Worst 2000 strikeout pitcher ever?

Last week, White Sox pitcher Javier Vazquez became the 62nd member of the 2000 strikeout club (Andy Pettitte, barring a freak injury, will become the 63rd in his next start). I thought to myself, "Could Javier Vazquez possibly be the worst 2000 strikeout pitcher in history?" Of course, I had to take action and dig through the rubble to annoint someone as the worst 2000 strikeout pitcher in history.

I narrowed the list of finalists for worst 2000 strikeout pitcher down to eleven: Frank Tanana, Chuck Finley, Jerry Koosman, Charlie Hough, Tommy John, Camilo Pascual, Dennis Martinez, Bobo Newsom, Rick Reuschel, Andy Benes, and Javier Vazquez.

All of the above pitchers have multiple All-Star appearances except Benes, Vazquez, and Hough, easily the bottom three on the list; Vazquez, Pascual, and Hough (and Newsom, who played before the Cy Young Award was established) never made a top 10 in Cy Young voting. Tommy John never broke 150 K's; He, Martinez, Benes, and Reuschel never made 200. Vazquez and Martinez (who did it twice) topped out at 16 wins in a season. Newsom was sub .500 for his career, but he did have three twenty win seasons, and made four all-star games. Plus he was constantly traded, and played with several abysmal Browns clubs. Hough and Vazquez are at an even .500.

Benes has a strikeout crown in 1994 going for him and two top ten finishes in Cy Young voting. Hough has a decent 3.75 ERA (over a full half run better than Vazquez), and a stellar 7.77 H/9 IP rate (60th all time) compared with Vazquez's 8.97. I have to go with Vazquez as the worst.

Javier Vazquez, among all pitchers to amass 2000 strikeouts, has the highest career ERA (4.28), and, as we know, pitchers (ones not named Roger Clemens, at least) experience decline in the later years of their career. That being said, we have Javier Vazquez, who at age 32, is likely in his prime.





I took three quality pitchers from three different time periods and saw where they stood through age 32, and compared them to the end of career totals.





Eddie Plank: 2.19 through 32, 2.35 through end of career.


Bob Gibson: 2.72 through 32, 3.01 through end of career.


Kevin Brown: 3.01 through 32, 3.28 though end of career.





I could have done extensive research with many more samples, but I don't have the time, and this demonstrates my point enough. Basically, you can say Vazquez will probably end his career in the 4.45-4.60 range. Only two other 2000 strikeout pitchers have a 4+ ERA; David Wells, and Jamie Moyer, and both of these guys have 230+ wins, a much better winning percentage, and 20 win seasons under their belts.



Javier Vazquez is currently a .500 career pitcher. And, looking at his year to year win/loss totals, he has been a detriment to his team when in contention. His best seasons were ones that he spent on a lowly Expo team, and the one season the White Sox were out of it early on (2001: 16-11 for 68-94 Expos, 2007: 15-8 for 72-90 White Sox). When he was on a contender (or one of the 83-79 Expo teams in '02 and '03, where a standout performance may have been good enough to put them over the hump), he couldn't produce. Only 14-11(.583) with a 101-61 (.623) Yankee team in 2004, and on strong White Sox teams in 2006 (90-72, .556) and 2008 (84-68, .553), Vazquez posted sub-.500 seasons in each (11-12 in '06; 12-14 in '08 thus far).



Vazquez nibbles around guys who hit around .200 and tries to throw breaking stuff to guys to put them away instead of going with his best pitch. He posts gaudy strikeout numbers, but in between those punchouts, he gives up a lot of home runs (never fewer than 23 in a season in which he made 30+ starts) and while he doesn't walk a lot of guys nor gives up a lot of hits, he gives them up at bad times.

Vazquez will probably make 3000 strikeouts for his career, at which point I will have to reevaluate this ranking, but until then, Vazquez: worst 2000 strikeout pitcher ever.