WTF Pitching Seasons

Messing around with the baseball data bank I happened across the brief career of Jose de Jesus. En espanol, that translates as 'Jose of Jesus'. In many ways he is the quintessential player that time forgot. And were it not for one bizarre statistical occurrence in his 1991 season, he never would have come across my radar. In that year, Jose de Jesus walked more batters than he struck out, but still somehow managed to produce a better-than-average ERA. The baseball gods work in mysterious ways, and for some reason they wanted UI2 to pay homage to Jose de Jesus, to preserve his legacy as one of the luckiest pitchers ever.

Chicks, dude. Chicks.

1991 was his final season with the Phillies, and after a few lost years in the minors he returned to throw 26 more innings of this bizarre brand of baseball with Kansas City. His K/BB ratio crept above 1.0 in the minors, where he pitched until 1999, but he was never again given a shot to pitch in the majors.

Here is a list of players since 1955 that similarly recorded K/BB ratios below 1, while simultaneously producing an ERA below league average, with at least 150 IP; in other words, successful pitching seasons where more opposing batters walked than were struck out:





The best season of the bunch is Al Fitzmorris 1974 with an era of 2.79, 84 points below league-average. He somehow did this while walking exactly 10 more batters than he struck out. Fitzmorris made a career of this, posting an ERA+ of 101 over the course of a decade, with a career K/BB of only 1.06.

Ricky Bones was the most recent pitcher to accomplish this phenomenon, back in 1995. (He also did it in 1996 with two separate clubs). Incidentally, Bones's season was also marks the worst FIP of the bunch at 5.45. He somehow was able to survive that nightmarish number with only marginally favorable BAbip and strand rate. After '95, however, Ricky's luck ran out and he never again saw the likes of that monstrous 148 ERA+. After the '96 season, Bones posted a 86 ERA+ over the next six seasons.

And wait, what's this? The Spaceman himself makes an appearance in 1978, but is trumped by a guy with an even cooler nickname, Vinegar Bend.