Former Stros pitcher Joe Niekro died yesterday at the age of 61 in Tampa, Florida, reportedly of a brain aneurysm. Niekro pitching in 22 Major league seasons from 1967 through 1988 with seven teams, including the Stros, the Cubs, the Padres, the Tigers, the Braves, the Yankees and the Twins. Neil Hohlfeld’s Chronicle article on Niekro’s death is here, the NY Times obituary is here and don’t miss former teammate Larry Dierker’s heartfelt reflections on Niekro here.
Niekro and his Hall of Fame brother Phil were two of the best knuckleball pitchers of that era and still hold the Major League record for total wins by brothers with 539 (Joe accounted for 221 of those, 144 with the Stros). Although both Niekros relied on the knuckleball as their out pitch, Joe actually threw a variety of pitches in addition to the knuckler while Phil threw the knuckleball exclusively.
For his career, Niekro ended up being a below-average National League pitcher — he had a -42 career runs saved against average (RSAA, explained here). However, the Stros were fortunate to have Niekro playing for the club during 11 of his best seasons. Niekro pitched for the Stros from 1975-85, and he was a workhorse on the Stros pitching staffs (along with Nolan Ryan and J.R. Richard) of the first Stros teams that were serious playoff contenders in the 1979-81 seasons.

Niekro secured his place in Stros lore during the 1979 and 1980 seasons. In 1979, Niekro was named to the National League All-Star team, but was not allowed to play in the game by the NL manager, Dodgers’ manager Tommy Lasorda. During the ensuing pennant race between the Stros and the Dodgers, Stros fans never let Lasorda forget his All-Star snub of Niekro.
Then, during the 1980 season, when the emerging star Richard was struck down by a tragic stroke at mid-season, Niekro stepped up and pitched brilliantly in the Stros’ 7-1 win over the Dodgers in their one-game playoff after the Stros had blown a three-game lead by being swept by the Dodgers in the last series of the regular season. That win catapulted the Stros into their first post-season playoff series ever, where Niekro put together another incredible performance by pitching a record 10 shutout innings in a 1-0, 11 inning Stros victory in the third game of the classic 1980 League Championship Series against the eventual World Champion Phillies. In three postseason games with the Astros and Twins, Niekro worked 20 innings and allowed no earned runs.
Although Niekro won 21 and 20 games for the Stros in the 1979 and 1980 seasons, his best season for the Stros was actually 1982, when he was 17-12 and saved 33 more runs than an average National League pitcher that season. That was by far his best RSAA during any season in his career. Niekro has more wins than any pitcher in Stros history, but other than his career 1982 season, Niekro never had another RSAA greater than 8 while pitching for the Stros and he had a negative RSAA (reflecting below-average performance) in five of his 11 seasons with the Stros. As a result, Niekro is only 21st on the career RSAA list among Stros pitchers:

However, Niekro is a solid sixth in lowest earned run average for Stros’ pitchers who have pitched at least 1,000 innings for the Stros:

Finally, as noted above, Niekro has won more games for the Stros than any other Stros pitcher:

Niekro had a colorful career, including inadvertently helping Bruce Sutter make the Hall of Fame, drawing a suspension for being caught with a nail file on the pitching mound while pitching for the Twins in the 1987 American League pennant race, and finally appearing in the 1987 World Series a Major League record 19 years’ and 138 days’ service (over the course of 21 seasons) after beginning his Major League Baseball career. Since retiring from Major League Baseball in 1988, Niekro has been enjoying watching the development of his son, Lance Niekro, who currently plays first base for the San Francisco Giants.
Niekro’s career statistics are below (hit the time permalink below to review the all columns of the stats, a couple of which are cut off on the right below). A pdf of his stats is here and a pdf with explanations for the statistical abbreviations is here: