The other day, someone on the Scoresheet-Talk mailing list posed the question of whether ace pitchers more typically dominate from the beginning of their big-league careers or struggle initially before reaching stardom. Which, of course, started my wheels turning.

I did a very crude study on the history and development of stud pitchers. I call it crude because in assessing value I chose to look only at ERA, and also because, as it happens, I ended up examining only 11 pitchers. By no means exhaustive, but a good starting point.

First I established criteria for defining an ace pitcher. I looked at the ERA leaders in both leagues for the past four seasons (1997-2000). Any pitcher who appeared in the top 10 of either league for at least three of those seasons qualified as an ace. The method is fairly arbitrary, but I'm pretty pleased with the names it produced: Kevin Brown, Roger Clemens, Bartolo Colon, David Cone, Tom Glavine, Randy Johnson, Greg Maddux, Pedro Martinez, Mike Mussina, Curt Schilling, and John Smoltz.

Next I tracked the performance and workload of each pitcher in the minors, on first exposure to the big leagues, and on first qualifying for the ERA title. I also looked at the background of each, in terms of draft position and amateur experience. Here's what I found (names in parentheses represent pitchers closest to accompanying number):

                                min             max             avg
===============================================================================
IP in minors                  127.1 (Clemens) 652.1 (Cone)      395 (Colon)
ERA in minors                  1.55 (Clemens)  4.62 (Brown)    3.26 (Schilling)
age at debut                     20              24            21.5
age in 1st 162+ IP season        22              26            23.5
IP in 1st 162+ IP season      191.0 (Mussina) 254.0 (Clemens)   219 (Johnson)
ERA in 1st 162+ IP season      2.22 (Cone)     4.56 (Glavine)  3.09 (Maddux)
IP in bigs prior to 1st 162+   23.1 (Brown)   259.2 (Martinez)  132 (Cone)
ERA prior to 1st 162+          2.87 (Mussina)  5.65 (Colon)    4.26 (Brown)

Now let's look at some specifics:

• Four came out of college, one (Schilling) out of junior college, six out of high school.
• Three were first-rounders, four were second-rounders, one (Cone) was a third-rounder, one (Smoltz) was a 22nd-rounder, two (Colon, Martinez) were undrafted free agents.
• Average dropoff of 1.00 ERA on first exposure to big leagues. Only Brown's ERA improved on jumping to bigs.
• Average improvement of 1.17 ERA on first 162+ IP season. Average span from debut to first 162+ IP season, 2.0 years. By and large these guys had good minor league numbers, struggled for a couple years, then returned to form.
• Most of these pitchers stuck in the bigs once they reached. Only Schilling did much bouncing back and forth.
• All but three (Brown, Colon, Johnson) had sub-3.00 ERAs under their belts by age 25. Of those, Clemens, Cone, Mussina, Schilling, and Smoltz performed that feat in their first 162+ IP season; Maddux did it in his second, Martinez in his third, Glavine in his fourth.
• Brown and Johnson had their first sub-3.00 ERAs at age 31, Brown's eighth 162+ IP season and Johnson's sixth. Colon has yet to post a sub-3.00 ERA.

I'm reluctant to draw too many conclusions from such a small sample, but here are some possibilities:

1. Pedigree matters.
2. Lefties take longer.
3. Kevin Brown is a freak.

Again, this study probably raises more questions than it answers, but it's a springboard for possible future research. If anyone has ideas on how best to pursue this (assuming it's worthy of pursuit), drop me a line.

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