"Welcome to the Hall's of Relief", V

The 1960s

In the Fifties, the relief pitcher made great strides in the world of baseball. He evolved from a necessary evil, that could be satisfied by any type of pitcher (your ace starter, your tail-end starter, the last man on the staff, etc.), to a key element of the pitching staff and even a star. Basically, the relief pitcher of the Fifties crawled out of the primordial sludge and stood upright for the first time-indulge me my metaphor.

In 1940, 44.30% of games were completed by the same pitcher who started the game. By 1950, that number had fallen slightly to around 40%. By 1960, the complete game percentage had fallen by a third to under 27%.

In 1940, 21% of all major-league pitchers were pure relievers, 7% were pure starters, and 72% were swingmen (i.e., both started and relieved). In 1950, those numbers were: 25% relievers, 4% starters, and 71% swingmen. By 1960, they were: 36% relievers, 2.5% starters, and 62% swingmen.

The number of saves went from 236 in 1940 to 289 in 1950 to 430 in 1960 (all with 16 teams).

The Fifties was the decade in which mindsets were altered as to what relievers could do and what they were about. The age of the swingman was dying. Roles were now becoming delineated more and more between pure relievers and pure starters.

However, much like Spinal Tap's druids, it could be still be said of relievers that, "No one knew who they were or what they were doing." Men were now tabbed for the relief role early on in their careers but few relievers were successful for more than a handful of years. Also, the best starters were still expected to complete their games, eliminating opportunities for closers (though the best starters at least did not relieve any longer). The quickening of the Fifties, led to more opportunity as well as a great deal of experimentation in the Sixties. Hey, experimentation was in the air in the Sixties everywhere.

In the 1960s, the evolutionary process would slow for a number of the indicators above. For example in the decade: Complete game percentages only dropped about 5%. The number of relievers increased by only 3%, relative to the number of all pitchers. The number of saves doubled (from 430 to 878), but the percentage of games that resulted in saves increased by only 5%. But the table had been set by the Fifties. The changes just kept coming. First, starters enjoyed a resurgence. Their numbers increased four-fold relative to all pitchers (from 2.5% to 10%). Swingmen were being reduced rapidly until they comprised just over 50% of all pitchers by 1970. This was the lowest total for them since the inception of unlimited substitution in 1891. The Sixties were also the first decade, in which the average reliever had a better ERA than the average swingman. The role of the swingman was becoming more and more marginalized.

The changes were more subtle overall in the Sixties but the effects were more profound. The saves record changed hands 7 times between 1960 and 1973 (and by the end of the decade, they actually were recording saves as they occurred so I will remove the quotation marks from around the word record). The first 30-save man (Ted Abernathy) was born in 1965. The first man to appear in over 80 games in relief was John Wyatt in 1964 (six men exceeded 60 appearances that year). Wayne Granger appeared in 90 games in 1969. In the Fifties 300 relief appearances over the course of the decade were a lot. In the Sixties, five men exceeded 500 appearances, six men exceeded 400, and seventeen men, 300.

Three men who lived through the revolution of the Fifties-did you ever think you'd see revolution and Fifties in the same sentence-were to lead the experimentation of the Sixties. They were the Hall-of-Famer Hoyt Wilhelm, Elroy "Roy" Face, and Lindy McDaniel. All of them made 500 or more relief appearances in the Sixties (along with Ron Perranoski and Don McMahon). All of them were effective pitchers for 15 years, Wilhelm and McDaniel for 20, though each had down years mixed in. They almost exclusively pitched out of the bullpen over their entire careers. They had one main pitch-Wilhelm the knuckleball, Face the Forkball, and McDaniel, a control pitcher, his fastball. They consistently pitched 50-70 games a year, perhaps making them the first "modern" relievers.

These men set the tone for the decade. In the Sixties, the boundaries of a relief pitcher's endurance were being pushed almost on a yearly basis. No one knew if a relief pitcher could throw 125, 150, 200 innings out of the pen consistently or if it would destroy his arm. The only way to find out was to push a little one year, assess in the offseason, then push a little harder the next, and repeat.

No one knew what situations were best suited to bringing in your "closer" (or best reliever). So they put them in as many situations as possible. The modern concept of a save became official by the end of the decade, but closers were used when their teams were behind and when the game was tied. It was not unusual for pitchers to have double digits in wins as well as saves while appearing in 70 games with 130 innings pitched. This is when the anachronistic criteria used in the Rolaid's Fireman of the Year Award were established-the award started in 1976 but the criteria it used were defined in the Sixties.

No one knew which types of pitchers were best suited to the reliever role. In the 1960s there were a good many trick pitch hurlers, who were effective for a year or two, created a stir, and then faded. Yankee screwballer Luis Arroyo's 1961 season is perhaps the best example of this. He was a 33-year-old journeyman (three teams in 4 years) when he came to the Yankees. Within a year he registered 15 wins and 29 saves in 65 games and 119 innings. Within two years, injury and ineffectiveness had forced him out of the game. Very few relief pitchers, however, would have been well suited to start given their reliance on one or two pitches.

There were three more trends of note in the Sixties. The first was the birth of the middle or secondary reliever, guys like Bob Miller, Wes Stock, and Dan Osinski. These were men who rarely if ever closed but served as a bridge between the starter and the closer, just like long relievers and setup men do today. The use of pitchers in this capacity was perhaps not new (actually McGraw did it in the first decade of the century), but having a reliever whose role was defined by this approach was. The role was becoming an important one that needed its own specialist since by the end of the Sixties more than 2.5 pitchers were used per team in an average game. (It's a trend that seemed to start with the mid-Fifty Dodgers to support Clem Labine and then came into its own with Billy Hoeft, Wes Stock, and Dick Hall supporting Wilhelm on th '62 Orioles.)

The next trend was established by the first flamethrowing reliever, Dick "The Monster" Radatz, who came to the majors in 1962. The 25-year-old pitched 62 games all in relief for the Red Sox. He won 9, saved 24, and had a 2.24 ERA (almost 2 runs lower than the adjusted league average for Fenway). He also threw over 120 innings and struck out 144. 1963 was even better for Radatz: 15 wins, 25 saves, 162 strikeouts in 132.1 innings, and a 1.97 ERA. He continued his success in 1964, 16 wins, 29 saves, 181 strikeouts in 157 innings, and a 2.29 ERA. In 1965, Radatz was 28, on top of the world and about to lose it all. He saved 22 and won nine, but lost 11 and "only" struck out 121 in 124.1 innings. His ERA ballooned to 3.91. Radatz would never have an ERA under 4.00, more than 14 saves, or more than 100 strikeouts ever again. Apparently, the 79 appearances and 157 innings that Radatz pitched in 1964 or perhaps the 207 appearances and 414 innings he pitched in relief from 1962 to 1964 took their toll. Radatz became a cautionary tale, but baseball wasn't ready to slow down its experimentation. Well, all of baseball except for one team.

By the middle of the decade, the Pirates had began to limit Roy Face to 60 games and 80 innings a year. This came at a time when he was still in his prime. The Pirates proved quite prescient as this new paradigm for a closer became the norm late in the 1970s, but that was due more to necessity than design, as we will see later.

Here are the leaders in relief appearances and saves for the decade. Note that these men rarely if ever start now and that although the all-time career saves "record" at the start of the decade was 107 (Johnny Murphy), six people broke the "record" and nine tallied over 100 saves. Willhelm's total is almost 50% more than Murphy's and that is only including his number for the Sixties-he ended the decade with 210 for his career to that point:

FirstName	LastName	RA	Saves	GP
Ron	Perranoski	588	138	589
Lindy	McDaniel	551	112	558
Don	McMahon	545	87	547
Hoyt	Wilhelm	542	152	557
Roy	Face	524	142	524
Ron	Kline	477	103	519
Stu	Miller	465	138	468
Jack	Baldschun	445	60	445
Ted	Abernathy	444	106	444
Eddie	Fisher	436	65	468
John	Wyatt	426	103	435
Bob	Miller	399	33	473
Al Worthington	393	98	393
Larry	Sherry	381	79	388
Dick	Radatz	381	122	381
Ron	Taylor	368	57	385
Bill	Henry	343	71	345
Claude	Raymond	343	60	350
Dick	Hall	341	62	392
Hal	Woodeshick	332	61	380
Phil	Regan	330	74	434
Al	McBean	325	62	401
Bob	Locker	322	54	322
Turk	Farrell	312	56	445
Wes	Stock	311	21	314
Steve	Hamilton	305	35	322
Johnny	Klippstein	302	37	311
Dan	Osinski	300	18	321
    
FirstName	LastName	RA	Saves	GP
Hoyt	Wilhelm	542	152	557
Roy	Face	524	142	524
Ron	Perranoski	588	138	589
Stu	Miller	465	138	468
Dick	Radatz	381	122	381
Lindy	McDaniel	551	112	558
Ted	Abernathy	444	106	444
Ron	Kline	477	103	519
John	Wyatt	426	103	435
Al Worthington	393	98	393
Don	McMahon	545	87	547
Larry	Sherry	381	79	388
Frank	Linzy	287	77	288
Phil	Regan	330	74	434
Jack	Aker	273	72	273
Bill	Henry	343	71	345
Eddie	Fisher	436	65	468
Fred	Gladding	280	64	281
Bob	Lee	262	63	269
Dick	Hall	341	62	392
Al	McBean	325	62	401
Hal	Woodeshick	332	61	380
Jack	Baldschun	445	60	445
Claude	Raymond	343	60	350
Joe	Hoerner	214	60	214
Terry	Fox	248	59	248
Ron	Taylor	368	57	385
Billy	McCool	254	57	274
Turk	Farrell	312	56	445
Jim	Brosnan	207	55	209
Bob	Locker	322	54	322

Here are the totals per role for the decade:

Year   GP    GS  SV  CG    CG%   RA   P/G  #P SP    SP%  RP    RP% SP/RP Swing%
1960  6065 2472 430 666 26.94% 3593 2.453 238  6  2.52%  85 35.71%  147  61.76%
1961  6987 2860 501 745 26.05% 4127 2.443 254 16  6.30%  74 29.13%  164  64.57%
1962  8281 3242 618 844 26.03% 5039 2.554 304 15  4.93%  95 31.25%  194  63.82%
1963  8046 3238 589 865 26.71% 4808 2.485 299 32 10.70%  87 29.10%  180  60.20%
1964  8381 3252 668 797 24.51% 5129 2.577 311 22  7.07% 100 32.15%  189  60.77%
1965  8599 3246 678 739 22.77% 5353 2.649 299 23  7.69% 102 34.11%  174  58.19%
1966  8505 3230 667 736 22.79% 5275 2.633 310 21  6.77% 108 34.84%  181  58.39%
1967  8429 3240 647 782 24.14% 5189 2.602 315 37 11.75%  96 30.48%  182  57.78%
1968  8040 3250 597 897 27.60% 4790 2.474 287 29 10.10% 103 35.89%  155  54.01%
1969 10117 3892 745 982 25.23% 6225 2.599 360 37 10.28% 131 36.39%  192  53.33%

Year