As the Boston Red Sox play their 81st game today, marking the midpoint of the season, is Steven Wright on pace for the best season by a knuckleball pitcher ever? If not, who was better??
Wright’s 2016
The Red Sox will play their 81st game of the season this year, and as they hit the midpoint of the season, one of the biggest issues of their possible playoff contention (especially after the Angels put up 3 touchdowns on them last season) has been pitching. However, that’s not been due to Steven Wright, who’s been one of the most consistent pitchers in the major leagues this season.
So far, Wright has posted a 9-5 record with a 2.42 ERA, 1.19 WHIP, and 42/87 BB/K ratio over 108 innings this year. He is tied for the league lead with 3 complete games. He’s also posting a tremendous 189 ERA+ on the season.
I wanted to take a look at how Wright’s pace matched up with the best knuckleball pitchers of all time. First, I used the Wikipedia page to reference the entirety of the list of knuckleballers. I also have some other previous knowledge through reading Dickey’s book and articles by the Niekro brothers and Wakefield about some of the guys and when they actually switched to a knuckler in their career.
So, I’ll spoil the results right now for you. On bWAR, Wright is on pace for a 5 bWAR season. That would tie him for 15th (technically about 20th overall, but I only allowed one top season per pitcher). However, his 189 ERA+ that he is currently sporting (and it was 191 coming into his start on July 1st) would be the best ERA+ of any pitcher ever using the knuckleball as a primary pitch. In other words, though modern pitching rotations will likely mean Wright can’t pick up the 300 innings needed to compete for the best bWAR by a knuckler, he could be in the discussion for the best individual season ever!
Let’s take a look at some of those 15 guys who would have season with better bWAR, though, and we’ll start with the two elite guys who threw the pitch.
Next: The Two Elite All-Timers