Gatewood is a challenge. Here’s why: he spent his first 3 to 5 years as primarily on OF/1B. But that was really only because he had a very strong rookie season at the plate. From then on, and really throughout his career, he was a good batter for a pitcher, but not a good batter for a position player.
This caught up to him: he played in the field somewhat regularly until 1914 or 1915, but not thereafter.
We’ve decided to model Big Bill as a pitcher only–he just didn’t do enough offensively to warrant the 2-way consideration, although, again, he was a good hitter for someone who primarily pitched.
The other challenge is that he wasn’t a particularly good pitcher. He had some good years, for sure, and 1916 stands out as a freakish outlier with 1920 and 1921 also being solid. But he really was a notch below league average throughout most of his career. Good enough to stick around, but not good enough to ever hold down a rotation spot, not really.
The outlier years are excellent, though, and occur just often enough that you could easily see Gatewood keeping a roster spot as teams hope he recaptures that level of performance.
He had decent control, didn’t strike out many batters usually, and was hard to take deep.
We have added stats for 1910 and 1918, and could easily see him, after a productive 1920 and 1921, being out of the game anywhere between 1922 and 1925, as he declined rapidly in his early 40’s.
We may be too harsh on his final few years–he could have pitched better than we have and still find himself on the very fringes of rosters or out of the game. Future revisions may address that, and may smooth out some of the year to year swings in his performance, but I think this captures both his peak and his overall level of performance.
| Name | Bill Gatewood (Big Bill) |
| ID / Status | gatewo000bil / Draft |
| Pos | P |
| DOB / i9s Career | 08/22/1881 / 1906 - 1925 |
| Birthplace | San Antonio, TX (USA) |
| Height / Weight | 6'0" / 195 |
| B / T | R / R |
Batting Projections
Pitching Projections
| Year | G | GS | IP | HA | W | K | HRA | eD | eT | eHBP | BB/9 | H/9 | K/9 | ERA | WHIP |
| 1906 | 14 | 5 | 74.0 | 80 | 18 | 40 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2.2 | 9.7 | 4.9 | 2.86 | 1.32 |
| 1907 | 24 | 8 | 111.0 | 137 | 42 | 44 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 3.4 | 11.1 | 3.6 | 3.56 | 1.61 |
| 1908 | 7 | 1 | 30.0 | 38 | 6 | 11 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1.8 | 11.4 | 3.3 | 3.61 | 1.47 |
| 1909 | 20 | 12 | 122.0 | 141 | 34 | 60 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 2.5 | 10.4 | 4.4 | 3.16 | 1.43 |
| 1910 | 16 | 4 | 76.0 | 70 | 19 | 35 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2.3 | 8.3 | 4.1 | 2.53 | 1.17 |
| 1911 | 25 | 10 | 129.0 | 131 | 38 | 56 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 2.7 | 9.1 | 3.9 | 3.25 | 1.31 |
| 1912 | 28 | 24 | 192.0 | 195 | 69 | 56 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 3.2 | 9.1 | 2.6 | 3.60 | 1.38 |
| 1913 | 32 | 28 | 223.0 | 196 | 82 | 95 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 3.3 | 7.9 | 3.8 | 2.78 | 1.25 |
| 1914 | 26 | 25 | 192.0 | 210 | 60 | 78 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 2.8 | 9.8 | 3.7 | 3.40 | 1.41 |
| 1915 | 40 | 32 | 263.0 | 276 | 90 | 89 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 3.1 | 9.4 | 3.0 | 3.40 | 1.39 |
| 1916 | 33 | 29 | 235.0 | 181 | 60 | 101 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 2.3 | 6.9 | 3.9 | 2.16 | 1.03 |
| 1917 | 27 | 26 | 199.0 | 209 | 51 | 81 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 2.3 | 9.5 | 3.7 | 2.95 | 1.31 |
| 1918 | 27 | 18 | 169.0 | 143 | 49 | 50 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 2.6 | 7.6 | 2.7 | 2.51 | 1.14 |
| 1919 | 36 | 21 | 206.0 | 215 | 64 | 61 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 2.8 | 9.4 | 2.7 | 3.28 | 1.35 |
| 1920 | 41 | 35 | 280.0 | 244 | 77 | 79 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 2.5 | 7.8 | 2.5 | 2.93 | 1.15 |
| 1921 | 33 | 27 | 227.0 | 225 | 67 | 89 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 2.7 | 8.9 | 3.5 | 3.31 | 1.29 |
| 1922 | 21 | 5 | 86.0 | 129 | 41 | 28 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 4.3 | 13.5 | 2.9 | 5.77 | 1.98 |
| 1923 | 19 | 7 | 87.0 | 103 | 30 | 29 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3.1 | 10.7 | 3.0 | 4.26 | 1.53 |
| 1924 | 23 | 9 | 114.0 | 139 | 45 | 34 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 3.6 | 11.0 | 2.7 | 4.62 | 1.61 |
| 1925 | 18 | 5 | 78.0 | 97 | 30 | 33 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3.5 | 11.2 | 3.8 | 4.86 | 1.63 |