WHIP<=1.000, Qualified for ERA Title

By now you've no doubt heard about the large offer extended by the New York Yankees to free agent pitcher CC Sabathia. As I looked at Sabathia's 2008 stats, I noticed that he had a WHIP of 1.003 for Milwaukee as he led the Brewers to the playoffs. Sabathia made half his starts for Milwaukee and half for Cleveland. Since his WHIP for the Indians was 1.234, his 2008 WHIP wound up at 1.115, a little bit lower than his Cy Young season of 2007.

WHIP is an acronym for Walks + Hits over Innings Pitched, a way of measuring how many baserunners a pitcher allows. Obviously, the fewer baserunners a pitcher allows, the harder it is for the opposing offense to score runs. Over the past five years, the major league average WHIP is around 1.400. So Sabathia's 1.115 WHIP is very good, indeed. It's nowhere near record-setting, however.

Since 1990, eleven different pitchers have qualified for the ERA title (1 IP per team game, usually 162 IP in a season) with a WHIP of 1.000 or lower a total of twenty-two times. Since 1901, ninety-eight different pitchers did it 161 total times. It's possible to find different eras in baseball history by looking at the list. From 1901 to 1920, the deadball era, eighty of those 161 seasons were recorded. From 1921 to the start of World War II, when offense reigned, only one pitcher made the list (Carl Hubbell, 1933). The 1950's only saw two pitchers join. The so-called "Year of the Pitcher," 1968, had nine pitchers accomplish the feat. You get the idea.

It's kind of interesting that while offense in the late 1990's and 2000's increased to levels not consistently seen since the 1930's, the number of pitchers with a WHIP under 1.00 hasn't been impacted like it was back then. Presumably this has something to do with increased strikeouts; if hitters aren't putting the ball in play as much, they don't have as many chances of those balls falling in for hits, thus inflating the pitcher's WHIP.

Whatever the reason, there have been twenty-two sub-1.000 WHIP seasons since 1990. The list of names reads like a future Hall of Fame ballot, with a couple exceptions.

WHIP <= 1.000, Qualified for ERA Title (1990-2008)

Name	Year	Walks	Hits	IP	WHIP
Curt Schilling	1992	59	165	226.1	0.990
Greg Maddux*	1994	31	150	202.0	0.896
Greg Maddux*	1995	23	147	209.2	0.811
Kevin Brown	1996	33	187	233.0	0.944
Pedro Martinez*	1997	67	158	241.1	0.932
Greg Maddux	1997	20	200	232.2	0.946
Greg Maddux	1998	45	201	251.0	0.980
Pedro Martinez*	1999	37	160	213.1	0.923
Kevin Millwood	1999	59	168	228.0	0.996
Pedro Martinez*	2000	32	128	217.0	0.737
Kevin Brown	2000	47	181	230.0	0.991
Derek Lowe	2002	48	166	219.2	0.974
Pedro Martinez	2002	40	144	199.1	0.923
Odalis Perez	2002	38	182	222.1	0.990
Curt Schilling	2002	33	218	259.1	0.968
Jason Schmidt	2003	46	152	207.2	0.953
Ben Sheets	2004	32	201	237.0	0.983
Johan Santana*	2004	54	156	228.0	0.921
Randy Johnson	2004	44	177	245.2	0.900
Pedro Martinez	2005	47	159	217.0	0.949
Johan Santana	2005	45	180	231.2	0.971
Johan Santana*	2006	47	186	233.2	0.997

* - Cy Young Award winner

Pedro Martinez's 0.737 WHIP in 2000 is an all-time record. The only other pitcher to have a WHIP under 0.800 was Walter Johnson in 1913 (0.780). Addie Joss had a 0.806 WHIP in 1908, and Greg Maddux's 0.811 in 1995 is fourth all-time.

The major league WHIP leader in 2008 was Toronto's Roy Halladay. He issued 39 walks and allowed 220 hits in 246 innings, good for a 1.053 WHIP. The 2007 leader was Jake Peavy of the Padres at 1.061 (169 hits, 68 walks, 223 1/3 innings). Justin Duchscherer wound up 20 1/3 innings short of joining the list in 2008: he had a WHIP of 0.995 in 141 2/3 innings.

John Smoltz in 1996 got as close as you can get to a 1.000 WHIP without actually getting there. He allowed 199 hits and 55 walks in 253 2/3 innings. He was one out short of a 1.000 WHIP, but he had to settle for 1.001. Maybe I should've rounded?

Highest Career WHIP, Minimum 1000 IP

In baseball parlance, WHIP stands for Walks and Hits per Innings Pitched. That's pretty self-explanatory, though Milwaukee Brewers color commentator Bill Schroeder has proclaimed, "we used to just call that baserunners!" Either way, the idea is the fewer walks and hits a pitcher gives up, the better. This makes sense: it's hard to score a lot of runs if you don't allow many baserunners.

A quick look at a chart of WHIP since 1901 I put together from AL and NL data shows, like most statistics, WHIP has varied over time. Recently, however, the average WHIP has been somewhere around 1.40. Of course, regular starters are usually below that number. For example, in 2007, only three pitchers qualified for the ERA title with an above average WHIP: Doug Davis, Miguel Batista, and Andy Pettitte. Only ten more pitchers were within 0.05 of the average WHIP (1.406). I should note that fifty-five pitchers qualified for the ERA title last season.

Rather than focus on individual seasons right now, however, I want to look at a pitcher's career. It's not inconceivable for a pitcher to have a train wreck of a season and get a high WHIP; it's harder for a pitcher to stick around for a long time while walking and giving up hits often. Therefore, I've decided to look up the pitchers with the highest career WHIP. I've used Baseball-Reference.com's minimum of 1000 innings pitched and looked only at stats after 1901.

Highest Career WHIP, Minimum 1000 Innings Pitched
(1901-2007)

1. Chief Hogsett, 1.646
2. Jimmy Haynes, 1.632
3. Jack Wilson, 1.621
4. Ken Chase, 1.615
5. Tommy Byrne, 1.597
6. Gordon Rhodes, 1.595
7. Vern Kennedy, 1.591
8. Percy Jones, 1.590
9. Jamey Wright*, 1.589
10. Hank Johnson, 1.570
11. Bobby Witt, 1.569
12. Jack Knott, 1.5601
13. Alex Ferguson, 1.5600
14. Buck Ross, 1.551
15. Pat Rapp, 1.550
16. Jason Bere, 1.549
17. Lil Stoner, 1.5483
    
18. Jason Jennings*, 1.5481
19. Sheriff Blake, 1.547
20. Roy Mahaffey, 1.546

* - active player

The list of WHIP leaders from the opposite end is available at Baseball-Reference.com. That list also includes players from the nineteenth century.