100 Greatest Phillies: 85 – Hal Carlson
Posted by Tim Malcolm, Fri, January 02, 2009 09:21 PM | Comments: 3
100 Greatest Phillies, Posts
Hal Carlson
Starting Pitcher
1924-1927
Career w/Phillies: 768.2 IP / 42-48 / 4.13 ERA / 214 K
A mediocre starting pitcher for his career, Carlson had two of his best seasons as a Phillie. In 1925, he went 13-14 with a 4.23 ERA. Sounds mediocre indeed, but when the league averages a 4.73 ERA (at the top of the live-ball ERA), it’s an impressive feat. In 1926 he was even better, posting a 17-12 record with a 3.23 ERA, scoring a 13th place MVP vote. In his four seasons as a Phillie, Carlson garnered 42 wins. Sadly, he died during the 1930 season at age 38.
Comment: He had a few really good seasons with the Phils, and was one of very few bright spots during a really bad era in franchise history. Give him his due.
Posts: 0 KM
Ahh, good old Hal Carlson. I can remember the days, 61 years before I was born when he was just a rook.
Posted: 10:28 PM on January 2, 2009
Posts: 0 Justin
I still don’t see how he’s better than Mitch Williams, or Jamie Moyer…
Posted: 02:53 PM on January 4, 2009
Posts: 0 From Section 113
Justin- It’s really hard to compare players from different eras. I like lists which split up eras since it does a better job to group players together.
Still with that being said, Carlson’s big year was much better than that of Moyer’s yr in ’08. Hal pitched to an ERA+ of 133! Now considering Hal did this 11 yrs the younger to that of Moyer can be argued in Moyer’s favor, but I would say Moyer and hal, taking in consideration Hal was in his mid 30′s and Moyer is in his mid 40′s were much closer together as Phill Greats than this list depicts.
But let’s not take away anything from a pitcher who pitched in 267+ innings while completing 20 games out of his 34 starts.
Posted: 05:23 PM on January 6, 2009