiously, with a 2-10 record.  However, Caruthers could still hit, and he wound up playing 122 games in the outfield.  He compiled an OPS+ of 120 in over 600 PAs.

Caruthers would finish his major league career in 1893 with one appearance for Chicago and thirteen for Cincinnati, all in the outfield.  He would play a few more years in the minors, and also umpired in the American League for two seasons.  Caruthers died at age 47 in 1911 after a long illness (at least one source suggests he had a nervous breakdown).

The three main arguments against Caruthers’ candidacy for the Hall of Fame are 1)  his career length, 2)  the fact he played most of his career in the American Association, which while designated a major league (in retrospect) is generally considered to have been inferior to the National League, and 3) he won a lot of games because his teams were a lot better than their competition.  Of the three arguments, I think the third is weakest, partly because Caruthers wasn’t just winning those games as a pitcher – he was helping his team at the plate, too.  I’m not going to say he was Babe Ruth before there was a Babe Ruth, but he was a remarkable two-way player.  His value to his club was enormous.

He did have a short career, but so did Addie Joss, and Dizzy Dean, and Sandy Koufax (no, I’m not saying he was as good as Koufax).  None of them could hit like him, either.

What is held against Caruthers the most, though, is the level of play in the American Association.  It’s a legitimate point (as is noting the shortness of his career), but if Caruthers is not a Hall of Famer because most of his career was in the AA, then why is the AA considered a major league?  Also, his rate stats from 1889 (when he pitched in the American Association) and 1890 (when he pitched for the same team, but in the National League) are very similar.  The difference is that he only pitched 300 innings instead of 445, which is a significant difference to be sure, but it seems obvious to me that by 1890 he was already on the downside of his career (even though he was only 26 years old).  I suspect that he would have been dominant in the NL in his early years, probably to a similar degree as he was in actuality in the AA.

I’m not saying that Caruthers definitely should be in the Hall, but he is certainly a serious candidate, right on the border.  The main thing held against him is the quality of his competition.  Mike Mussina, on the other hand, pitched his entire career in the AL East.  Nobody’s going to argue about the level of his competition.  Given that, and the history of the Hall voters when considering pitchers with similar numbers, there shouldn’t be any question that Mussina will be (and by the Hall’s own standards, should be) enshrined shortly after he becomes eligible for election.

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