Unearned Runs

This should come as no surprise, but baseball defense was terrible in the first half-century of the game. Given that many players didn't use baseball gloves until the 1890's and the ones used for many years after that didn't have the familiar web between the thumb and forefinger. Looking at some of the gloves pictured here gives a little perspective into why error totals were so staggeringly high in the early part of the game.

You can find error records by position at Baseball-Almanac.com. The most recent such record was set in 1929 when Roy Johnson of the Tigers committed 31 errors in the outfield. Using the Historical Stats feature at mlb.com, it's possible to figure out that Johnson was an outlier among outfielders (the runner up in errors committed by an outfielder that season was Russ Scarritt with 19), but he wasn't the only guy with a bunch of errors. In fact, his teammate Heinie Schuble committed 46 errors in 86 games at shortstop that year. Joe Cronin led the league with 62 errors.

To give another idea of how bad fielding was, I've put the record for errors at each position into a table, along with each player's games played at that position in that season and their fielding percentage. I've only listed the AL & NL records, just to keep things simpler:

Position	League	Name	Year	Games	Errors	Fielding %
Pitcher	AL	Rube Waddell Ed Walsh	1905 1912	46 62	15	.872 .915
	NL	Jim Whitney	1881	66	28	.808
Catcher	AL	Oscar Stanage	1911	141	41	.952
	NL	Nat Hicks	1876	45	94	.741
1st Base	AL	Jerry Freeman	1908	154	41	.975
	NL	Cap Anson	1884	112	58	.956
2nd Base	AL	Kid Gleason	1901	135	64	.925
	NL	Pop Smith	1880	83	89	.855
3rd Base	AL	Sammy Strang	1902	137	64	.890
	NL	Charlie Hickman	1900	120	86	.842
Shortstop	AL	John Gochnauer	1903	134	98	.869
	NL	Joe Sullivan	1893	128	102	.860
Outfield	AL	Roy Johnson	1929	146	31	.928
	NL	Fred Clarke	1895	132	49	.881

I know Sullivan committed more errors, but I think Gochnauer's mark is pretty amazing. The only player close to him in 1903 was Rudy Hulswitt of the Phillies with 81 errors. The only American Leaguer besides Gochnauer to reach even 80 errors in a season during the first decade of AL play was New York shortstop Neal Ball in 1908 (he had exactly 80). Gochnauer was maybe even worse with a bat in his hands: he hit .185 in 1902 and 1903. His career batting line wound up at .187/.258/.240 in 1030 PA, good for a 46 OPS+...in the early 1900's! His career wasn't completely forgotten, however: over a century after his last major league game, he was talked about in Congress.

Anyway, the point isn't to laugh at Mr. Gochnauer's historic ineptitude at short, it's that errors were commonplace back in the early days of baseball. Since errors were so common, so too were unearned runs. After all, most unearned runs come about because of errors. That's how you can get years with a league average of four runs per game but a league ERA of under 3.00. One example of that is the 1888 National League. The league average was 4.54 runs per game, but the league ERA was 2.83. When you hear of great pitchers from long ago with miniscule ERA's, chances are they gave up a ton of unearned runs. For example, Cy Young gave up 1020 unearned runs in his long career. Christy Mathewson gave up nearly 500. Addie Joss gave up 241 unearned runs in 286 career games.

This certainly doesn't take anything away from those guys. After all, the playing field was even and everyone had to deal with abysmal defense so putting up a tiny ERA is still impressive. It does explain how an era with such dominant pitching wasn't completely overrun by 1-0, 2-1, or other low-scoring games. Runs were still scored, though not as much as today, but many of them were unearned.

Using the total runs scored and ERA of each league from 1876 through 2007, it's possible to estimate the number of earned and unearned runs. It's not perfect since the ERA rounded to only two decimal places leaves a lot of leeway over, say, 30000 innings, but it's close. I did that and then made a chart showing the percentage of runs scored that were unearned (UER%) over that span. As expected, the percentage has decreased over time:

(click to enlarge in new window)

As you can see, over 60% of runs scored in the National League's first year were unearned. From year-to-year it occasionally bounced back up but overall the percentage fell as better gloves were introduced, rules were changed, managing philosophies developed, and official scorers became more professional. You can even sort of make out the end of the "dead-ball" era when more runs were scored via home runs which are likely to be earned runs. The little hump in the middle of the graph is World War II when teams filled their rosters with guys that wouldn't have been picked for the majors a few years before. Following the end of WWII, the UER% dipped back down to pre-war levels. It rose slightly in the 50's and 60's but has been declining pretty consistently since the mid-1970's. In the past couple seasons, fewer than 8% of all major league runs scored have been unearned.

I started looking all this up after realizing Cy Young had allowed more than one thousand unearned runs. I was curious about who else was high on the list of the most unearned runs allowed. Obviously, it was guys who pitched a lot back in the early days of baseball. Since most people (including myself) aren't hip to the pitching stars of the 1880's, I've made a separate list of pitchers who debuted in 1900 or after.

Most Career Unearned Runs Allowed
Debuted Before 1900

Rank	Name	Career Span	IP	ER	UER
1	Pud Galvin	1879-1892	5941.1	1895	1423
2	Mickey Welch	1880-1892	4802.0	1447	1109
3	Cy Young	1890-1911	7354.2	2147	1020
4	Tim Keefe	1880-1893	5047.2	1472	996
5	Tony Mullane	1881-1894	4531.1	1537	986
6	John Clarkson	1882-1894	4536.1	1417	959
7	Will White	1877-1886	3542.2	896	948
8	Jim McCormick	1878-1887	4275.2	1155	940
9	Charley Radbourn	1881-1891	4535.1	1348	927
10	Gus Weyhing	1887-1901	4324.1	1867	921

Most Career Unearned Runs Allowed
Debuted in 1900 or After

Rank	Name	Career Span	IP	ER	UER
1	Christy Mathewson	1900-1916	4780.2	1133	483
2	George Mullin	1902-1915	3686.2	1156	480
3	Walter Johnson	1907-1927	5914.2	1424	478
4	Eppa Rixey	1912-1933	4494.2	1572	414
5	Burleigh Grimes	1916-1934	4180.2	1638	410
6	Jack Quinn	1909-1933	3920.1	1433	402
7	Eddie Plank	1901-1917	4495.2	1174	395
8	Red Faber	1914-1933	4086.2	1430	383
9	Tom Hughes	1900-1913	2644.0	909	382
10	Red Ames	1903-1919	3198.0	934	377

There's perhaps a few more recognizable names on the second list. They're all still early-century pitchers, which prompts a question about where more recent pitchers fall. Three long-time hurlers that pitched as recently as the 1980's show up in the top 35 of the list of pitchers to debut since 1900. See if you can think of who they might be while looking at the list of the active career leaders in unearned runs allowed. Through last night's game, fifteen players who have pitched in 2008 have allowed more than 100 unearned runs over their career. There's still a few games left, but the only guy on the list who has a good shot to change his position is Jeff Suppan, pitching tonight for the Brewers.

Most Career Unearned Runs Allowed
Active Players (through 9/25/08)

1. Greg Maddux, 225
2. Randy Johnson, 186
3. Tim Wakefield, 177
4. Kenny Rogers, 171
5. Tom Glavine, 166
6. Jamie Moyer, 138
7. Andy Pettitte, 128
8. Derek Lowe, 116
9. Jon Lieber, 115
10. Steve Trachsel, 108
11. John Smoltz, 107
12. Jeff Suppan, 107
13. Julian Tavarez, 104
14. Mike Mussina, 103
15. Miguel Batista, 100
    

Paul Byrd sits at 98, but he hasn't allowed an unearned run since being traded to Boston. Livan Hernandez has allowed 95 unearned runs but hasn't allowed any since being signed by Colorado. One guy to keep an eye on both as this year ends and for the future is durable lefty Mark Buehrle. He's allowed 96 unearned runs by the age of 30. If he stays healthy and has the right kind of defense behind him, he could reach 200.

Finally, to answer the question I posed above: the three guys who pitched into the 1980's while finishing in the top 35 were Phil Niekro (325 UER - #16), Jim Kaat (300 UER - #23), and Gaylord Perry (282 UER - #34). If you got all three, have an iron glove. In case you're wondering, Greg Maddux's 225 UER allowed puts him at #70 on the list, tied with Charlie Hough.