{"id":9083,"date":"2014-06-19T08:23:09","date_gmt":"2014-06-19T12:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=9083"},"modified":"2014-06-19T08:23:09","modified_gmt":"2014-06-19T12:23:09","slug":"strasburg-cole-matchup-and-a-history-of-1-vs-1-picks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=9083","title":{"rendered":"Strasburg-Cole matchup and a history of #1 vs #1 picks"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_9417\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/ColeGerrit-ap-photo-via-sportingnews.com_.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9417\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-9417\" alt=\"Gerrit Cole won the latest installment of #1 versus #1 overall drafted pitchers.  AP Photo via sporting news.\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/ColeGerrit-ap-photo-via-sportingnews.com_-300x210.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"210\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/ColeGerrit-ap-photo-via-sportingnews.com_-300x210.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/ColeGerrit-ap-photo-via-sportingnews.com_.jpg 330w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-9417\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gerrit Cole won the latest installment of #1 versus #1 overall drafted pitchers. AP Photo via sporting news.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I saw a cool stat while idly watching a Nats-Pittsburgh game a few weeks back.\u00a0 The match-up between <strong>Stephen Strasburg<\/strong> and <strong>Gerrit Cole<\/strong> was the <a href=\"http:\/\/espn.go.com\/blog\/sweetspot\/post\/_\/id\/47652\/cole-vs-strasburg-provides-pirates-hope\">11th time ever that #1 overall picks faced each other<\/a> in baseball history.<\/p>\n<p>What a great stat.\u00a0 So naturally I wanted to look up the other ten. \u00a0I was hoping that I could find this data in the Baseball Reference Play Index, but couldn&#8217;t find it, so I went with a &#8220;brute force&#8221; method of finding the 11 matchups by scouring b-r.com&#8217;s play index data for each of the handful of pitchers entire career game logs.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/draft\/?overall_pick=1&amp;draft_type=junreg&amp;\">The draft has existed since 1965<\/a>.\u00a0 In that time just 17 pitchers have been drafted #1 overall (including this year), and a few of them barely had careers.\u00a0 Thus the rarity of this occurence. \u00a0While researching this article, I found myself looking more closely at all seventeen #1 overall picks, but moved that to a subsequent post, so look out for that in the future.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, here the 11 matchups are, in descending chronological order:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>11th: <strong>Stephen Strasburg<\/strong> vs <strong>Gerrit Cole<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/boxes\/PIT\/PIT201405240.shtml\">5\/24\/14<\/a>: Strasburg gives up 3 in 7 while Cole gives up 2 in 6 and gets the win.\u00a0 Pittsburgh d Washington 3-2.<\/li>\n<li>10th: <strong>David Price<\/strong> vs <strong>Luke Hochevar<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/boxes\/TBA\/TBA201208210.shtml\">8\/21\/12<\/a>. \u00a0Seven years have passed since the last 1\/1 matchup by this time. \u00a0Here, both pitchers threw 8 shutout innings (Hochevar giving up just 1 hit) and Kansas City prevailed by getting a run in the 10th.\u00a0 This game was likely the greatest game Hochevar ever pitched (game score of 87), slightly better than a 3-hit shutout he had in 2009.\u00a0\u00a0 Hochevar was pretty-well awful as a starter for years with Kansas City but transformed himself into a great middle reliever in 2013; he suffered a blown elbow and had Tommy John surgery in March.<\/li>\n<li>9th:\u00a0<strong>Kris Benson<\/strong> vs\u00a0<strong>Paul Wilson<\/strong><strong> <\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/boxes\/NYN\/NYN200505160.shtml\">5\/16\/05<\/a><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/boxes\/NYN\/NYN200505160.shtml\">:<\/a>\u00a0 <\/strong>Nearly a decade has passed since we had a #1 vs #1 matchup. \u00a0Here, neither guy was pitching terribly well in 2005, but Benson got the better of Wilson on the day. \u00a0Benson gave up just 2 runs in 7+ innings while Wilson got beat around for 7 runs in 5 1\/3. \u00a0 After the game, Wilson hit the disabled list and eventually had <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseballprospectus.com\/card\/card.php?id=1072\">shoulder surgery<\/a>\u00a0for labrum and rotator cuff issues,\u00a0which cost him the rest of 2005 and all of 2006, and he never appeared in another game. \u00a0So Wilson&#8217;s last ever MLB appearance was his sole #1 versus #1 matchup.<\/li>\n<li>8th: <strong>Ben McDonald<\/strong> vs <strong>Tim Belcher<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/boxes\/KCA\/KCA199606270.shtml\">6\/27\/96<\/a>: McDonald was enjoying a nice bounce-back season after leaving his original team (Baltimore), and threw a nifty 7ip\/3hit\/1 run performance to beat Belcher&#8217;s Royals.<\/li>\n<li>7th: <strong>Ben McDonald<\/strong> vs <strong>Tim Belcher<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/boxes\/DET\/DET199404110.shtml\">4\/11\/94<\/a>: McDonald was off to a great start for Baltimore, while Belcher was not for Kansas City. \u00a0Odd how these two guys both met up again, both with new different teams. \u00a0 McDonald again threw 7+ innings of 2 run ball to beat Belcher on the day.<\/li>\n<li>6th: <strong>Ben McDonald<\/strong> vs <strong>Mike Moore<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/boxes\/OAK\/OAK199209020.shtml\">9\/2\/92<\/a>: Their second meeting in two weeks, McDonald threw 6 innings but Moore threw 9 innings of 1 run ball; the game was won in the 10th by Baltimore.<\/li>\n<li>5th: <strong>Ben McDonald<\/strong>\u00a0vs\u00a0<strong>Mike Moore<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/boxes\/BAL\/BAL199208230.shtml\">8\/23\/92<\/a>: Moore again got the better of McDonald, who gave up 6 in 6 for the loss.<\/li>\n<li>4th: <strong>Andy Benes<\/strong> vs <strong>Tim Belcher<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/boxes\/CIN\/CIN199204080.shtml\">4\/8\/92<\/a>: Benes got the better of Belcher on the day, though both pitched well.<\/li>\n<li>3rd: <strong>Ben McDonald<\/strong> vs <strong>Mike Moore<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/boxes\/OAK\/OAK199105070.shtml\">5\/7\/91<\/a>: McDonald hit hard early and Moore gets a win over his fellow #1 overall pick.<\/li>\n<li>2nd: <strong>Mike Moore<\/strong> vs <strong>Floyd Bannister<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/boxes\/SEA\/SEA198806240.shtml\">6\/24\/1988<\/a>.\u00a0 Moore pitched a 4-hit shutout to beat Bannister and the Royals in a rematch of their first 1-1 meeting four years prior.\u00a0 Bannister gave up 7 runs (4 earned) in 3 2\/3&#8217;s innings to get knocked out in the first ever matchup of former #1 overall picks.<\/li>\n<li>1st: <strong>Mike Moore<\/strong>\u00a0vs\u00a0<strong>Floyd Bannister\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/boxes\/CHA\/CHA198406270.shtml\">6\/27\/84<\/a>: The first ever meeting between #1 overall picks took nearly 20 years to occur, thanks to just a couple of pitchers being taken first overall in the first two decades of the draft and thanks to bad timing. \u00a0This meeting was nothing to write home about though; neither guy pitched that badly, but neither figured in the decision after each gave up 3-4 runs in 5 innings.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Mike Moore appeared in 5 of the 11 one-vs-one matchups and his teams were 4-1 in these five games. \u00a0 Bannister&#8217;s teams went 1-1 in his two appearances. \u00a0Ben McDonald also appeared in 5 of the 11 one-vs-one games and his teams went 3-2 in the games. \u00a0 Belcher&#8217;s 3 games all resulted in losses for his team, despite (arguably) Belcher having the most accomplished career of any #1 overall drafted pitcher. \u00a0 There&#8217;s only been 3 such meetings in the last 20 years, all featuring more recently drafted pitchers.<\/p>\n<p>I also found these games where two former #1 overall picks both appeared, but one (or both) was in relief:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Kris Benson<\/strong> vs\u00a0<strong>Andy Benes<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/boxes\/PIT\/PIT200207200.shtml\">7\/20\/02<\/a>: Benson got the start and the win while Benes pitched 3 innings of mop-up duty as St. Louis fell behind by 10 runs.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Tim Belcher<\/strong>\u00a0vs\u00a0<strong>Matt Anderson<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/boxes\/DET\/DET200009070.shtml\">9\/7\/00<\/a>: Belcher got the start and the win with 6ip\/3er, while Anderson pitched the last out of the 8th for the losing team.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Tim Belcher<\/strong> vs <strong>Matt Anderson<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/boxes\/DET\/DET199807140.shtml\">7\/14\/98<\/a>: Belcher got the start and got blasted; Anderson pitched the 7th and got a hold.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Mike Moore<\/strong> vs <strong>Floyd Bannister<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/boxes\/OAK\/OAK199206120.shtml\">6\/12\/92<\/a>.\u00a0 Moore got punched out of the box early and Bannister picked up the victory by pitching the 14th inning.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Ben McDonald<\/strong> vs <strong>Floyd Bannister<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/boxes\/BAL\/BAL199105170.shtml\">5\/17\/91<\/a>: McDonald started and pitched a complete game win while Bannister relieved the losing starter in the 5th.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Mike Moore<\/strong>\u00a0vs\u00a0<strong>Floyd Bannister<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/boxes\/CAL\/CAL199104170.shtml\">4\/17\/91<\/a>. \u00a0By this time in their careers, Bannister was relegated to the bullpen, but they did &#8220;face&#8221; each other in this game.\u00a0 Moore threw 7 innings of 1-run ball for the victory.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Just for completion sake, who are the 6 pitchers not mentioned already who were picked #1? \u00a0That would be 2014&#8217;s\u00a0<strong>Brady Aiken<\/strong>, 2013&#8217;s\u00a0<strong>Mark Appel<\/strong> (neither of which has appeared in a major league game yet, obviously), along with\u00a0<strong>Bryan Bullington<\/strong> (who bounced around the league for a few years but never matched up with any of his fellow draft picks),\u00a0<strong>Brien Taylor<\/strong> (the 1991 #1 overall pick who never made it above A-ball), and\u00a0<strong>David Clyde<\/strong> (who was the first pitcher to go #1 overall but didn&#8217;t last long enough to get any matchups with subsequent picks).<\/p>\n<p>Stay tuned for a look at all seventeen of these guys, their stories and their careers in a future post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I saw a cool stat while idly watching a Nats-Pittsburgh game a few weeks back.\u00a0 The match-up between Stephen Strasburg and Gerrit Cole was the 11th time ever that #1 overall picks faced each other in baseball history. What a great stat.\u00a0 So naturally I wanted to look up the other ten. \u00a0I was hoping [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2521,2518,2406,2525,2524,2526,223,2522,1221,2516,2515,730,2523,2520,2517,38,2519],"class_list":["post-9083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlbpitching","tag-andy-benes","tag-ben-mcdonald","tag-brady-aiken","tag-brien-taylor","tag-bryan-bullington","tag-david-clyde","tag-david-price","tag-floyd-bannister","tag-gerrit-cole","tag-kris-benson","tag-luke-hochevar","tag-mark-appel","tag-matt-anderson","tag-mike-moore","tag-paul-wilson","tag-stephen-strasburg","tag-tim-belcher"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9083"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9428,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9083\/revisions\/9428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}