Historical Travesties No One Remembers: Phil Niekro, the Uncrowned Winner of the NL Nonuple Crown

First things first: The word "nonuple" means "units of nine". Single, double, triple, quadruple, quintuple etc. In 1979 the world was witness to one of the most mind blowing seasons ever put together. 40 year old knuckle baller Phil Niekro lead the NL in 9 categories. NINE. And while not all of these categories were ones you'd want to lead the league in, the mere fact that he did it is amazing. He managed to lead the league in 9 categories while playing on an absolutely awful Braves team that lost 94 games. So sit back and take this in, and then try to imagine it happening in modern baseball. No way in HELL the world will ever see another season like the one Phil had in '79.

Phil lead the league in starts with 44. Now, even though at the time most teams only had a 4 man rotation with a 5th man being used as a spot starter/long reliever, this number is still pretty amazing when weighed in comparison to todays starting pitchers who usually make between 30-34 starts, barring injury. Even more amazing is the fact that the Eddie Solomon finished second on the Braves in starts with 30. Phil Niekro took the mound 14 times more than any other starter on his team. Again, that's something we'll never see again. Sure, a lot of that had to do with him being a knuckle baller and being able to start on 3 days rest, but it's still kinda mind boggling. A 40 year old starting nearly 1/3rd of his teams games is pretty amazing.

In those 44 starts Phil won a league leading 21 games. Of course, as we've learned over the years, there are numerous better ways to judge the value of a pitcher than by their amount of wins. In this case, Phil was the winning pitcher in 21 of the Braves 66 wins. Again, pretty amazing. Here's where it gets crazy: In his 44 starts he LOST 20 games, good enough to lead the NL. HE WON AND LOST 20 GAMES IN THE SAME SEASON. Again, something we'll never, ever see again. Sure, you don't really WANT to lose 20 games, but if you're going to do it what better time to do it than when you also win 20? Incredible. That also means that he only had 3 no-decisions in his 44 starts.

In those 44 starts Phil went the entire way in 23 of them. 23 complete games. 23 games where the bullpen had the night off. 23 games where his 40 year old ass threw every pitch for his team. Again, something we'll never see again. And if he lead the league in starts and complete games, it's pretty obvious he also lead the league in innings pitched. In fact, he threw a league leading 342 innings (or nearly double the innings Rich Harden threw in his "healthiest" season) marking the 3rd consecutive season he lead the league in innings pitched. Knuckle baller or not, that is an absolute butt load of innings to throw, and the fact that he did it at the age of 40 makes it that much more impressive.

So far we have games started, wins, losses, complete games, and innings pitched. 4 of those 5 are categories you'd be proud to lead the league in, and if you're Brian Kingman, losing 20 games is actually a badge of honor. The last 4 categories Phil lead the league in are a tad... dubious. It stands to reason that when you pitch a lot of innings that you'll face a lot of batters. When you face a lot of batters you're going to give up a lot of hits. In his 342 innings pitched, Phil Niekro gave up a mind blowing 311 hits, a number that you'll never see again. Of those 311 hits, 41 of them were homers, yet another league leading number. He also walked 113 batters and had 11 wild pitches to round out the 8th and 9th jewels in the Nonuple Crown. I guaran-damn-tee we will never see a player lead the league in 9 categories. For putting up one of the truly most unique seasons ever, Phil Niekro finished 6th in the '79 NL Cy Young voting, behind winner Bruce Sutter (weakest Hall of Fame pitcher, imo), his less talented brother Joe, a pre-heart attack JR Richard, Tom Seaver and the popsicle scarfing Pirates closer, Kent Tekulve. I'm not saying Phil should have won it that year, but shit, man, he should have won SOMETHING for that. Like, a medal or the keys to the city or something. Oh well. Ultimately things worked out for Phil, who continued to be a solid starter until age 47 and retired at age 48. In 1997 the BBWAA pulled their heads out of their collective asses and elected him to the Hall of Fame. A fitting end to the author of one of the most WTF? seasons ever.

Historical Travesties No One Remembers: Fred Lynn Not Winning the '79 AL MVP

Fred Lynn is one of those guys who was really, really good for a short period of time and then became just pretty good for a much longer period of time. That's why he's not in the Hall of Fame, although it can be argued that the HoF is chock full of guys who fit that very description. Fred was drafted by the BoSox in '73, made his Major League debut in '74 and in '75 he won the Rookie of the Year, AL Gold Glove AND the AL MVP awards. That's pretty good, but that was literally just the tip of the iceberg. Starting in '75 and running through '83, Fred played in 9 consecutive All Star Games and won 4 Gold Gloves. His finest season came in 1979 when he hit a career high 39 homers and his slash line of .333/.423/.637 lead the league in BA/OBP/SLG and resulted in an incredible 1.059 OPS and a WAR of 8.4. And if you have no clue what any of those stats mean, well, get yourself over to Baseball-Reference and learn something already! So, with an amazing season like that you'd assume he was the run away AL MVP that year, right? Nope. Runner up? Negative. Surely he finished 3rd, right? No, for his Herculean 1979 campaign Fred Lynn finished 4th in the AL MVP voting that year. Now, it should be noted that this happened back in the day when advanced metrics weren't really a widely known thing and people still placed a lot of weight in basically meaningless stats like RBI's and a pitchers won/loss record. Of the 3 men who finished ahead of Fred in the voting that year, the only one who you can make a legit claim to having had a better or comparable season is George Brett. Brett finished 3rd in the voting and lead the AL in triples and finished just behind Lynn in BA with a .329 effort. Fred probably wouldn't have lost any sleep if he finished second to George. The real crime is in the winner and runner up in the voting.

Orioles rightfielder Ken Singleton was the MVP runner up, hitting 35 homers and a BA/OBP/SLG/OPS of .295/.405/.533/.938, numbers all bested by Lynn. Hell, Brett beat him in BA, SLG and OPS. Singleton posted a WAR of 5.3, which was also behind both Lynn and Brett (albeit at different positions). Singleton certainly had a very good season, but by nearly all metrics, he was inferior to both Fred Lynn and George Brett. 5th place finisher Jim Rice also had a better season than Singleton. And despite all that, Singleton still had a better season than the actual AL MVP in '79.

I don't want this to sound like I'm picking on Don Baylor, because I really don't mean for it to sound that way. I always loved watching him play and I was lucky enough to watch him end his career as a member of the '88 Oakland A's. He sure knew how to get hit by a pitch. He wasn't a bad player by any means, but he sure as hell wasn't the Most Valuable Player of the American League in 1979, either. He didn't have a bad season by any stretch of the imagination, hitting a career high 36 homers and putting up a decent slash line of .296/.371/.530/.901. Again, these are numbers that were all beaten by Lynn. The only numbers that he actually outperformed Fred in were games played (162 to 147), runs scored (120 to 116) and RBIs (139 to 122). Again, this was back before people realized that RBIs were not a good way of gauging a hitters value and before numbers like on-base percentage were given any credit for being far more accurate in terms of judging performance. Baylor also posted a solid WAR of 4.4, 4 whole wins behind Lynn and 4.3 behind Brett. So in the end Don Baylor ended up with 20 of the 28 first place votes and ran away with the damned thing. Fred Lynn received zero first place votes. One of the finest non-steroid hitting performances is now a historical footnote. The greatest promise of the nerd revolution is the possibility that miscarriages of justice like this may not happen as often in future.