Sporcle Saturday: Dylan Cease shines

Dylan Cease (Ken Blaze/USA TODAY Sports)

Good morning!

Dylan Cease keeps making history, as he allowed just one earned run against the Royals on Thursday afternoon, thus extending his record-setting streak of allowing one or zero runs to fourteen consecutive starts. Since his run began on May 29 against the Cubs, Cease has an ERA of 0.66 to go along with 103 strikeouts and a triple-slash-against of just .172/.266/.252.

That’s pretty good! On the season, Cease has logged 4.4 Wins Above Replacement (Baseball Reference version) which is tops in the American League and third in MLB overall behind Max Fried (4.6) and Sandy Alcantara (6.2). He’s also third in MLB in strikeouts with 174 behind Corbin Burnes (175) and Gerrit Cole (178). But today’s Sporcle centers on that 4 Wins Above Replacement. In franchise history, 155 pitchers (starters or relievers) have logged at least 4 WAR in a single season: how many can you name? Good luck!

Quiz Parameters

  • I’ve allotted 15 minutes for completion attempts.
  • For hints, I’ve provided the season and the WAR.
  • To reiterate, this list includes both starting pitchers and relievers.

Useless information to amaze, annoy, confuse, and/or confound your friends and family:

  • Should he be able to maintain this pace for the remainder of the season, Cease’s ERA+ of 204 would be the highest by a White Sox starting pitcher…ever.
  • His 12.2 Ks/9 would be the second-highest behind one of last season’s starters who made this Sporcle (12.6 Ks/9).
  • Interestingly, I thought Cease’s BBs/9 would rank higher from the pitchers on this list, but not really. At 3.8 BB/9, he sits 15th-most, with the highest belonging to a 1993 season (5.3 BB/9).

Direct link here

All data from Baseball Reference’s stathead.com

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asinwreck

127/155. Wow, what an excellent quiz. Quite a few names I want to learn more about, including the less famous of the 1927 pitchers. Mostly, though, I’m just thrilled that

a Hollywood story
Monty Stratton
was an answer!

asinwreck

Another guy I missed has a fun post-career story.

Last edited 1 year ago by asinwreck
stevev

97! Felt good but not great – not too many mindfreezes. Love these – make me want to go check out some of the back stories.

roke1960

122/155. Only missed 2 from after 1962. But one was last year! I guess it’s easy to forget a guy that you don’t give a QO to!!

abehickock

I was surprised that Early Wynn didn’t reach a 4 war season with the Sox.

Right Size Wrong Shape

I was surprised by

Spoiler
Jose Contreras
. If you just took the last half of ’05 and the first half of ’06 I’m sure he would qualify.

GlossRoad

I was sure I was misspelling his name somehow

abehickock

Bob James and no Thigpen.

Right Size Wrong Shape

As a kid I loved Thiggy, but looking back he wasn’t very good.

GlossRoad

90/155. I got everyone 1991-present. I really liked guy from 1999/2000 and then he just kinda disappeared.