Bumgarner, Schilling, and the Best Postseason
Last Wednesday, following his terrific performance in Game 1 of the World Series, I wrote a piece for Just a Bit Outside putting Bumgarner’s 2014 playoff run into some historical perspective. One of the primary takeaways from that piece was just so amazing Curt Schilling’s 2001 performance was, as it clearly stood at the top of the heap as the best postseason a pitcher has ever had.
Here’s the table that ran in last week’s column, listing both the ERA- and FIP- of the starters who had at least five starts of seven or more innings pitched in the same postseason.
| Pitcher | Season | ERA- | FIP- |
| Curt Schilling | 2001 | 25 | 43 |
| Orel Hershiser | 1988 | 32 | 68 |
| Randy Johnson | 2001 | 34 | 43 |
| Cliff Lee | 2009 | 37 | 44 |
| Madison Bumgarner | 2014 | 41 | 89 |
| Greg Maddux | 1995 | 67 | 98 |
| Deacon Phillippe | 1903 | 94 | 61 |
There was only player on that list who matched that criteria, but had actually six starts of least seven innings in a single postseason. But now, after Madison Bumgarner’s complete game shutout last night, there are two.
And the similarities between Schilling’s 2001 postseason and what Bumgarner has done so far this postseason don’t end there. Here are their overall numbers.
| Season | Pitcher | G | GS | CG | ShO | IP | TBF | H | R | ER | HR | BB | IBB | HBP | WP | BK | SO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | Schilling | 6 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 48.1 | 176 | 25 | 6 | 6 | 3 | 6 | 1 | 56 | |||
| 2014 | Bumgarner | 6 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 47.2 | 178 | 26 | 7 | 6 | 3 | 6 | 2 | 41 |
Almost identical, across the board. The biggest gap is in strikeouts, where Schilling dominated with an absurd 32% strikeout rate. Besides that, every other number is within two units of each other, and most of them are exact matches. Bumgarner has had Schilling’s 2001 postseason all over again, almost matching it to the tee.
If we were trying to split hairs, we would have to note that all of the differences do tend to lean in Schilling’s favor. He gave up one fewer run, even though Bumgarner’s extra run allowed was classified as unearned. He did strikeout 15 more batters while facing two fewer, and did so at a time when the National League strikeout rate was 18%, compared to the 20.5% average from this season. Three of his six starts came in the World Series, and two of them came on short rest. The 2001 Yankees had a better line-up than the 2014 Royals, and Chase Field and Yankee Stadium are better places to hit than AT*T Park or Kaufman Stadium.
If you make all the adjustments for era, opponent, and park effects, Schilling posting the same numbers as Bumgarner comes out as a bit more impressive, given the difference in degree of difficulty and the amount of outs he recorded on his own. But there’s also the reality that Bumgarner’s 2014 postseason might not yet be over. If this series goes seven games, the finale would come on Wednesday, Bumgarner’s traditional throw-day between starts. At the very least, you’d expect Bumgarner to pitch an inning or two in relief of Tim Hudson, and depending on how effective he was, getting up to three or four innings probably isn’t out of the question, especially if Tim Hudson struggles early.
If Bumgarner manages to throw a few more dominant relief innings in Game 7, then there really will be a case that his run this year will have surpassed Curt Schilling’s 2001 season as the best postseason pitching performance in the history of the game. At the very least, though, he’s put himself in the conversation, and has had the kind of October performance that will never be forgotten.
Schilling’s 2001 postseason shouldn’t be forgotten either, though. While the BBWAA collective nearly elected Jack Morris to the Hall of Fame because of one memorably great World Series start, Schilling’s 2001 run was the kind of performance that would have made a borderline HOF case an easy call. The fact that Schilling is not a borderline case — 18th all-time in pitching WAR by FIP, 32nd by RA9 — should make him one of the easiest selections on the ballot.
Voters: if you’re admiring Bumgarner’s run and where it places him in baseball history, how about honoring the guy who did this 13 years ago too?
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
2041, what incredible longevity!
Unless I’m missing something, Schilling struck out 15 more batters, not 5. That’s 2.5 extra batters per game, which is a pretty big difference.
Yeah… are the numbers wrong, or the analysis of them? Another line makes me think it should be 51 vs 46.
Yep, that was an error in the post that has been corrected.
I would expect a followup article to update the main stats from the original article (FIP- and ERA- in this case). FIP and ERA each have flaws in evaluating performance, but the difference in the players’ FIP- is significant.
Schilling: 43 FIP- and 25 ERA-
Bumgarner: 79 FIP- and 33 ERA-
Regarding the unearned run it was his fault anyway as he fired a bunt attempt into left field against the Nats.
One note – that extra run may count as “unearned” for Bumgarner, but his own throwing error allowed it to score.
‘Pop, what’s that low-volume, persistent tiny chopping sound?’
– ‘That’s the sound of every available hair being split, re-split and split again.’
‘Hey Pop, what’s that other sound?’
-‘That’s the annoying neighbor.’
Fantastic pitching combined with getting hot at the right time, with a little luck thrown in. Only a few pitchers every year get the chance to pitch that much in the playoffs, so it’s a very select group to start with.
What we don’t know is whether better quality of the competition would have made any difference for Bumgarner. Light hitting teams would help over a large sample size, but a hot pitcher can make even a good hitting team look inept.
The Nats were a good hitting team before they ran into Bumgarner and the Giants. But you could debate whether Bumgarner made them look inept, or they made themselves look inept — they looked bad at the plate the whole series, even before they faced him.
It’s a little unfair that postseason records of those with the benefit of extra playoff rounds get compared with guys who just had the World Series. I mean, Christy Mathewson pitched 3 shutouts in the 1905 World Series… what could possibly match up to that? (Bumgartner isn’t even the best Giants’ performance in the postseason!)
But, I get the point: Bumgartner is in the midst of an amazing performance, with more reasonably likely to come in Game 7.
That also makes it harder. We should look at how many people had maybe a good first 3 games through the division and league championship series and then fell apart in starts 4-6. Maybe if matthewson had to pitch 3 more times, he would have gotten rocked in one of them.
Oh, for crying out loud. Christy Mathewson threw three shutouts in six days. He gave up 13 hits, one walk, and struck out 18 batters in 27 shutout innings. IN SIX FREAKING DAYS.
Sure, it was the deadball era, the game was vastly different, an entire class of people were forbidden from playing the game because of their pigmentation, etc. But it was also before analytics, advanced scouting, plane travel, sports medicine, team doctors and a training staff, strength/cardio training, dietary supplements (not to mention PEDs), antibiotics, pitching coaches, infield shifts. Fans were on the damned playing field. Fielders used gloves that were less effective than a $4 pair of workgloves at Home Depot. The outfields were filled with cow shit and rocks, and the outfields were probably better manicured than the infield.
No one was better than Christy Mathewson in the 1905 World Series.
Yeah I would agree with this.
I’m sure most outfields today are covered in cow shit too, just in a bit of a different form.
SABR whipping boy or not, that’s just not a nice way to talk about Delmon Young.
Its a completely different game today than 1905. Mathewson might never have made it out of AAA ball today. We just don’t know
He struck out 4.7 K/9 in his career so he heavily relied on his defense, and the average team in 1905 hit 25 HR, and most of them were inside the parkers (many parks were enormous), so he did not have the long ball to worry about.
While they did not fly, they played fewer games and they had no west coast trips with most teams in the north and east so the geographical area of travel was rather limited
Did not have to face some of the best hitters in the game as well
Different game, yes, but there are still grounds for comparison.
The National League average for Ks/game was 3.7; Mathewson had 206 Ks and 5.5 Ks/game. He was a strikeout pitcher. His ERA+ was 230.
The A’s team that he smothered led the AL in runs/game at 4.1. They had the highest batting average, slugging percentage, and on-base percentage in the AL, and led the league in doubles by a wide margin. 4 members of their lineup (Homerun Harry Davis, Danny Murphy, Topsy Hartsel, and Socks Seibold) had an OPS+ of 129 or higher. Once Monte Cross replaced John Knight in the lineup at SS, all the other batters had an OPS+ of 96 or higher. The team also stole 190 bases.
Christy Mathewson did just fine.
I think – at least anecdotally – it should be mentioned somewhere in the 2 articles that Schilling’s 2001 postseason ended with him walking off the field after just giving up the go ahead run late in game 7 of the world series.
He had an awesome postseason that year.
Then I think – at least anecdotally – it should be mentioned that the Series never would have gone to seven games if B.K. Kim had not blown Schilling’s masterful Game 4 performance by surrendering a two-run homer to Tino Martinez with two outs in the bottom of the ninth.
It should also be mentioned – at least anecdotally – that Bob Brenly had to grab Schilling on the dugout steps and prevent him from taking the mound in the bottom of the eighth inning – that was how the always classy Brenly informed Schilling that he was being removed from the game after just 88 pitches. In the post-game interviews, Schilling had to lie to the press and pretend that he was “fine” with Brenly’s decision and how it was handled. Unfortunately, the interaction between Brenly and Schilling in the dugout was captured by a Fox camera.
But I think – at least anecdotally – we should all thank Bob Brenly for being astoundingly dumb, because his horrible decision-making led to the most exciting Game 7 in World Series history. It takes a special kind of intelligence to pull your ace (or co-ace, as it were) after 88 pitches and witnessing him strike out Dave Justice on a 97 mph fastball on his last pitch. Granted, Schilling had thrown 98 mph to Justice earlier in the at bat, so perhaps Brenly had a sound basis for thinking Schilling was losing something off the fastball.
Great read, Brooks. Thank you. I’m stealing that as my own when arguing baseball 🙂
If BK had not blown two ninth inning, two out leads in consecutive nights, the series would have been over in five games, and Randy would not have shared MVP with Schilling.
And while we did get a very exciting game 7, it’s scary to think that a Yankee team that was outscored by more than 2-1 almost won that series.
I’m happy for Bumgartner getting all this attention for his post-season, if only because he’s kind of stuck as being the 2nd best West Coast lefty of his era.
Kershaw will never be able to match Bumgarner’s playoff stats, unless Madbum has a series of colossal meltdowns. Kershaw has a 5.12 ERA in 51 playoff innings in his career.
Yep, I know its small sample size and clutch doesn’t matter, but if big games in the postseason don’t matter then why do we pay so much attention? Because its the best part of baseball.
It’s not that clutch doesn’t matter. It’s that we’re not able to predict it, and/or it doesn’t look to be an especially repeatable skill. But getting a huge performance at a key time – it matters a lot, and as you rightly said, one of the best parts of the game!
I had a thought this morning: who’s the best pitcher of 2014? Before the playoffs began it would be absurd to suggest anyone other than Kershaw. But now you might say Bumgarner, no?
I mean, granted, Bum’s teammates are partly responsible for the number of extra games and innings he has over Kershaw, but on the other hand, Kershaw himself is partly responsible for not playing in more games (his negative WPA laps the field for any player this postseason).
Tom Tango has made a persuasive case for including guys’ postseason numbers in their career stats. And while I don’t totally agree, I do think it’s fair when evaluating who had a better year to include the postseason. And by that measure I think Bumgarner has a good case.
Here’s how they stack up (regular and postseason combined) –
Bum: 265 IP, 260 K, 49 BB, 24 HR, 2.99 R/9
Kershaw: 211 IP, 258 K, 33 BB, 12 HR, 2.26 R/9
Damn, that’s close. It’s tricky once you include Bumgarner’s edge in innings and leverage. Then again, the difference between Kershaw and Bumgarner, even including postseason, is a guy who gives up 5.83 runs/9 over 54 innings – below replacement level. That’s probably a vote for Kershaw.
Part of the reason why Kershaw’s WPA is so grossly negative is because of terrible management. In game 1, the guy was left in to throw to 8 batters in an inning. EIGHT! He threw 29 pitches that inning. The first 5 batters all reached base on 3 line drives and 2 not cheap ground balls. Allowing Kershaw to pitch to Carpenter for the 4th time in that game after throwing 21 pitches already in the inning and Carpenter having hit a HR the PA before that was simply idiotic (he probably shouldn’t have been pitching past Adams even though he got Kozma to K). Kershaw was done. He’s an amazing pitcher, but essentially having the game plan of “Kershaw will pitch until he either wins or loses the game for us” is moronic.
Then on short rest, Kershaw comes back out for the 7th having thrown 94 pitches already to face the 3-4-5 hitters for the 3rd time. Inning starts GB-single (not a cheapy) and line drive. Your short rest ace has thrown 100 pitches and has just given up 2 hits and still due to face a decent hitter, and now the go-ahead run is at the plate. When do you go to the bullpen exactly? Say he gets Adams out and Molina comes up (now maybe at 105 pitches and without the platoon advantage), does Mattingly even pull him then? Given the way things went in game 1, I doubt it. Mattingly’s only plan apparently was to let Kershaw pitch until he demonstrates beyond all doubt, by giving up gobs of runs, that he can no longer pitch.
Sure. I know the bullpen was bad for the Dodgers, but any fresh almost any fresh arm is probably better than Kershaw at that point. Sorry. I give Kershaw a pass on those games. In game 1, it was criminal usage. Then, in game 4, if it were on regular rest and had Kershaw not blown up 4 nights before in the 7th, it wouldn’t be so bad. But both as it was happening the results were predictably bad and when you step back now, it just looks even worse. Maybe the bullpen still blows those games, if they come in to pitch to Carpenter and Adams, but Kershaw was cooked. He needed to come out and was denied that.
Rhetorical question: how great does someone have to pitch before people figure out how to spell his name?
It doesn’t work that way – as McGwire got more illustrious/infamous, people seemed to forget how to spell his name. Some names (Strasburg is another) just fall through the holes in our brains…
Andrew McCutcheOn says hi!!
How can I blame the fans for misspelling my name, when I can’t always remember how to spell it myself?
Doug Mientkiewicz gets a chuckle out of this.
Did Doug Mienkiewicz ever give back the final game ball from 2004 or is it chillin’ in his den?
Bumgarner isn’t a common name, so I can understand why people would get confused. FYI, the actor James Garner was born James Bumgarner – reportedly, Warner Brothers pressed him to change it to Garner.
Bumgarner has been incredible, but it would take some serious mental gymnastics to call it close with Schilling right now.
The 2014 Royals scored 651 runs, and the 2001 Yankees scored 804(!).
The 2014 Pirates scored 682. The 2014 Nationals scored 686. The 2001 Cardinals scored 814 (Schilling shut them out in Game 1, allowed 1 ER in the CG in clinching Game Five). The 2001 Braves scored 729. Schilling pitched another complete game, his third in a row, to take the series lead 2-1.
Every team Schilling faced was dramatically better offensively than the best that Bumgarner has.
That’s not wrong, necessarily, but throwing out raw numbers like that doesn’t really support the argument. Offensive context matters, and in 2001 it was about as easy to score runs as it’s ever been in the expansion era.
well, that would seem to support the argument that giving up fewer runs in 2001 was harder to accomplish.
The difference in run environment is why Schilling had an ERA- of 25 while Bumgarner has one of 33
Yep. Plus Bumgarner has the benefit of his first start being in the play-in game.
Bumgarner pitched the wildcard and then NLDS G3, NLCS G1, G5, and WS G1, G5.
Schilling pitched NLDS G1, G5, NLCS G3 (Dbacks won in 5), and WS G1, G4, G7. And in his two no-decisions, he handed a lead and a tie to the pen.
Beckett’s 2007 post season only included 4 starts because the Sox won the World Series via sweep and Beckett only got one World Series start, but that was an equally absurd line, a whip of .7 and only 4ER over a 30 inning sample with 35ks against 2bbs.
I know this is a pre-catsup argument, but how cool would Bumgarner’s stats look if he had a big ketchup gash on his face?
Randy Johnson deserves extra credit for his 2001 performance.
He threw 7 innings and 104 pitches to win game 6, and comes back to pitch another 1 1/3 innings in relief the very next day to win game 7.
“If Bumgarner manages to throw a few more dominant relief innings in Game 7, then there really will be a case that his run this year will have surpassed Curt Schilling’s 2001 season as the best postseason pitching performance in the history of the game.”
wat
To try to put into perspective just how insane this assertion is, let’s call ‘a few dominant relief innings’ 7.1 to round Bumgarner’s final IP to an even 55. Out of 22 batters, let’s say Bumgarner strikes out, I don’t know, what’s a conservative figure here? Let’s just go with all 22.
New lines:
2001 Schilling: 48.1 IP, 3 HR, 7 BB+HBP, 56 SO, 1.97 FIP
2014 Bumgarner: 55 IP, 3 HR, 8 BB+HBP, 63 SO, 1.99 FIP
(If you look at FIP- it gets even worse. And that was comparing reliever and starter innings.)
I understand your point, but if Bumgarner faced 22 batters and struck out all 22 in game 7 of the World Series then you can throw those lines out the window. A 55/48 inning sample in the post-season is small enough that you don’t necessarily need saber-metrics to analyze performance. I know the sequence and situation in which a pitcher records outs is not predictive of future performance and is meaningless throughout the season, but for gods sake, there must be some sort of adjustment for rattling off 22 strike outs in a game 7 of a World Series.
You know he’s being crazy, over the top extreme to make a point, right?
MadBum, in all likelihood isn’t pitching more than another 2 innings in this WS, if any at all. If he K’s all six to earn the save, sure bonus points, but we do realize Shilling made 2 STARTS are short rest, right….more bonus points still go to Shilling.
To break into another topic:
Through all this, I think we’re selling Orel Hershiser short. He pitched in 5 games out of 12 (plus a short relief appearance). He averaged 8.5 innings per start while putting up those FIP-/ERA- numbers. Plus, 2 of those starts came against the one of the best teams in the last 30 years, the 1988-1990 Oakland A’s, in which he allowed 2 runs in 18 innings. On short rest, Orel came back out for Game 5 in order to pitch again in Game 7 if needed and pitched a 2-run, complete game.
In the NLCS that year he had a relief appearance in Game 4, after starting games 1 (8.1 IP, 2 R) and 3 (7IP, 3R, 1ER, and again GAME 3!?!?), and picked up the save, granted it was just one out, but then came back in game 7 for a complete game, shut out.
That man pretty much willed his team past two pretty serious power houses in the A’s and Mets. Forget this wild card BS, where you both get 1-2 extra games against lesser teams and you stand less of a chance of facing the best team in a long series, since someone else already got lucky and knocked them off for you. The A’s and Mets were offensive juggernauts of there day (http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=1988&month=0&season1=1988&ind=0&team=0,ts&rost=&age=&filter=&players=0), and he mowed them down like chumps.
MadBum, on the other hand faced the Nationals once, who had a good offense, but not up to the 1988 A’s or Mets, and he still put up his worst outing of the postseason. Coincidence? Not likely. Though he did do extremely well against he Pirates, a roughly equal offense to the Nationals, in the WC game. But from there, it was the Cards and Royals who are more or less average offensively.
So yeah, give me Shilling or Orel any day.
I’m really glad you mentioned Hershiser. I just rewatched Game 4 of the 1988 NLCS and his appearance in that game was legendary. He had pitched the day before, he was going to pitch in Game 7, but his team needed him and there he was. The pen has been taxed like crazy and I think he came in to replace Orosco, who obviously couldn’t be asked to get a righty out in that situation.
Lights out, clutch man. Stupid Hershiser.
At least from the 2001 Yankees’ perspective, it was Randy Johnson, and not Schilling, that beat them.
In 1968, Mickey Lolich had 3 complete game victories in the world series. In game 7, he was pitching on 2 days rest, and against Bob Gibson. He also helped his own cause in game 2 by hitting a home run.
I guess since there were no playoff games prior to the WS he doesn’t make it into the discussion of best postseasons with five starts of seven innings or more, but I agree with you — his World Series performance may have been the best ever. He had an ERA of 1.67 and a WHIP of 0.96 in those three complete games. Mindblowing.
Well, now Bumgarner has thrown 5 more scoreless innings. Five innings in relief on two days rest! Wow.
How about an update?
Dave, the version of this piece in Slate (congrats!) replaces the second table with a reprint of the first table. I thought it made no sense when I read it, so I was glad to find the original piece here.
That Christy guy sounds like a bum