Blast From the Past: 1984

There was an interesting article on The Hardball Times yesterday looking at historical pitching data(credit fangraphs.com for linking the article):

www.harballtimes.com/main/article/ten-things-i-didn't-know-about-starting-rotations

As measured by ERA+, the 1984 Giants had the second worst starting rotation IN THE HISTORY OF BASEBALL! Now, I'm not the biggest fan of ERA+ as a statistic, especially when used to compare one era to another, but the entry got me to thinking, "who were the pitchers in that Giants rotation, anyway?"

There are basically 3 eras in the history of my Giants fandom:

1966-1971. The Wonder Years! I was 10 years old when I discovered baseball and the Giants on the radio. I was lucky enough to get in on one of the more amazing periods by any team in baseball history. The last few years of Willie Mays' career. Willie McCovey winning some HR and RBI titles on his way to the HOF. Juan Marichal and Gaylord Perry fashioning Hall of Fame careers. The Giants not winning a World Series! Those were days filled with wonder and dreams.

1972-1985. The Dark Years. Willie Mays traded and the end of his career. The dashed promise of of another great team built around Bobby Bonds, Garry Maddox, Gary Mathews, George Foster and Dave Kingman. Johnnie Lemaster. My family moved away from Northern California in 1972. I could occasionally find a broadcast at night, but the reception would fade in and out. I still tried to look up the boxscores every day, but I didn't always have access to a newspaper and it wasn't quite the same anyway. I went on to college, med school, marriage and residency. Not a lot of room for being a baseball fan in there. They had a pretty good team in 1978 with Jack Clark in his prime, Willie McCovey in the Indian Summer of his career, and a tough pitching staff led by Vida Blue and a young Rob Knepper. By this time I was living in Southern California and would catch an occasional TV or radio broadcast on the Dodger stations. The one moment that stands out in my mind from this entire era, for some reason, is Mike Ivie hitting a pinch-hit grand slam against the Dodgers in Candlestick Park.

1986-Present. Will Clark and Beyond. I will always believe that the drafting of Will Clark was THE watershed moment in the history of the San Francisco Giants. I know there have been several times when the team almost left town, but in my mind, Will Clark saved Giants baseball in San Francisco. Around this time, ESPN started showing a lot more games on TV, so it was a lot easier to tune into games and get to know the players better. Then came Barry Bonds, Pac Bell Park, the internets and finally, MLB packages on satellite TV. I had kids of my own who got to see the last few years of Barry Bonds' career. I had come full circle!

Back to the 1984 Giants and the second worst starting rotation in baseball history. Who were these pitchers? What was the rest of that team like? What was their W-L record? I couldn't have been good! I looked up the team's stats under Historical Stats on sfgiants.com.

The team wasn't all bad. It had three .300 hitters: Jeffrey Leonard, Chili Davis and what was left of Al Oliver. Dan Gladden hit .351 over 87 games. It had three hitters with 20 HR's: Leonard, Davis and Bob Brenly. Dusty Baker played on that team. Jack Clark went .320.434/.530 with 11 HR's but for only 57 games and punched his ticket out of town. Of course, it also had Johnnie Lemaster, the absolute worst hitter to ever put on a Giants uniform with the possible exception of Hal Lanier. All in all, it was a good hitting team though: 2'nd in the NL in BA, #3 in OBP, #3 in HR's, and #5 in Runs. As with the entire Giants history, one has to wonder what might have been had Jack Clark played a full season.

But, who were those pitchers, the members of the 2'nd worst starting rotation of all time?

"Wild" Bill Laskey was the workhorse of the staff pitching 207.2 innings. That produced a 9-14 record with a 4.33 ERA. Not bad by today's standards but that was a different era. Laskey wasn't much of a pitcher. He just threw the ball up there, let 'em hit it and hoped his fielders would catch it as his 71 K/50 BB will attest.

Mike Krukow was a member of that team. Krukow would go on to greater things after Roger Craig became the manager, but he wasn't very good in 1984: 11-12, 4.56, 199.1 IP, 78 BB, 141 K's.

Mark Davis would go on to have some good seasons and eventually cash in on a big free agent contract, but he was downright terrible in 1984: 5-17, 5.36, 174.2 IP, 54 BB, 124 K's.

I have no recollection of Jeff Robinson: 7-15, 4.56, 171.2 IP, 52 BB, 102 K's.

The 5'th starter was by committee and spread out over several pitchers. Mark Grant made the most starts at 10 games with a record of 1-4 and an ERA of 6.37. Atlee Hammaker was a bright spot making 6 starts with an ERA of 2.18.

All in all, the Giants finished with a 66-96 record. They scored 682 runs, but allowed 807, 60 more than the Cincinnati Reds who were the second worst pitching team in the NL that year. Even a full contribution from Jack Clark would not have saved that season. Clark got shipped out to St. Louis the following offseason for 4 stiffs. 1985 would be an even worse season before Will Clark and Roger Craig arrived to save the team in 1986.