19 to 21

No, that’s not how many seasons Jamie Moyer has pitched, it’s,

Baseball... Then and Now

Volume 6, #28, August 12, 2008

News Item: August 19, 2006 – The Seattle Mariners trade Jamie Moyer to the Philadelphia Phillies for a couple of minor leaguers.

Care to speculate how many 45 year olds have been able to pitch on anything approximating a regular basis in the major leagues? Before answering, consider that there has been a proliferation of older pitchers in the majors over the past decade. It used to be that a major league pitcher over 40 was a pretty rare occurrence, or was hanging on pitching mop-up relief at the best. Now, it seems like almost every team has at least one 40-something pitcher. Tim Wakefield. Mike Timlin (oops, the Red Sox have two). Kenny Rogers. Randy Johnson. Greg Maddux. Tom Glavine. Tom Gordon. Todd Jones. It’s getting so you can’t hit a line drive up the middle without taking a chance on nailing some old geezer.

Ah, but how old is old? All of the previously-mentioned hurlers, along with such currently injured stars as Curt Schilling (oops, the Red Sox theoretically have three) and John Smoltz, are on the young side of 45. Even the Big Unit, who’s older than dirt, won’t reach 45 until September 10, 2008. The fact is, over the entire sweep of baseball history, only a dozen or so individuals have been able to keep pitching regularly past their 45th birthday. Broadly speaking, they fall pretty much into four categories, albeit with some overlapping; physical freaks/marvels, purveyors of trick pitches, relief pitchers and World War 2 geezers.

The physical freaks/marvels -- a category that Johnson will join next month – also include Nolan Ryan, Roger Clemens (maybe with an asterisk), Satchel Paige and, in a slightly different context, Tommy John. It is not a coincidence that Ryan, Johnson and Clemens stand atop the career strikeout list, since all three could bring major league heat at an age wherein Sandy Koufax (to take the opposite example) had been retired for 15 years. Still, Clemens was clearly struggling last year (he turned 45 in August 2007) and Ryan, in the two seasons he pitched after his 45th birthday (1992 and 1993) was 5-9 and 5-5 in 40 starts and 224 innings (although he did have 203 Ks). If Johnson can keep up his 2008 level of success (9-8, 107 ERA+, 8.2 Ks per nine innings) much past September 10, there better not be any complaints when he’s voted into the Hall of Fame.

In case you ever wondered why Ol’ Satch is in the Hall of Fame, he spent his best years kicking around the dusty backroads of black baseball, a virtually invisible legend until Bill Veeck brought him to the majors in 1948 at the age of about 42. Assuming Paige was indeed born on July 7, 1906 (not a sure thing by any means) he turned 46 during the 1952 season, and authored this line for the awful Veeckian St. Louis Browns.

He also had 10 saves as the Brownies’ closer, and thus qualifies as both a physical marvel and a relief pitcher. And then he came back the next year, won three more, saved 11 more and had a 119 ERA+ for an even worse Browns team. As for John, his left arm was a good bit younger than the rest of him, thanks to the surgery that has now made his name famous beyond all measure (so how come he isn’t in the Hall of Fame?) He also pitched regularly at 45 and 46, going 9-8 and 2-7 in 42 starts and 240 innings in 1988 and 1989.

We tend to think of the knuckleball as the ultimate trick pitch, but the spitball also can greatly extend the career of a pitcher. Just ask Gaylord Perry. However, even old Gaylord gave it up after he turned 44, leaving Jack Quinn as the only spitballer to last past 45. In fact, Quinn lasted until he was 50, throwing his last major league pitch in 1933, six days after he turned 50. The best year of his dotage turned out to be 1929 with the Athletics.

And he’d win 17 more games and rack up 30 saves (a figure reached by future Figure Filberts) in the next four years.

Quinn’s counterparts among the aged flutterball contingent were Phil Niekro among the starters and Hoyt Wilhelm among relievers. The former threw his last pitch for the Braves almost six months after his 48th birthday, and authored three remarkable seasons in 1984, 1985 (both with the Yankees) and 1986 (with the Indians) at the ages of 45, 46 and 47.

Wilhelm threw his last knuckleball two weeks before he turned 50, having pitched the 1969 to 1972 seasons past the age of 45, going 13-14 with 31 saves in 133 games on his way to becoming the first relief pitcher voted into the Hall of Fame. Although not as renown as either Niekro or Wilhelm, Charlie Hough also lasted until he was 46 while throwing the knuckleball, going 9-16 and 5-9 over 55 starts and 318 innings during the 1993 and 1994 seasons.

Other relief pitchers who made it past 45 include Jesse Orosco, who was still pitching left-handed situational relief in 2003 at the age of 46 (he went 3-4 with three saves in 121 games after his 45th birthday) and the ubiquitous Bobo Newsome, who closed out his career in 1953 at the age of 45 with 39 innings with the Athletics (just two starts in 17 appearances), winning two, and losing one with an 87 ERA+. There was also Hod Lisenbee, 46, who got his chance due to World War 2, pitching 80 innings, mostly in relief, in 1945 and going 1-3, and Ted Lyons, coming back to the White Sox after World War 2, and who got in five starts and 43 innings at the age of 45, going 1-4. That pretty much rounds out the list of 45+ regular pitchers (leaving out one-time stunts ala Nick Altrock.)

Physical Marvels

Ryan

Clemens*

Paige

John

Trick Pitches

Quinn

Niekro

Wilhelm

Hough

War Pitchers

Lisenbee

Lyons

Relief Pitchers

Orosco

Newsome

While these lists seem to nicely summarize the 45+ pitchers, there is one name missing. One pitcher who just doesn’t fit into any category. Who can, in his own way, be said to be unique in the annuals of baseball. He’ll turn 46 in mid-November, he doesn’t throw in the 90s, he doesn’t throw a knuckleball, he’s not a relief pitcher and he’s not a war veteran. He doesn’t fit any category. He’s Jamie Moyer, pride of the Pennsylvania Dutch country and one of only four pitchers in major league history to win 10 or more games in a season after his 45th birthday. With six weeks still to go in the 2008 season Moyer, born November 18, 1962 in Sellersville, Pa., and a graduate of Souderton (pronounced Saaawdertun by the Dutch) High School, had this record for the Phillies.

Project out those final six weeks – not too risky a prospect, Moyer is the only member of the Phillies rotation to NOT have gone on the disabled list in the past two years – and you get the following…

Such a campaign at the age of 45+ would match up well against his three compatriots in the 45+/10+ win club; Paige, Niekro and Quinn.

And that’s without being one of the greatest pitchers in baseball history. Without a knuckleball, without a spitball. With an 82 MPH fastball and an 80 MPH slider and a 70 MPH change up, and with a level of preparation and a head (maybe Maddux isn’t the smartest pitcher in baseball, maybe it’s Moyer) that have taken him to a dozen consecutive starts of having given up three or fewer runs, the longest such stretch by a Phillies pitcher since Chris Short, 40 years ago. This would also be Moyer’s best season since 2003, when he was a mere 40 years old.

Although Moyer’s contract is up at the end of the current season, it seems inconceivable that the Phillies, who do not have an abundance of starting pitching anyway, would do anything after season’s end but approach this 45 year old marvel and ask him to sign an extension for at least one more year. Already the owner of 240 wins (240-185), 76 of them coming after his 40th birthday, Jamie Moyer seems well-positioned to go past the 250 mark. That probably won’t get him in the Hall of Fame, but it’ll get him in some discussions, and who’s to say at this point that he won’t pitch long enough to reach the number on his back – 50.

-- John Shiffert