|
These are two of the worst pitchers who have ever played in my 140-season old custom league, excluding anyone who pitched the majority of their career for the league's Wilmington franchise and its Baker Bowl-esque home field (lowlighted by a guy with a 70-133 record, 20-loss seasons in 5 of his 6 full seasons, and a 6.64 career ERA). Both these sods had the misfortune of playing for terrible teams most of their careers (Austin's team went 49-105 in his historic 3-23 season and never had a winning season his entire career) but, even so, they managed to put up some truly terrible W-L records.
I've always found Miles' career to be one of the starkest illustrations of how team quality can affect pitcher quality and the general year to year volatility apparent in pitchers. After years of getting absolutely pounded for the dreadful Chicago Whales, he finally gets a shot with a decent team, the cross-town American Giants, in '57, pitching respectably well and winning his league's Gold Glove. A free agent after that season, he signs with expansion Ciudad Trujillo and promptly puts up a 7.54 ERA...at which point Havana, one of the other expansion teams, trades THREE players to Ciudad Trujillo for him. Pitching much more effectively in Cuba, he still goes 2-12 as Havana staggers to a then-record 116 losses.
Coming off such a disastrous season, he is signed again by the American Giants for little more than league minimum and buried in the bullpen to start the '59 season. After one pitching appearance in a month, Chicago waives him and he gets picked up again by Ciudad Trujillo, where, aided by a nearly 100 point drop in BABIP, has the best season of his career, finishing 5th in his leauge in ERA and posting a .600 winning percentage on a 71-91 team.
His career rejuvenated, he signs a three year deal with Havana, where he promptly goes 8-20 while serving up a league-leading 51 homers (in a pitcher's park), then rebounding in 1961, allowing only 9 homers in about half as many innings as 1960 before an elbow injury effectively ended his career.
|