Highest WHIP in Season, 40+ Appearances in Relief

A stat that helps tell the story of a pitcher's effectiveness is WHIP, or Walks and Hits per Innings Pitched. This is kind of like on base percentage for a pitcher, since it tells you how many baserunners he allows in an average inning. Obviously, it's advantageous to have as low a WHIP as possible, since no baserunners means less opportunity to allow runs.

Below is the list of the twenty highest WHIP's put up by relievers appearing in 40+ games, since 1901. I'm defining a reliever as a pitcher making 80% or more of his appearances in relief so a few swingmen may show up on the list.

Highest WHIP in a Season by a Reliever in 40+ Appearances

Rank	Name	Year	IP	WHIP	ERA	FIP
1	Mike Flanagan	1992	34.7	2.106	8.05	5.77
2	Franklyn German	2003	44.7	2.060	6.04	5.98
3	Mike Holtz	2002	35.0	2.057	5.40	6.31
4	Dick Welteroth	1949	95.3	2.056	7.36	6.07
5	Rob Murphy	1990	57.0	2.053	6.32	5.32
6	Vic Darensbourg	1999	34.7	2.048	8.83	5.65
7	Danny Graves	2005	38.7	2.043	6.52	6.98
8	Paul Assenmacher	1999	33.0	2.030	8.18	5.44
9	Tony Fossas	1998	22.7	2.029	5.96	3.86
10	Kevin Wickander	1993	34.0	2.029	6.09	7.02
11	Frank Biscan	1948	98.7	2.027	6.11	5.12
12	Shawn Camp	2007	40.0	2.025	7.20	5.25
13	Ron Davis	1986	58.7	2.011	9.20	5.89
14	Bryan Hickerson	1995	48.3	2.007	8.57	5.50
15	Pedro Borbon	2000	41.7	1.992	6.48	6.46
16	Jim Poole	1997	49.3	1.986	7.11	5.49
17	Joe Grahe	1994	43.3	1.985	6.65	5.16
18	Brian Bruney	2005	46.0	1.978	7.43	5.29
19	Kevin Gryboski	2005	31.0	1.968	5.52	5.20
20	Jim Todd	1979	81.0	1.963	6.56	6.45

The only pitcher with a decent FIP is Tony Fossas, but I'm almost positive that's because he was a LOOGY (Lefty One-Out GuY) by that time, although the fact he only gave up one home run didn't hurt. Dick Welteroth has one of the worst K:BB ratios I've seen, striking out 37 strikeouts while walking 89 batters. It may not entirely be his fault; the American League as a whole put up one of the worst K:BB ratios as a league in their history in 1949.

To wit, here's a chart I quickly put together using the total bases on balls and strikeouts for each season available on Baseball-Reference.com (click to enlarge the image in a new tab/window):



Not only is it evident the AL in 1949 saw more walks relative to strikeouts, you can also see the pitching-dominant year of 1968 in the chart as well, in climax of the upswing following 1949. Pretty crazy stuff going on in the junior circuit.