Feature Friday: Late 1910s Usher in Change for Pirates Baseball
Following the 1915 season, the Pittsburgh Pirates organization underwent several changes. They saw the retirement of their first consistent manager, Fred Clarke, and stars like Honus Wagner were getting to the tail end of their careers. It was a time where the record and stat lines weren't that impressive for the team, but young stars were emerging as the team navigated through these new times. The era kicked off with the hiring of Jimmy Callahan as the team's new manager. Callahan would be the first Pirates manager who did not play the field and worked solely from the bench. He pitched for three different MLB teams in his career and was hoping to help boost the team's young pitching staff.
His first season as manager in 1916 saw the Pirates finish in the bottom-tier of the National League with a record of 65-89. While they played decent baseball at Forbes Field, with a record of 37-40, the team struggled mightily when they went on the road and it ended up costing them. That season saw the introduction of the Brooklyn Robins, known as the Los Angeles Dodgers today, and the young Pirates team could not keep up with the rest of the league. The only team they seemed to have any success against was the St. Louis Cardinals, who they had a 16-6 record against. The Pirates ended up finishing three and a half games ahead of the Cardinals and Cincinnati Reds that season finishing fifth out of eight National League teams.
The Pirates had a middle-of-the-road lineup in terms of offense and were looking for someone to replace Wagner as the offensive leader. In his 17th season of Major League baseball, Wagner put up respectable numbers hitting .287 with one home run and 39 RBI. The man who took over as the team's offensive leader that season was outfielder Bill Hinchman. Hinchman was the only regular player to bat over .300, hitting .315 with four home runs and 76 RBI. It was Hinchman's second season in a Pirates uniform and, after breaking out with the team the year before, assumes the role of the leader of the outfield after Clarke's retirement. Hinchman spent five total seasons in a Pirates uniform from 1915 to 1920.
On the pitching side of things, it was Al Mamaux that led the way picking up his second straight 20+ win season with the Pirates. Mamaux would go 21-5 that season and posted a 2.53 ERA while throwing in a team-high 310 innings of work. He was one of just two pitchers to finish with double-digit wins that season with the other being Wilbur Cooper. Cooper ended up having a team-low 1.87 ERA while working in 246 innings that season. Overall, the pitching staff as a whole under-performed with a team ERA of just 2.78. It was pitching that guided the Pirates to their first championship and now that they transferred to a group of younger pitchers, things weren't coming so easy.
As the calendar changes to 1917, there was one clear piece missing to the Pirates lineup. Honus Wagner had officially announced his retirement and the lack of leadership on the field showed for Pittsburgh. They endured just their second 100-loss season of their history, going 51-103 and they finished in last place in the National League. Not only was the leadership on the field bad, but the manager's position saw both Wagner and Hugo Bezdek have to step in. The offense struggled mightily that year with not a single hitter averaging over .300 as the youth of the Pirates showed through.
With both Wagner and Hinchman not in the lineup in 1917, it was Max Carey who led the club with a .296 batting average. Carey was one of the few veteran players left on the club, in his eighth season with the team, and accounted for most of their run production with one home run and 51 RBI. The only stat that Carey did not lead the team in offensively was home runs as catcher William Fischer hit three throughout the season. The pitching staff wasn't much better as Cooper was the only pitcher who had a winning record that season going 17-11 with a 2.36 ERA. After spending several seasons as a bottom of the rotation guy, 1917 was the year he turned into the ace of the pitching staff. He would stay with the Pirates until 1924 and never had a season where he finished with less than double-digit wins.
After the dismal display by the team in 1917, more changes were made in the organization to help them turn around. The Pirates hired their third full-time manager since 1900 as Hugo Bezdek was named the manager after serving in that position part-time the season before. They got their record back above the .500 mark as they went 65-60 and went from being the worst team in the National League to finishing fourth in the standings. It was their record at Forbes Field that helped get them back to winning baseball as they went 42-28 in their home ballpark. The young players on the team were beginning to mature and adapt to the speed of professional baseball.
It took a newcomer to bring the team together as outfielder Billy Southworth led the way with a .342 batting average while hitting two homers and driving in 43. After being out of baseball for the previous two seasons, Southworth came back and signed with Pittsburgh as he worked on finding his way back into the MLB. Prior to joining the Pirates, he had played two seasons in Major League Baseball in 1913 and 1915 both for Cleveland. The Pirates never had much power in the 1910s but one of the best power hitters was second baseman George Cutshaw who led the team with five home runs that season while driving in 61 RBI.
Cooper continued to lead the pitching staff going 19-11 with a team-low 2.11 ERA in 273.1 innings of work. While Cooper was doing his thing, another MLB veteran was starting to emerge. 32-year old Frank Miller emerged as the team's number two pitcher going 11-8 with a 2.38 ERA while making 23 starts on the season. The team's ERA also got back to where it was during their championship days as the staff combined for a 2.43 ERA. A good pitching staff was a staple of the Pirates championship teams and that style started to emerge during the 1918 season.
The 1919 season brought forth almost the same results as the season before as the team once again finished fourth in the National League posting a 71-68 record. They finished the year with winning records against every team except the three teams that finished ahead of them, the New York Giants, Cincinnati Reds, and Chicago Cubs. Southworth once again had a strong season hitting .280 with four home runs and 61 RBI in 121 games played. However, it was Casey Stengel who would lead the offense hitting .293 with four home runs and 43 RBI. The team combined to hit just 16 home runs that season as a team, showing how much then times have changed.
The Pirates pitching staff started to pick up more wins finishing the season with three double-digit winners that year. Babe Adams got back to his old self after a couple of down years leading the team with a 1.98 ERA both as a starter and a reliever. The team leader in wins was once again Cooper as he went 19-13 with a 2.67 ERA. Rounding out the double-digit winners was Frank Miller who went 13-12 with a 3.03 ERA, giving him back-to-back double-digit win seasons. The decade was getting ready to turn to the roaring '20s and the Pirates were back on the upswing as their young players continued to mature.
The Pirates still didn't have what it took to jump out of that fourth spot in the division finishing there for the third consecutive season. They increased their total wins for the third consecutive season and finished 79-75, just short of 80 wins. They finished 14 games out of first place and wrote their names in the history books on two separate occasions. The first was a team effort as on October 2nd, 1920 when the Pittsburgh Pirates and Cincinnati Reds played in the final triple-header of the 20th century. The Reds would come out with two of the three wins as the game ended the regular season.
The offense was all over the board during that 1920 season with three different players leading the three different offensive categories. Outfielder Max Carey led the team in batting average hitting .289 with one home run and 35 RBI. Craig Bigbee led in the home run department and Charlie Grimm led the way with 54 RBI. However, one of the best players on the team ended up coming off the bench. Outfielder Fred Nicholson hit .360 off the bench with four home runs and 30 RBI in 99 games played. It was Nicholson's second and last season in Pittsburgh as he moved on to Boston the next season.
Cooper would have his best season of his career in 1920 going 24-15 with a 2.39 ERA in 327 innings of work. He continued to be the ace of the Pittsburgh Pirates through the early part of the 1920s. The Pirates were officially into the roaring '20s and were on the road to another World Series Championship. They would win their second as an organization in 1925, and the team began building towards that in the early part of the '20s. Join us again next Friday as we go through the run-up to the 1925 World Series and how the Pirates got back to the top of the Major League Baseball ladder.
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