It was tremendously sad to hear that Jerry Koosman had passed away in his early 80s.
He was a pitcher who did not make the Hall of Fame for one reason:
He pitched for the offensively anemic Mets and didn’t get a chance to pitch against the Mets.
I recall doing a an article years back, noting that in each of Koosman’s (as I recall) first 15 years in the major leagues, most of them with the Mets, his teams were in the bottom half of the league offensively every single year.
Simply, he got miserable offensive support during his whole career.
Hence, the pitcher who really should’ve won rookie of the year in 1968 with a tremendous performance, and who also pitched extremely well in 1969, including in the World Series, did not get sufficient run support to prevent him from losing dozens of games over the course of his career that he would’ve won, had he pitched for an offensively strong team.
How good was he?
He was 12-12, 3.01 in 233 IP against the raging Cincinnati Big Red Machine.
THAT good.
I think if he had spent his entire career pitching for Cincinnati, rather than the Mets, I think that instead of winning 222 career games, he may very well have won 300.
Mike Mussina made the Hall of Fame but he pitched for teams where, year in and year out, they were in the top half offensively, mostly with Baltimore when they were strong, and the Yankees when they were strong. Had you switched the two pitchers, where Jerry had pitched for those strong teams, and Mussina had pitched for those weak teams, I believe that Koosman would’ve been in the Hall of Fame and Mussina would not have been.
Remarkably, in a two year stretch of horrible luck, Jerry went 11–35 in the miserable Mets late 70s despite a very solid ERA of 3.62 in those two years combined.
The pro’s pro that he was, he came back to win 20 the following season.
He was overshadowed somewhat by Tom Seaver, but who wouldn’t be?
Jerry was a guy that I truly appreciated watching. He gave the Mets tremendous effort, class, and credibility.
Again, with sadness, I honor the great Jerry Koosman.
NOLAN MCLEAN WINS GOLD GLOVE!
HE IS THE FIRST MET TO WIN ONE SINCE JUAN LAGARES IN 2014.
KUDOS TO MCLEAN.
He is quite the talent. I still hope one day to see him get up and pinch hit. Maybe launch 500 foot home run.
Hey, you never know.
4 comments:
Thanks Tom for posting the Koos News. Sad but he had a long life.
As for McLean, I really was hoping he would get the defensive recognition he deserved.
Yep, too hot topics for today. I want the readers to understand that if Kuzman had pitched for the best hitting team in baseball in those two years that I cited, he might very well have gone 35 and 11 and not 11 and 35. That’s what kept him out of the Hall of Fame.
I will always remember 32. He was a great pitcher and competitor.
And a gentleman.
As to him being a competitor, he at first was a truly lousy hitter. He hit .070 in 1968-70.
But as a competitor, he got BETTER. Example:
In 1974-76, he hit .190 with a .235 OBP in 286 plate appearances. Fine #s for a pitcher.
And in 1973-75, he got FORTY FIVE SAC BUNTS down successfully.
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