Astros History: Danny Darwin
Going deep on Dr. Death
When you’re a kid learning about baseball, it’s sometimes hard to tell your Lee Smiths from your Eric Davises. Names can have power, but differentiating players with such grown-up names can be hard.
Enter the Nickname.
The best players have them. Rocket. Doc. The Red Rooster. The Toy Cannon. The Ryan Express. The Big Puma. Death to Flying Things.
Heck, nicknames are such a part of baseball, the Baseball Project did a whole song about them. They focused on two in particular, Kung-Fu Panda (Pablo Sandoval) and The Freak (Tim Lincecum). But they also rattle off so many good ones it makes the song even more catchy.
Why do humans like nicknames so much? Well, the internet comes to the rescue. Dave Kenny writing for the Irish Examiner goes deep on nicknames. Call him The Deep.
According to a study by Bellevue University, Nebraska, men give nicknames as a way of being affectionate without compromising masculinity.
“It’s a man’s interpretation of what being friendly is like,” says Prof Cleveland Kent Evans.
…
“Nicknames are often used to signify belonging — to show you’re one of the group.. According to the Native Indians, names were given based on how a person was seen and judged by others.”
Knowing the nickname of a baseball player makes you feel a sense of belonging. It’s this scene from the Sandlot writ large.
We are all Smalls, not knowing who the Sultan of Swat is. Knowing helps us belong to other baseball-knowers.
That’s a long-ass windup to our focus today, one Danny Darwin. When I was a kid, I had ol Danny’s baseball card. It wasn’t because of the cool mustache. It wasn’t because I recognized how brilliant he was at baseball. I liked him because of his nickname.
Dr. Death.
How metal is that? This was long before Jack Kevorkian made that moniker more…problematic. Dr. Death was intimidating. It conveyed so much about his career. He didn’t take no shit. The plate was his.
For a young kid, that’s both terrifying and amazing.
So what we are going to explore here today is two-fold. Let’s dive into Darwin’s fascinating career, then figure out how he earned his nickname.
The career
Darwin played for an astounding 21 years. He split that between the Rangers, the Astros, the Red Sox, the Giants, the Brewers, the Pirates, the White Sox, and the Blue Jays.
Darwin was traded four times in his career. To stretch his remarkable legacy even further, one of the players he was traded for was Jim Sundberg, who first played in 1974. He was also traded for Bob Howry, who last played in 2010. That’s a solid 36-year stretch of baseball that Danny Darwin impacted, in however small a way.
Darwin played six seasons for the Astros across two separate stretches. He first came to Houston in an August trade during the stretch run of the 1986 season. Houston gave up Don August and Mark Knudson for him. August totaled 1.8 bWAR for the Brewers in a four-year career, while Knudson pitched six seasons for Milwaukee and one for Colorado after the trade. He finished his career with 2.1 bWAR.
Darwin, meanwhile, earned 1.0 bWAR in 1986 alone for the Astros. That year he pitched in 12 games down the stretch, starting eight of them. He finished with an ERA of 2.32 for Houston with 40 strikeouts and nine walks in 54 1/3 innings.
Darwin did not pitch in the postseason that year, however. He failed to throw in the postseason even once during his 21-year career.
In those six seasons for Houston, Darwin had his best ERA of any of his many stops. He appeared in 220 games for Houston, starting 81 and 52 more, going 47-35 with 12 saves. His ten complete games tie him with Don Sutton and Pete Harnisch for 30th on the team’s all-time list.
Over 769 innings, Darwin had a 3.21 ERA with 543 strikeouts and 201 walks. That ERA was 13 percent better than league average in his time with Houston. Only 12 Houston pitchers have a better ERA+ than Darwin. His teammate Nolan Ryan ranks 3 percent worse than Darwin in his Astros career.
Darwin began his career in 1978 and ended it in 1998 with the San Francisco Giants. That year, he threw a wild 148 1/3 innings at age 42 for the G-Men. His 5.52 ERA was 27 percent worse than league average, even in a time of juiced balls and juiced players. That Giants team finished 9 1/2 games behind the Ken Caminiti-led Padres, despite Barry Lamar Bonds finishing with 8.1 bWAR. San Fran finished a game behind the Cubs for the NL Wild Card spot.
If Darwin could only have stretched out his career for a couple more seasons, he would have appeared in four decades. As it stands, only 31 players in MLB history can claim that. The last player to do it was Jamie Moyer, who retired in 2012.
The superlatives
Darwin is still eighth in Astros history for WHIP with a sterling 1.164. He’s ahead of such luminaries as Roy Oswalt and Ken Johnson while sitting behind Roger Clemens, Justin Verlander, Mike Cuellar, and Mike Scott.
He’s also 11th on the all-time walks per nine innings list at 2.35. The leader in both categories is Verlander, who also leads in ERA and winning percentage. Feels like I’ll be doing an Astros History on JV’s place in team lore soon enough.
We find much more in this Beyond the Box Score article. For instance, when the article was published eight years ago, Darwin sat 198th on the all-time Pitcher WAR list, next to Don Newcombe.
He also may have had the most clutch season to that point. I’ll let the author explain:
In 1990, Danny Darwin became the most clutch player ever. Not Derek Jeter. Not Barry Bonds. Not Greg Maddux. It's Darwin, a pitcher for the Houston Astros. And it isn't really close. In Darwin's 1990 season, he yielded a 5.18 clutch score (clutchness? Clutch Above Expectation? Nevermind). The closest score held by a starting pitcher is Frank Tanana's 3.56 in 1978. Not close. The next closest reliever is Vicente Romo's 4.29 in 1974. Closer but still relatively distant. The best one by a batter is David Ortiz's 3.31 in 2005. Still impressive, yet laughably distant really.
It’s worth a read to delve into how effective Darwin was during the 1990 season when he bounced between the bullpen and starting rotation.
The Nickname
Well, leave it to SABR to answer the question best about Darwin’s nickname. This is from their retrospective on his career:
In Houston, Darwin united with his boyhood idol, Nolan Ryan. The two became fast friends, even vacationing together in the offseason.17 Ryan gave Darwin the nickname “Dr. Death” because of the way he eyed batters who got to first base off him.
But wait, maybe there is more to this nickname. Here’s a summary from the indispensable Astros Daily.
One of the most mercurial pitchers in Astros history, this Bonham, Texas native was known for his competitive fire which earned him the nickname "Doctor Death." He was ready to come off the mound at any time to engage in any on-field melee against the opposing club.
He once defended fellow Mariner teammate Mickey Rivers against unruly White Sox fans outside old Comiskey Park in 1980, breaking a knuckle.
Aha! So Dr. Death also liked to mix it up, protecting his teammates. We get more of that story in that excellent Beyond the Box Score article up top.
This was the only footage I could find. Darwin is just 'the guy who hit Henry Rodriguez and started a brawl.' Really? Not even a baseball replay. Darwin is the guy who started the brawl that resulted in Terry Collins getting his upper lip split open.
The footage referenced, FYI, is no longer available. Thanks, MLB! Oh, and we have a report from that SABR article above about him also getting in fights with Barry Bonds and Orel Herscheiser
Darwin re-signed back with the Giants in December, but perhaps the most newsworthy part of the following season was his reported scrap with the Giants’ star outfielder, Barry Bonds, during an April 22 game against Pittsburgh. According to witnesses, Darwin and Bonds had a heated exchange in the clubhouse tunnel after Bonds lazily fielded a ball that led to a run.32 In a separate incident, on August 2, Darwin’s then-teammate Orel Hershiser recalled that Darwin had cold-cocked him during a brawl with the Phillies. According to Hershiser, “He said I hit him when I was pitching against him, and he wanted to get me back.”33 Darwin denied the punch, saying, “That never happened…I’m going to talk to [Hershiser].”34
So Darwin did mix it up, but it was definitely Nolan who gave him the nickname. Let’s talk to the man who sat down with C. Trent Rosencrans for an interview with the Athletic a few years ago.
One thing I’ve always wanted to ask you – what’s the origin of your nickname?
Which one?
“Dr. Death”
Nolan gave that to me. I didn’t even realize I did it, but he said every time you give up a hit, it looks like you want to kill somebody. I said, ‘really?’ He said, ‘yeah, you just look at them.’ That’s how it came about.
To get that from Nolan Ryan had to take it to another level, right?
I know. When it came out, we were somewhere and someone said, ‘Hey, I heard Bob Knepper is trying to set up a fight between you and Nolan, who is going to win?’ I said, ‘What? I’ve never heard that.’ Just like the deal with (Orel) Hershiser, who said I hit him out there (as a teammate) and I said, ‘I never hit you in a fight.’ I’m telling everyone I know that Hershiser one, he didn’t take my best punch. It’s funny how things go. How you get names, that’s how it came about. I asked him one day, and he told people. It stuck. I get balls sent through the mail and people want me to sign it ‘Dr. Death.’
Do you?
Yeah, I will.
I think I like the nickname even more now. Coming from Nolan Ryan, about his intimidating mound presence, maybe because he was a bit of a brawler? And what’s up with Bob Knepper trying to set up a fight between him and Nolie?
This is precisely the stuff I love about baseball history. One question begets more and more and more. Dudes having beef. Dudes having fun. It’s a great game sometimes. I’m going to go find that Danny Darwin cards I used to have. I’m sure it’s in a box somewhere. Feels like it needs to be put on display, or else Dr. Death might cold-cock me.