It’s fair to say that Anthony Young and the New York Mets didn’t work well together. The hurler was with the Amazins during their dark seasons of 1991 through 1993, and he suffered to a 5-35 record despite a respectable 3.82 ERA. He’s most known for losing 27 straight decisions for New York from May 6th, 1992 to July 24th, 1993, which is a Major League record. I wanted to bring Young to the spotlight today to point out some details of that streak, and how he was held in high regard in the minor league system.
Young is a native of Houston, Texas, and attended the University of Houston prior to getting selected in the 38th round of the 1987 MLB draft by the New York Mets. The right-hander didn’t waste any time, signing on June 6th and reporting to Little Falls in the NYPL. He didn’t wow anyone in 53.2 innings pitched (14 appearances- nine starts), as he put together a 3-4 record with a 4.53 ERA and 1.55 WHIP. He walked 25 hitters in that season, good for a BB/9 rate of 4.2. That would be a trend throughout his entire minor league career; his BB/9 would never fall under 3.0.
As a 22-year-old, he spent the 1988 season in Little Falls again, and performed much better despite a 3-5 record. His ERA and WHIP dropped to 2.20 and 1.15, respectively, and he struck out 75 hitters in 73.2 innings pitched. His BB/9 was 4.2 once again, but his WHIP improved because hits H/9 dropped from 9.7 to 6.2.
After two years in the New York Penn League, Young was finally promoted to Columbia in the South Atlantic League for the 1989 season. He put together a winning season (9-6), while eclipsing 100 innings pitched (129, to be exact) or the first time in his career. Young appeared in 21 games (17 as a starter) and threw to a 3.49 ERA and 1.32 WHIP with 127 strikeouts. However, it was his 1990 season with Double-A Jackson that put him on the map with scouts.
In his age-24 season, Young put together a 15-3 record, 1.65 ERA, 1.06 WHIP, and 95 strikeouts in 158 innings pitched in the Texas League. While his K/9 was the lowest of his minor league career at the time (5.4), so was his BB/9 (3.0), meaning he was pitching more to contact, and it was working out wonderfully. That performance earned Young the distinction of being the 26th best prospect in the all of baseball, according to Baseball America.
His final stop in the minor leagues was with Triple-A Tidewater in 1991, where he went 7-9 with a 3.73 ERA and 1.46 WHIP with 93 strikeouts in 164 innings pitched before getting called up and making his MLB debut with the Mets on August 5th, 1991. He would appear in 10 games with the Mets that season (eight starts) and put together a 2-5 record with a 3.10 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, and 20 strikeouts in 49.1 innings pitched.
That leads me to the 1993 season. Baseball America tabbed him as the game’s 55th best prospect, and his will would continually be tested, starting in May. Young would eventually break the record of 23 straight losses, set by Cliff Curtis from 1910 to 1911. What had to be the most frustrating part for Young during this streak was that he actually pitched well on more occasions than not.
He filled in for an injured John Franco as closer, and converted 12 straight saves, while throwing 23.2 consecutive scoreless innings. Despite that, Young went 0-14 as a starter and 0-13 as a reliever. In addition to that, Young also made 27 straight starts without getting a win (from April 1992 to May 1994). He made 13 quality starts during that time, but his team (the Mets and Cubs) would only go 4-23 during that time.
So, we look at his win-loss record and think he just couldn’t hack it in the big leagues. In reality, he was a victim of incredibly bad luck while actually pitching reasonably well in his career. After an unsuccessful tenure with New York, Young went on to play for the Chicago Cubs for two years, and his hometown Houston Astros for one, compiling a more normal 10-13 record during that time.
Despite having a respectable 3.89 ERA and 1.39 WHIP in his career, Young’s career record is 15-48, good for a .239 winning percentage. He didn’t deserve that kind of record for how he pitched, and while he’ll be in the record books for quite some time with a record he’d rather not have, we all know it’s a team effort to get a victory, and this is part of the reason why a pitcher’s record is not a good predictor of their true performance.