From: king@cogsci.ucsd.EDU (Jonathan King)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.baseball
Subject: My last Eck post (was Re: Eckersley NOT better than Fingers)
Summary: Eckersley was a perfectly fine starter for several years
Date: 15 Apr 92 03:44:14 GMT
Organization: University of California, San Diego

navarra@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (John Navarra) writes:
>zuhars@madrone.eecs.ucdavis.edu (Gary Hairless Primate Huckabay) writes:
>>Yep.  And Eckersley spent more than half his career as a starting pitcher.
>>If Eck had started as a reliever, how do you think the numbers would stack
>>up?
>
>Um, if Eckersley started off as a relief pitcher he may very well
>not be in baseball today! He SUCKED (with a capital S) as a starting
>pitcher for most of those years. 

Gee, now that's an interesting point.  Too bad it just isn't true.  Let's
look at Eckersley's first five years in the bigs, before overwork started
to take its toll:

Games   GS   CG   SHO      IP     H    HR   BB   SO    R   ER   ERA   W   L

171    155   60    13  1148.1  1008   119  352  855  431  398  3.11  77  50

I would like to suggest that this does *not* suck, particularly for
somebody who spent almost half of that time in Fenway Park in the late
70s.  I mean, we're talking a guy who would go about 16-10 pitching
229 innings a season (closer to 250 when he was with the Sox).  In a normal
park, you'd expect a sub-3.00 ERA to boot.  Not too shabby.

In 1980, Eckersly got injured and had a disappointing year, and pretty
much did the same thing in 1981.  In 1982 he had an okay year (3.73
ERA), and that a had truly hideous year in 1983 (223 hits in 176
innings including 27 taters and n ERA of 5.61).  Then from 1984 to
1986 he was a Cub, and put up an ERA of 3.63 for those three years
pitching in Wrigley.  Actually, he had two very good years (~3.05 ERA)
and one bad one, (1986, with a 4.57 ERA) after which he ended up in
Oakland, where he got the opportunity to become a reliever in the year
of the long ball, but only gave up 1 baserunner per inning.  And he's
done better than that every year since.

>If he pitched anything like that as a 
>reliever, he would soon be a middle reliever. And how many shitty middle-
>relievers stick around in baseball after 10+  years? 

Not many.  Unfortunately for your point, though, Eckersley was a
*very* effective starting pitcher for 7 full seasons, A *decent* starter
for 3 seasons, and a fairly lousy pitcher for only *2* seasons.  That's
why he stuck around.

>Eck had the advantage of a second chance -- something many players
>don't get. Give Rollie a break, he was great, is great and ever shall be
>great.

I don't dispute the fact that Rollie was great, but I find it hard to
believe that anybody would think that Eckersley sucked every year
until he got to Oakland.  As far as getting a second chance goes, yes
I suppose he got one, but so do most pitchers who are coming off of a
bad year in which they still managed to stay in there for 200 innings
with a 3:1 K/BB ratio.  And I don't think it takes an absolute genius
to try that kind of guy in some kind of relief role, given that he
does have great control but may not be up to pitching 7+ inning per
start anymore.  

Basically, *good* pitchers get more breaks than bad ones, and
generally perform better when you give them breaks.  Of course, not
all of them end up averaging a 1.00 ERA and an 18:1 K/BB ratio for a
two-year period starting at 34 years of age.  Actually, only one guy
did that, but we all know he SUCKED with a capital S at the beginning
of his career, except for the no-hitter, the 20-win season, and the 20
shutouts.  

jking