List of Major League Baseball annual ERA leaders

[c] The first ERA champion in the National League was George Bradley; in the National League's inaugural 1876 season, Bradley posted a 1.23 ERA for the St. Louis Brown Stockings, allowing 78 earned runs in 573 innings pitched.

[6] Sandy Koufax led the National League in ERA for five consecutive seasons (1962–1966); Koufax' five awards are the most won consecutively by any player and are tied for the most awards by a player in the National League with Christy Mathewson and Clayton Kershaw.

[13] Keefe and Leonard are the only two pitchers ever to allow less than one run per nine innings pitched in a single season.

The largest margin of victory in the National League is 1.26 runs—Dazzy Vance's 2.61 ERA over Carl Hubbell's 3.87 in 1930.

[18] Other contests decided by one hundredth or less include Luis Tiant's 1.91 ERA ahead of Gaylord Perry's 1.92 in 1972[19][20] and Mark Fidrych (2.34) over Vida Blue (2.35) in 1976.

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Tommy Bond won the triple crown in 1877, leading the National League in wins , strikeouts , and ERA. [ 23 ]
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Christy Mathewson's career ERA of 2.13 is eighth on the all-time list; he led the National League in ERA five times during his career.
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Grover Cleveland Alexander won the National League ERA title four times with two different teams (the Philadelphia Phillies and the Chicago Cubs ).
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Mordecai "Three-Finger" Brown led the league in ERA in 1906 and finished second three times.
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Amos Rusie led the National League in ERA in 1894 and 1897, and finished second to Ted Breitenstein in 1893.
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Sandy Koufax' five consecutive seasons leading the National League in ERA is an NL record.
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Jake Peavy's 2007 ERA of 2.54 led all National League pitchers. [ 24 ]
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Johan Santana won the ERA title in his first National League season after eight years with the Minnesota Twins .
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Chris Carpenter had the lowest ERA in the National League in 2009.
Clayton Kershaw is the first pitcher in history to lead MLB in ERA for 4 consecutive years (2011–2014).
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Addie Joss led the American League in ERA in 1904 and 1908.
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In addition to leading the American League in ERA five times in his career and winning three triple crowns , [ 174 ] Walter Johnson was one of the five charter members of the Baseball Hall of Fame .
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"Smoky" Joe Wood won 15 games in 1915 when he won the ERA title; he is one of thirteen pitchers who have won 30 games in a single season since 1900. [ 175 ]
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Babe Ruth led the league in ERA in 1916; he began his Major League Baseball career as a pitcher with the Boston Red Sox before converting to the outfield. [ 176 ]
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Roger Clemens' seven ERA championships are the second-most by any player in Major League Baseball history, behind Lefty Grove 's nine.
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Pedro Martínez won five ERA titles across both leagues; his 2000 margin of victory over Clemens for the ERA title is the largest in Major League Baseball history.
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John Lackey's 3.01 ERA in 2007 led the American League.
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Cliff Lee won the Cy Young Award in 2008 [ 177 ] in addition to the ERA title.
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Zack Greinke, pitching for the Kansas City Royals , became the second consecutive pitcher to win the Cy Young Award and lead the American League in ERA in the same season. [ 177 ]
At 39 years old in 2022, Justin Verlander pitched to a 1.75 ERA after missing the previous season while recovering from Tommy John surgery , leading to his third career Cy Young Award.