Dave Stieb

David Andrew Stieb (; born July 22, 1957) is an American former Major League Baseball (MLB) starting pitcher who spent the majority of his career with the Toronto Blue Jays. A seven-time All-Star, he won The Sporting News Pitcher of the Year Award in 1982. His 56.9 career wins above replacement (according to Baseball-Reference) are the highest of any Blue Jays player, and he also holds the franchise records for complete games, strikeouts (1,658), and innings pitched (2,873).

A promising outfielder prospect at Southern Illinois University, Stieb was converted to a starting pitcher after being drafted by the Blue Jays, who told him that it would be the quickest way to get him to the majors. Fast-tracked through the minors, he debuted in 1979. Stieb led the American League (AL) in earned run average (ERA) in 1985, finishing in the top five four other times (1982, 1983, 1984, and 1990). Stieb also twice led the AL in innings pitched (1982 and 1984). Injury prevented him from playing in the 1992 postseason, where the Blue Jays won their first World Series. After a stint with the Chicago White Sox, Stieb retired from baseball, only to make a brief return as a reliever for the Blue Jays in 1998 before retiring for good.

Stieb won 140 games in the 1980s, the second-highest total by a pitcher in that decade, behind only his rival (and later teammate) Jack Morris. In his later college years, he played varsity baseball at Southern Illinois University. In his 1978 junior season, Stieb hit .394 with 12 home runs and 48 RBIs, and was named to The Sporting News All-American team (along with Kirk Gibson and Bob Horner).

Scouted by Bobby Mattick and Al LaMacchia of the Blue Jays as an outfield prospect in a varsity game, Stieb's performance failed to impress until he was pressed into service as a relief pitcher. His pitching surprised and convinced the Blue Jays to draft him in the 1978 Major League Baseball draft.

Career Stieb entered the Blue Jays farm system with very little pitching experience. Over the course of his college career, he pitched a grand total of 17 innings, mostly in relief. Nevertheless, he made four starts with the Single-A Dunedin Blue Jays in 1978, working to a 2.08 ERA. In 1979, he was promoted to the Blue Jays' AAA affiliate, the Syracuse Chiefs, working to a 2.12 ERA over a 5–2 record and 51 innings pitched. He made his first start for the Blue Jays on June 29, 1979, just a year after being drafted as an outfielder and with just 128 innings pitched in the minors. The contract, including options exercisable by the team, was for a term of eleven years and specified a salary that increased to $1.9 million in 1993, $2 million in 1994, and $2.1 million in 1995. While this was seen to be generous at the time the contract was signed, by the time the later years of the contract came around this was a bargain, considering that several players were receiving several times the amount per year. The Blue Jays voluntarily renegotiated the last three years of his contract to pay him a higher amount in recognition of his years of service.

Stieb finished the 1986 season 7-12, struggling to a 4.74 ERA. He improved in 1987, finishing with a 4.09 ERA in 185 IP, and in 1988, with a 3.04 ERA. However, Toronto struggled to repeat the success it found in 1985.

Stieb was known for flirting with, and struggling to close out, no-hitters. He took a no-hitter into the ninth inning in a 1985 game; this bid was broken up by back-to-back home runs and Stieb was replaced in the game before he recorded an out in the ninth. In 1988, he was a single strike away from a no-hitter in two successive starts, on September 24 against Cleveland and September 30 against Baltimore; both attempts were broken up on 2-2 counts by the 27th batter (Julio Franco and Jim Traber, respectively). Both hits were also considered to be fluky hits, with Franco's taking an unexpected hop on the infield that caused the ball to bound over the second baseman's glove, and Traber's hit coming on a weak flare that was just out of the reach of the first baseman. On September 2, 1990, he pitched the first (and, , only) no-hitter in Blue Jays history, defeating the Cleveland Indians 3–0.

Going into the 1989 season, Stieb brought a scoreless streak to 34 straight innings, the longest such streak in franchise history, before giving up one run to the Royals on April 5, 1989. He finished the season at 17-8 with a 3.35 ERA, but lost both of his starts in the ALCS, as Toronto fell to the eventual-world champion Oakland Athletics. In 1990, Stieb finished with a 2.93 ERA, fifth in the AL, and earned his seventh and last All-Star nomination. He also finally pitched his no-hitter against the Indians in September. He was awarded a World Series ring after the Blue Jays won their first championship later that year, despite not pitching in the postseason due to injuries. In 1993, he played four games with the Chicago White Sox, before finally retiring due to lingering back problems.

Pitching style Stieb entered the league primarily as a power pitcher, relying on a high, inside fastball to strike batters out. The brushback pitch was an integral part of his repertoire to back batters off the plate, and was especially tough on right-handed hitters in this respect. As a result, he was the leader in hit batsmen in the American League in 1981, 1983, 1984, 1986, and 1989, and he was in the top three in 1985, 1988, and 1990.

Later on in his career he developed his breaking ball repertoire, and he became very effective with a "dead fish" curveball that would break into the dirt as the batter swung.

Stieb had a high-strung personality and was known as a fierce competitor on the mound; he was regularly seen having animated conversations with himself between pitches when in difficult situations. Whereas with other pitchers this would be seen as a sign of weakness, with Stieb it was perceived as the best way to motivate himself to get out of a jam. Early in his career, Stieb would also frequently yell at his teammates after errors, for plays that he thought they should have made.

In later years, Stieb mellowed somewhat, although a fierce glare after a botched play was still not uncommon.

Personal life

He was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, located in St. Marys, Ontario, with the Class of 2005.

As of 2016, Stieb resided in Reno, Nevada, where he worked as a building contractor.

Stieb's older brother, Steve, was a catcher and pitcher in the Atlanta Braves minor league system from 1979 to 1981.

Legacy

During his career, Stieb won 176 games while losing 137. Only Jack Morris won more games in the 1980s. Stieb holds career records for Toronto pitchers in wins, games started, shutouts, strikeouts, complete games and a variety of other categories. Stieb appeared in seven All-Star games, also a Blue Jays team record.

Baseball writer and statistician Bill James called Dave Stieb, in his prime, the best pitcher of his era. He compared Stieb to Jim Bunning, arguing that both pitchers deserved "more than one" Cy Young Award, but never won one, thanks to poor run support. In 2009, a panel of Baseball-Reference historians listed him as the fourth best pitcher of the 1980s, behind Tommy John and Hall-of-Famers Nolan Ryan and Bert Blyleven (and ahead of Jack Morris).

On August 29, 2010, Stieb threw the ceremonial first pitch at the Rogers Centre, celebrating the 20th anniversary of his no-hitter game, with the anniversary coming four days after the celebration. Stieb's number 37 was written on the pitcher's mound for that game and 10,000 bobbleheads of Stieb were handed out to fans upon entrance.

Stieb's autobiography, Tomorrow I'll Be Perfect, was co-written with Kevin Boland and released in 1986.

Stieb was the subject of a 2022 four-part miniseries by Secret Base's Jon Bois and Alex Rubenstein, entitled Captain Ahab: The Story of Dave Stieb; in addition to discussing his career, the series advocated for his induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame based on his accomplishments. It was an effort to invoke empathy for him due to his six no-hitters lost past the sixth inning (especially the three lost after 26 outs) and his lack of representation because of his lower win totals compared to other dominant pitchers since the Blue Jays' less-than-optimal run support for him prevented him from achieving ones higher. The New York Times praised Captain Ahab as "not a standard, staid hagiography — it’s a whimsical and discursive look at statistics, passion, fandom, culture in general and baseball culture in particular". Paste magazine and Polygon included the series in their lists of the best documentaries and video essays (respectively) of 2022.

Hall of Fame consideration Stieb became eligible for the National Baseball Hall of Fame in , but received only seven votes (1.4%) and fell off the ballot in his first year. Part of the reason has been the emergence of advanced sabermetrics; among starting pitchers in the 1980s, Stieb leads the decade in wins above replacement (WAR) and adjusted ERA+. Jay Jaffe of Baseball Prospectus (the creator of JAWS) wrote that Stieb, along with Orel Hershiser, was the best pitcher from " very underrepresented era of pitchers" in the Hall of Fame, adding that his career "[fits] well within the range of many Hall of Fame starters whose places in Cooperstown don’t keep us lying awake at night."

In their Captain Ahab documentary series, Alex Rubenstein and Jon Bois suggested that Stieb's brief comeback in 1998 hurt his candidacy; by "restarting the clock" on the five-year retirement period necessary before consideration, Rubenstein and Bois argued, Stieb guaranteed that the BBWAA members voting in 2004 would barely remember his dominant seasons of the early 1980s.

Awards and accomplishments Seven-time MLB All-Star World Series champion AL ERA leader (1985) Pitched a no-hitter on September 2, 1990 1982 Sporting News Pitcher of the Year Award Toronto Blue Jays Level of Excellence Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame (inducted 2005) Ontario Sports Hall of Fame (inducted 2014) San Jose Sports Hall of Fame (inducted 2023)