Top 25 MLB pitching seasons of all time

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UNITED STATES – CIRCA 1910: Informal full-length portrait of baseball player Ed Walsh of the American League’s Chicago White Sox, following through after throwing a baseball, standing on the field at South Side Park, in the Armour Square community area of Chicago, Illinois, 1910. An unidentified White Sox player is standing in the background. From the Chicago Daily News collection. (Photo by Chicago History Museum/Getty Images) /

22. Ed Walsh, 1908

The Numbers: 40-15, 1.42 ERA, 42 complete games, 11 shutouts, 269 strikeouts, 1.42 FIP

Ed Walsh maintains the lowest career ERA and FIP in MLB history at 1.82 and 2.02, respectively. Though his peak lasted but seven years, Walsh was one of the most dominant pitchers of the Deadball Era. From 1906 to 1912, he won 168 games and registered a 1.71 ERA.

In 1908, Walsh had his only 40-win season. The spitballer was a throwback to the pre-1900 days of baseball, completing more games and throwing more innings than anyone else in the league by quite a wide margin. He became the last pitcher in MLB history to win 40 games, and threw almost 75 more innings than anyone else.

Walsh welcomed the high workload from the White Sox and was also one of the best fielders at his position during his career. His spitball was a devastating pitch, but he made it trickier by going to his mouth before every delivery, regardless of what he was throwing. Up until the day that he died, he remained a staunch supporter of keeping the pitch legal.

By the end of the 1912 season, it was clear that Walsh’s arm was hanging on by a thread. He was able to make only 14 starts in 1913, but did pick up eight wins against three losses. From there, he only pitched sporadically in the big leagues. Over the final four seasons of his career, Walsh started only 12 games with a 5-5 record and 2.52 ERA. Walsh eventually went into the Hall of Fame in 1947.

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