Quote:
The following seven years are the stuff legends are made of. The highest ERA of his MLB career would happen his last year in 1966. The ERA? 2.03.
After the terrific fall in 59, he took the majors by storm. In 1960 he went 22-3 with a 1.42 ERA. In 228 innings he allowed 123 hits, walked 43 and struck out 258 batters.
His WHIP line looks like this for his 8 year career: .82, .73, .86, 1.06, .80, .93, .88, 1.07
For his career, he tossed 1426 innings, allowed 919 hits, 355 BB and struck out 1495 batters.
His one problem was with injuries. He always had a nick here and a nick there. He had very little endurance and it showed. In September of 1966, after another pitcher of the month award, he blew his arm out and his career came to an instant halt.
The most dominant pitcher in the history of the league would be forced into early retirement.
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Playing in the Golden Era (1946-1969) as much as I do, I see that quite a bit - a dominate pitcher and/or a great prospect/vet going out like that. The key to success in playing in this era is to have some of those pitchers - the ones with eras between 1.00 and 2.00 and WHIP under 1.00. In every career, there have been about 10-15 pitchers (throughout 15-20 years) that can do that (in a historical league, they are usually a different mix going from career to career). They command premium salaries and it interesting to see the AI and me to recognize and compete in grabbing those pitchers. More than anything else, I think this is what makes playing a historical league in this era fun.