Jack Quinn

[DrungoHazewood]

I'm taking a few liberties here since this is the "Orioles History" forum and Jack Quinn never played for the Orioles. But he was tied for the most wins in the short history of the Federal League Baltimore Terrapins (1914-15). In 1914 he went 26-14, 2.60 in 342 innings. By modern metrics he was worth 7.2 wins, good for second-best in the Federal League.

Quinn came up today because of a post about Chris Davis where El Gordo wondered why the Orioles don't like long contracts for free agent pitchers, but they'rewilling to go 5+ years for Davis. So I looked up the best old pitchers in history, defined by most fWAR from age 30-on. The list was fairly unsurprising, mostly well-known HOFers plus some guys like Kevin Brown and Curt Schilling. But Quinn was 15th on the list with just over 50 fWAR from age 30 through the end of his career at nearly 50. He arguably had a better career from age 30 on than Tom Seaver or Jamie Moyer or Tommy John or Don Sutton, or truthfully, most of the Hall of Fame.

Quinn was one of the grandfathered spitballers of the 1920s, and led the league in saves by 50% over the next highest guy in 1931 (he had 15, no one else had more than 10). SABR has a nice bio of him here. Career numbers here.

He only won 20 games that one time, in a league that had just made the claim to be a Major. But he had a very long string of 13-18 win seasons with some bullpen duty mixed in. He was basically an above-average-but-not-great pitcher pretty much every year from age 30 to 45, if you include a few detours to the high minors. He apparently won over 100 games in the minors, including quite a few in the PCL when it was among the stronger minor leagues and fairly independent and able to acquire some MLB quality talent. That makes his professional win total around 350.