There Must Be Something in That Dirty Water

Last week I wrote that Boston Red Sox hurler John Lackey was on the verge of landing on mostly virgin territory, that if he won two of his last four starts he’d be only the third pitcher in big league history to win at least 14 games with an ERA as high as 6.11 (his ERA at the time), joining Guy Bush and Wes Ferrell.  Of course, he proceeded to lose his next game so odds of him winning 14 are even slimmer than before, but for a history geek like myself, that his ERA climbed all the way to 6.30 after being taken behind the woodshed by the Rays yesterday means Lackey is about to accomplish something that hasn’t been done since Civil War vets still roamed the earth, Wyatt Earp was keeping the peace in Kootenai County, Idaho and Grover Cleveland was serving his second term as President of the United States.

Harry Staley

The year was 1894 and the American League was still seven years away from playing its first official game as a major league.  Back then the immortal John Lackey was going by the name of Harry Staley, a 5’10”, 175-pound righty from Jacksonville, Illinois who debuted with the Pittsburgh Alleghenys in 1888 at the age of 21.  Like Lackey, Staley enjoyed early success with a smattering of failure—in his first five seasons, he won 20 or more games four times and led the league in WHIP twice and in walks per nine innings and K/BB ratio once each, but he also paced the circuit in losses in 1889 with 26.  Still in his first five years, Staley went 100-86 with a 3.07 ERA, good for an ERA+ of 116.

Lackey’s career began in 2002 with the then Anaheim Angels, and though he’s never won 20 games in a season, he too experienced success, going 102-71 with a 3.81 ERA in his first eight seasons, and leading the league three times in shutouts, and once each in ERA and ERA+.  But it wasn’t all good—he had back-to-back seasons in which his ERA was 4.63 and 4.67—but, ironically, after those eight seasons he too had a career ERA+ of 116.

In 2010 Lackey’s ERA climbed over 4.00 again for the first time since 2004, and he finished the season with a mark of 4.40.  With few chances left this year, his ERA is at an unsightly 6.30 and he’s leading the league in earned runs allowed (101) and hit batsmen (18).  Yet he still has a .500 record and 12 wins and is tied with Josh Beckett for the second most victories on the Red Sox’s staff behind Jon Lester’s 15.  If Beckett can’t overcome his ankle injury and doesn’t make another regular season start, there’s a chance that Lackey could finish the season with the second highest win total on Boston’s pitching staff in 2011.

And that leads me back to Henry Eli Staley.  Staley also won 12 games for a Boston team in 1894, finishing third on the Beaneaters staff behind Hall of Famer Kid Nichols (32 wins) and then six-year veteran “Happy Jack” Stivetts (26 wins), and also posted an ungodly ERA—his being 6.81—making him the only pitcher in major league history to reach 12 wins in a season in which his ERA was higher than Lackey’s current mark of 6.30.  So what happened to Staley that made his career go into a tailspin beginning in 1893 and saw him plummet to such ignominious lows a year later?

Well, for one, the mound was moved back from 50 feet to its current distance of 60 feet 6 inches.  Runs per game in the National League skyrocketed from 5.1 in 1892 to 6.57 in 1893, a nearly 29% increase, and the league’s ERA went from 3.28 to 4.66, an increase of 42%.  In 1892 the league leader in ERA was Cy Young at 1.93 and 17 pitchers posted earned run averages lower than 3.00.  A year later the league’s lowest ERA was 3.18 and only five pitchers had marks lower than 3.50 and 10 were lower than 4.00.  Staley went 18-10 for the pennant-winning Beaneaters but posted a 5.13 ERA that ranked 33rd among pitchers.  Only five hurlers had ERA’s higher than Staley’s.

Amos Rusie

But in 1894 Staley was in a class of his own.  Runs per game jumped another 12% from 6.57 to 7.38, which still stands as the National League single season record, and the league’s ERA climbed from 4.66 to 5.33, an increase of better than 14%, and still the highest ERA in league history.  Somehow, Amos “The Hoosier Thunderbolt” Rusie managed to pitch to a league-best 2.78 ERA while the rest of the league was lucky to break 4.00.  Runner-up Jouett Meekin finished almost a full run behind at 3.70, and only Cy Young and Win Mercer posted sub-4.00 ERA’s among the rest of the N.L.’s slab men.

Nine pitchers finished with ERA’s over 6.00, but none had a higher mark than Staley’s 6.81, and among pitchers with at least 200 innings, he still holds the mark for worst single-season ERA in baseball history and it’s not even close.  And if you’re wondering exactly how brutal 1894 was on pitchers, chew on this—of the 13 ERA’s over 6.00 in 200 or more innings, six came during the 1894 season and all but three came during the 1890s.

According to David Nemec the new mound distance wasn’t the only reason Staley was beginning a precipitous decline—apparently he had fallen out of shape and weighed “well over” 200 pounds by the end of the ’94 campaign.  Boston released him and he signed with the St. Louis Browns—when it was announced Staley had lost 40 pounds over the winter, Jack Stivetts quipped “If the figures are correct Staley has either lost a leg or is in the clinch of consumption.”  Staley managed to lower his ERA all the way down to 5.22 in 1895 and he was no longer the worst pitcher in baseball.  That distinction went to Bert Inks who went 7-20 with a 6.40 ERA for the last-place Louisville Colonels.

Alas, 1895 would prove to be Staley’s last year in a big league uniform.  He had one last “hurrah” in 1899 with the Schenectady Electricians of the New York State League and, still in 1894 form, allowed 19 runs on 22 hits in only seven innings.

Red Sox Nation is desperately hoping history doesn’t repeat itself.