Quick Hitter: Looking Back at a Twins Pitcher's Unprecedented 2005 Season

On Monday, Zone Coverage writer Brandon Warne posted the following tweet:

https://twitter.com/Brandon_Warne/status/1249752782015430659

Anyway, I bit on Brandon’s bait and looked up his strikeout rate and was truly shocked by what I found. 7.7-percent. Seven point seven. By FanGraphs standards, or any standards, that is well below the “awful” threshold. For another reference point, he had a K/9 of 2.8...wow. The ultimate Twins pitcher of the early 2000’s, right? With an 88.1-percent contact rate, you bet he was. Okay, so where does this get historic?

I used Baseball Reference’s Play Index to play around with some stats and found all seasons under the following parameters:

• Zero games started and at least 50 innings pitched
  
• K/9 less than or equal to three
  
• ERA less than or equal to three
  
• WHIP greater than or equal to 1.1
  
• At least 12 wins
  

Jesse Crain is the only pitcher in Major League history to ever provide such a stat line. How do you have such a solid ERA and so many wins despite such poor underlying metrics? Huh, maybe these analytics people are on to something here.

Here’s what doesn’t make sense...

• He earned 12 wins despite not starting any games? He is one of two pitchers to accomplish this in under 80 innings pitched. By the way, the other was Joe Nathan the year before he was traded to the Twins.
  
• He posted an ERA under three despite an almost “awful” walk rate (8.9 - percent) and “awful” strikeout rate? He is the only pitcher since 1992 to accomplish this feat of pitchers who pitched at least 50 innings. With the way that today’s game is played he might be the last.
  

Here’s what does make sense…

• Of pitchers who pitched between 50 and 99.2 innings with an ERA under 3.00 Jesse Crain’s FIP of 4.65 is 14th highest in Major League history.
  
• Of pitchers who pitched btween 50 and 99.2 innings with a FIP of at least 4.50 and strike out rate less than or equal to eight percent Jesse Crain’s BAbip of .219 is 20th lowest in Major League history.
  

The final verdict on Jesse Crain’s unprecedented 2005 season is that it was largely based on skill. But not his skill. Per Fangraphs, the 2005 Twins had the AL’s best defense in the fourth best defense in all of baseball. In fact the Twins pitching staff as a whole benefited from the seventh lowest BABIP in the Majors. I mean, we were talking about the ultimate Twins pitching prototype and the prototype actually fit the team in the mid-2000’s.

Once I saw his strikeout rate, wins, and ERA I knew I had to do a deeper dive and figured I might as well write about it. Thanks, Brandon ... I needed something to do while my wife watched Listen To Your Heart on ABC.

MORE FROM TWINS DAILY

— Latest Twins coverage from our writers

— Recent Twins discussion in our forums

— Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook or email