1879 Reds Pitcher - Will White

[dougdirt]

All of 24 years old, he went on to pitch 680 innings and have a 1.99 ERA. Pretty good stuff right? Well, not exactly.

That year, Will White allowed 404 runs that year, but only 150 of them were earned. He allowed 254 unearned runs that year. I saw that while just browsing through some old Reds stats and thought it was crazy enough to share.

[westofyou]

dp

[westofyou]

Errors were a big part of the game then

1    Ross Barnes                  71   
2    King Kelly                   58   
3    Joe Gerhardt                 55   
4    Deacon White                 45   
5    Cal McVey                    42   
6    Mike Burke                   31   
7    Will Foley                   26   
8    Will White                   20   
9    Pete Hotaling                12   
10   Jack Neagle                   2

[dougdirt]

Certainly they were, but when I first saw that my jaw dropped.

[KronoRed]

I doubt he took his fielders out for dinner.

[klw]

Wow Dusty overused him! And think how many saves Stanton blew for him that year.


Here are his career stats.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/w/whitewi01.shtml
Looks like that year ruined his arm. He never threw more than 578 innings in a year the rest of his career.

[cumberlandreds]

I don't think the fielders wore gloves then? That could have been the problem.

[westofyou]

Originally Posted by cumberlandreds

I don't think the fielders wore gloves then? That could have been the problem.

Yes.. that's the main reason, the field was not groomed either and the ball was not always in a consistent state either, style was still being determined and that causes more mistakes.

Some fields even were positioned with the sun in odd places that would never occur these days, add in the fact that walk and strikeout rates were low and you'll see way more balls in play with those conditions too.

[Chip R]

Originally Posted by cumberlandreds

I don't think the fielders wore gloves then? That could have been the problem.

They were just starting to wear them. They really weren't bigger than a work glove that we'd wear now.

Will's stats suffered when overhand pitching was legalized.

[westofyou]

This image is from 1895 or so, the gloves of fielders is still portrayed as a rarity, this is probably a tad exaggerated in this picture, but the memory must have still been strong.

[George Anderson]

Herman Long who played from 1889-1904 has the all time career record of 1,096 errors. In his rookie year of 1889 he made 117 errors in 128 games.

and i thought Lopez was bad.

[MrCinatit]

If Narron would have made them take infield practice before each game, this wouldn't be happ...


Oops. Sorry. Flashback.

[BCubb2003]

So how were Will White's peripherals?

[RedsBaron]

Originally Posted by klw

Looks like that year ruined his arm. He never threw more than 578 innings in a year the rest of his career.

Wimp.

[westofyou]

Originally Posted by BCubb2003

So how were Will White's peripherals?

H/9   BR/9  SO/9  BB/9  SO/BB
8.74 10.17  2.64  1.26  2.10