Baseball is, under normal circumstances, a marathon of a sport.
There is baseball in February as the dreary Arizona mornings drag shivering clouds low, introducing them as a misguided offering of peace to the dirt it spent all summer baking, the dirt it will soon betray again. There is baseball as you breathe in the refrigerated air, and it spreads through your blood until you glumly accept that you will just be cold today. There is baseball as the skies clear, the cloud offerings are rescinded and the sun begins its annual trickery. You are happy to see it at first; you take time out of your day to go outside and spend time with it, like a new romance after a long and lonesome winter. There is baseball when you remember how overbearing that sun can be, when you begin to avoid eye contact and stay out of sight as much as possible while its withering gaze burns with the rage of the jilted. There is baseball as the trees begin to abandon their year’s work and the sky begins to apologize for its temper. There is — if you’re lucky — baseball when your scarf emerges from its hiding place and your jacket convinces you to let it tag along.
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Baseball is, under normal circumstances, here more than it is not here.
That has been one of the guiding premises of this exercise. If this were the top ten moments by a Rangers starting pitcher, the list would look very different. Cole Hamels closing out the Angels on the final day of the 2015 season. Kenny Rogers and the only perfect game in franchise history. Colby Lewis and Derek Holland in October. All larger-than-life, sure, but if we’re ranking seasons, we have to consider the whole of them: from the chilly shaking-off of winter (in Florida until 2003) through the doom-scorch of Texas summers, and through, in a very few cases, to October.
This was a much more grueling process to parse, given the sheer numbers. As a result, we not only have 10 different pitchers in the top 10 spots, but we also have an unprecedented 10 honorable mentions. I’ll try to keep them short.
Honorable Mentions:
- Cliff Lee, 2010: 4-6, 3.98 (1.6 bWAR) – would’ve been a slam-dunk based on postseason but played first half in Seattle and didn’t dominate in the regular season.
- Tommy Hunter, 2010: 13-4, 3.73 (2.7 bWAR) – .765 winning percentage is best full-season mark ever for Rangers starters (11+ starts).
- Derek Holland, 2011: 16-5, 3.95 (2.6 bWAR) – trails only Hunter with .762 winning percentage. Threw four shutouts and pitched the greatest postseason game in franchise history.
- Nolan Ryan, 1990: 13-9, 232 Ks, (3.5 bWAR) – Sixth no-hitter, 300th win, led league in strikeouts (232). Everything Ryan did around this time was larger than life.
- Ryan Drese, 2004: 14-10, 4.20 (5.1 bWAR) – 4.9 pitching WAR was good for fifth in the AL in an era where runs were, uhh… up.
- Kenny Rogers, 2000: 13-13, 4.55 (5.1 bWAR) – faced more hitters (998) than anyone and won first of five Gold Gloves
- Nolan Ryan, 1991: 12-6, 2.91 (5.2 bWAR) – pitched his seventh no-hitter at the age of 44 while leading the league in WHIP (1.006)
- Fergie Jenkins, 1978: 18-8, 3.04 (5.5 bWAR) – 16 complete games and allowed 1.5 walks per nine innings with a 3.83 K/BB rate, both league-bests
- Matt Harrison, 2012: 18-11, 3.29 (5.7 bWAR) – was just 26 in the last full season he ever pitched before back injuries derailed his career
- Gaylord Perry, 1976: 15-14, 3.24 (5.8 bWAR) – pitched 250⅓ innings at age 37, which isn’t as remarkable as the fact he won the NL Cy Young two years later in San Diego
10. Charlie Hough, 1985 — 14-16, 3.31 ERA, 1.123 WHIP, 128 ERA+ 14 CG, 250⅓ IP, 141 Ks, 83 walks, 6.3 bWAR
This is the “2010 Cy Young Award winner Felix Hernández” of names on this list — Hough makes it into the top ten despite carrying a losing record in the 1985 season. When you consider that the team finished 62-99 (and that Mike Mason had the second-most wins on the team with a mere eight), it comes into clearer focus. Hough was good in spite of the ’85 Rangers. His 1.123 WHIP was the best of his career in years where he was primarily a starter.
9. Bert Blyleven, 1977 — 14-12, 2.72 ERA, 1.065 WHIP, 151 ERA+, 15 CG, 234⅔ 182 Ks, 69 walks, 5.8 bWAR
Blyleven had four top-10 Cy Young finishes in his Hall of Fame career. None of those came in his two-year stint in Texas, but the right-hander did pitch the second no-hitter in Rangers history, blanking the Angels in his final start as a Ranger before being traded to the Pirates that winter in a spaghetti-bowl four-team deal that brought Al Oliver, Jon Matlack and Nelson Norman to Texas.
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8. Kenny Rogers, 1995 — 17-7, 3.38 ERA, 1.288 WHIP, 144 ERA+, 208 IP, 140 Ks, 76 walks, 5.8 bWAR (All-Star)
This is a good season by any measure. Factor in that it came in a campaign shortened to 144 games, and it becomes even more remarkable. Rangers manager Johnny Oates found a way to shoehorn Rogers into 31 starts in the shortened season, and the lefty responded.
7. Nolan Ryan, 1989 — 16-10, 3.20 ERA, 1.086 WHIP, 124 ERA+, 239⅓ IP, 301 Ks, 98 walks, 6 CG 5.1 bWAR (CY-5, MVP-23)
Photo: Rich Pilling/MLB via Getty ImagesIt’s not an exaggeration to say that signing Nolan Ryan was one of the most pivotal moments in establishing the Texas Rangers on a national stage, so that context probably vaults Ryan past a few of the remarkable honorable mentions on the list. One of the moments that cemented it was his 5,000th strikeout, a feat no other pitcher in the sport has matched. But his inclusion here isn’t just because of a moment; his 301 strikeouts in ’89 are still a franchise record, and his 11.3 K/9 were a high mark in a career that was defined by strikeouts.
Of note: baseball-reference and FanGraphs differ pretty widely on Ryan’s 1989 season. Ryan earned just 5.1 bWAR this season, but his fWAR is 7.0 — his second-best season, trailing only 1973 (8.7).
6. Yu Darvish, 2013 — 13-9, 2.83 ERA, 1.073 WHIP, 145 ERA+, 209⅔ IP, 277 Ks, 80 walks, 5.5 bWAR (CY-2, MVP-22)
Darvish began his 2013 campaign on April 2 in Houston by retiring 26 consecutive batters before Marwin Gonzalez ruined everyone’s good time. Darvish didn’t reach Ryan’s 301-strikeout mark in 2013, but his 11.9 K/9 did outpace the Hall of Famer’s 1989 season (both led the league in their respective years). By the end of June, the right-hander was 8-3 with a 2.80 ERA and appeared destined to end higher up on this list, but four consecutive losses in late August through mid-September knocked him back to the eighth position.
5. Ken Hill, 1996 — 16-10, 3.63 ERA, 1,376 WHIP, 145 ERA+, 7 CG, 3 SHO 250⅔ IP, 170 Ks, 95 BB, 6.6 bWAR (CY-6)
By the time Hill took the mound in Texas for the first time, he was in his ninth big-league season, having gone from the Cardinals to the Expos, back to the Cardinals, then traded to Cleveland the year before. Hill, outperforming teammate Pedro Martinez, had very nearly led the Expos to the playoffs in 1994 before the strike clobbered the season.
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He didn’t have to wait long to rectify the situation — after a World Series trip with Cleveland in 1995, Hill led Texas to their first-ever postseason appearance in 1996. His 6.6 bWAR led the way for the ’96 Rangers, outperforming even such names as Pudge Rodriguez (6.1), Rusty Greer (5.4), Mark McLemore (4.3) and Juan González (3.8).
4. Jon Matlack, 1978 — 15-13, 2.27 ERA, 1.122 WHIP, 165 ERA+, 18 CG, 270 IP, 157 Ks, 51 walks, 6.2 bWAR
It’s kind of remarkable that the former Mets rookie of the year (1972) didn’t get any love at all from voters — neither All-Star nor down-ballot Cy Young — in 1978. His 2.27 ERA trailed only Ron Guidry (1.74), and he finished in the top 10 in a vast majority of statistical categories. Remarkably, he’s also the only person on this list who recorded a save in the season represented: After a six-day break at the end of June, Matlack pitched the final three innings of a 6-3 win over the Angels on July 1. Four days later, he pitched a complete game, beating the Yankees 3-2.
Photo: Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports3. Lance Lynn, 2019 — 16-11, 3.67 ERA, 3.13 FIP, 1.219 WHIP, 141 ERA+, 208⅓ IP, 246 Ks, 59 walks, 7.5 bWAR (CY-5)
Lynn’s 246 strikeouts were good for third-most by any Rangers pitcher ever, trailing just 2013 Darvish and 1989 Ryan. After a rough start in which he allowed 21 earned runs in 34⅔ innings (5.45) in March and April, the Indiana native changed up his pitch sequencing and put the hammer down in May and made the Rangers’ three-year, $30 million gamble look like an absolute steal, ultimately finishing fifth in Cy Young voting. Which means that voters might disagree when they see who finished just ahead of him…
2. Mike Minor, 2019 — 14-10, 3.59 ERA, 1.238 WHIP, 144 ERA+, 208⅓ IP, 200 Ks, 68 walks, 7.7bWAR (All-Star, CY-8)
Other than a slight bump headed into the trading deadline, Minor didn’t really have any slumps in 2019. He did finish well short of Lynn’s strikeout total, but he did cross the 200-K mark … though not without some controversy, as Ronald Guzmán intentionally dropped what would have been the final out of Minor’s last outing so that the southpaw could hit the mark.
1. Fergie Jenkins, 1974 — 25-12, 2.82 ERA, 1.008 WHIP, 126 ERA+ 29 CG, 6 SHO, 328⅓ IP, 225 K, 45 walks, 1.2 BB/9, 5.0K/BB, 7.8 bWAR (CY-2, MVP-5)
Twenty-nine complete games?! The Rangers have never had a Cy Young award winner, but Jenkins in 1974 was as close as they’ve come:
stats by baseball-reference.comThe slight wasn’t as egregious (in my mind) as Rúben Sierra’s 1989 MVP finish, but given that Jenkins beat Hunter in MVP voting – fifth and sixth, respectively, behind Fergie’s teammate Jeff Burroughs – and Jenkins’ strikeouts (225) heavily outweighed Hunter’s (143), there’s a real argument to be made that he should have taken home the prize in 1974.
If you really want to go for it, Jenkins’ 7.8 bWAR that season was second-best in the AL, so maybe he should have taken home both awards. Or maybe they should have gone to Gaylord Perry, who logged 8.5 bWAR and finished fourth and 17th in the two contests.
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But we can relitigate the 1974 award season some other time. For now, Jenkins finishes in first place on this list, which has turned into something of a marathon of its own.
By the time it’s done, we will have pored over 48 years of Rangers baseball, a teeming mass of numbers that include over 1,100 players — nearly 600 pitchers — and presented you with the best 130 seasons in franchise history. Here’s the schedule for the other positions:
Top photo of Ferguson Jenkins: MLB via Getty Images
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