The Pirates 200 Win Club

Posted by on February 24, 2012 | 1 Comment

If you read the This Date article from today, you would’ve saw the story about Wilbur Cooper, the only pitcher in the history of the Pirates franchise to win 200 games with the team. He is followed on the team’s all-time win list by Sam Leever and Babe Adams who each have 194 wins while with Pittsburgh and then Bob Friend is right behind them with 191 wins. I’ve often heard that the Pirates have a ton of great hitters in their history and no great pitchers. While they may not have a ton of well-known all-time pitchers it is unreasonable to say they haven’t had great pitching in their history.

The list of other teams with four guys who have all won 190 games while wearing that team’s uniform is a short one, the Atlanta Braves, Detroit Tigers and San Francisco/New York Giants. The 1900 Pirates had one of the best pitching staffs no one ever talks about and it included two future Hall of Famers. That team had Leever, Deacon Phillippe, Jack Chesbro, Jesse Tannehill and Rube Marquard. Those pitchers have a combined career record of 971-601 and they all won at least 189 games.

 

Back to Wilbur Cooper though for this article.The list that he is part of is also a pretty rare list . Pitchers that are Hall of Fame eligible, with 200 wins with one franchise, but they aren’t in the Hall of Fame. That list consists of:

Mel Harder, Indians 223

Hooks Dauss, Tigers 223

George Mullin, Tigers 209

Mickey Lolich, Tigers 207

Wilbur Cooper, Pirates 202

Charlie Root,Cubs 201

Harder and Dauss are the only ones to play their entire careers with one team and the interesting thing about Dauss as it pertains to Cooper is that he played in the majors from 1912 until 1926, the same exact time frame Cooper spent in the big leagues. Lolich is the only other pitcher on this list besides Cooper who was a lefty. Mullin was the only other pitcher who had at least four 20 win seasons. Root is the only other NL pitcher.

If you wanted to narrow it down in favor of Cooper, you could say no other pitcher in NL history won more games with one team than he did and didn’t make the Hall of Fame. Now I’m not saying I would elect him to the HOF right away, there are pitchers in my mind who need to go in before him but it is interesting none the less to see just where he stands among the group on the outside looking in.

One other note about Cooper and it pertains to the Pirates teams he played with. In 1917 the Pirates were very bad, finishing with a 51-103 record. Wilbur made a team leading 34 starts and pitched six times in relief for a total of 297 innings. He finished with a 17-11 record, which basically means the rest of the Pirates pitchers were just 34-92 on the season. You could only imagine what his record would’ve been on a decent team that season.

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About John Dreker

John was born in Kearny, NJ, hometown of the 2B for the Pirates 1909 World Championship team, Dots Miller. In fact they have some of the same relatives in common, so it was only natural for him to become a lifelong Pirates fan. Before joining Pirates Prospects in July 2010, John had written numerous articles on the history of baseball while also releasing his own book and co-authoring another on the history of the game. He writes a weekly article on Pirates history for the site, has already interviewed many of the current minor leaguers with many more on the way and follows the foreign minor league teams very closely for the site. John also provides in person game reports of the West Virginia Power and Altoona Curve.
  • http://twitter.com/jlease717 John Lease

    I’d also say of all of those pitchers, is that they were good but not HOF worthy.  When Bert Blyleven finally got in, I crossed one of the most worthy ex-Pirates off of my list, even though he wasn’t a Pirate for a very long time.  I’d consider Dave Parker and Bill Madlock as guys who should be in the hall and haven’t gotten any support, Wilbur Cooper is well down that list for me.  I’d have to consider Babe Adams ahead of him if you are talking strictly Pirate pitchers who aren’t in, and also Elroy Face and Tekulve.