Shumate was all about incremental improvement and consistency in 1921. From the looks of his stats, he put up a pitcher of the year performance in 1920 as well but had to
. So he slims his HR/9 by 0.1, his BB/9 by 0.3, and upped his K/9 by 0.2 and most importantly to voters... his ERA by 0.30.
But it's telling that Shumate has never won pitcher of the month. He's just been consistently good from April to September. Other pitchers may rise and fall but you could use Shumate as a unit of measurement. That's how consistent he was.
Having said that, he was particularly special in May. He put up a 1.48 ERA, 0.87 WHIP, 12.0 K/9, 1.30 FIP and 289 ERA+ --
was Logan Phillip's month really better? The only mark he does worse is the W-L record, Shumate put up just 4-3 that month, somehow.
Achievements this year:
- 7 Complete Shutouts (leads the league)
- 3 16 K games
- 20 10+ K games
- 3 games with 3 hits or less
- All-Star for second straight year
- Led the league in FIP and FIP-
- Top 5 finish in QS, K, K/9, HR/9, K/BB, WHIP, Wins, and ERA
- Top 10 finish in IP, BB/9