Happy Birthday to the late and great Hall of Fame starter, Robin Roberts. He primarily pitched for the Philadelphia Phillies, the Baltimore Orioles, Houston Astros, and the Chicago Cubs over his 19-year career. Despite playing on some lousy ball clubs, Roberts put together a great pitching career.

Career Statistics/Accolades (1948-1966):

286-245 W-L 3.41 ERA 4,688.2 IP 2,357 SO 1.170 WHIP

  • 7x All-Star

Roberts was always known for his Fastball, but his control made it so dominant. Roberts pitched at a time when Starters were expected to be considered workhorses, and that’s exactly what Roberts was. From 1949-60, the prime of his career, Roberts logged 226.2 Innings Pitched or more. Roberts threw over 300 Innings, led the league in Games Started, and won 20 or more Games for six consecutive years from 1950-55. Also, Roberts led the league in Innings Pitched and Complete Games for five consecutive seasons. In total, Roberts took the mound to start a game 609 times in his career; more than half of those times, 305 to be exact, he finished the game. While he never won a Cy Young, he did finish top-10 in the MVP voting five times.

As a hitter, Roberts could swing the bat from both sides of the plate. In his career, he went (255 for 1,525) .167 BA, and drove in 103 Runs. In terms of baserunning, he was above average, touching home plate 107 times. As a Fielder, his lifetime .967 Fielding Percentage was .010 higher than the league average for Pitchers during his career.

I greatly respect pitchers who take the mound and log in the amount of Innings that Robert did. Unfortunately, in today’s game, very few starters get to even 200 Innings, with the way they treat rest. In the career of Roberts, he only appeared in playoffs one time in the 1950 World Series against the Yankees. His pitching on non-successful teams for his entire career meant he was underappreciated. His prime years were from 1949-60. Imagine how many more games he would’ve won had he pitched for the Yankees during those years; he’d have well over 300 Wins. It took until his fourth year of eligibility, but in 1976 he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Along with guys like Steve Carlton, Roy Halladay, and Grover Alexander, he was one of the greatest pitchers in Phillies franchise history. For that, long before his Hall of Fame induction, the Phillies retired his #36 jersey. In 1999, he was ranked #74 on The Sporting News list of 100 Greatest Ballplayers.

References:

  1. Robin Roberts via Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Roberts_(baseball)#
  2. Robin Roberts Career Statistics via Baseball-Reference: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/roberro01.shtml