Decisions, Decisions: Eric Gagné's Cy Young

As I’ve noted before, for about 20 years there was a fascination with relief pitchers across baseball. It began right around the time Mike Marshall became the first reliever to win the Cy Young Award in 1974, and ended at roughly the same time Dennis Eckersley was winning both the Cy Young and the MVP in 1992. Managers, fans, and writers seemed captivated by the firemen who would come in and save the game, helped by the fact that the statistic used to track the number of times they did it is literally called “saves.”

At the outset of that stretch, the best relievers routinely pitched multiple innings each outing. Starting with Marshall’s Cy Young season, these are the average innings per outing of the save leaders each year:

• 1974: Marshall, 1.97; Terry Forster, 2.28

• 1975: Al Hrabosky, 1.50, and Rawly Eastwick, 1.55 (tied); Rich Gossage, 2.28

• 1976: Eastwick, 1.52; Sparky Lyle, 1.62

• 1977: Rollie Fingers, 1.70; Bill Campbell, 2.03

• 1978: Fingers, 1.60; Gossage, 2.13

• 1979: Bruce Sutter, 1.63; Marshall, 1.59

• 1980: Sutter, 1.70; Gossage, 1.55, and Dan Quisenberry, 1.71 (tied)

• 1981: Sutter, 1.71; Fingers, 1.66

• 1982: Sutter, 1.46; Quisenberry, 1.90

• 1983: Lee Smith, 1.57; Quisenberry, 2.01

• 1984: Sutter, 1.73; Quisenberry, 1.80

• 1985: Jeff Reardon, 1.39; Quisenberry, 1.54

• 1986: Todd Worrell, 1.40; Dave Righetti, 1.44

• 1987: Steve Bedrosian, 1.37; Tom Henke, 1.31

Let me stop there to offer a couple of thoughts. First, we really, really, really need to re-evaluate the remarkable career of Dan Quisenberry. The only people on the list three times or more are Fingers, Gossage, Sutter, and Quisenberry, and only Quiz isn’t in the Hall of Fame despite a career that’s a near mirror-image of Sutter’s. It’s a damn shame.