It is pretty rare nowadays for me to stumble across a quality major league player who I've never heard of, especially for players from recent decades. However, that is exactly what happened last night. In continuing to review Keith Hernandez's career, I took a look at the 1979 Cardinals, a team for whom he won the National League MVP. I noticed they had a young pitcher by the name of John Fulgham who had had a very solid season, going 10-6 with a 2.53 ERA in 146 innings. I then discovered he was a rookie that season, at age 23. Despite his numbers he did not receive a single vote for National League Rookie of the Year, an award won by Rick Sutcliffe.
Generally speaking, Fulgham is not a well-remembered major leaguer; a quick Google search did not turn up very much. Most of what has been written about him on the Internet regarded his supposed 39-pitch complete game on August 17, 1979, which if true would have been a major league record (it was not). Otherwise, these articles mostly just mention that Fulgham was a promising young starter whose career was cut short by a torn rotator cuff (an injury whose onset apparently produced a scuffle with Keith Hernandez).
In doing some more digging, however, I believe that no starting pitcher who was as good as Fulgham ever had so brief of a career. First, let's look at Wins Above Replacement. According to Baseball-Reference, Fulgham had 3.5 WAR in his rookie season, and 1.4 in 1980, for a total of about 5.0. As the table below shows, of all starting pitchers since 1901 with 5+ WAR in their first two seasons combined, only George Kaiserling, who pitched exclusively in the short-lived Federal League, also failed to pitch a third season:
Fulgham also had easily the fewest career innings pitched of any starter with at least that many WAR:
| Rk | Player | IP | WAR | From | To | Age |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | John Fulgham | 231.1 | 5.0 | 1979 | 1980 | 23-24 |
| 2 | Tom Walker | 369.2 | 5.7 | 1902 | 1905 | 20-23 |
| 3 | Frank Arellanes | 409.2 | 5.3 | 1908 | 1910 | 26-28 |
| 4 | Mark Fidrych | 412.1 | 11.4 | 1976 | 1980 | 21-25 |
| 5 | Buck O'Brien | 432.0 | 8.1 | 1911 | 1913 | 29-31 |
| 6 | Buttons Briggs | 445.0 | 6.1 | 1904 | 1905 | 28-29 |
| 7 | John Patterson | 454.1 | 5.5 | 2002 | 2007 | 24-29 |
| 8 | Win Mercer | 461.1 | 6.7 | 1901 | 1902 | 27-28 |
| 9 | Tom Cheney | 466.0 | 5.7 | 1957 | 1966 | 22-31 |
| 10 | Monty Stratton | 487.1 | 10.0 | 1934 | 1938 | 22-26 |
| 11 | Dallas Braden | 491.1 | 5.3 | 2007 | 2011 | 23-27 |
| 12 | Ross Baumgarten | 495.1 | 5.3 | 1978 | 1982 | 23-27 |
Additionally, Fulgham ranks in the top 20 in ERA+ among post-1901 starters with at least 100 IP; as you can see, only one other pitcher is on the list with fewer than 1300 career innings pitched:
| Rk | Player | IP | From | To | Age | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pedro Martinez | 154 | 2827.1 | 1992 | 2009 | 20-37 |
| 2 | Lefty Grove | 148 | 3940.2 | 1925 | 1941 | 25-41 |
| 3 | Walter Johnson | 147 | 5914.1 | 1907 | 1927 | 19-39 |
| 4 | Smoky Joe Wood | 146 | 1434.1 | 1908 | 1920 | 18-30 |
| 5 | Ed Walsh | 145 | 2964.1 | 1904 | 1917 | 23-36 |
| 6 | Roger Clemens | 143 | 4916.2 | 1984 | 2007 | 21-44 |
| 7 | Addie Joss | 142 | 2327.0 | 1902 | 1910 | 22-30 |
| 8 | Brandon Webb | 142 | 1319.2 | 2003 | 2009 | 24-30 |
| 9 | Mordecai Brown | 139 | 3172.1 | 1903 | 1916 | 26-39 |
| 10 | Cy Young | 137 | 3312.1 | 1901 | 1911 | 34-44 |
| 11 | Christy Mathewson | 137 | 4755.0 | 1901 | 1916 | 20-35 |
| 12 | Johan Santana | 136 | 2025.2 | 2000 | 2012 | 21-33 |
| 13 | Pete Alexander | 135 | 5190.0 | 1911 | 1930 | 24-43 |
| 14 | Randy Johnson | 135 | 4135.1 | 1988 | 2009 | 24-45 |
| 15 | Noodles Hahn | 135 | 1409.0 | 1901 | 1906 | 22-27 |
| 16 | John Fulgham | 134 | 231.1 | 1979 | 1980 | 23-24 |
| 17 | Rube Waddell | 133 | 2659.2 | 1901 | 1910 | 24-33 |
| 18 | Harry Brecheen | 133 | 1907.2 | 1940 | 1953 | 25-38 |
| 19 | Buttons Briggs | 133 | 445.0 | 1904 | 1905 | 28-29 |
| 20 | Whitey Ford | 133 | 3170.1 | 1950 | 1967 | 21-38 |
Perhaps the most comparable pitcher to Fulgham is Mark "The Bird" Fidrych, another young 1970s rookie phenom whose career also ended due to a rotator cuff injury. However, Fidrych's career was legendary in its time, and that legend has not subsided much even to this day. The same cannot be said for Fulgham, whose career has been virtually forgotten. That is, simply put, a shame, and I hope this post helps shed some light on just how good Fulgham was. Maybe some will even start to ask "what if?" about Fulgham, as they already do about Fidrych.
No comments:
Post a Comment