Monday, September 24, 2007

Loser Teenagers

People always like celebrating winners, so I figured I'd turn the tables and look at the guys who lost the most games as teenagers. There's a mix of being good enough to stay in the league and debuting while relatively young in placing on the list. Also, baseball-reference says a player's age during a season is their age as of June 30th of that season, so even though the top man on the list, Pete Schneider, turned 20 on August 2, his whole season applies. It's a little erroneous, but what can you do?

Without further ado, these are baseball's top loser teens:
  1. Pete Schneider, 32 losses, 1914-15
  2. Bob Feller, 21, 1936-38
  3. David Clyde, 17, 1973-74
  4. Larry Dierker, 17, 1964-66
  5. Ray Keating, 15, 1912-13
  6. Chief Bender, 14, 1903
  7. Mike Morgan, 13, 1978-79
  8. Curt Simmons, 13, 1947-48
  9. Frank Shellenback, 12, 1918
  10. Earl Hamilton, 12, 1911
  11. Jim Waugh, 11, 1952-53
  12. Mike McCormick, 10, 1956-58
  13. Milt Pappas, 10, 1957-1958
  14. Cal McLish, 10, 1944
  15. Hal Newhouser, 10, 1939-40
Hey, three of those guys went on to be Hall of Famers! Interestingly, only 152 pitchers have ever lost even one game in their teenage years. Only 329 pitchers made an appearance before their age 20 season.

Here's a trivia question for you: Who are the only two pitchers since 2000 to lose one or more games before their age 20 season, as defined by Baseball-Reference?

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