1976 National League Cy Young Winner Randy Jones Biography

By Author: Cheyanne Cooke
Total Articles: 381
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Randy Jones was born in Fullerton, California. Jones was a professional baseball player that played the position of pitcher.

As a pitcher Jones was a solid player that was not known for strikeouts like many of the popular pitchers of old, but he was instead known for his ability to make hitters keep the ball on the ground. Jones employed a pitch called a sinker that would force batters to hit the ball to the ground. As the ball approached his opponents it would sink towards the dirt, causing the hitters to hit on top of the baseball. This would force the ball into the ground and induced many ground ball outs.

Despite his great ability to force ground ball outs, he was not necessarily a dominant pitcher over the course of his career. His career ERA was a 3.42. This is a very solid number, but he actually lost more games than he won over the course of his career. His career win-loss record was 100-123. Over the course of his career that lasted about 10 years, he only struck out 735 hitters.

While he was not a dominant pitcher year in and year out, he certainly had his moments. Jones was originally drafted ...
... by the San Diego Padres. He was drafted in the 1972 Major League Baseball Draft in the 5th round. He quickly made his way up to the Major Leagues as he was playing with the Padres as early as 1973.

His 1974 season was somewhat of a nightmare, as he was only able to win 8 games while losing 22 times over the course of a season. While many pitchers would be discouraged by these sorts of numbers, Jones did not seem phased by the lack of success in the season. He turned things around the next year in a big way and actually managed to win 20 games in 1975. That season his ERA was cut in half and he posted a 2.24 ERA on the season. He was named the 1975 Comeback Player of the Year for his efforts and his career was on the way up.

After his 1974 season, I doubt anyone expected him to be a Cy Young Candidate, but he was just that in 1976. He followed up his 20 win season with another season of more than 20 wins as he totaled 22 on the year. His ERA for the season was at 2.74 and he was named the NL Cy Young Award winner.

These were his best two seasons of his career. He finished his career with 2 all-star selections. Both of those selections came in the 20 win seasons that he achieved. He also set a record for having the most plays made by a pitcher without ever committing an error. He made 112 plays without an error in 1976. Eventually his number(35) was retired by the San Diego Padres for his excellent pitching while on the team. Jones will be remembered as one of the all-time great pitchers for the San Diego Padres’ organization.

AUTHOR:-
Cheyanne Cooke writes reviews on various sporting events including the different online sportsbook websites. In this piece of write up, the author highlights on some of legends of MLB and MLB Betting odds. The author also takes the readers thought on how to bet on baseball.