Crowning New Strikeout Kings – Fully Normalized Strikeout Leaders |

Cy Seymour was arguably one of the best pitchers turned hitters that baseball has seen, yet he remains almost forgotten. Before he was a centerfielder, the 1905 NL batting champ started his career as pitcher in 1896. Seymour pitched 3 full seasons and had the league leading strikeout rate in all three. Even though Seymour’s career strikeout rate does not look impressive, when strikeouts are normalized, his rate is the best baseball has ever seen (1871-2011 min. 1000 IP). (For a biography and analysis of Seymour’s career, see this wonderful piece by Bill Kirwin.)

Andy’s recent posts on normalizing strikeouts piqued my interest and I thought that it might be interesting to normalize the strikeouts for every pitcher in major league history. This was done by using the Lahman Database and applying the following method:

For each league in each season I calculated the league rate of SO/IP.
Each player in that league was assigned an expected number of strikeouts based on his IP that season.
Each player’s season-by-season expected strikeouts were added up for his career and compared it to his actual career totals.

Using this method provides us with the following leaders in ratio of SO:Expected SO (min. 1000 IP) since 1871.

Rank	Name	IP	SO	Expected	SO:EXP
1	Cy Seymour	1029.00	584	268	2.180
2	Dazzy Vance	2966.67	2045	959	2.132
3	Rube Waddell	2961.33	2316	1200	1.929
4	Nolan Ryan	5386.00	5714	3178	1.798
5	Toad Ramsey	2100.67	1515	886	1.711
6	Randy Johnson	4135.33	4875	2912	1.674
7	Sandy Koufax	2324.33	2396	1437	1.667
8	Amos Rusie	3769.67	1934	1184	1.634
9	J.R. Richard	1606.00	1493	918	1.626
10	Doc McJames	1361.33	593	368	1.612
11	Dizzy Dean	1967.33	1163	725	1.603
12	Van Mungo	2113.00	1242	776	1.601
13	Bob Feller	3827.00	2581	1617	1.596
14	Lefty Grove	3940.67	2266	1422	1.593
15	Johnny Vander Meer	2104.67	1294	834	1.552
16	Pat Malone	1915.00	1024	660	1.551
17	Pedro Martinez	2827.33	3154	2036	1.549
18	Sam McDowell	2492.33	2453	1586	1.546
19	Lefty Gomez	2503.00	1468	955	1.538
20	Tommy Bridges	2826.33	1674	1090	1.536
21	Lee Smith	1289.33	1251	819	1.528
22	Orval Overall	1535.33	935	612	1.527
23	Kerry Wood	1371.33	1576	1036	1.521
24	Jakie May	1562.33	765	503	1.521
25	Walter Johnson	5914.67	3509	2318	1.514
26	Joe Wood	1436.33	989	657	1.505
27	Sam Jones	1643.33	1376	920	1.496
28	Hank Johnson	1066.33	568	383	1.484
29	Ewell Blackwell	1321.00	839	566	1.481
30	Hal Newhouser	2993.00	1796	1228	1.462

Of course it is more impressive to pitch at a high rate over a long career than a short one. Using the numbers above and an all-time league average of 4.78 SO/9IP provides us with a new list of career SO leaders.

Rank	Name	Adjusted SO	SO	SO Rank
1	Nolan Ryan	5139	5714	1
2	Walter Johnson	4752	3509	9
3	Cy Young	4389	2803	20
4	Roger Clemens	3703	4672	3
5	Randy Johnson	3674	4875	2
6	Steve Carlton	3629	4136	4
7	Tim Keefe	3539	2562	27
8	Bert Blyleven	3370	3701	5
9	Dazzy Vance	3356	2045	60
10	Bobby Mathews	3351	1366	234
11	Lefty Grove	3332	2266	47
12	Christy Mathewson	3284	2502	30
13	Amos Rusie	3269	1934	77
14	Bob Feller	3241	2581	26
15	Tom Seaver	3212	3640	6
16	Pete Alexander	3200	2198	53
17	Kid Nichols	3178	1868	84
18	Gaylord Perry	3157	3534	8
19	Don Sutton	3154	3574	7
20	Rube Waddell	3032	2316	44

Ryan is still on top, but there is a lot of shuffling below him, as the older players move up with the adjustment. Particularly impressive is the jump made by 19th century pitcher Bobby Mathews, if you’re willing to accept his leagues as full major leagues. Mathews was either first or second in his league in SO/9IP in eight different seasons, so a jump like that would be logical.

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Darien

12 years ago

Gives me a bit more appreciation for Lee Smith.

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Raphy

BTW – There was some discussion yesterday about Billy Wagner. Wagner didn’t quite get to 1000 IP so he is not in the post. His SO:EXP was 1.75 – right behind Nolan Ryan.

bstar

Raphy, you read my mind.

Editor

John Autin

Anyone know what happened in the American Association between 1886 and 1887? League SO/9 fell from 4.4 to 2.9 in one year. Matt Kilroy, who beat Toad Ramsey for the K crown in ’86, dropped from 513 SO to 217, despite pitching more innings in ’87.

Lawrence Azrin

Reply to John Autin

I think strikeouts went from three to four in the American Association between 1886 and 1887, it went back to three in 1888.

Also, I think walks were officially counted as hits in figuring BA that year only. Hence, Tip O’Neill was listed with a .492 BA many many years ago.

Reply to Lawrence Azrin

According to the New Bill James HBA (pg. 39), you’re exactly right — the 1887 AA required four strikes for a strikeout. 19th century baseball — what can you do? 😀

Doug

Don’t know, John.

Baseball Almanac credits Toad Ramsey with introducing the knuckleball in 1887. Ramsey finished just behind Kilroy in 1886 with 499 Ks, and led the AA in 1887 with 358. He had one more good season in 1888 before the wear-and-tear caught up with him, and was done by 1890 at only 26 years old.

birtelcom

Bobby Mathews at number 10 on your second list. According to his bio at SABR, Mathews pitched a six-K shutout in the first National Association game of its very first season, 1871, which makes that the game b-ref treats as the very first major league game. So I guess that means Mathews was the first MLB career strikeout leader. The SABR bio also suggests Mathews may have been one of the first two pitchers to master a curve ball, which would help explain his high number of Ks relative to his peers. I do love to read bios of these… Read more »

Albanate

A couple I know own a house in Albany, New York that Cy Seymour, or a relative of his once lived in. When they bought the house they found all sorts of “Seymouriana” that they still have.

pen.io

10 years ago

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