Charlie Hough

[Crash Course]

min 3800 IP

HITS/9 IP DIFF PLAYER LEAGUE
1 Nolan Ryan 2.19 6.56 8.75
2 Bob Feller 1.55 7.69 9.24
3 Roger Clemens 1.49 7.73 9.22
4 Walter Johnson 1.34 7.47 8.81
5 Tim Keefe 1.29 7.91 9.20
6 Tom Seaver 1.22 7.47 8.70
7 Charlie Hough 1.20 7.77 8.97
8 Lefty Grove 1.09 8.79 9.89
9 Kid Nichols 1.07 8.74 9.81
10 Jim Palmer 1.06 7.63 8.69

How many would have thought Hough would be #7 here?

[sweaver]

The knuckleball is very tough to hit solidly, and Hough had a good one.

[mgoettsche]

Hough was always one of my favorites...the guy looked like Grandpa Simpson out there, but man, when his knuckler was on, it was fun to watch.

I'm mildly surprised he showed up on this list

[KCBOOMER]

That is surprising. I took a look at the data and there are only 47 pitcher that meet the 3800 inning criteria, but a ranking of 7th in H/9 versus the league is very impressive. Sadly for Hough of these same 47 pitchers he ranks 44th versus the league in BR/9.

[nyy26wc]

Whenever I see his name, it reminds me of a poem that Bill James wrote as Hough's comment in one of his abstracts.

Rough tough Charlie Hough
All eight inning had his stuff

There's more, but that's all that I remember.

[pwdennis]

Charlie Hough played exactly long enough to see his career record drop to .500. Over the last six years of his career he went 52-72 with ERA+ just slightly below average except during his last season (91,96,99,98,98,85) playing with some pretty poor teams.

He definitely was not a lucky pitcher as witnessed by his 1985 and 1988 seasons in which he was a substantially better than average pitcher despite having a losing record. Hough was 34 years old before they made him a full-time starter yet rang up five seasons in which he was among the league leaders in IP. I don't know what the W-L record was for his teams during his years as a starter, but it couldn't have been very good. Hough's teams always had a chance to win when he took the mound, which marks him as having been a very good pitcher. Unless he was pitching against the Bosox, I always rooted for him

[sweaver]

Teams for which Charlie Hough made at least 20 starts:

Year Team (Hough's record) Team's record
1982 Rangers (16-13) 64-98
1983 Rangers (15-13) 77-85
1984 Rangers (16-14) 69-92
1985 Rangers (14-16) 62-99
1986 Rangers (17-10) 87-75 2nd in division
1987 Rangers (18-13) 75-87
1988 Rangers (15-16) 70-91
1989 Rangers (10-13) 83-79
1990 Rangers (12-12) 83-79
1991 White Sox (9-10) 87-75 2nd in division
1992 White Sox (7-12) 86-76
1993 Marlins (9-16) 64-98
1994 Marlins (5-9) 51-64

Not too many good ones in there.