I was surprised that Hubbell finished this low. However, when I looked at his record, he pitched only 16 years and he had only 4 seasons over 5 in Baseball Reference WAR. When he went over 5, he usually was a long way over 5. However, he was a great pitcher as combining all the formulas together so no problem making my hall of fame.
Hubbell was having a very good career then in 1933 he had one of those seasons were everything went right. It was the only season he had an ERA below 2.00. His ERA was actually 1.66. He won 25 games carrying his team to the pennant. He also won two games in the World Series allowing zero earned runs in 20 innings. One game Hubbell had to pitch 11 innings to get the victory. He was MVP that year.
In 1934 Hubbell struck out five future Hall of Famers in a row in the All-Star Game. He struck out Babe Ruth (Number 2 on my list), Lou Gehrig (Number 16) Jimmy Fox (Number 37), Al Simmons (Number 103) and Joe Cronin (Number 120). That was quite a feat. Now Hubbell was known for his great screwball, and I wondered if the players had troubles because they didn’t see his screwball much. However, I thought National League players saw Hubbell all the time and they couldn’t hit him, so that throws that theory out the window. However, I think there is some truth to that. When there was an 8-team lead if a pitcher started 35 games which Hubbell did at the time, he faced the other seven team an average of 5 games apiece. Now that is hard to do with 15 teams in a league. I can see a fastball pitcher getting away with facing a team more often, but Hubbell was a screwball pitcher, and it didn’t seem to bother him.
In 1936, Hubbell was again the MVP, and the Giants won the pennant. They faced the mighty Yankees. When I say mighty, I mean mighty. I think this team of Yankees, from 1936 to 1939) was the greatest dynasty of all time. I’m not the only one. In those four World Series the Yankees went 16-3. They went 2-2 versus Carl Hubbell and 14-1 against everybody else. The Yankees scored 6.4 runs a game in everyone else’s starts but only 4.25 a game when Hubble started. Against those Yankees that was an accomplishment.
