Minor League Workhorses: 1951-1955
We took our first look at this phenomenon a few weeks ago, beginning with the period from 1946 through 1950. Now we’ll take another look at the most extreme workhorse pitchers in the minor leagues, this time from 1951 to 1955.
The Top 10 Innings Leaders
As we did last time, we’ve recorded the top 10 pitchers in innings pitched in each minor league classification each season. Averaging the stat lines of each of those top 10 innings-workload achievers from 1951 through 1955, this is what we get:
(EP = Estimated number of pitches)
Class AAA-Open: Class Year G GS CG IP W L H BB SO ERA EP AAA Avg.1946-50 40 ? 21 275 18 14 271 90 135 3.35 4310 AAA 1951 36 32 18 249 16 12 220 98 123 3.22 3912 AAA-Open 1952 40 34 20 270 18 14 238 79 135 2.76 4094 AAA-Open 1953 42 34 18 266 19 13 253 84 115 3.30 4094 AAA-Open 1954 39 34 17 258 17 13 229 101 162 3.15 4111 AAA-Open 1955 39 34 19 259 19 13 237 76 129 2.88 3956 AAA-Open Avg.1951-55 39 34 18 260 18 13 235 88 133 3.06 4033 Class AA: Class Year G GS CG IP W L H BB SO ERA EP AA Avg.1946-50 38 ? 18 246 18 11 233 88 125 3.09 3883 AA 1951 37 32 20 258 16 14 227 113 130 2.92 4123 AA 1952 38 31 19 256 18 12 234 80 109 2.82 3913 AA 1953 39 31 17 251 16 12 246 99 129 3.21 4036 AA 1954 40 31 15 246 17 12 237 99 149 3.89 3982 AA 1955 39 32 18 254 19 11 226 92 146 3.03 3985 AA Avg.1951-55 38 32 18 253 17 12 234 97 133 3.17 4008 Class A: Class Year G GS CG IP W L H BB SO ERA EP A Avg.1946-50 33 ? 19 235 17 9 213 93 177 2.76 3805 A 1951 36 31 21 254 18 12 223 103 156 2.95 4056 A 1952 40 31 22 268 18 14 263 109 160 3.46 4360 A 1953 41 31 21 264 18 15 279 98 115 3.77 4245 A 1954 37 31 21 254 18 11 227 101 157 3.07 4056 A 1955 33 29 19 229 16 10 216 91 141 3.15 3687 A Avg.1951-55 37 30 21 254 18 12 241 100 146 3.29 4081 Class B: Class Year G GS CG IP W L H BB SO ERA EP B Avg.1946-50 34 ? 23 243 16 12 225 106 161 3.44 3972 B 1951 39 ? 24 275 22 11 256 101 168 2.94 4371 B 1952 41 31 25 282 22 11 234 90 126 2.77 4245 B 1953 41 31 24 278 21 11 260 85 142 2.83 4285 B 1954 42 32 21 267 18 13 259 85 146 3.57 4188 B 1955 41 32 23 271 19 13 263 109 163 3.40 4388 B Avg.1951-55 41 31 23 274 20 12 254 94 149 3.10 4295 Class C: Class Year G GS CG IP W L H BB SO ERA EP C Avg.1946-50 39 ? 26 277 21 11 264 80 199 2.71 4348 C 1951 49 35 29 318 26 13 333 115 184 3.48 5152 C 1952 41 33 26 284 23 10 263 136 204 3.62 4734 C 1953 45 33 27 292 22 13 314 126 188 4.18 4896 C 1954 44 35 25 287 21 14 289 95 171 3.82 4570 C 1955 47 31 22 277 21 14 284 95 200 4.03 4498 C Avg.1951-55 45 33 25 291 23 13 297 113 189 3.82 4770 Class D: Class Year G GS CG IP W L H BB SO ERA EP D Avg.1946-50 41 ? 27 292 21 14 254 106 230 2.93 4656 D 1951 41 32 27 289 24 9 264 100 219 2.89 4613 D 1952 45 27 23 283 21 10 243 125 195 2.62 4585 D 1953 43 28 22 278 22 11 251 110 204 3.15 4485 D 1954 38 30 23 263 20 11 246 110 183 3.24 4295 D 1955 43 31 24 282 22 12 274 109 194 3.47 4589 D Avg.1951-55 42 30 24 279 22 11 256 111 199 3.07 4513
Remember that these figures represent the averages of the top 10 pitchers at each level; the highest individual workloads (which we’ll see below, as we did last time) were significantly greater than that.
Frankly, I was surprised to find these results. We saw in the 1946-50 period that it was routine for minor league pitchers to reach and far exceed workloads that modern major league aces never approach (and modern minor leaguers don’t even imagine beginning to approach). But I expected to find the beginning of the trend toward lower top-end workloads to appear in 1951-55, and it really doesn’t. In four of the six classifications, the average workloads were higher in 1951-55 than in the previous period. Perhaps only in Class A, with a noticeable dip in 1955, do we detect the start of a decrease.
The Minor League Reality of 1951-1955
This makes me all the more interested to find out what 1956-60 will reveal. Next time I’m really expecting the change in usage patterns to begin. But this data makes clear that in the early 1950s, the dramatic transformation in purpose and structure of the minor leagues hadn’t yet gotten underway. Instead, the manner in which we described the minor leagues of 1946-1950 still applies:
Certainly, one of the essential purposes of the minor leagues was to develop talented young prospects for major league teams. Every major league team had at least some form of a minor league “system” in place [in this period], and a few teams…had vast minor league organizations, far more extensive than those operated by any team today.
But even in those farm systems, developing young talent was not the only purpose, and not necessarily the primary purpose, of a minor league team. Making money was at least as important as developing talent, and the best way to go about making money was by winning games. Minor league baseball was a fiercely competitive enterprise on the field, because win-loss performance was a critical factor in the team’s bottom-line performance.
And [still in 1951-55], most minor league teams weren’t major league farm clubs. They were independent. Many employed some players contracted to major league organizations (on essentially a subcontracting basis), but many teams and entire leagues were completely unaffiliated with the majors.
But all was not well in the minor leagues in 1951-1955; far from it. The industry had clearly entered a period of crisis. In 1949, there were 59 minor leagues operating, and they drew a combined 42 million fans. By 1955, dire economic straits had withered the number of minor leagues down to 33, selling 19 million tickets.
Why?
Exactly what caused the minor league attendance crash of the 1950s is a question that was hotly debated then, and has been ever since. There’s little hope in fully comprehending a complex dynamic in a simple, neat little theory, but likely the best general explanation for what happened is as follows.
In the immediate aftermath of World War II, there was a pent-up demand for entertainment, and for servicemen returning from the traumatic experience of overseas combat the demand was especially intense for old-fashioned, quintessentially American entertainment, the kind of thing that evoked the soothing familiarity of boyhood—what better for this than baseball, whether the major or minor league variety? Combine this with a robust post-war economy, and the attendance boom that occurred in both the majors and the minors in the late 1940s doesn’t seem surprising.
But rapid change in the culture and economics of leisure continued and accelerated into the 1950s. Entrepreneurs witnessed the record-breaking success of the baseball business and quickly developed means to compete with it. Other sports—football and basketball in particular—blossomed at both the collegiate and professional levels, in breadth, capitalization and marketing savvy; by the mid-1950s, baseball was no longer the big-time team sport. Moreover, a range of other family-friendly amusements also proliferated, including auto racing, bowling and miniature golf.
And, of course, television’s impact can scarcely be overstated as a novel, inexpensive and pervasive competitor to live baseball, growing ever more popular with each passing year. Instead of going out and buying a ticket to watch bush league ballplayers, folks could not only watch Berle and Ball in the comfort of their living rooms, but also Musial and Mantle. It added up to serious trouble for the minor leagues.
Still Pitching to Win
But in 1951-1955, the economic crisis hadn’t yet resulted in a fundamental change in how most minor league teams played ball. Even having shrunk to 33 leagues in 1955, that still left a minor-to-major league ratio of more than 16-to-1. It remained the case that the great majority of minor league players weren’t realistic major league prospects; many were former major leaguers, and many more were career minor leaguers who were no longer young. Minor league games were still conducted not primarily for the purpose of developing young talent on the behalf of major league parent organizations, but instead for the purpose of competing for wins in order to sell tickets—perhaps even more intensely as the ticket-selling business struggled.
Thus the minor league ace pitchers we’re examining here were very often not youngsters, and even if they were they weren’t necessarily under contract to major league organizations. They were employees of minor league teams whose concern was winning games now, and indeed given the deepening economic difficulties, these minor league ball clubs likely had less concern for cautiously protecting arms than their major league counterparts.
The Very Top Workhorses: 1951-1955
Here are the very heaviest workload seasons among minor league pitchers in this period. This view does provide a suggestion that the workload standard was beginning to be reduced, given that for the 1946-1950 period, we counted 32 cases of a pitcher with a season exceeding 4,900 estimated pitches. In this five-year span, there were only 23 such pitcher-seasons. Lowering the limit to 4,800 estimated pitches, we find the following 29 cases:
Pitcher T Age Year League Class G GS CG IP W L H BB SO ERA EP Bill Stites R ? 1951 SW Inter. C 61 37 27 337 29 9 352 162 196 4.14 5683 Vince Gonzales L 25 1951 SW Inter. C 55 35 30 319 32 11 301 153 294 2.76 5434 Antonio Ponce R ? 1951 SW Inter. C 49 38 38 352 25 16 369 75 185 3.45 5393 Jim Tugerson R ? 1953 Mntn Sts. D 46 37 35 330 29 11 306 122 286 3.71 5377 Ron Smith R ? 1953 AZ-TX C 51 39 34 330 23 22 398 83 212 4.36 5355 Jack Venable R ? 1953 WTNM C 49 33 25 287 16 18 327 172 295 5.71 5309 Vince Gonzales L 26 1952 AZ-TX C 47 31 18 288 25 8 332 187 222 4.81 5308 Andy Pane L ? 1951 Sooner St. D 39 35 31 302 26 9 225 201 305 3.16 5295 Mike Conovan L ? 1952 Kitty D 47 30 24 281 20 12 212 224 345 3.46 5231 Eddie Jacome R ? 1951 Longhorn C 57 ? 29 338 28 13 406 65 114 3.72 5215 Carroll Dial R ? 1953 WTNM C 48 34 29 308 28 11 320 135 243 4.27 5212 Manuel Morales R ? 1951 SW Inter. C 45 38 29 322 24 12 326 127 165 3.30 5210 Guillermo Luna L ? 1951 SW Inter. C 47 34 27 314 26 13 259 132 318 2.52 5166 Eurice Treece R ? 1954 Tri-State B 51 36 29 314 26 15 329 121 181 3.64 5131 Larry Jackson R 21 1952 California C 43 36 30 300 28 4 250 144 351 2.85 5114 Marv Holleman L ? 1954 Evangeline C 45 36 31 314 21 17 292 142 159 3.66 5092 Dean Franks R ? 1951 Longhorn C 44 ? 30 311 30 9 326 119 162 3.43 5052 Jim Peete L ? 1955 AZ-Mexico C 45 32 25 287 24 11 237 166 332 3.30 5034 Taylor Phillips L 19 1952 GA-FL D 46 ? 24 297 21 10 202 182 265 1.40 5005 Gustavo Bello R ? 1951 SW Inter. C 46 36 24 314 25 13 412 61 111 4.67 4970 Norm Hughes R ? 1955 FL State D 65 24 11 302 18 16 291 145 142 3.90 4961 Chris Nicolosi R ? 1952 AZ-TX C 44 33 23 283 17 14 307 159 172 5.15 4947 Marv Holleman L ? 1953 Evangeline C 38 32 30 283 24 10 301 166 132 4.22 4906 Armin Somonte L ? 1951 Sooner St. D 41 29 26 289 24 11 242 130 341 2.82 4886 Amador Guzman R ? 1953 AZ-TX C 44 37 24 297 19 16 341 107 126 4.49 4843 Ken Hemphill R ? 1951 Sooner St. D 47 30 23 297 27 10 268 109 265 2.91 4822 Vince Gonzales L 27 1953 AZ-TX C 44 32 25 275 22 12 279 138 276 4.18 4816 Carroll Dial R ? 1955 WTNM B 50 34 27 296 20 15 301 114 171 3.55 4807 Ken Kimball R ? 1952 Pioneer C 37 33 31 291 26 8 242 149 203 2.69 4804
In the major leagues in 1951 through 1955, there was one 5,000-estimated-pitch season (Robin Roberts with 5,147 in 1953), and two others that exceeded 4,800 (Roberts at 4,872 in 1954, and Warren Spahn at 4,838 in 1951). Minor league aces were clearly being worked harder than big leaguers.
As in the 1946-50 period, very few of these guys made the majors, and so I don’t have a source to determine their ages. The three who did reach the big leagues represent an interesting cross-section:
– Vince Gonzales was a Cuban who, after a staggeringly impressive run of seasons in extremely high-scoring leagues in the desert Southwest, got a one-game sip of coffee at age 29 with the Washington Senators in 1955.
– Taylor Phillips had this monster season as a 19-year-old, but no other minor league performances that were remotely comparable: his next-highest minor league innings pitched total was 167. After missing both 1954 and 1955 to military service, he was promoted to the Milwaukee Braves in mid-1956 at age 23. He looked to be a pretty good prospect and got a shot as a front-line starter with the Cubs in 1958, but he never panned out in the majors.
– Larry Jackson, following this spectacular year at age 21, progressed up the St. Louis Cardinals’ chain and was a full-time major leaguer by 1955. He went on to a long and successful career as a consistent and remarkably durable workhorse; he led the majors in both innings pitched (282) and estimated pitches (4,347) in 1960, and was a four-time All-Star. When he retired from baseball to go into politics at the age of 37, Jackson was still entirely healthy and going very strong, and he could easily have far exceeded the total of 3,263 major league innings he achieved.
As for the rest of these pitchers, who knows? Almost all of these seasons were compiled in the low minors, and it’s reasonable to infer that few (if any) were considered serious major league prospects. Probably many were examples of a specimen long vanished from the American baseball scene: career low-minor league strikeout-king stars, small-town drawing-card celebrities. I wish I could have seen some of these guys pitch.
One interesting thing to observe is the high proportion of these seasons that were achieved in the ultra-high-offense leagues that abounded across hot-and-arid West Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and northern Mexico in those years. Another is the surprisingly high proportion of these workhorses with Hispanic names, who were presumably mostly Mexicans or Cubans. I’m not certain what to make of the cultural implications of this, but they are intriguing.
Something Else Interesting
In compiling these lists, I ran across several guys who were used in pitching patterns I have never seen before and didn’t see in the 1946-1950 period. Check these guys out:
Pitcher T Age Year League Class G GS CG IP W L H BB SO ERA EP Cecil Hutson R ? 1952 FL State D 67 11 8 270 21 10 251 71 126 2.57 4081 Cecil Hutson R ? 1953 GA State D 75 6 4 265 17 12 246 98 156 3.46 4208 Norm Hughes R ? 1955 FL State D 65 24 11 302 18 16 291 145 142 3.90 4961 Joe Drach R ? 1955 FL State D 54 17 10 284 14 12 263 106 142 3.01 4476
Primarily-to-almost-exclusively relief pitchers, yet with extremely high innings pitched totals: a fascinating manner of deploying the relief ace, in frequent very-long stints, a true workhorse reliever. This was entirely novel, and it’ll be interesting to see if I find more instances beyond 1955, but it certainly wasn’t an approach that ever really caught on.
Next time I work up the stamina to delve into the old Baseball Guides again, we’ll explore 1956-1960.
References & Resources
Estimated Pitches are calculated using Tangotiger’s Basic Pitch Count Estimator (3.3*PA + 1.5*SO + 2.2*BB), where (PA = 3*IP + H + BB).
The “AAA-Open” designation for 1952-55 includes the classification that the Pacific Coast League held in 1952-1957. As it lobbied to achieve major league status, the PCL was granted unique “Open Classification” status by the National Association. The American Association and International League both remained “AAA” classifications. See Paul J. Zingg and Mark D. Medeiros, Runs, Hits, and an Era: The Pacific Coast League, 1903-1958, Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994.