Hardball Times: League Adjusted Strikeouts

[weams]

http://www.hardballtimes.com/league-adjusted-strikeouts/

To qualify for the starter list a pitcher had to go 100 innings, and to qualify for the reliever list, a pitcher had to be predominantly a reliever. This cut off outliers on both ends of the spectrum.

1954 25 BAL AL 0 0 9.00 1 0 0 0 0 0 2.0 3 3 2 0 1 2 0 0 0 11 48 1.90 2.000 13.5 0.0 4.5 9.0 2.00

One of the tendencies we have in baseball and human nature is that we focus on the most glaring characteristic in a person. Rarely was this more on display than with Duren, whose near-blindness and shaded coke-bottle glasses only fed into the fame of his terrible wildness. Perhaps the fear of an uncontrollable, half-blind (and two-thirds drunk) reliever throwing high-90s fastball did the job of intimidating and disconcerting batters, but it also led to the pitcher’s own caricaturization. Forever battling against expectations, potential and sobriety, Duren was shipped out at the first sign of weakness, and ultimately the man cleaned himself up and became a prolific speaker for alcoholics in his post-playing days. But despite near-anonymity now, this stat shows that at his peak, he was quite effective despite the walks, and deserving of at least as much lasting notoriety as Mitch Williams.