Bob Feller Career

[Jason19th]

I always thought he was a bit overrated with a lot of walks and high era and whip. When you look at his leaderboard stats however you see his was really good. I never realized how high eras in the AL were in the early 50’s - he was top 5 with eras around 3.5

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Jason19th

I always thought he was a bit overrated with a lot of walks and high era and whip. When you look at his leaderboard stats however you see his was really good. I never realized how high eras in the AL were in the early 50’s - he was top 5 with eras around 3.5

That's because back then batters weren't concerned with exit velocities and launch angles, and striking out much more often while trying to hit home runs all the time. They wanted to get the ball in play and get on base. Also, back then pitchers tried to complete every game they started. Nowadays managers start getting antsy thinking about opposing hitters seeing their starting pitcher for the third time in a game, and call in the bullpen. Different time and different game.

Quite frankly, I'm not so sure many of today's star pitchers would have fared well at all back in those days. If their arms didn't fall off first, how much would they have to scale back in the early innings of games to hopefully have enough left to complete them? Meanwhile, think of telling a Walter Johnson or Bob Feller to not worry about pacing themselves, we only need about 5-6 innings out of you, and then you can rest for 5 days before having to pitch again.

[Hankphenom]

Originally Posted by BobC

Think of telling a Walter Johnson or Bob Feller to not worry about pacing themselves, we only need about 5-6 innings out of you, and then you can rest for 5 days before having to pitch again.

The mind boggles. And in Walter's case during his incredible prime years, you'll never have to come in for relief in between starts, we have ten guys in the bullpen for that. He might never have lost a game!