Ruffing and Larsen: Trading for Losers
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by user Harold Friend (LouGehrig)
Red Ruffing was a member of the Boston Red Sox pitching staff beginning with the 1924 season. Until he was traded in 1930, Ruffing compiled a record of 39 wins and 96 losses for Boston teams that finished last every season. In 1928 Ruffing won 10 games while losing 25. He was not on any general manager's ten most wanted list, but on May 6, 1930, Ed Barrow, the Yankees' general manager, traded outfielder Cedric Durst and $50,000 to Boston for Ruffing.
Don Larsen joined the St. Louis Browns in 1953 and became a Baltimore Oriole in 1954 when the team moved from St. Louis to Baltimore. Larsen compiled a record of 10 wins and 33 losses for teams that lost 100 games in each of those two seasons but on November 18, 1954, in an eighteen player trade, Yankees‘ general manager George Weiss obtained Larsen's contract.
Ed Barrow saw something in Ruffing and George Weiss saw something in Larsen beyond their records. Bill James and Billy Beane were not around, which meant that Ed Barrow and George Weiss didn't rely primarily on statistics when evaluating players. Both trades were extremely advantageous for the Yankees.
Until the advent of free agency, evaluating players was more important than it is today because in those days, if a team evaluated baseball talent incorrectly when structuring a trade, it might mean that an opponent received a talented player in exchange for a less talented player. Today, if a team evaluates a free agent incorrectly, it still creates problems but they are primarily financial.
The modern Yankees have signed many free agent pitchers. Some deals have worked out (Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez) and some have not (Jose Contreras). If Yankees' general manager Brian Cashman and owner George Steinbrenner were in Ed Barrow's or George Weiss' position, what would they have done? Would Ruffing or Larsen ever have become Yankees? The answer here is a resounding "No" because the way teams are built and the ways players are evaluated has changed radically, although it appears that Cashman is reversing that approach and retaining promising youngsters.
Instead of allowing young players who are believed to possess great potential to develop, teams that want to win immediately add players who are already stars and at the July 31 trading deadline, teams that no longer are or never were contenders unload high priced players for inexpensive, young talent. Little roster stability exists and many of the teams that are unwilling to spend money on talent have become farm teams for those who do spend.
Red Ruffing helped the Yankees win six World Championships. After joining the Yankees in 1930, Ruffing won 15 and lost only 5 with a relatively high 4.14 ERA. Ruffing had a career 273-225 career won loss record and was 231-124 as a Yankee. He was 7-2 in the World Series with an outstanding 2.63 ERA. Ruffing is in the Hall of Fame.
Who led the Yankees in hitting in 1935? Right. It was Red Ruffing, who batted .339 and was the team's top winner with a record of 16-11. Ruffing would go on to win at least twenty games in each of the next four seasons, leading the Yankees to four straight World Championships, a record for consecutive team World Championships that would stand until the 1949-53 Yankees
Let us backtrack. Connie Mack's Philadelphia A's, one of the great teams in baseball history won the 1929 World Series by beating the Cubs in five games. The A's had Jimmie Foxx at first base (.354), an outfield of Bing Miller (.331), Al Simmons (.365) and Mule Haas (.313), with Mickey Cochran (.331) catching. The pitching staff was anchored by Lefty Grove (20-6), George Earnshaw (24-8) and Rube Walberg (18-11). They could score a few runs and prevent the opposition from scoring as many as they did most of the time.
After winning the World Series in 1928, the Yankees needed help, especially on the mound. In 1929, they finished second, an obscene 18 games behind Philadelphia. Rosters were extremely stable in those days and during the entire 1929 season only three pitchers changed teams in the American League. Myles Thomas went from the Yankees to the Senators, Paul Hopkins went from the Senators to the Browns, and Dutch Henry moved from the Giants to the White Sox. Not quite 2006, was it?
Sometime, help comes from an unexpected source. Red Ruffing had shown flashes of greatness with Boston teams that had little offense but had a terrible record. Still, the Yankees jumped at the chance to get the right hander who twice led the American League in losses and it didn't take long for them to reap the dividends of the trade. Philadelphia won the 1930 and 1931 pennants, but in 1932, Ruffing won 18 while losing only 7 with a 3.09 ERA as the Yankees once again became World Champions.
Don Larsen wasn't as successful as Ruffing, but he still made his mark as a Yankee. He helped the Yankees win two World Championships and on October 8, 1956, pitched the only perfect game in World Series history.
After losing 21 games and winning only 3 games in 1954, two of which were against the Yankees, Larsen won 9 while losing only 2 in 1955, but Brooklyn blasted him in Game 4 of the World Series. The next season was different.
Larsen was 11-5 with a 3.26 ERA in the regular season and then with the World Series against Brooklyn tied at two games each, he pitched a perfect game to give the Yankees a 3-2 lead in games. Brooklyn won Game 6 but Johnny Kucks shut out the Dodgers in Game 7, giving the Yankees the Series.
Larsen was only 81-91 in his career and he won only 45 games with the Yankees, but he was the type of role player that makes championships possible. Larsen started, relieved, and filled in effectively when Whitey Ford, Bobby Shantz, and others were ailing.
One of Larsen’s most critical starts was Game 3 of the 1958 World Series against Milwaukee. The Braves had defeated the Yankees in the 1957 World Series and had beaten the Yankees badly in the first two games of the 1958 World Series, defeating Ryne Duren, who relieved ace Whitey Ford in Game 1, and then roughing up Bob Turley in Game 2. It was left up to Larsen, at Yankee Stadium, against Bob Rush to win or have the Yankees face a 3-0 deficit, a deficit no team in World Series history has overcome.
On a beautiful sunny October Saturday afternoon, Larsen and Rush exchanged goose eggs until in the Yankees half of the fifth, with two outs and runners on first and second, Larsen, who was a pretty good hitter, drew a walk. Hank Bauer followed with a clutch single to left, scoring Norm Siebern and Gil McDougald. The underrated and often overlooked Yankees’ right fielder hit a two run home run in the seventh, Larsen pitched seven scoreless innings, striking out eight, and the Yankees won, 4-0 to win their first game of the Series, a series that they would win in seven games.
The Red Ruffing and Don Larsen trades exemplify the belief that baseball men must be given the opportunity to evaluate talent. Statistics are valuable but statistics must be interpreted properly and they only reveal part of a bigger picture. Just imagine how baseball history would have been changed if statistics were the primary means of evaluating players. Today, it is.
References
- Baseball Hall of Fame: Ed Barrow
- BaseballLibrary.com: Don Larsen
- ESPN: Esteban Loaiza
- Baseball Hall of Fame: Red Ruffing
- Baseball Statistics: Red Ruffing
- Baseball Reference: Don Larsen
Date
Fri 08/25/06, 8:07 am EST
