The Best Pitcher in Oakland A's History

Jason Burke | Jan 6, 2025

Sep 27, 2015; Oakland, CA, USA; San Francisco Giants starting pitcher Tim Hudson (17) and Oakland Athletics former starting pitcher Mark Mulder and Athletics starting pitcher Barry Zito (75) accept gifts from the Oakland Athletics before the game at O.co Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Ed Szczepanski-Imagn Images / Ed Szczepanski-Imagn Images

A few days ago, we had a discussion about the best player in Oakland A's history. Well, second best, since Rickey Henderson was by far and away the best talent to wear the green and gold. We used the Baseball-Reference version of WAR (wins above replacement) to make it subjective and less based on emotion, meaning that the players we mentioned were the best on the field according to the data.

In posting that article, we had plenty of people providing their thoughts on who the second-best player in Oakland history was, and some were wondering why there was no pitchers mentioned. Today, we're going to talk about the pitchers.

One common entry was Dave Stewart, who was obviously fantastic for the A's during their postseason runs from 1988-90, holding a 7-3 record overall in that span, which included two wins in the 1989 World Series against the San Francisco Giants. He also won the World Series MVP that year, holding a 1.69 ERA across 16 innings. He was truly fantastic in helping secure the team's most recent championship.

The reason that he's not the best pitcher in Oakland A's history (by WAR at least) is that he spent eight seasons with the club, and four of those were truly great. In 1987 he led the league in wins with 20, putting up a 4.3 WAR, then followed that up with a 4.5 WAR season in '88 while finishing first in innings pitched and fourth in the AL Cy Young voting.

In 1989 he was solid yet again, racking up 3.8 WAR, and finished second in the Cy Young voting. The following year, after two deep postseason runs, he put up the best season of his career with a 2.56 ERA across 267 innings, which included 11 complete games. He ended the year with 5.2 WAR and finished third in the voting.

Stew's peak was massive, but short-lived. He finished as the No. 6 pitcher (by WAR) in Oakland history with 18.9. His 1991 and 1995 stints with the club actually subtracted from his overall WAR total with the team as he put up a 5.18 ERA (-0.5 WAR) and 6.89 ERA (-0.9 WAR) in those two years.

So if not Stew, then who?

Another common answer was Hall of Fame reliever Dennis Eckersley. Another solid choice, based off of his track record as a lights out closer when the team was reaching the World Series year after year. In nine seasons with the A's, Eck finished with a 2.74 ERA and 320 saves, totaling 16 wins above replacement.

He finished right behind Stewart in the rankings. This is for a couple of reasons. Relief pitchers have the fewest opportunities to accrue WAR over a given season, being that they typically throw for an inning or two at a time. Mason MIller, who was one of the best in the game last season, finished with 2.4 WAR with the A's. It just takes more time to rack up enough WAR to be high on the list, and the fact that Eckersley is right behind Stewart on the who's who of Oakland pitchers is pretty impressive.

Before we get into the top of the list, one interesting tidbit we found is that only 16 A's pitchers have totaled more than ten WAR in their time in Oakland, and one them, Justin Duchscherer, just snuck in with 10.7 WAR, placing him as the last entrant on the list. Yet, with a smaller sample size of 440 innings, he not only made it, but finished with the highest ERA+ of all of the Oakland greats with a 154.

In his seven years with the A's, he made it into 219 games, starting 30 of them, and held a 2.82 ERA, which is just incredible consistency, especially in the era he was playing in (2003-10). That ERA+ was eight points better than Eck, which speaks to just how good "The Duke" was as the long man out of the A's bullpen.

Now to the top of the list, which shouldn't come as much of a surprise. If you had to pick a member of the Big Three, who would it be? I'll give you a second to deliberate.

Sep 27, 2015; Oakland, CA, USA; San Francisco Giants starting pitcher Tim Hudson (17) and Oakland Athletics former starting pitcher Mark Mulder and Athletics starting pitcher Barry Zito (75) accept gifts from the Oakland Athletics before the game at O.co Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Ed Szczepanski-Imagn Images / Ed Szczepanski-Imagn Images

In what was a very close competition, it was Tim Hudson just edging out Barry Zito for the top spot with Huddy's 31 WAR topping Zito's 30.6. Right behind both of them in third place was Vida Blue (29).

Hudson's perch atop the leaderboard isn't necessarily surprising, but when you also account for his relative lack of innings compared to the rest of the group, it's even more impressive that he ended up at No. 1. He finished with 1,240 2/3 innings with the A's, which ranked No. 7 among the 16 best pitchers in Oakland history. Yet he was still considered the best among them.

While Hudson spent a total of nine seasons with the Atlanta Braves, his WAR total was actually higher in his time with the A's. In his six seasons with Oakland he produced 31 wins, while in Atlanta he put up 24.1. From the ages of 23 to 28 with the A's, Hudson held a 3.30 ERA and went 92-39. He was one heck of a competitor.

Two of his most memorable starts have to be the one where the A's clinched their 20th consecutive victory and when he started Game 1 of the ALDS in Oakland against Pedro Martínez and the Boston Red Sox.

With the A's up 11-0 going into the fourth inning and Hudson on the mound, most A's fans believed that the 20th win would be a cinch. But a five-run fourth from Kansas City along with some late inning scoring saw the game tied at 11 headed to the bottom of the ninth. That's when Scott Hatteberg became famous.

In the ALDS matchup, Pedro was the one receiving all of the acclaim for the past few years (and he deserved all of it), but there was always a sense that "our guy" was pretty good too. This was a chance to test that theory. Hudson and Martínez matched each other in a tense game, that also ended in dramatic fashion.

In the bottom of the 12th with the score tied 4-4, the bases were loaded with two outs. Up steps catcher Ramón Hernández. For anyone that has seen Moneyball, what happened next will be a complete shock.

He bunted.

Eric Chavez sprinted home from third, and the A's walked it off to take a 1-0 lead in the series.

The complete top seven of the leaderboard is Tim Hudson (31), Barry Zito (30.6), Vida Blue (29), Catfish Hunter (20.7), Mark Mulder (19.7), Dave Stewart (18.9), and Dennis Eckersley (16).

Right behind all of those great names lies one of the biggest "what-if" questions in recent A's history. Rich Harden is No.8 on the leaderboard with 13 WAR in 624 1/3 innings. Injuries derailed what looked to be a promising career.