1980Gura

U.L.’s Toothpick: The Year Of The Card–Larry Gura, 1980

The battle between stats and scouting has gone on longer than you probably think. Baseball seems to fall increasingly in love with fastball velocity, for understandable reasons. Yet at some point, the ability to get people out should outweigh how hard a guy can throw. Once upon a time, the Royals were gifted a pitcher because normally-smart baseball men became convinced he couldn’t succeed without throwing hard. That pitcher was Larry Gura, and he would be a key part in five division title winners in Kansas City.

Lawrence Cyril Gura was born on November 26, 1947 in Joliet, Illinois. He chose to play his college baseball far away, at Arizona State. But the Cubs brought him back home by selecting him with the 40th overall pick in the 1969 draft. Since he was a college pitcher, the Cubs obviously felt like they could move him through the minors quickly. After 52 dominant innings in rookie ball, he was promoted to Triple-A Tacoma. He held his own there, and made his major league debut in April 1970.

Although he was demoted shortly after, he was back in the bigs in June and pitched reasonably well, albeit in just 38 innings. But Cubs manager Leo Durocher wasn’t a believer in Gura’s ability. The young lefthander was limited to 13 total major league appearances in 1972-1973, despite winning 11 games at Triple-A each of those years. With Durocher gone, he saw a little more action in 1973, but still only worked 64.2 innings. And with a 4.87 ERA that year, he probably didn’t make much of an impression on the new regime.

The Cubs dealt him to Texas in November 1973, but Gura’s stay with the Rangers organization was short. In May 1974, he was traded again, this time to the Yankees for catcher Duke Sims, who was at the end of a good, long career. Sims would only play in 39 games for the Rangers before his career ended.

Meanwhile, Gura was finally given a chance to pitch regularly. He started eight games for New York in 1974, and was penciled into the rotation to begin the 1975 season after that went well. Gura did a fine job as the Yankees’ fifth starter; although his record was only 3-4 through the end of July, his ERA was 3.27. But on August 1 of that year, Billy Martin took over as manager.

Martin, like Durocher, was another smart baseball man who was also combative. And like Durocher, Martin was convinced that Gura couldn’t possibly be successful without velocity or a really good out pitch, no matter what the numbers said. I also suspect that Durocher and Martin, as old-school as it got, weren’t quite sure what to do with this young man who was into weight training, nutrition, and martial arts. Gura was definitely ahead of his time in those areas. Also, perhaps Martin, a bully at heart, didn’t like knowing that Gura, a green belt in tae kwon do, would likely beat him soundly in a fight.

Anyway, Gura finished out the 1975 season in the rotation, but Martin had decided to switch back to a four-man rotation. As a result, Gura pitched just 10 times over the final two months of the season.

That was a heavy workload compared to what Gura would have as the 1976 season began. The lefty made the Opening Day roster as a reliever. And then he sat. And sat some more. Despite being on the roster for the first 27 games of the season, Gura did not pitch in a game once. That’s hard to fathom in this day and age.

Finally, on May 16, the Royals traded Fran Healy to the Yankees for Gura. Like Sims before him, Healy was about at the end of his career; he would play in only 74 more major league games. But this time for Gura, he was finally with a manager (Whitey Herzog) and an organization that would let him pitch.

At first, the Royals used Gura almost exclusively as a reliever; he went 12-5 with 11 saves and a 2.82 ERA in 72 games (eight starts; one of those was the game that clinched the 1976 AL West title) over the 1976-1977 seasons. But in 1978, Herzog added Gura to the rotation as the fourth starter. He was rewarded with a 16-4 mark, a 2.72 ERA in 221 2/3 innings, and the seventh-place finisher in the Cy Young vote.

After spurning the Yankees as a free agent (for obvious reasons), Gura re-signed with the Royals following the 1978 season. He struggled a bit in 1979, although he still went 13-12. But his hits allowed, home runs allowed, and ERA all ballooned.

In 1980, Gura rebounded in a big way. He posted an 18-10 record with a 2.95 ERA in 283 1/3 (!) innings. He made the All-Star team for the only time in his career, and finished sixth in the Cy Young voting. By WARP, it was the finest season if his career. He was a big part of the Royals’ fourth division title in five years. He ended May with a 1.89 ERA and won six straight starts in late July and early August. He did weaken down the stretch a bit, as the Royals lost in his final eight starts of the year. The team had a huge division lead, so it didn’t matter a lot, but it did cost Gura a 20-win season. Throwing that many innings in the brutally hot summer of 1980, it’s no surprise Gura was worn down. He did recover to get the win in ALCS Game One against Martin and the Yankees, and pitched well in Games Two and Five of the World Series.

Gura had two more solid seasons in 1981 and 1982. He struggled in 1983, although he still worked 200 1/3 innings, a very valuable contribution in a season of turmoil for the franchise. He won 12 games in 1984, despite a 5.18 ERA, as the Royals won the AL West for the first time since 1980. But he was ineffective in the early part of the 1985 season, and the Royals released him on May 18 of that year. He signed on with the Cubs, pitched in five games, and was released in mid-August, ending his career.

Gura finished his Royals career with a 111-78 record and a 3.72 ERA in 310 games. He still ranks fifth in Royals history for wins, second in winning percentage, fifth in innings pitched, fourth in complete games and shutouts, and despite what Martin thought about him allowing too many baserunners, seventh in WHIP. He was inducted into the Royals’ Hall of Fame in 1992.

Larry Gura’s best games of 1980:
4/30 @ TOR: Pitched complete-game one-hitter, walked one, struck out two in 3-0 win.
4/11 vs. DET: Pitched complete game, allowing six hits and three walks with five strikeouts in 4-0 win.
7/18 @ NYY: Struck out seven, allowed three hits in 13-1 win.
7/27 vs. NYY: Scattered seven hits in complete-game shutout in 8-0 win.
4/25 vs. BAL: Held Orioles to four hits and four walks in complete-game shutout in 7-0 win.

About the card:
Gura looks very confident on a back field somewhere at spring training, presumably in Fort Myers, Florida. On the back, perhaps it’s just my layout background, but the un-aligned type on the years really bugs me. A lot. In the cartoon, the American Association is abbreviated as A.A. in the newspaper. Yet the AA was a Triple- A league. How’s that for confusing?

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