Happy Birthday Bret Saberhagen!

Today, Brett Saberhagen turns 50 years old.  Let’s take a look back at highlights of his career, and then an examination of a couple of his better seasons – 1989 and 1994.

Saberhagen was drafted by the Kansas City Royals in the 19^th round (480^th overall) of the 1982 draft out of Grover Cleveland High School in Reseda, CA.  Fellow 19^th rounders from that year combined for -0.1 WAR in a total of 21 major league games.  I hope that scout got a nice bonus.

Saberhagen was assigned to single A Ft. Myers to start his professional career, then, after going 10-5, he was promoted to AA Jacksonville.  In the minors in 1983, as a 19 year old, he would combine for a 16-7 record with a 2.91 ERA, 130 strikeouts vs. just 48 walks, and five complete games (two shutouts) in 187 innings.  A 19 YEAR OLD THREW 187 INNINGS.  Not sure what his workload was in high school, but I’m guessing this was quite a jump.  Perhaps this would be why he would deal with arm troubles the second half of his career?

Anyway, the Royals thought he had proved enough in that one minor league season, so he would start the 1984 season with the big club.  He made his major league debut on April 4^th of that year in relief of Paul Splittorff vs. the New York Yankees.  Splittorff didn’t have it going that day, and lasted just 3 1/3 innings and giving up four runs.  Saberhagen came in and proceeded to throw 4 2/3 innings of shutout ball, allowing only three hits while striking out and walking none.  He kept them in the game, but the Royals still lost 4-3.  Splittorff would get the loss, and opposing Yankees pitcher Phil Niekro would pick up the 269^th victory of his career.

Other highlights of his rookie season include his first career start and win vs. the Tigers on April 19^th, his only career save vs. the Blue Jays on July 23^rd, and his first career shutout on September 24^th, a 3 hit effort vs. the Angels.  He would finish his rookie campaign with a 10-11 record in what could be described as a “sixth starter” role.

The following season was a magical one for way-too-young-to-be-throwing-that-many-innings pitchers.  Saberhagen, at the age of 21, combined with Dwight Gooden, at the age of 20, to go 44-10 on the season in 235 1/3 and 276 2/3 innings respectively.  Each Cy Young award winner carried their team towards the playoffs, with the Royals making it, but the Mets falling just short.

Saberhagen’s 1985 saw him go 20-6 with a 2.87 ERA.  He had 158 strikeouts vs. just 38 walks.  He threw 10 complete games, but only had one shutout against the Brewers on May 17^th.  He definitely finished strong that year, going 13-2 after July 1^st.

The next three seasons saw decent numbers for Saberhagen.  He went 39-38 with a 3.71 ERA.  He would average 225 innings pitched over those seasons.

Then, in 1989, Saberhagen would go 23-6 on his way to his second Cy Young award.  Throwing 12 complete games, with four shutouts, on his way to 262 1/3 innings pitched, he would strike out 193 and only walk 43.  Just like 1985, he started slow.  He had his third-to-last relief appearance of his career on April 16^th, a day after he gave up five runs to the Blue Jays in 2/3 of an inning.  Combined with three runs that day, he gave up eight total in three innings pitched.  He was now 1-1 with a 5.00 ERA.  Then, after July 1^st, he went 17-2 to finish the season.

He would spend two more years in Kansas City, going 19-18 and only averaging 166 innings those two years.  On December 11^th, 1991, he was traded with Bill Pecota to the New York Mets for Gregg Jefferies, Kevin McReynolds and Keith Miller.

The first two years as a Met saw Saberhagen struggle to stay on the mound.  He went 10-12 and only averaged 118 innings pitched.  He was still a control artist though, striking out 174 and only walking 44.   In 1993, Saberhagen would have a K/BB ratio of 5.47, which was a career high.  Actually, had he pitched enough innings to qualify, it would have led the majors.  And it wouldn’t even have been close.  Bob Tewksbury led the majors with a ratio of 4.85, followed by Jimmy Key (4.02), Greg Maddux (3.79), Jose Rijo (3.66) and John Burkett (3.62).

No one had a ratio as high as Saberhagen’s since Dennis Eckersley in 1985 with a 6.16 ratio, and you’d have to go all the way back to 1971 before that, when Fergie Jenkins had a ratio of 7.11.  While he could have sat back and admired what he had accomplished, instead he decided that he would just go out and DOUBLE that the following season.

DO NOT Google
Candy Cummings with
children in the room.

In the modern era, only two pitchers have had a K/BB ratio of more than 10 – 2010 Cliff Lee at 10.28 and 1994 Saberhagen at 11.00.  I could go on and on about some of the numbers from the early days of the league, as some of these numbers look a bit incomplete.  Cy Young led the league in K/BB ratio in 1893 at 0.99.  He walked more batters than he struck out, AND STILL LED THE LEAGUE.  Then, there was unfortunately named Hall of Famer Candy Cummings who, in 1875 in 416 innings struck out 82 batters.  And walked four.  FOUR.  That is a 20.50 ratio.  I find that a bit hard to believe.

Back to Saberhagen.  His 1994 season, the first year he had been healthy since the 1991 season, was unfortunately ended early because of the strike.  Short season numbers are always skewed a bit, and more than likely, this was no exception.  But remember, Saberhagen was always a slow starter, and although he didn’t start as slow as usual, still, at the end of April, he did have a 3-1 record, but he had 23 strikeouts vs. five walks.  That’s pretty good, but not historic.

In May, he would strike out 27 batters and only walk ONE.  June was even better with 40 strikeouts and only THREE walks.  He would add one more strikeout in July to clock in at 41 vs. 3.  He’d finish up August with 12 strikeouts and one walk.

Those 1994 Mets weren’t a particularly good team, so he lost a lot of low scoring games.  Otherwise, he very well may have made a run at 20 wins that season.  In his four losses that year, he gave up four, three, five and three runs.  In his six no decisions, he gave up three, two, six, one, ZERO and two.  The zero run effort was over 10 innings in the night cap of a double header vs. the Padres on July 15^th, a game that the Mets would eventually lose 2-1 in 14 innings when Tony Gwynn and Phil Plantier went back to back off of Mike Maddux.

Despite setting the all time record for K/BB ratio, and that excellent 14-4 record, Saberhagen would finish third in the Cy Young award voting behind Greg Maddux and Ken Hill.  Maddux was filthy that year.  He threw 202 innings, went 16-6, struck out 156 and only walked 31, and only gave up four home runs.  His ERA was 1.56 and WHIP was 0.896.  And Ken Hill had 16 wins.  That was two more than Saberhagen, so, you know.

This blog is full of
unfortunate names.

Saberhagen would only have another half a season in New York, as he would be traded to the Rockies on July 31^st, 1995 with a player to be named later (David Swanson) for Arnold Gooch and Juan Acevedo.  He wouldn’t play at all in 1996, and he signed with the Red Sox in the offseason that year.

He spent some time in the minors in 1997, eventually making it back in late August, throwing 26 innings over six starts.  He would win the Comeback Player of the Year award in 1998, when he went 15-8 for the Sox.  He missed most of May and parts of June in 1999, but still finished with a 10-6 record.  More injuries would keep him out of the majors in 2000, and in 2001, he would pitch his final game on August 7^th.

Saberhagen would finish his career with a 167-117 record, a 3.34 ERA, 1715 strikeouts and 471 walks.  He had the two Cy Young awards, along with the third place finish, was a three time All Star, a Gold Glove winner, and finished in the MVP voting three times.  He finished with a career WAR of 59.1, which ranks 61^st all time among pitchers.  His career K/BB ratio of 3.64 is good for 12^th all time.  He was a WorldSeries MVP in 1985 when, at the age of 21, he threw two complete game victories vs. the Cardinals.

If Saberhagen had been subjected to some of the pitch/inning limits we have nowadays, he very well may have prolonged his career.  Unfortunately, he was caught in that window of time vs. the old guard with guys like Niekro and Nolan Ryan, and modern pitching philosophy.  Hopefully no one gives him a copy of Tom House’s Fit to Pitch for his birthday.