Bad Luck Beebe
Plus: Day in Review, May 24, 1908
Bad Luck Beebe
How unlucky can you get?
Fred Beebe had an awesome year in 1908. It’s not his fault that he played for what is arguably the worst offensive team of all time.
We’ll talk more a little later about the pathetic 1908 St. Louis Cardinals offense. Let’s focus on Fred.
Here is his line in real life in 1908:
Now, we need some context for these stats, since 1908 is a lot different than 2024. According to Baseball Reference, pitchers in 1908:
Averaged 2.6 walks per 9 innings
Gave up 7.7 hits per 9 innings on average
Had a 2.33 ERA on average
Had an average WHIP (walks plus hits allowed per inning pitched) of 1.142
Beebe is the sort of pitcher who exposes your grading philosophy in the APBA system. He’d have a less than average APBA grade using the traditional system, which puts an emphasis on ERA and won-loss records. However, if you use a system based on hits allowed (such as the CMBA system), he looks pretty good: 6.9 hits allowed per 9 against the league average of 7.7.
Skeetersoft NPIII uses batting average against to grade pitchers. This is the grade Beebe got:
A grade of 14 makes little sense outside of its context, so I’ll explain it briefly.
J. Richard Seitz created a 30 point grading system for the famous APBA Master Game back in 1976. Seitz’ system was inelegant, however, and resulted in a number of pitchers with extremely dominant grades. Skeetersoft uses the same grading scale, but with a completely different pitching system. In fact, if you want more granular detail about how the system works, I made a video about it a few months back:
Now, context is the thing that matters the most in NPIII — especially context compared to the rest of the league. You can’t just look at the number and know if it’s a good grade or not, since the hit numbers each pitcher faces from season to season varies. Having played a few hundred games, I can assure you that a grade of 14 is quite good in the 1908 National League, and makes Beebe one of the better starting pitchers in the entire league.
This is how he’s fared:
That looks excellent, right? A 1.43 ERA, a 1.19 WHIP, a batted against average of .207 — Beebe looks like a great pitcher.
His record? Bad Luck Beebe is 2-7.
And he lost this one.
It’s not that Frank Corridon was a great pitcher. No. The Cardinals simply can’t score any runs.
Philadelphia managed 8 hits off Beebe, which is no simple task.
Now, Beebe’s biggest weakness is his walks, which you can see from the W grade above. If you want to know more about what that means, check out this video:
Beebe allowed 3.4 walks per 9 innings in 1908; the league allowed only 2.6 per 9 on average. As a result, Beebe wound up with the “W” rating, which means he will issue more walks than the average pitcher. He issued 6 in that game against the Phillies, and they certainly hurt him a lot more than the hits he gave up.
With 36 walks issued in 88 full innings pitched, Beebe’s currently averaging 3.9 per 9 innings. I’m sure the average will come down a tad as I continue to roll the dice.
His record, however, probably won’t get much better.
And that’s the magic of NPIII — where a man can look like a good pitcher, and yet still not win.
Other Games
Giants 6, Cubs 0: Christy Mathewson improves to 10-0 as the Giants make short work of the Cubs in Chicago. Watch the game here.
Reds 3, Superbas 1: The Reds, who have been awful this year, managed to push one by the Superbas at home. Read the summary here
Phillies 2, Cardinals 1: At St. Louis, see above.
Standings
