Pitching triple crowns don’t wow me
This season in 2024, Chris Sale of the Atlanta Braves and Tarik Skubal of the Detroit Tigers are in great position to win the Pitching Triple Crown in the National League and American Leagues respectively. It’s nice I guess but consider me underwhelmed.
I don’t remember hearing or reading about Pitching Triple Crowns when I became a baseball fan in the 1960s. Did I just whiff on all the talk about Pitching Triple Crowns? I had to know and looked up on Wikipedia about Triple Crowns (baseball). Apparently, it was kind of a thing since New York Giant Johnny Antonelli tried (and failed) to make it a thing in 1954, although few if any paid attention to those that had accomplished the feat prior. There is no award handed out nor is there a ceremony for winning a Pitching Triple Crown.
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What is the Pitching Triple Crown?
A pitcher who leads the league in wins, strikeouts, and earned run average (ERA) is said to have won the “Pitching Triple Crown”. The term was previously defined as leading the league in wins, ERA, and winning percentage. It was used in that older sense to describe the (ultimately unsuccessful) pursuit of that goal by Johnny Antonelli of the New York Giants in 1954, also by Sandy Koufax in 1963. Koufax was first described as having won the Pitching Triple Crown in the current sense after his 1965 season, though the older sense continued to be used.
In contrast to the respective batting statistics, the Pitching Triple Crown statistics are more or less complementary, (for example, a pitcher who is especially proficient at striking out batters is likely to give up fewer earned runs, and consequently more likely to win games); therefore, the accomplishment is not as rare as the batting crown.
Maybe the more common occurrence is why I never heard about the Pitching Triple Crown? I was too young to be aware of Sandy Koufax’s amazing 1963 season when he accomplished the feat, and it had not happened since 1945 when the Tiger’s Hal Newhowser won both the MVP (his second straight), and the Pitching Triple Crown.
Many more Pitching Triple Crowns
In the modern era (since 1901) there have been 33 pitchers who’ve had pitcher triple crown winning seasons. There have been 15 Batting Triple Crown winners in the corresponding 123 years. This does not include Negro League players that achieved triple crowns for both hitting and pitching before and after baseball finally became integrated in 1947. A separate post will be forthcoming on their exploits.
The 33 Pitching Triple Crowns Since 1901
*source Baseball-Reference.com
Pitching Triple Crowns are three times more likely than Batting Triple Crowns
Pitchers win Pitching Triple Crowns at the rate of 26.8% of all seasons — a little better than one Pitching Triple Crown every four seasons. 10 of the 33 have occurred in the past 40 years which is only slightly better at 30.3%. There have been 10 Batting Triple Crowns overall and only four in the past 75 years.
But my lack of enthusiasm for Pitching Triple Crowns goes beyond their frequency in comparison to Batting Triple Crowns which as we all know constitute leading the league in home runs, runs batted in, and batting average. Having pitcher wins as a component doesn’t feel right as it’s overly dependent on the team’s performance. Skubal has recorded 16 of the 73 wins for the Tigers (22%) the same as the current runner-up Jose Berrios of the Blue Jays who has recorded 15 of the Blue Jay’s 68 victories.
WHIP (Walks plus hits per innings pitched) would be a better third metric to include with ERA and strikeouts. If that were to be the case this season, Skubal would fall behind the Mariner’s Logan Gilbert for WHIP as Gilbert over 185 innings plus has a WHIP of 0.88 compared to Skubal’s 0.95. Sale 1.00 would slip behind Phillies’ Zack Wheeler (0.96). The differences are small and I’ve yet to run the numbers on how many more (or less) Pitching Triple Crowns there would be if the third metric was WHIP instead of wins.
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With less than three weeks left to go in the season Sale’s lead in strikeouts is a thin one over the Padre’s Dylan Cease, (213 to 205), and Skubal’s even thinner lead (208 to 205) over the Royal’s Cole Ragans. Things could change and we may not have any Pitching Triple Crown winners this season.
The question is, would anybody notice? Or care?
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About the Author: Mark Kolier along with his son Gordon co-hosts a baseball podcast called ‘Almost Cooperstown’. He also has written baseball-related articles that can be accessed on Medium.com and Substack.com.
