A lot of weird things went down in 1985. Coke debuted New Coke. A bunch of rich and famous people thought recording "We Are the World" would make things not suck so much in Africa. The animated terrorists Calvin and Hobbes began their lengthy reign of atrocities against humor. Yet all these things pale in comparison to career journeyman John Tudor putting up one of the most unexpected seasons in MLB history. Coming into that year Tudor had been more or less an average starting lefty. He was just your average, slightly better than .500 dude who you could rely on to give you about 200 innings, not too many walks and not a lot of strikeouts. Essentially, you could do worse than pre-'85 John Tudor, but you could also do a helluva lot better. After 5 years with the Red Sox and one with the Pirates, Tudor was traded to the Cardinals. This Cards team wasn't exactly loaded offensively. Jack Clark lead the team in homers with 22, but was really their only power hitter as his next closest teammate was Andy Van Slyke with a meager 13 bombs. This team managed to win 101 games with running and pitching. They had 5 starting position players with over 30 steals (Vince Coleman- 110, Willie McGee- 56, Andy Van Slyke- 34, Ozzie Smith & Tommy Herr- 31). They got a 21 win season out of noted ass hat Joaquin Andujar and a career high 18 wins out of the unheralded Danny Cox, but the real story was in how Tudor came out of obscurity and blew away NL hitters. He went 21-8 with an ERA of 1.93. His WHIP was a mere .938, and he lead the league with 10 shutouts. TEN. SHUT OUTS. From a guy who had previously been as mediocre as one can get. The Cards ended up losing the World Series to the Kansas City Royals and Tudor finished second to the cocaine-fueled Dwight Gooden in the Cy Young voting. John didn't even make the All Star team that year. In '86 he went a more believable 13-7. In '87 he started having arm problems, and while he was still a solid pitcher, he was nowhere near the force he was in '85. So how did John Tudor's amazing 1985 season come to be? Steroids? Luck? Deal with devil? My guess is a combination of the 3. This is why I wish there was a way to go back and figure out things like BABIP and FIP for past seasons just to see how lucky he was that season. Here's to you, John Tudor, for having one of the greatest WTF? seasons one can ever imagine.
rest assured there are people somewhere going back through time to figure that shit out Harpo. I can guarantee it.
ReplyDeleteSomehow, I have absolutely no memory of this guy whatsoever. Thank you, Harpo, for your service.
ReplyDeleteWith Wainright's injury and the resulting flood of despondent talk-radio call-ins, one of the locals Panglossians that host these shows said something along the lines of "But nobody expected John Tudor's season in '85!" as evidence that the Cardinals still have a legitimate chance of a sucessfull season. Presumably, this man made his fortune on a scratch-off ticket.
ReplyDeleteBut on the other hand, isn't a Penant-winning season by any team except for the Yankees and maybe a handful of other big-market teams full of similar situations?
ReplyDeleteTudor was actually a very solid pitcher. Arm trouble plus a freak broken leg when Barry Lyons went into the dugout limited his innings late in his career. As he was never a power pitcher of any sort (he had an excellent change-up) and never very muscular, saying he was on something unusual is ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteThe most amazing thing about Tudor's 1985 season--he got off to a terrible start and lost 7 of his first 8 decisions. Then he spoke to his college catcher, who noticed the timing in his windup was off. Must have been good advice--he won 20 of his next 21 decisions, and half of those wins were shutouts. He even had a no-decision where he left a 0-0 game after the tenth inning.
ReplyDeleteTwo other awesome things about Tudor:
1. He didn't want right-handed hitters turning on his breaking ball, so he never threw them one. Nearly 1800 innings pitched in the majors, and he never threw a breaking ball to a righty--just changed speeds.
2. In his final season, he threw a shutout without topping 73 mph on the radar gun.
Still Dwight won the Cy. Deserved it I guess
ReplyDeleteTudor did not take steroids in 1985 you dope. Get a clue.
ReplyDeleteHe might have had a big season in 87 had his leg not been broken. He still got 10 wins with under 100 innings pitched. And I think Gooden started using cocaine in 86.
ReplyDelete