Bob Feller Career

[Peter_Spaeth]

His strikeouts really fell off dramatically after 1946, like he lost a foot on his fastball or something.

[Jay Wolt]

He signed at a ton of card shows, always a dignified man

Here's some of his personally owned cards

[Tomi]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

His strikeouts really fell off dramatically after 1946, like he lost a foot on his fastball or something.

Pretty impressive before the strikeouts fall off that he led the league in strikeouts 4 years in a row, went to the military for 3 years, came back and pitched only 9 games the following year and then led the league in strikeouts 3 more years in a row after that. Just imagine those 4 full prime seasons.
Does anyone know if there was an injury in the later half of his career or did he just naturally decline?

[G1911]

I have him around 25. He's got the flashy highlights, but I think no-hitters are not a good metric for a career, and K's are balanced by walks, of which he gave up an absolute ton. 122 ERA+ over 3,800 innings is very good, and closer to his real value.

[Tomi]

My only 2 Feller cards but thrilled to have them with this eye appeal.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by G1911

I have him around 25. He's got the flashy highlights, but I think no-hitters are not a good metric for a career, and K's are balanced by walks, of which he gave up an absolute ton. 122 ERA+ over 3,800 innings is very good, and closer to his real value.

Interesting cross between a lot of resemblance to Nolan Ryan, and a career trajectory sort of like Pujols.

[Jason19th]

I always thought he was a bit overrated with a lot of walks and high era and whip. When you look at his leaderboard stats however you see his was really good. I never realized how high eras in the AL were in the early 50’s - he was top 5 with eras around 3.5

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Jason19th

I always thought he was a bit overrated with a lot of walks and high era and whip. When you look at his leaderboard stats however you see his was really good. I never realized how high eras in the AL were in the early 50’s - he was top 5 with eras around 3.5

That's because back then batters weren't concerned with exit velocities and launch angles, and striking out much more often while trying to hit home runs all the time. They wanted to get the ball in play and get on base. Also, back then pitchers tried to complete every game they started. Nowadays managers start getting antsy thinking about opposing hitters seeing their starting pitcher for the third time in a game, and call in the bullpen. Different time and different game.

Quite frankly, I'm not so sure many of today's star pitchers would have fared well at all back in those days. If their arms didn't fall off first, how much would they have to scale back in the early innings of games to hopefully have enough left to complete them? Meanwhile, think of telling a Walter Johnson or Bob Feller to not worry about pacing themselves, we only need about 5-6 innings out of you, and then you can rest for 5 days before having to pitch again.

[Hankphenom]

Originally Posted by BobC

Think of telling a Walter Johnson or Bob Feller to not worry about pacing themselves, we only need about 5-6 innings out of you, and then you can rest for 5 days before having to pitch again.

The mind boggles. And in Walter's case during his incredible prime years, you'll never have to come in for relief in between starts, we have ten guys in the bullpen for that. He might never have lost a game!

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Interesting cross between a lot of resemblance to Nolan Ryan, and a career trajectory sort of like Pujols.

Similar type pitchers. Ryan's ERA is terrible for somebody in talks about the greats, but 5,300 innings is a lot to be 12% over the league over. A pitchers primary job is to not give up runs, not to get flashy K's. If you get a good highlight reel and walk runs in, it doesn't help your team anymore.

Feller was really only bad in 2 seasons, 1952 (after which he regained form and was an aid to his club) and his final season like most players. Pujols was a detriment to his team for like 7 years. Feller is great until he's 29, then he's good until he's done at 37. Pretty normal trajectory, but he gets a higher rating because he started and was good at such an unusually young age.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by G1911

Similar type pitchers. Ryan's ERA is terrible for somebody in talks about the greats, but 5,300 innings is a lot to be 12% over the league over. A pitchers primary job is to not give up runs, not to get flashy K's. If you get a good highlight reel and walk runs in, it doesn't help your team anymore.

Feller was really only bad in 2 seasons, 1952 (after which he regained form and was an aid to his club) and his final season like most players. Pujols was a detriment to his team for like 7 years. Feller is great until he's 29, then he's good until he's done at 37. Pretty normal trajectory, but he gets a higher rating because he started and was good at such an unusually young age.

I would have though most pitchers in the top 20-30 or so of all time were great quite a few years longer than age 29? Seems early to go from great to good/OK.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I would have though most pitchers in the top 20-30 or so of all time were great quite a few years longer than age 29? Seems early to go from great to good/OK.

28-32 is when males typically start to leave physical peak. Tons of pitchers fall in this age range, it's pretty normal. It's abnormal for the exceptional, for the top 20, because they are exceptional. Feller makes it into that category because he was great starting at a far younger age than normal, and so ends up similarly.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I would have though most pitchers in the top 20-30 or so of all time were great quite a few years longer than age 29? Seems early to go from great to good/OK.

How many of those great pitchers started pitching full-time in the majors at the age of 17? Hmmmm, 17 to 29 is 13 seasons. I bet a lot of pitchers would be thrilled to be that good for that long. Look at Koufax, he was only great for less than half that time, yet many people consider him up there with the best of all time.

Bob Feller is tied for 46th all-time in career WAR for pitchers with Amos Rusie. Give him the years he missed, and he starts getting close to the top 10.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Tomi

Pretty impressive before the strikeouts fall off that he led the league in strikeouts 4 years in a row, went to the military for 3 years, came back and pitched only 9 games the following year and then led the league in strikeouts 3 more years in a row after that. Just imagine those 4 full prime seasons.
Does anyone know if there was an injury in the later half of his career or did he just naturally decline?

I think he just faded out. Interestingly, I've read that Al Lopez refused to start him in the 1954 WS, and when asked why not, said something to the effect of why the hell would I?

[Tomi]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I think he just faded out. Interestingly, I've read that Al Lopez refused to start him in the 1954 WS, and when asked why not, said something to the effect of why the hell would I?

He did pitch a TON of innings. If no injury I would think that would be the biggest reason.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I think he just faded out. Interestingly, I've read that Al Lopez refused to start him in the 1954 WS, and when asked why not, said something to the effect of why the hell would I?

He went 13-3 with a 3.09 ERA, 20% better than the league in 1954. Wynn was 35% over league, Garcia 40%, Lemon 36%. Houtemann, the other starter, was 10% above. The Indians had such deep pitching that wasn't a bad call, but its not like Feller was trash that year.

[e6phillips]

Rapid Robert

[kcohen]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I think he just faded out. Interestingly, I've read that Al Lopez refused to start him in the 1954 WS, and when asked why not, said something to the effect of why the hell would I?

Look how THAT turned out.

[jakebeckleyoldeagleeye]

I'd say kamikaze's were the hardest thing he faced.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

His strikeouts really fell off dramatically after 1946, like he lost a foot on his fastball or something.

Mr. Spaeth, there is actually a very plausible answer and explanation to your question, given on the Wikipedia site for Bob Feller, and apparently coming directly from Feller himself. In the last paragraph of the "Return to Cleveland (1945 - 1948)" section on Feller it talks of him pitching in a game in Philly against the Athletics on June 13, 1947, and in the 4th inning after already accumulating 10 strikeouts, him falling off the mound made slippery by rain, and injuring his back as a result. The article quotes Feller as saying, "My fastball was never the same after that.". The fact that that Feller can pinpoint the exact time, date, and place it happened is pretty telling. His record going forward you pointed out speaks for itself, and adds another big "What if?" to his career. It also raises a further question as to would today's modern medical advances have been able to do something about his injury and restored him to his pre-injury condition and health.

And sincerely hope this is on point and topic enough for the usual forum trolls. I didn't know that in talking about how certain aspects of a player's career compared to and impacted or were interwoven into that of other players was considered so off topic, or how rude one should be lest anyone acknowledge and respond to a slightly off topic or tangential question which was asked. I actually thought there was a lot of good and informative info and conversation going on that would be enlightening and entertainting to a lot of others. I typically have those troll types on ignore, but then others go quoting them and their BS shows up anyway. And if there is anything posted in a thread that could ever be called more "off-topic", it is making a post and just complaining about others in the thread being off-topic. At least my post calling out such a complainer actually does also speak to Feller and his career.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Interesting. At least it happened well into his career and at that point he had enough experience and savvy to compensate at least somewhat for loss of that overpowering heater. Today, I would speculate it would have been a very self-limiting injury that some good rehab would have cleared up.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Interesting. At least it happened well into his career and at that point he had enough experience and savvy to compensate at least somewhat for loss of that overpowering heater. Today, I would speculate it would have been a very self-limiting injury that some good rehab would have cleared up.

Yes, just think if he could have stayed healthy and played as long as Spahn. Yankees may have had a bit more competition in the '50's from Cleveland then.