Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

A certain pitcher joined a new team at age 40 and then had 5 consecutive seasons with an ERA below 2.00. Any guesses?

This may be an easy trivia question for this community, but it was a big surprise to me.

My first thought was Nolan Ryan, but an ERA under 2 didn't make sense. So then you gotta consider other pitchers who pitched into their mid/late forties, so I came up with Hoyt Wilhelm.

Hoyt Wilhelm!

I never thought that much of him until I looked at his career stats. His career ERA was 0.20 better than Koufax and Wilhelm even had fewer BB/9IP.

His knuckeball must have been amazing.

Im not going to google,

so, I'm gonna wild guess it at

#1 choice: Big Unit Randy Johnson
#2 choice: Roger Clemens
#3 choice: Pete Alexander (huge longshot, couldn't think of anyone within those tough parameters, 40-45 age and 5 seasons under 2.00 ERA)

Wilhelm joined the White Sox at age 40 in 1963.
Age 41 ERA 1.99 131 IP
Age 42 ERA 1.81 144 IP
Age 43 ERA 1.66 81 IP
Age 44 ERA 1.31 89 IP
Age 45 ERA 1.73 93 IP

Age 46 pitched for California and Atlanta (2.19 ERA)

Overall stats in 6 seasons with the White Sox 1963-1968: 1.92 ERA, 0.935 WHIP

He aged like a fine wine.

I'm looking forward to seeing his 1967 card in the ATG set.

Hoyt got screwed out of Rookie of the Year in 1952.
The awards are pretty suspect with a pro-Phila A's bias given Bobby Shantz won MVP and Harry Byrd(who?) won ROY

what I found surprising researching his stats, is that Wilhelm DEBUTED as a 29 year old player, then had a 20+ year career ;- 0...might be the only MLB player ever to do that

before the NIekro's, Wakefields, etc, Wilhelm was THE knuckleballer when I was growing up

Big Fred Whitfield wrote:what I found surprising researching his stats, is that Wilhelm DEBUTED as a 29 year old player, then had a 20+ year career ;- 0...might be the only MLB player ever to do that

before the NIekro's, Wakefields, etc, Wilhelm was THE knuckleballer when I was growing up

I'm guessing Hoyt taught it to Wilbur Wood and Eddie Fisher (RIP)