[For those looking to vent on Profar, there is a separate post]
Hector has been DFA’d, but I don’t want to talk about Hector, at least not directly.
Hector Neris’ inauspicious debut with the Atlanta Braves got me to thinking just how bad his start was historically. This sent me down a rabbit hole that I invite you to either join me in, or you can click away to exploits of the Kardashians or whatnot. Here’s what I found when I looked for the worst start at the beginning of the season by any pitcher in MLB history: meet Harry Billiard.
The status of the Federal League as a major league is disputed, but it was definitely a league, it definitely had some very good players, including some Hall of Famers, and it definitely died after the 1915 season. In that last season, on April 15th (that wasn’t yet tax day – in 1915 the then two-year old income tax was owed on March 1st) the Newark Pepper played the Brooklyn Tip-Tops in Brooklyn. I want to start by saying that anyone who doesn’t think the Federal League was a major league is going to have to explain how teams with nicknames this great weren’t major leagues. Also, the Pepper had Hall of Famers Edd Roush and Bill McKechnie.
Anyway, going into that game, the sixth game of the season for the Pepper, they had still not used Harry Billiard, a 31 year old pitcher who had gotten a cup of coffee with the Yankees in 1908 and didn’t return to the majors until 1914 with the Indianapolis Hoosiers who relocated to Newark for the 1915 season and, deciding that the Newark Hoosiers would be as confusing as, say, the Los Angeles Lakers or Utah Jazz, sensibly took the name Pepper. (Some sources have the name as plural – I much prefer the singular, which is the way BRef has it.)
Anyway, April 15th turned out to be Billiard’s 1915 debut. He came in relief in the bottom of the 5th when Pepper’s starter Charlie Whitehouse walked in a run with two outs to make the score 4-2 in favor of the Tip-Tops.
Here is what Harry did:
- Walk; B. Kauff Scores; S. Evans to 3B; H. Myers to 2B
- Single to SS (Ground Ball); S. Evans Scores; H. Myers Scores; T. Wisterzil to 3B/Adv on E6 (throw)
- M. Reed Steals 2B; T. Wisterzil Scores/No RBI/Adv on E2 (throw)/unER
- Walk
- Wild Pitch; M. Reed to 3B; G. Land to 2B
- Double; M. Reed Scores/unER; G. Land Scores/unER
- Single to RF; T. Seaton Scores/unER
- Single to CF; G. Anderson to 3B
- L. Magee Steals 2B
- Single to RF; G. Anderson Scores/unER; L. Magee Scores/unER; B. Kauff to 2B/Adv on throw
- Walk
- Groundout: 3B-1B
So he gave up all three inherited runners and another 6 of his own, although to be fair to Harry all of them were unearned. (As Mac always said: when you pitch this badly “unearned” needs to be in scare quotes.) When the dust had settled, he had turned a 4-2 deficit into a 13-2 deficit. They kept Harry in and he pitched a clean 6th. The Tip-Tops would go on to win by a 17-6 margin.
Harry wasn’t done for 1915. He would pitch another 27 innings that year and finish with a 5.40 ERA and a record of 0-1. His MLB career ended with the demise of the Federal League that year, and Harry’s own demise was only 8 years later.
So say what you want about Hector Neris: he’s no Harry Billiard. By WPA, of course, Neris’ performance was much worse, since Harry came in with a two run deficit and the bases loaded, while Neris came in with a one run lead and, with only a little help from Aaron Bummer, managed to turn it into a one run deficit: an outstanding -0.432 WPA. At least he got his ERA down from infinity.
One more historical note about the Newark Pepper. While the team disbanded with the league at the end of the 1915 season. They still had a contractual obligation to one player:
Team infielder Rupert Mills “played” the non-existent 1916 “season.” A clause in his 1915 contract guaranteed him a salary for the following year as long as he continued to show up at the park, suited and ready to play for the team. Mills fulfilled his contractual obligation, coming to the empty park each day and performing a physical workout to remain in playing condition. Mills, who was born in Newark, was also the only native Jerseyan on the team.
This is just the sort of work ethic and respect for contractual obligations that the world could use a lot more of.
How did the Newark Pepper have any assets to pay the estimable Mr. Mills? Presumably the popcorn sales had dwindled to a trickle by that point.
That note at the end is hilarious. Dude had a nice job for a year.
Harry Sinclair, owner of the Pepper, who had only owned the team for a year, agreed to drop his part of the antitrust suit against the American and National Leagues in return for a payment of $10,000 a year for 20 years to keep the Pepper’s stadium in Harrison, NJ available if MLB wanted it. He also got money selling the contracts of everyone other than Mills. Mills was only owed $3000 and got paid off in full midway through his 1916 “season.”
Thanks. $3000 was a lot of money back then!
As someone else said also, I suspect we have the reason that Lopez has struggled to get his velocity up. One might think there’s a chance he might have to have surgery ending his season.
Good thing we added Verdugo recently. I suspect he will get his opportunity as soon as he is game ready.
This team stinks.
Welcome back, Chief! It’s always darkest just before you show up….
The Snitker farewell tour is gonna be wild.
Ballgame.
I would say Harris and Riley are not seeing the ball well off Glasnow. But then again, who on the team is seeing it well?
Ozuna?
This team, as currently constituted, sucks. Perhaps it didn’t suck over the weekend, but with this corner-outfield duo, with Lopez and Strider out of the rotation and Holmes and Elder getting starts, with this bullpen, it has crossed a Rubicon; it sucks.
It is unlucky, too, but because it sucks, it has scant margin for error. So when a ball skips in some weird direction or when a pitch down the middle that ought to be powered deep enough to score is meekly a pop foul, it lacks the ability to recover.
0-7 for the home opener. Yay.
At what point does someone have to answer for the completely uninspired play? You would think someone will eventually be held accountable.
Nice of the Braves to lose the first five games of their 157-5 season.
I think that if you keep getting no hits and no errors that you’ve overinvested in defense.
See what I did there?
Snit seems to be experiencing what happens to college football coaches when they lose their elite coordinators. Dabo lost Venables, Morris, and Elliott. Kirby lost Monken and Lanning. Saban lost having as many as 7 future HC’s on one staff. Snit has lost EY, Washington, d’Arnaud, Dansby, Freddie, and Markakis. If you believe that Seitzer was a really good hitting coach and the rumors are true that he had personal problems last year that were largely out of his control, then he’s a huge loss. At some point, you lose too much leadership that you can’t backfill and the run is over. Saban literally retired because of this when the best he could do was Tommy Reese and Kevin Steele at coordinators. So I think, yes, losing the production on the field with the players that have left for free agency has hurt, but the loss in leadership probably hurts just as much.
Those are great points Rob and I think many of us were concerned with the losses of Wash and EY as they seemed to really represent what the culture of the team was and the players adored them.
It’s an interesting thought. I had always thought that professionals were more immune to these personnel changes compared to college kids, but as time separates us from 2021, it makes some sense.
It’s amazing that no Brave in last night’s lineup has a batting average of even .200.
Chasen Shreve threw 4 innings yesterday, giving up 4 hits, 2 runs, 6 K’s, no walks. They might be stretching him out to be a starter or at least having him work multi-inning.
Chavez DFA’ed and something called a Zack Thompson called up. He was a decent reliever 3 years ago but has sucked since.