Sporcle Saturday: What a WHIP

May 13, 2021; Chicago, Illinois, USA; Chicago White Sox relief pitcher Liam Hendriks (31) reacts after pitching in the ninth inning against the Minnesota Twins at Guaranteed Rate Field. Mandatory Credit: Quinn Harris-USA TODAY Sports

Good morning!

Perusing White Sox reliever stats prior to Friday night’s game against the Detroit Tigers, something stood out to me: Liam Hendriks has recorded what seemed to me to be a miniscule WHIP: .754. Looking into franchise history, sure enough: for White Sox pitchers with as many appearances as Hendriks has had (67), that’s the lowest — ever. In fact, just one other White Sox pitcher has recorded a lower WHIP, but he had far fewer appearances, at 24.

Today’s Sporcle will task you with naming other great WHIP seasons in franchise history. In order to give some great starting pitching seasons some love, in addition to the relievers, I’ve set the cut-off at 20 games and a WHIP of 1 or below. In all that’s 52 entries: how many can you name? Good luck!

Quiz Parameters

  • I’ve allotted 10 minutes for completion attempts.
  • For hints, I’ve provided the season and the WHIP recorded.

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

  • The average OPS+ against of the pitchers on this list: 50. Good luck to any hitters out there.
  • The lowest ERA from the pitchers on this list? 0.81, while the highest is…5.02, in 2012. (Marred by one truly awful third of an inning against Boston, hint hint)
  • The highest K% of the pitchers on this list is 42.6% (2017).

(Photo Credit: Quinn Harris-USA TODAY Sports)

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All data from stathead.com

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16 Comments
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roke1960

40/52. Wow, that was a tough one! And I get some not so obvious ones. Great quiz, Ted!

KenWo4LiFe

Same. Glad I tied you I was disgusted with my score.

roke1960

So was I. Any time I miss that many, I’m disgusted.

asinwreck

Had it not been for adding the name of

dude with one great year
the guy who netted the Sox Blake Rutherford
with 4 seconds left, we would have had a 3-way tie. It’s like the AL Wild Card race!

roke1960

Good job, asinwreck! You win the Wild Card!

asinwreck

Does this make me the Yankees? Ugh.

I hope Ted takes to heart how much fun this quiz was. I like that the degree of difficulty was this high, and I bet the patterns of who got which names differed quite a bit.

roke1960

I think that means you can be whoever you want!

I agree about the quiz. That was a really fun one with some out of the box names. It’s the toughest one we’ve had in quite awhile.

asinwreck

41/52 before I ran out of time and laughed at some of the names I missed. This was a great and tricky quiz.

My initial guesses followed two patterns, but the kinds of pitchers who showed up are all over the place.
My first strategy was to list the knuckleballers, then as many prominent relievers as I could. Still, names like Septimo and MacDougal did not come to mind. I’m pleased that Sox pitching rehab coordinator Donnie Veal has a good WHIP to brag about.

Law&Law_Attorneys@Law

So does the gap from 1971 to 1989 say more about the state of the White Sox pitchers or more about the overall era of baseball in general? Some homework for this weekend.

roke1960

That’s any interesting question. I’m surprised a few guys from that era didn’t make it (Gossage, Forster, Hoyt). By the way, I like your name. Is that in honor of the 83 team?

Law&Law_Attorneys@Law

Right you are. Earliest memories of Sox games are the 83 team and sitting in left field with the fans taunting Rickey Henderson.

shaggy65

34/52. About as well as I was ever going to do. Yipes–2012, tho! How did those two guys post those two numbers?!?

Joliet Orange Sox

I often look up guys I missed. Sometimes they are guys I never heard of but today it was a guy I’ve heard of but completely forgot (the 1904/1905 guy). In 1904, he threw 315 innings with an ERA of 1.94. In 1905, he threw 334 innings with an ERA of 2.10. In 1906, he only threw 293 innings and his ERA rose to 2.33.

He was only 26 during the 1906 season but it was it last great year. All those innings took a toll on pitchers of the past.

I thought it was interesting that the number one similarity score for him on Baseball Reference was the 1906 answer.

Malkatraz

I think Leyson Septimo is imaginary. No recollection at all.

Trooper Galactus

Props to anybody who actually got the 2012 pitchers.