Who had the best rookie pitching year in MLB history?

No relief pitchers in sight

Pittsburgh Pirate pitcher Paul Skenes won NL Rookie-of-the-Year in 2024. He started 23 games and posted an ERA+ of 214 (100 being MLB average). That was the best for any ROY pitcher. His 1.96 ERA was less than half of the league average (4.08) and his 176 strikeouts were amassed over only 133 innings.

Was it an all-time great ROY pitching season? That depends on how important you deem pitching about three-fourths of a season since he did not pitch his first game until May.

47 pitchers as rookies of the year have been selected since 1947

Over 78 years, 156 awards, 30% of the ROY awards, have gone to pitchers. As I did with my post on rookie position players last week I’ve compared six starting pitchers (no relievers) who are candidates for best ROY season in MLB history. Unlike what I did with the hitters, I included a couple of pretty good Deadball era pitchers who just happen to be Hall-of-Famers.

Bird was the word

Ask any longtime baseball fan about great rookie pitching seasons and Tiger righty Mark Fidrych is always included. Fidrych’s mound antics sometimes overshadow just how good was in his 1976 season. Sure, he talked to the ball and did other strange things like smoothing out the mound before he pitched, but he also was incredibly effective posting an ERA+ of 159, winning the AL ERA title (which should have been indicated in black ink), and an impressive bWAR of 9.6, higher than any of the others in this comparison. Fidrych’s base-on-balls 5.3% is historically among the lowest ever for a starting pitcher. He also led the AL in complete games with an impressive 24!

Dwight Gooden was great before he was Dr. K

As a Met fan I never referred to Dwight Gooden as Dr. K. He was Dwight Gooden. Gooden himself loved (and still does) the nickname. Former MLB catcher and Mets broadcaster the late Tim McCarver upgraded Gooden’s curveball from Uncle Charlie to ‘Lord Charles’. I always did like that one. But Gooden was a fastball pitcher first and foremost and in his rookie season of 1984 he burst on the scene like…a fireball! 276 Ks in 218 IP led the NL and he was a chief reason the Mets went from winning 68 games in 1983 to 90 in 1984.

From MLB.com: Gooden struck out 31.4 percent of opposing hitters at a time when the leaguewide strikeout rate was just 14.8 percent. He struck out hitters twice as often as the average pitcher. To do that in 2024, you’d need to strike out more than half of opposing hitters. Now, Paul Skenes was incredible last year as a 22-year-old rookie, flashing remarkable strikeout stuff. He’s considered a top three pitcher in baseball already. Like Gooden, Skenes struck out just under one-third of opposing hitters.

It’s true that Gooden’s 1985 season was one for the ages, but his 1984 season was very special!

Jose Fernandez was really that good

It’s a tragedy that fans only got to watch Jose Fernandez for four seasons. His rookie season of 2013 may have been the best of them all given that two of his four seasons were cut short by injuries. Fernandez yielded only 5.8 hits per 9 innings. His ERA+ of 176 is second only to Skenes’ impressive 214 from 2024. His K rate is third amongst pitchers on this list and Fernandez was much more than a strikeout pitcher and pitched for some pretty lousy Marlin teams.

The Big Six was great right from the beginning

I acknowledge that it’s somewhat unfair to include pitchers who pitched in the Deadball Era (1901-1919). At the same time, I love reading and writing about players like HOFer Christy Mathewson. He pitched 6 games starting one in 1900 at age 19. The next season, his first full season, he started an NL league-leading 38 games. In fact, that’s the only black ink (led the league) on his resume from that amazing rookie year. While the Giants would win the World Series in 1905 under John McGraw with Mathewson leading the way, in 1901 they were a bad team at 52-85-4 (4 ties!), which is why Mathewson carded an 8.8 bWAR, good for second highest on this list. His .541 winning percentage was 161 points higher than his team’s!

Ol’ Pete was fantastic when he was Young Pete!

Renowned for his epic strikeout of Yankee HOFer Tony Lazzeri in the 1926 World Series as a hungover relief pitcher, that was more a footnote to a great career that was launched with an all-time great rookie season. Nicknamed Ol’ Pete which came about as a morph from a former nickname “Alkali” Pete. The future HOFer Alexander won 28 games in his 1911 rookie season for the Phillies. He started 37 games AND had 11 relief appearances pitching 367 innings allowing seven hits per nine. He tossed seven shutouts and allowed a measly 0.1 HR/9. Even for the Deadball Era that’s miniscule.

The Nebraska-born right-hander, Alexander had 31 complete games, the first of six consecutive seasons completing 30 or more. The 1911 Phillies finished 19.5 games out of first place. Alexander almost single-handedly turned his team into a winning team.

Who would I pick as having had the greatest rookie pitching season?

Based on BR ‘black’ ink it would be Skenes. But for me, not pitching a full season (through no fault of his own), is too hard to ignore. I love Dwight Gooden’s early career with the Mets and watched much of it both in person and on TV. While I may be old, it’s not true that I saw Christy Mathewson or Grover Alexander pitch in person. But being Deadball Era pitchers makes it harder to put them on top. So, while it’s difficult (and totally a matter of my own opinion) to choose, I will go with Fidrych and his 9.6 bWAR as well as his 24 complete games for a Tiger team that finished 74-87 in 5^th place in the AL East. Without the ‘Bird’ who knows how many games that team might’ve lost!

About the Author: Mark Kolier along with his son Gordon co-hosts a baseball podcast called ‘Almost Cooperstown’. He also has written baseball-related articles that can be accessed on Medium.com and Substack.com. Mark can be reached on x and bluesky @almostcoop and almostcooperstown@gmail.com