Worst pitching season, ever.

[BMW]

I dare you to best this performance.

The 1871+ replay - thanks Spritze & Nukester!
I've been using Spritze DB to play a semi-historical sim, starting from 1871. Something about playing through the 1-man and 2-man rotation eras and 75 errors from your 3B is just kind of fun. Thanks to a post from Nukester that got me interested in the DB.

In general, this has been the most successful 1871-present run that I've done. I've been coming back every night to play through a few seasons.


The dreadful Boston franchise
I was going through the history, and looking at the leaderboards. I noticed that the Boston team (a sort of stand-in for an American Association franchise that later became the Red Sox) had the worst single season winning percentage at a mind boggling .092.

I'm playing with FA off, but I cap reserve rosters at 20 players so it forces players into the free agent pool. Plus, the early years of this Spritze DB seems to result in a lot of FA at the beginning of each season. Parity isn't an enormous issue.

The Boston Atlantics were 39-45 in 1882, 9-89 (68 games out) in 1883 and 47-65 in 1884. So 1883 appears to be some colossal cacophony of failure, the kind of oddities I love to find in these histories.

Charlie Ingraham and the cast of failure
The squad was filled with some wonderful players. Dude Esterbrook, Thorny Hawkes, Trick McSorley, Count Sensenderfer, Pop Smith and Live Oak Taylor.

The worst batter was C Charlie Ingraham. He had been released by the Baltimore Orioles from their reserve squad and signed on with Boston. (The real Charlie played all of one game in his career.) He helped stagnate the offense with a .152 average and 76 strikeouts in 77 starts. He even pitched 40+ terrible innings for the club. Presumably while his backup, Doc Kennedy (.175) was starting. Charlie made 72 errors to boot, and added 6 more while he was pitching.

The worst pitching season, ever
But here's the real payoff. Joe O'Rourke had been hanging around the league since a fair showing as a 21 year old starter for Brooklyn in 1872. He played sparingly after his rookie year, before he was traded to Chicago in 1880 and then selected by the Boston Atlantics in the 1882 expansion draft.

He had a mediocre year for Boston in 1882, and even represented them in the All-Star game, posting a 10-12 record on the year.

Then came the dreadful 1883 season. Joe started 67 games for the doomed 9-89 franchise, going a perfect 0-52. 253 innings, 371 hits, 143 walks, 20 strikeouts, 5.05 ERA and a -55.5 VORP. But worst of all, that big goose egg in the win column. 0-52.

O'Rourke would never pitch for Boston, or anyone, after that year. He remained on their reserve until he officially retired in 1888 at the age of 37. And needless to say, he does hold the record for most losses in a season.

[Left-handed Badger]

I believe the real record was 48 losses by John Coleman for the inaugral season (1883) of the Philadelphia franchise that would become known as the Phillies. ( though I think he won 12 games also that year)

Poor John was turned into an OFer after that year though.


Though I will say sub-.200 for regular werent really that unheard of back then. Even well below .200.

[BMW]

I believe you are correct on both accounts. The real reason why this Boston club was so awful was the extraordinarily high ERAs relative to the era.

With O'Rourke at 5.05 and the other starter at 4.00+ in an era where the league would post a 2.10 ERA (lots of unearned runs!) that would be the main cause.

But while below .200 averages were certainly common, here's a list of all the pre-1900 players with at least 70 games at catcher (Ingraham had 77, and for those just joining, a .152 average). It's only 11 players, and Ingraham would rank as the second worst starting catcher of his time.

  Cnt Player              BA  Year Age
+----+-----------------+-----+----+---+
    1 Harry Sage         .149 1890  26 
    2 Malachi Kittridge  .176 1899  29 
    3 Jack Boyle         .183 1892  26 
    4 Connie Mack        .187 1888  25 
    5 Jack Ryan          .189 1898  29 
    6 King Kelly         .189 1892  34 
    7 Jack Boyle         .189 1887  21 
    8 Barney Gilligan    .190 1886  30 
    9 George Myers       .190 1886  25 
   10 Morgan Murphy      .197 1892  25 
   11 Barney Gilligan    .198 1883  27

He'd also rank in the top 10 worst batting averages for any player qualifying for a batting title prior to 1900.

  Cnt Player              BA  Year Age
+----+-----------------+-----+----+---+
    1 Will White         .136 1879  24 
    2 Jack Burdock       .142 1888  36 
    3 Will White         .142 1878  23 
    4 Charley Bassett    .144 1885  22 
    5 Henry Easterday    .149 1890  25 
    6 Harry Sage         .149 1890  26 
    7 Redleg Snyder      .151 1876  21 
    8 Frank Barrows      .151 1871  26 
    9 Sam Crane          .153 1886  32 
   10 Al Nichols         .153 1875  23

[Rondell Tate]

Great stuff.