All-Time Indians: Cy Young

The Indians have had quite a few great pitchers play for the franchise, but only one has the distinction of arguably being the best pitcher in baseball history. Denton True Young’s longevity and talent allowed him to take the all-time baseball records in batters faced, complete games, starts, innings pitched and his most famous stat, wins. He also stayed around long enough to lose more games, allow more hits and give up more runs than any other pitcher ever.

He is honored today, not just with a place in the Hall of Fame, but as the namesake of the Cy Young award, the most prestigious pitching award in baseball. It is the only one of the big four awards (MVP, Rookie of the Year and Manager of the Year) that is named after a player and it is well deserved.

Young’s time in Cleveland was atypical. If you look at his numbers as an Indian (and Nap) he comes up as the 84th most winning pitcher of all time. This places him right along with generally irrelevant Indians like Chuck Finley and Paul Byrd. His real greatness in Cleveland came before the Naps were a team, back in the day of the Cleveland Spiders.

Most people don’t know a whole lot about the Spiders due to the time that has passed since they were demolished in 1899 and the fact that they went out as the worst team in baseball history. While they did go 20-134 in their final season, they were a successful team over many of the seasons prior to that. Before the 1899 season, the Spiders owner, also the owner of the St. Louis Perfectos, decided to use the Spiders as a minor league team and sent, among other players, one Denton True Young to St. Louis for nothing. During Cy’s time on the Spiders, they were an above average team, winning more than 60% of their games in three of his nine seasons there. In fact, during his tenure, they only went under .500 twice.

Cy Young joined the Spiders in 1890, his first Major League team and ended up with more wins and games played for the Spiders than any other team he played with. During his time, he actually won 38% of the Spiders total wins. In his best season (1892), he pitched more than half the innings that were thrown during that season. He also lead the National League in wins, ERA, shut outs and WHIP.

Young was born in Gilmore, Ohio and joined the Cleveland franchise for the first time in 1890 after initially playing with the Canton Nadjys of the Tri-State League. At the time, the Spiders still had Ed Beatin on the roster, who had held a 3.58 ERA in over 300 innings the previous season, but Young quickly became the Spiders top pitcher with a 3.49 ERA in 147.2 innings in his rookie campaign. Beatin was still the ace, but Young the best pitcher and in 1891, the former ace threw just 29 innings while Young tossed 423.2, winning 27 games.

This would be his first season with 20 wins, but far from his last as he had a streak of nine straight seasons through 1899, then started a new one from 1901 through 1904. While he is famous for both his longevity and his win/loss record, the majority of his success came early in his career as he won 405 games to just 216 losses through 1904, then went 106 and 100 (albeit with a 2.05 ERA) after turning 38. While his 1892 season was his peak, he was dominant through the rest of his Spiders years as well, averaging a 3.10 ERA, 27 wins and 373 innings pitched per year from 1890 through 1898.

As mentioned, after the 1898 season, the Robison brothers conspired to combine the Spiders and St. Louis Browns into a super team which was named the Perfectos for the 1899, but after finishing in fifth in the NL, took the less confident moniker of Cardinals, which they retain to this day. Young was unhappy in St. Louis and pitched his fewest innings in a season in 1900 before jumping to the upstart American League in 1901 with the Boston Americans (eventually the Red Sox). Facing largely less qualified opponents, Young quickly became the greatest pitcher in the young history of the new league, posting a 1.62 ERA in 1901 and winning more than 30 games in each of his first two seasons.

Because the Spiders are a defunct franchise, Young is most known for these years in Boston, but his numbers in the National League remain more impressive because they came against a much smaller league. Once leagues expanded, the amount of Major Leaguers doubled and Young feasted on these unproven roster fillers.

The early years of the Boston franchise (their name changed to the Red Sox in 1908) was filled with financial problems, ultimately culminating in the sale of Babe Ruth. Long before then, however, they sold Young to the Naps for $12,500, Charlie Chech and Jack Ryan. This deal wasn’t just about the cash that exchanged hands, but the fact that even without the freedom to change teams, Young still commanded a salary of $4,000 (approximately $100,000 in 2016 dollars).

Although he was 42, Young still had plenty left in the tank. During his first year back in Cleveland he posted a 2.26 ERA in 294.1 innings, completing 30 of 34 starts. As his swan song, he won 19 games this season, his last as a full time starter. In 1910 he had a similar ERA (2.53), but pitched just 163.1 innings. That number would decrease again in 1911 leading to his release in August. He would be picked up by the Boston Rustlers (who would become the Braves the following season and eventually move to Milwaukee, then Atlanta), giving him the distinction of playing for both the American and National League franchises in both Cleveland and Boston before he retired at the end of the season.

If someday, the Cleveland Indians decided to include Spiders stats in the Indians history, Young’s cumulative wins would be more than anyone else in team history. Now, he only ranks high in rate stats, where he is a top ten pitcher in both ERA and WHIP and top five in innings pitched per game (8). Even without this consideration, Young is easily the greatest pitcher in Spiders history and deserves credit for that. Cy Young is a member of the Cleveland Indians Hall of Fame (class of 1951) in addition to his place as a member of the first class inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. He died in 1955.