[Highlander]

Jack Chesbro- Happy Jack played two years before the Replay League, and did pretty well. However, the Pirates didn't think he was ready to do much in 1901 and he only pitched 21 innings (no injuries that I see). The his Replay career started in earnest in 1902 and continued until age 39 in 1914. He was traded in the middle of the 1908 season to the Detroit Tigers for CF Jimmy Barrett. He finished his career as a Tiger.

Jack's career numbers look like this-

173-129, 27 Saves, 27 Shut Outs (T-84th) 2649.2 IP, 2.57 ERA (27th), 1.19 WHIP (T-68th), 1046 K, 3.6 K/9, 41.2 WAR

Chesbro definitely had some great years, but didn't quite reach what he did in his real life career. His best seasons were 1902 and 1903. In 02, he went 26-6 with a 2.10 ERA, 1.15 WHIP and 111 Ks in 282.1 IP and 5.5 WAR. In 03, he went 21-12 with a 2.18 ERA, 1.02 WHIP and 154 Ks in 321.2 IP and 7.3 WAR. He had similar seasons the rest of his time in Pittsburgh, but the year he was traded, it looked like he was starting to regress. Once he got to Detroit, he proved that was not the case. The Tigers started to convert Jack into a bullpen guy, but his first two seasons there he still got a good number of starts. In 1909, he went 12-8 with a 1.59 ERA and in 1910, he went 11-3 with 1 save (he only had 13 starts) with a 1.51 ERA. After that, he was exclusively a bullpen guy. However, he topped off his career in his final season by leading the league in appearances (51) and saves (10) with a 2.45 ERA in 77 IP! Not surprisingly, he won the Reliever of the Year Award that year.


Chesbro won 5 championships in his career and was named to 3 All-Star teams. It took 9 years, but Happy Jack was very happy in 1928, as he was finally inducted into the HOF with 84.5% of the vote. He had a pretty interesting career and even though some of his numbers may not warrant induction, that 2.57 ERA is tough to keep out...along with how he reinvented himself as a great reliever in an era where bullpens weren't used that much!