Top 100 Pitchers

dallasactuary

Bill James Top 100 list of pitchers was created as of 2001, so this started just as curiosity as to how the list would have changed since then because of pitchers who were still pitching in 2001. But rather than update the list using the same methodology that James used, I used my own. It's necessarily similar, since what pitchers are asked to do isn't that complicated - don't allow runs to score - but I did make some changes that do change the list, sometimes significantly:

1. I ignored the pre-1990 pitchers; they pitched 60-70 games a year and there's just no way to compare them to later pitchers without flat out guessing. Rather than guess, I threw them out.

2. James had his own way of weighting career and peak; mine's not tremendously different, but it's different.

3. James calculated a pitcher's value vs. a replacement pitcher; I calculated it vs. an average pitcher; that creates some huge differences in rankings.

4. James gave relief pitchers an explicit "bump". It was a mistake on James' part, and I didn't repeat it.

5. James has an undisclosed miscellaneous adjustment that he uses for good (years lost to war or segregation) and evil (moving players he likes or doesn't like up or down). I used no adjustments. Just to emphasize that point, I did not exclude known cheaters as I do from most of my lists.

The list below is numbered in order of my ranking. In parentheses after each name is the pitchers' rank on James' list; if the two rankings are different enough, I offer what I think is the explanation, if I can think of one.


1. Walter Johnson (1)
2. Cy Young (4)
3. Roger Clemens (11 - still climbing on James list)
4. Lefty Grove (2)
5. Greg Maddux (14 - still climbing on James list)
6. Kid Nichols (9)
7. Pete Alexander (3)
8. Tom Seaver (6)
9. Randy Johnson (49 - still climbing on James list)
10. Christy Mathewson (7)
11. Bob Gibson (8)
12. Pedro Martinez (29 - still climbing on James list)
13. Gaylord Perry (18)
14. Bert Blyleven (39 - No idea why James had him so low; no matter how you weight career and peak, Blyleven is much higher than 39)
15. Jim Palmer (17)
16. Carl Hubbell (13)
17. Juan Marichal (21)
18. Sandy Koufax (10)
19. Bob Feller (12)
20. Warren Spahn (5 - Spahn has lots of average seasons - that moves him up James' list but not this one)
21. Ed Walsh (19)
22. Phil Niekro (26)
23. Kevin Brown (73 - was still climbing James list, but wouldn't have gotten this high)
24. Roy Halladay (Not considered by James)
25. Steve Carlton (15 - like Spahn, lots of average seasons)
26. Dave Stieb (74 - like Blyleven, no idea why James had Stieb so low)
27. Mordecai Brown (20)
28. Whitey Ford (22)
29. Addie Joss (80 - depending on how you view the quality of play in the 1900's you can have Walsh at 19 or Joss at 80, but not both.)
30. Dazzy Vance (35)
31. Hal Newhouser (36)
32. Jim Bunning (30)
33. Robin Roberts (16 - lots of average seasons)
34. Red Faber (56 - don't know why James had him so low)
35. Tom Glavine (60 - still climbing on James list)
36. Rube Waddell (53 - got the Joss treatment)
37. Fergie Jenkins (23 - lots of average seasons)
38. Curt Schilling (not considered by James)
39. Hoyt Wilhelm (27)
40. John Smoltz (87 -still climbing James list)
41. Stan Coveleski (58 - like Faber, 20s pitchers seem to get downgraded by James)
42. Johann Santana (not considered by James)
43. Eppa Rixey (75 - 1920s?)
44. Joe McGinnity (41)
45. Ted Lyons (43)
46. Mike Mussina (not considered by James)
47. Nolan Ryan (24 - lots of average seasons)
48. Mel Harder (92 - James hammered him, don't know why)
49. Ron Guidry (66 - should be higher on James' list)
50. Dizzy Dean (25 - way overranked by James)
51. Dolf Luque (90 - 1920s?)
52. David Cone (98 - underranked by James)
53. Wilbur Wood (No explanation for not being ranked at all by James)
54. Billy Pierce (59)
55. Lefty Gomez (67)
56. Mariano Rivera (Still climbing James' list)
57. Kevin Appier (not ranked by James, but probably would have been a few years later)
58. Don Drysdale (33 - looks better compared to replacement than average)
59. Mort Cooper (55)
60. Luis Tiant (52)
61. Tommy Bridges (77; ?)
62. Tim Hudson (not considered by James)
63. Bret Saberhagen (79)
64. Lon Warneke (44 - overranked by James)
65. Clark Griffith (70)
66. Dennis Eckersley (32 - James tended to overvalue closers, though not Wilhelm)
67. Hippo Vaughn (96 - no idea)
68. Don Sutton (31 - lots of average seasons)
69. Eddie Cicotte (50)
70. Andy Messersmith (Missed by James; deserves to be in top 100)
71. Urban Shocker (71)
72. Eddie Plank (34 - Got the opposite of the Joss treatment; no idea)
73. Joe Wood (94 - huge peak, James valued that a bit less than I did)
74. Mel Parnell (100 - seems underranked by James)
75. Jimmy Key (don't know why James didn't rank hm)
76. Jerry Koosman (unranked; most of his value is in his peak)
77. Tommy John (63)
78. Sam McDowell (unranked; I don't think James likes him)
79. Dizzy Trout (unranked; don't know why)
80. Bob Lemon (48 - got some extra credit for war years from James)
81. Frank Viola (unranked; don't know why)
82. Bucky Walters (69)
83. Dwight Gooden (76)
84. Roy Oswalt (not considered by James)
85. Dutch Leonard (unranked; ?)
86. Chuck Finley (unranked; ?)
87. Vic Willis (84)
88. Wes Ferrell (40- I think James is giving him a lot of credit for his hitting)
89. Red Ruffing (51 - lots of average seasons)
90. Carl Mays (38 - lots of average seasons)
91. Jim Kaat (65 - lots of average seasons)
92. Orel Hershiser (83)
93. Rick Reuschel (81)
94. Andy Pettitte (not considered by James)
95. Herb Pennock ()
96. Johnny Antonelli ()
97. Early Wynn (47 - king of lots of average seasons)
98. Goose Gossage (37 - got the James closer bump big time)
99. Babe Adams (93)
100. Steve Rogers ()


Pitchers ranked by James that didn't make my top 100 (excluding pre-1890 pitchers):

Vida Blue - 86 on James list, 103 on mine
Dan Quisenberry - 68 , 107
Eddie Rommel - 85, 109
Larry Jackson - 89, 111
Jim Hunter - 64, 114
Don Newcombe - 46, 116
Waite Hoyt - 78, 117
Burleigh Grimes - 62, 118
Bob Shawkey - 95, 128
Jesse Tannehill - 99, 132
Bruce Sutter - 57, 133
Virgil Trucks - 61, 138
George Uhle - 91, 141
Mickey Lolich - 72, 142

HOF pitchers unranked by James
Chief Bender - 131 on my list
Rube Marquard - I didn't look at enough pitchers to get down to Marquard - probably around 200


The two pitchers who appear to have been screwed by HOF voters the most are Kevin Brown and Dave Stieb. Stieb was the best pitcher of the 1980's and stands starkly alone as the only pitcher who can claim best-of-decade status not in the HOF. Kevin Brown has taken the mantle from Blyleven of being the most glaring omission from the HOF.


Some miscellaneous rankings that may or may not interest anyone:

#101 was Mark Buehrle

#120 was Bill Hands
#121 was Jack Morris
#122 was Mark Langston

Anyone who thinks Jack Morris was a great pitcher - knock it off, you're embarrassing yourself

#106 was John Tudor. I loved him when he was a Cardinal and thought he'd make the top 100. So close.



If anyone sees a pattern of players that you think are ranked too high or too low - not just one pitcher, but an era or type of pitcher - let me know. I'm open to changing the system if you convince me.

Feel free to mention that you think one particular pitcher is ranked too high or low, I'm just not going to change anything because of any one pitcher.

garnettstyle

Koufax only won 165 games. I would put Don Drysdale ahead of him.

As much as Nolan Ryan cards go for, you would think he would be number 1 on the list. He did get 98.8% of the hall of fame vote. Pretty impressive.

coinkat

Interesting list.

Creating such a list is not easy and there seems to be objective and subjective comparison issues that would prevent me from undertaking the project. In looking at your list, I agree that Walter Johnson owns the top spot. Looks as if Seaver, Gibson and Marichal did well. I suppose I would have ranked Nolan Ryan and Dizzy Dean higher than you.

And I don't see Bert B above Marichal, Kofax or Feller. While 39 is questionable in terms of too low, 14 seems alittle high given the ranking of others you have placed behind him. Bert was great- However, I would rather have Feller, Marichal, Kofax or Hubbell on my team instead

dallasactuary

Originally posted by: coinkat
Interesting list.

Creating such a list is not easy and there seems to be objective and subjective comparison issues that would prevent me from undertaking the project. In looking at your list, I agree that Walter Johnson owns the top spot. Looks as if Seaver, Gibson and Marichal did well. I suppose I would have ranked Nolan Ryan and Dizzy Dean higher than you.

And I don't see Bert B above Marichal, Kofax or Feller. While 39 is questionable in terms of too low, 14 seems alittle high given the ranking of others you have placed behind him. Bert was great- However, I would rather have Feller, Marichal, Kofax or Hubbell on my team instead

A lot of it comes down to how you weight peak vs. career accomplishments. If you only look at peak, at one extreme, you get Koufax in the top 10, but other than his peak Koufax has nothing - he was an average, or below average, pitcher the rest of his career. I weighted peak pretty high, but even so that was only enough to get Koufax into the top 20. Feller and Marichal both had peaks higher than Blyleven, but not that much higher that it makes up the chasm between them and Blyleven in career value. James gives credit to Feller for war years, and I have no objection to that, and that gets Feller a lot higher. I didn't do that, and looking at only the years he actually pitched Blyleven pitched a lot longer as an above-average pitcher. Part of it, too, is that Blyleven had his peak on a bad team so his W/L record doesn't jump out; he was a lot better at his peak than most everyone gives him credit for.

So, when you say that you would rather have these other pitchers on your team than Blyleven, you are correct if you mean you want them when they were at their peak vs. when Blyleven was at his peak. But imagine instead that you are not getting them at their peak, but rather at their average performance level over a 20-year period. You have a 1 in 4 chance of getting Koufax at his peak, a 1 in 4 chance of getting him when he was average, and a 1 in 2 chance of getting nothing at all. But if you pick Blyleven, you get a 1 in 4 chance of getting a pitcher who, while great, was not as great as Koufax, a 1 in 4 chance of getting a pitcher better than Koufax and a 1 in 2 chance of getting an above average pitcher vs. getting nothing at all. Blyleven stands out for being very good for a very long time; not just "average" or "good", but very good; he is what Jim Palmer would have been had Palmer played for much worse teams. That he and Palmer came in neck-and-neck is fitting.

To my point about rankings, which you sort of agreed with, I remain confident that James had Blyleven too low. I have him at 14, and I am sure that there are reasonable and valid ways of adjusting for peak vs. career and era played that would bring him down into the 20's somewhere, but even though I am including more pitchers than James did (Pedro, Big Unit, etc.) I just don't see a way to get him down to 39, or even into the 30's. He may not have been as great as Marichal, Koufax or Feller, but he was definitely better than Bunning, Ford, Niekro and a bunch of others James had above him, no matter how you weight anything.

Same sort of answer would apply to Dean as to Koufax. Dean was much better at his peak than several players above him, but a peak was all Dean had.

Ryan had a long career, the great majority of which was as an average or slightly above average pitcher. His peak was entertaining as all get out, but it wasn't as great as it looked. Ryan mixed in too many high-walk, high-HR games when he wasn't throwing his no-hitters and 18-K games, and if I weighted peak much higher than I did he could have fallen off the list entirely; he has a peak more comparable to Kaat and Tiant than to most HOFers.

grote15

Originally posted by: garnettstyle

Koufax only won 165 games. I would put Don Drysdale ahead of him.



As much as Nolan Ryan cards go for, you would think he would be number 1 on the list. He did get 98.8% of the hall of fame vote. Pretty impressive.

This assessment explains a lot about your misguided assertions. Ryan was brilliant on certain nights and racked up all the strikeouts, but was average to slightly above average for many seasons. Card value is not exactly a valid metric to determine how good a pitcher was, in any case.

coinkat

I agree with you that 39th for Bert B is too low. I would likely have him somewhere between 21-25.

I look at Ryan's career differently. Maybe because I have a recollection of seeing him play back in the day. I was lucky enough to attend the Angels Red Sox game at Anaheim Stadium when he struck out 19. I know its only one game. Keep in mind he did not play for one of the better offensive teams in the American league...

dallasactuary

Originally posted by: coinkat
I agree with you that 39th for Bert B is too low. I would likely have him somewhere between 21-25.

I look at Ryan's career differently. Maybe because I have a recollection of seeing him play back in the day. I was lucky enough to attend the Angels Red Sox game at Anaheim Stadium when he struck out 19. I know its only one game. Keep in mind he did not play for one of the better offensive teams in the American league...

Nolan Ryan was my absolute favorite player from his years on the Angels through his years on the Rangers. No question that he was the most exciting pitcher of my lifetime, and when he was at his best he was among the best ever. So I know exactly what you're talking about.

But there's two things that don't work in Ryan's favor. The first you mentioned - "it was only one game". Over his career he had more than one great game, to be sure, but he had a lot more average games than he had great games. Even in some of the games where he struck out 15+ he walked 7 or 8 and gave up a homer or 2 and lost.

And second, the Angels teams he was on actually weren't that bad offensively, and the Astros teams he was on were actually very good offensively. It was more that the parks they were playing in were pitchers parks; they made the hitters look weaker than they were, and they made the pitchers, like Ryan, look better than they were.

garnettstyle

Originally posted by: garnettstyle

Originally posted by: grote15

Originally posted by: garnettstyle
Koufax only won 165 games. I would put Don Drysdale ahead of him.

As much as Nolan Ryan cards go for, you would think he would be number 1 on the list. He did get 98.8% of the hall of fame vote. Pretty impressive.

This assessment explains a lot about your misguided assertions. Ryan was brilliant on certain nights and racked up all the strikeouts, but was average to slightly above average for many seasons. Card value is not exactly a valid metric to determine how good a pitcher was, in any case.

This list has seaver #5, Schilling #22, Koufax #27, Ryan #29, Palmer #30

http://www.freewebs.com/stlcards2/

Darin

Why do you eliminate Barry Bonds from your hitters' lists for steroid use but not Roger Clemens?

Justacommeman

Originally posted by: Darin

Why do you eliminate Barry Bonds from your hitters' lists for steroid use but not Roger Clemens?

5. James has an undisclosed miscellaneous adjustment that he uses for good (years lost to war or segregation) and evil (moving players he likes or doesn't like up or down). I used no adjustments. Just to emphasize that point, I did not exclude known cheaters as I do from most of my lists.

Darin

Originally posted by: Justacommeman

Originally posted by: Darin
Why do you eliminate Barry Bonds from your hitters' lists for steroid use but not Roger Clemens?

5. James has an undisclosed miscellaneous adjustment that he uses for good (years lost to war or segregation) and evil (moving players he likes or doesn't like up or down). I used no adjustments. Just to emphasize that point, I did not exclude known cheaters as I do from most of my lists.

I guess I stopped reading the fine print after the typo after 1. He ignored pre 1990 pitchers.
I'm almost certain that should read "pre 1890 pitchers."

Dave McNally and Mike Cuellar were better pitchers than
Steve Rogers and Babe Adams, they should be on the list somewhere top 100

Darin

I've always said Nolan Ryan isn't as great as most people make him out to be.
I would put him somewhere between 50-100 if I was feeling generous.

Great strikeout pitcher, yes. Great pitcher, no.
People seem to confuse the two.

dallasactuary

Originally posted by: Darin Dave McNally and Mike Cuellar were better pitchers than Steve Rogers and Babe Adams, they should be on the list somewhere top 100

I looked at McNally and Cuellar; neither was very close to the top 100.

None of the pitchers you mention had much of a peak except Adams, and I'm not sure why you think Adams doesn't belong in the top 100. Anyway, in the case of the three other pitchers, they're pretty similar and how they rank relative to one another comes down to their career adjusted ERA+: Rogers 116, Cuellar 109, McNally 106. Adams isn't similar, but his career ERA+ is 118 and he has a three-year peak ERA+ of 150; the other three aren't close to that. Adams got his ERA+ numbers in an era when it was easier to get higher ERA+ numbers, and for that reason he ends up in a virtual tie with Rogers; but those two are clearly better than Culellar and McNally. Put McNally and Cuellar on the Senators instead of the Orioles, which would take away all of their 20 win seasons, and it's unlikely that their names would ever have occurred to you in the context of a top 100 list.

Justacommeman

I'm somewhere between you and James on Stieb. I think subliminally your dislike for Morris elavates Stieb higher then deserved. I like Stieb at around 55-60. I like Morris at about 110.



On my way to Asia. Catch up later



mark

dallasactuary

Originally posted by: Justacommeman
I think subliminally your dislike for Morris elavates Stieb higher then deserved.

I just want to emphasize that this is entirely formula driven, and I made no adjustments. Stieb did come out a bit higher than I thought he would, but frankly so did Morris.

Jack Morris had a career ERA that was 5% better than average; that's the lowest figure for anyone I looked at except Rube Marquard and Mickey Lolich at 4%. For the meat of his career - throwing out short seasons at the beginning and end, that rises to 9%, which beats only Don Sutton and Early Wynn in the top 100. But at their peaks, Sutton and Wynn were more than 40% better than average, Morris only 25%. Most every pitcher you've heard of has a peak when he's 20% or more better than average, and what separates Morris from "most any pitcher you've heard of" is a couple percentage points and longevity. He pitched longer than Bill Hands, but Bill Hands was a better pitcher while he pitched. If you're not as good a pitcher as Bill Hands, your name and "HOF" should never have come up in the same sentence.

Justacommeman

Morris gets love as he won a tons of games and logged a lot of innings. People also remember a few of his post season heroics with one in particular which was indeed epic.



I watched Stieb and Morris in the 80's and they were both very good pitchers. Stieb in my opinion was a little better. I have no problem with neither of them being in the hall. I don't think Stieb ever received more then 7 votes.



Stieb never won a CY Young. Actually I don't believe he ever finished in the top three. His highest win total was 18. His WAR was extremely impressive but it's not a stat that is easily translated to the masses or HOF voters



mark

dallasactuary

Originally posted by: Gastronome
dallasactuary,

for one game, at their absolute peak, who would you take?

for one season, at their absolute peak, who would you take?

i'd probably go with some combination of maddux, pedro, randy johnson and nolan ryan.

thanks.

Ryan only enters the equation if by "absolute peak" you mean one game or one week, but if I get a pitcher at that short of a peak then there's hundreds of pitchers to choose from.

As great as he was, I'm also going to eliminate Maddux, because Pedro was better. Maddux ranks higher because he pitched longer, but when he was on the mound Martinez was, IMO, the greatest pitcher ever.

But while Pedro, at his peak, was pitching about as many innings as Maddux at his peak, he was still only pitching ~30 games and 210 innings in a season. That opens the door to a pitcher who can pitch almost as well over more innings. Only a few have pitched almost as well as Martinez, and fewer did so over a lot more innings; but Walter Johnson did both.

So, for a single game, I'd take Pedro Martinez. For a season, I'd take Walter Johnson.

If I wasn't invested in the outcome, and just wanted to watch a baseball game, I'd pick Nolan Ryan, for a single game or a single season. He wouldn't pitch as well as Martinez or Johnson, but damn he was fun to watch.

DeutscherGeist

Interesting discussion here. Morris is now in the HOF. He has a unique story and I am not bothered by him being in the HOF. He was a true ace that a team relied on and he delivered. He was a workhorse and had some magic left in the post-season.

I did not know much about David Stieb, but this post got me curious to investigate. So, thank you for that.

While the pitchers Maddux, Smoltz, Glavine, R Johnson, P Martinez, are all deserving for the their enshrinement, I believe contemporaries David Cone and Kevin Brown need to be looked at more closely. They fell off the HOF ballot quite early. Both were similar type pitchers and when they were on their game, you would not want anyone else on the mound. They were the ace of a team's pitching staff and put up some good seasonal numbers and World Series heroics.

I have looked into David Cone more in depth. He has multiple WS rings in which he played a critical part in. While judging him on longevity hurts him, but he does rank very high in total strikeouts. He has led the league in SO, innings, win-loss %, wins, and CY Young votes, and was the ace of the team's pitching staff. After entering MLB in 1986, he kind of fizzled out after 1999, making his 2000-2003 seasons one where he tried to compete, but the injuries and tough recoveries would not let up. His career was not a long one per say. He pitched many seasons in the AL East and was still able to stand out. What made him a tough pitcher was that he would improvise and invent pitches to get through the innings no matter what challenges he faced (a true warrior). During his prime years, many teams wanted his service to lead their pitching staff and he delivered (see his WS rings). I feel he has all the accolades of a HOF pitcher, except for the 300 wins. At the very least, Cone deserves a second look.

ADG

Old thread, but I had to comment.

Pitcher A. -- "lots of average seasons".....16 seasons with a W/L record at best 1 above .500. Most with a losing record. Out of 22 years in baseball, in only 4 seasons did he have at least 5 more wins than loses. Reached 20 wins once in 22 years. Lifetime W/L record 37 over .500. Moved to a new club 9 times. Voted into HOF 20 years after retirement.

Pitcher B. After his very brief first year in the majors, he spent 4 years (age 22-25) in the military. Came out to finish with 13 20+ Win seasons in 20 years, including 23-7 at age 42 ( one year older than when pitcher A retired). One losing season until his last 2 years at the age of 43-44. Lifetime W/L record 118 over .500. Played with 1 team until his last 2 seasons. Missing 4 seasons in his early twenties conservatively cost him at least 60 wins. Adding those to his total would have eclipsed Walter Johnson for most career victories.

Yet according to the OP list, pitcher A is not just better, but much, much better than pitcher B. The teams one played for always have an impact, but not this much of a difference. Whatever your day job is, dallasactuary, hold on to it. Bill James has little to worry about.

Oh. pitcher B is of course Warren Spahn, and pitcher A, the celebrated Bert Blyleven.

grote15

@ADG said:
Old thread, but I had to comment.

Pitcher A. -- "lots of average seasons".....16 seasons with a W/L record at best 1 above .500. Most with a losing record. Out of 22 years in baseball, in only 4 seasons did he have at least 5 more wins than loses. Reached 20 wins once in 22 years. Lifetime W/L record 37 over .500. Moved to a new club 9 times. Voted into HOF 20 years after retirement.

Pitcher B. After his very brief first year in the majors, he spent 4 years (age 22-25) in the military. Came out to finish with 13 20+ Win seasons in 20 years, including 23-7 at age 42 ( one year older than when pitcher A retired). One losing season until his last 2 years at the age of 43-44. Lifetime W/L record 118 over .500. Played with 1 team until his last 2 seasons. Missing 4 seasons in his early twenties conservatively cost him at least 60 wins. Adding those to his total would have eclipsed Walter Johnson for most career victories.

Yet according to the OP list, pitcher A is not just better, but much, much better than pitcher B. The teams one played for always have an impact, but not this much of a difference. Whatever your day job is, dallasactuary, hold on to it. Bill James has little to worry about.

Oh. pitcher B is of course Warren Spahn, and pitcher A, the celebrated Bert Blyleven.

Won loss record for a pitcher is more a byproduct of the offensive support he gets and can be very misleading. Blyleven played for a lot of average to below average teams. ERA, WHIP, K:BB ratio, shutouts and ERA+ are all better metrics to use for evaluation.

Tabe

@grote15 said:

Won loss record for a pitcher is more a byproduct of the offensive support he gets and can be very misleading. Blyleven played for a lot of average to below average teams. ERA, WHIP, K:BB ratio, shutouts and ERA+ are all better metrics to use for evaluation.

I won't go do the math again but I have in the past. This idea that Blyleven played for all these horrible teams is simply not true. His first run with the Twins, they had 4 winning records (one of 98 wins), 2 losing records (that were basically .500) and a .500 teams. Then he goes to Texas, plays for one mediocre team for half a year and one very good (94 wins) team. Then 3 years in Pittsburgh - all winning seasons, including a world title. Then a 5 year run where he finally plays for BAD teams. 1 winning record, 2 semi-near .500 and 2 way below. Then it's four years in Minnesota, 2 mediocre teams, 2 good ones, including a world title. Blyleven was not good in Minnesota and somehow lost 17 games for a 91-win team in 1988. Then he winds up with 3 years in Cali - 1 good team, 1 mediocre, 1 pretty bad.

That's an awful lot of good teams - 2 world titles, a 98-win team, and a whole bunch of other 90+ win teams. But the narrative is established - Blyleven pitched for bad teams. But, if he was so great, shouldn't have been lights-out awesome when he was with good teams? Why is he somehow only 12-5 for a world champion team in Pittsburgh? Or leading the league in losses with a 5.43 ERA for a 91-win team in Minnesota? Yes, I know W/L is not a great way to judge a player but...shouldn't a HOF'er outperform his team's W/L records? Be better than 10-9 on a 98-win team? Be better than .500 on a .500 team? Not have 17 losses on a 91-win team?

You wanna make the case that Blyleven's election was a good thing, go ahead. He's got a strong case. But this idea that he spent his whole career pitching for the '75 Tigers is just false.

ADG

@grote15 said:

Won loss record for a pitcher is more a byproduct of the offensive support he gets and can be very misleading. Blyleven played for a lot of average to below average teams. ERA, WHIP, K:BB ratio, shutouts and ERA+ are all better metrics to use for evaluation.

I agree that who you played for has an impact. Obviously. It's a team sport. But 13 20-win seasons vs 1 ? In general Blyleven was a reflection of his team, rather than rising above it. Better than Warren Spahn? Much better? Well, that really highlights the problems with the OP list. You are what your record says you are, as they say.

Incidentally, I don't have anything against Bert Blyleven. Thought he was a good pitcher. Watched both Blyleven and Spahn pitch many times. Just never occurred to me that Blyleven was apparently one of the all-time greats. Who knew.

Brick

I always thought of Warren Spahn as a top tier HOFer. I wouldn't know Blyleven was in the HOF if I didn't read it here.

grote15

@Tabe said:

@grote15 said:

Won loss record for a pitcher is more a byproduct of the offensive support he gets and can be very misleading. Blyleven played for a lot of average to below average teams. ERA, WHIP, K:BB ratio, shutouts and ERA+ are all better metrics to use for evaluation.

I won't go do the math again but I have in the past. This idea that Blyleven played for all these horrible teams is simply not true. His first run with the Twins, they had 4 winning records (one of 98 wins), 2 losing records (that were basically .500) and a .500 teams. Then he goes to Texas, plays for one mediocre team for half a year and one very good (94 wins) team. Then 3 years in Pittsburgh - all winning seasons, including a world title. Then a 5 year run where he finally plays for BAD teams. 1 winning record, 2 semi-near .500 and 2 way below. Then it's four years in Minnesota, 2 mediocre teams, 2 good ones, including a world title. Blyleven was not good in Minnesota and somehow lost 17 games for a 91-win team in 1988. Then he winds up with 3 years in Cali - 1 good team, 1 mediocre, 1 pretty bad.

That's an awful lot of good teams - 2 world titles, a 98-win team, and a whole bunch of other 90+ win teams. But the narrative is established - Blyleven pitched for bad teams. But, if he was so great, shouldn't have been lights-out awesome when he was with good teams? Why is he somehow only 12-5 for a world champion team in Pittsburgh? Or leading the league in losses with a 5.43 ERA for a 91-win team in Minnesota? Yes, I know W/L is not a great way to judge a player but...shouldn't a HOF'er outperform his team's W/L records? Be better than 10-9 on a 98-win team? Be better than .500 on a .500 team? Not have 17 losses on a 91-win team?

You wanna make the case that Blyleven's election was a good thing, go ahead. He's got a strong case. But this idea that he spent his whole career pitching for the '75 Tigers is just false.

You've illustrated my point. I never said he played for terrible teams. He pitched for many average to below average teams, the better teams notwithstanding. His career ERA deserves a better winning percentage than what he compiled but the won loss record is more a byproduct of run support than how good or bad a pitcher he was. You can cherry pick his worst season at the tail end to make him look bad, but that is not really fair or representative of his career numbers as a pitcher. Five losses in 37 starts and 237 IP for the 79 Pirates is actually quite impressive and yet another illustration of lack of run support in that he got a lot of no decisions despite pitching well enough to win (and to lose only 5 games) while amassing a winning percentage of over .700.

dallasactuary

@ADG said:
Yet according to the OP list, pitcher A is not just better, but much, much better than pitcher B.

If it helps, what you said here is just plain wrong. A difference in ranking of six places (14 vs. 20) isn't big at all, and tweaking the weighting of career vs. peak could close the gap completely, and even reverse the order.

And to add to what grote already said about adding up wins as if that's important, consider these stretches from Spahn's and Blyleven's careers:

Spahn 1957-1961: in 174 starts and 1,383 innings Spahn had an ERA 16% better than league average and a WHIP of 1.18

Blyleven 1974-1978: in 172 starts and 1,333 innings Blyleven had an ERA 33% better than league average and a WHIP of 1.14 (in the DH era).

If you need to dig deeper and see more stats to see that Blyleven was better over his stretch than Spahn was over his stretch go right ahead, but you shouldn't need to. The ERA+ difference alone is just so enormous that there's simply no way to make it up. If you do look for more, you'll find that Blyleven had 2.8 Ks per walk and Spahn had 1.8, that Spahn gave up more HR, that Blyleven's teammates allowed more unearned runs, that Spahn had 21 WAR to Blyleven's 31, and so on and so on. What you'll find is that not only was Blyleven better, but that he was much better. But if you take it a step too far, and look up how good their teammates were by checking their wins and losses, you'll find that Spahn won 20+ games all five years and that Blyleven never won more than 17, and that Spahn's W/L record for those five years was 106-60 while Blyleven's was 73-65. If you look up their wins and losses you risk erasing everything useful you already knew, and replacing it all with something useless. Why would you want to do that?

ADG

Well , you're right. It's a team sport, so that always is a factor. People do look at results. Some feel career results matter, especially in HOF considerations. Not sure about looking at particular 4 or 5 year stretches of 20+ year careers and saying that proves one player had a better career in the game. Interesting, but could certainly lead to some strange conclusions, like saying Blyleven was a better career player than Spahn. You won't get many (anyone?) to agree with you on that. Bill James and others rank Spahn much higher. But enough already, each to his own opinions.

stevek

Very interesting thread. I thought Koufax should be higher, but I understand the 18 rank because he only was the "greatest" for around 5 years...and the ranking in this list includes longevity.

I read a book about Koufax, and the line that I thought was the best of all, actually said by Mantle in the WS after Koufax threw him an incredibly nasty pitch, Mantle turns to the Dodgers catcher John Roseboro and says, "How the F is anybody supposed to hit that S"

When you can frustrate a Mickey Mantle, you know you're a pretty good pitcher.

keets

some of the guys on the list don't really get credit for serving during WWII which cost them parts of 2-4 seasons. I don't think that should be held against them but it is. guys like Warren Spahn and Bob Feller served during the prime of their pitching careers.

stevek

Good to see Randy Johnson high on the list. Obviously there's no clear video of the really old timers, so I can't have an opinion on them. I've played a lot of baseball in my time, but seeing Johnson pitch on TV, I think he is the only pitcher who would scare me half to death. Sure all the others would strike me out as well, but Johnson with that look to kill expression on his face, and that big body of his, the dam baseball seems almost half way to the plate by the time he releases it, and at what, the speed of sound?

Sorry, but I don't want any part of that...that is unless I was making a lot of money. LOL

Odessafile

Of Warren Spahn: "he had lots of average seasons"........ His career ERA of 3.09 is lower than Greg MAddux's 3.19....He won 20 or more games in 13 different seasons....He is the winningest Left hander of All-TIme 363. I do like the thread !

dallasactuary

@ADG said:
Not sure about looking at particular 4 or 5 year stretches of 20+ year careers and saying that proves one player had a better career in the game.

Just to clarify, I used the five year stretches not to demonstrate who had the better career, but only to show how misleading won-loss records can be. If you want to see a really extreme example, just check out Nolan Ryan and Jim Deshaies in 1987; same team, same year, and the run support they got when they pitched was so far apart you'd think Ryan was pitching in 1917 and Deshaies was pitching for the Red Sox in the 1980s.

Regarding the comment about getting credit for war years, I agree in principle but there's no way to quantify it except to guess. I've made "guess" lists in other threads, and Spahn would rank higher if this one of those lists. But this list is my attempt to quantify what the pitchers actually did,

And another comment seemed to poke fun at my statement that Spahn had "a lot of average seasons". He did, and he even won 20 games in a few of them. He also had a lot of very good seasons, and a handful of great seasons; his ranking reflects all of those seasons and he still comes in 20th; I don't know if there's a perception that being the 20th best pitcher of all time is somehow "bad", but that was not my intention. Spahn was a great pitcher; Blyleven was a little better.

Finally, Koufax was really, really great for a really, really short time. He was just a little better than average for more seasons than he was great, though, and those seasons "count" just as much as his great seasons. If you add up Koufax's career stats and Dave McNally's career stats, do you know what you get? You get pretty close to Bert Blyleven's career stats.

Skin2

@dallasactuary said:

@ADG said:

>

Finally, Koufax was really, really great for a really, really short time. He was just a little better than average for more seasons than he was great, though, and those seasons "count" just as much as his great seasons. If you add up Koufax's career stats and Dave McNally's career stats, do you know what you get? You get pretty close to Bert Blyleven's career stats.

That is a pretty good way of putting it.

JoeBanzai

I remember hearing one of the announcers for Twins radio broadcasts in mid 1970's saying he thought Bert lost more 1-0 and 2-1 ballgames than any other pitcher during that time.

From 1971-1974 his ERA was under 2.81 every year, but was barely above .500.

How did he lose 17 games in 1973?!?!?!? I looked it up, he lost 3 games 3-2, 3 games 2-1 and 1 game 1-0. Won twice 1-0 and once 2-0. In 22 of his starts the Twins scored 3 runs or less, 16 of those 2 runs or less. On average the Twins scored well for him, scoring 6 or more runs 14 times, but it was feast or famine for Bert.

Legitimate claim for Cy Young award that year.

The Twins were a pretty good team at the time, but down from the late sixties team.

I wouldn't say the teams he pitched for were bad, but they didn't SEEM to score a lot of runs for him.

Skin2

Blyleven's offense supported him the following:

Run Support of 4.2 runs per start
League average was 4.2 runs per start

Run support(while he was still in the game, per nine innings) 4.0
League average run support(still in game, and per nine innings) 4.0

IN CONTRAST:
Jack Morris run support:

Run support of 4.9 per start
League average pitcher received 4.4 runs per start.

Run support while still in game 4.7
League run support in same 4.1

That is why you see one pitcher with a W/L record WORSE than what his ERA suggests, and another pitcher with a W/L record BETTER than his ERA suggests.

Which brings up an interesting tidbit. There are a couple players who have been elected TWICE to the Hall of Fame!

1. Alan Trammell
2. Wade Boggs

Trammell elected once on his own merit, and the second time when Jack Morris was elected based on primary contributions from Trammell.

Boggs elected once on his own merit, and the second time when his On Base skills got Jim Rice elected.

Skin2

Here is another interesting tidbit:

Cheap Wins: Wins in which the starting pitcher lasted LESS THAN six innings and gave up THREE or more runs, or in wins in NON quality starts.

Jack Morris 53 cheap wins. Or one cheap win for every 10 starts.
Bert Blyleven 35 cheap wins. Or one cheap win for every 20 starts.

Just in the CHEAP WINS, had Blyleven had the pure luck of Morris's run support, he gets an extra 1.5 Cheap wins a year...Over a 20 year career, that is 30 more wins for doing nothing other than being on an excellent offensive run support team. That puts Blyleven at 317 wins.

stevek

@Skin2 said:

@dallasactuary said:

@ADG said:

>

Finally, Koufax was really, really great for a really, really short time. He was just a little better than average for more seasons than he was great, though, and those seasons "count" just as much as his great seasons. If you add up Koufax's career stats and Dave McNally's career stats, do you know what you get? You get pretty close to Bert Blyleven's career stats.

That is a pretty good way of putting it.

I'm a big Koufax fan, but I've got no problem at all with that explanation based on the parameters for the list.

Skin2

Out of the 16 years where Jack Morris started at least 20 games, 14 of those years he received better than average run support.

In the two years he didn't receive better than average run support, his record was a combined 21-24.

Bert Blyleven pitched 19 years as a full-time starter. In only SEVEN of those years did he receive run support that was 10% better than league average. Keep in mind, for Morris's career he received run support at 15% better than league average.

In those SEVEN years where he received ample run support, Blyleven's record was 109-65 with a .626 WP%.

If you do this exercise for EVERY SINGLE PITCHER that ever pitched, you will see that run support is a huge determining factor in wins/losses, and with the pitcher having no control over such a big factor, it makes no sense to use W/L record as a factor in determining a pitchers value, especially when you have other measurements that already nail the pitcher's value.

Tabe

@Skin2 said:
Out of the 16 years where Jack Morris started at least 20 games, 14 of those years he received better than average run support.

In the two years he didn't receive better than average run support, his record was a combined 21-24.

Bert Blyleven pitched 19 years as a full-time starter. In only SEVEN of those years did he receive run support that was 10% better than league average. Keep in mind, for Morris's career he received run support at 15% better than league average.

In those SEVEN years where he received ample run support, Blyleven's record was 109-65 with a .626 WP%.

If you do this exercise for EVERY SINGLE PITCHER that ever pitched, you will see that run support is a huge determining factor in wins/losses, and with the pitcher having no control over such a big factor, it makes no sense to use W/L record as a factor in determining a pitchers value, especially when you have other measurements that already nail the pitcher's value.

Where can I find run support stats for these guys?

Skin2

Tabe they are on BaseballReference:

Go to the players main page. Hover over 'Finders&Advanced stats' for another menu to pop up, under "Pitching," click on 'Advanced Stats'.

Scroll down to "Starting PItching". It is the section just below Win Probability. In the 'Starting Pitching' section, the run support categories are near the end on the far right. They are headed, "RS/GS" and "RS/IP"

Hope i explained that well enough.

dallasactuary

And when you think of lucky pitchers the one you think of right after Jack Morris is Catfish Hunter. In 1973, when his record was 21-5, the A's scored a hefty 5.6 runs per game in his starts, and 4.4 per game when anyone else started. That was probably the luckiest season of any pitcher ever. He followed that with his Cy Young season when his team scored 4.8 runs per game in his starts and 4.1 in all the others. Then he went to the Yankees and his team scored 4.7 runs per game in his starts, and 4.1 in all the others. Put Catfish Hunter on the Indians and Rangers instead of the A's and Yankees, and I guarantee you three things: he would never have won 20 games; he would not be in the HOF; half the people reading this post would never have heard of him.

BillJones

Warren Spahn ... "lots of average seasons" ???

Give me a break !!!

He won 20 or more games 13 out of the 21 years he played and 15 or more for 3 more seasons. His ERA was around 3 for most of those "off seasons." Two of his "off seasons" were prior to WW 2.

Robin Roberts ... "lots of average seasons" ???

Look at the teams for whom he played. Usually quite weak.

dallasactuary

I would have thought it would be impossible to get to the end of a thread this long without understanding anything that was said in it.

Brick

I remember one year Robin Roberts lost 20 games or close to 20. A broadcaster said "You have to be a very good pitcher to lose 20 games in a season." Very true.

dallasactuary

20 game losers come in a few varieties: they pitch badly for godawful teams (Roger Craig and Al Jackson on the 1962 Mets), they pitch a ton of games well for bad teams (Wilbur Wood, 1973 White Sox), or - Roberts' category - they once pitched great and their manager keeps them in the rotation when they pitch poorly hoping for the magic to return.

The year Roberts lost 20 he was actually pretty bad, but not as bad as his 10-22 record might indicate; mostly, his team only gave him 3.4 runs in support when he started. Jack Sanford, on the same team, was 19-7 that year. He was good, but not as good as his record might indicate; mostly, his team gave him 4.9 runs in support when he started.

In the hope that the brute force of repetition will break through the wall erected by a lifetime of misinformation I will say again, stop looking at won/lost records when evaluating pitchers because they are meaningless. Yes, great pitchers who had great seasons will usually have an impressive W/L record, but you can surely figure out that they had a great season without looking at the W/L record, right? But pitchers can also have great seasons with a W/L below .500 (Nolan Ryan, 1987, 8-16), and mediocre pitchers can win 20 games (Catfish Hunter, 1973, 21-5). Learn how to identify that Ryan was great in 1987 and Hunter was mediocre in 1973, and you'll never feel the need to look at W/L records again.

Skin2

To be fair, I don't see many average seasons from Spahn:

1948 ERA+ 105, 257 IP. Yes, mediocre
1960 ERA+ 98, 267 IP. He won 21 games this year, and this is still a definition of a mediocre season.
1943, and 1944 he was well below average, and those were his last two seasons.

To be fair, I wouldn't quite say lots of mediocre seasons. The next three closest seasons to mediocre are the following:

1955 he had a 115 ERA+ with 245 IP.
1958 he had a 116 ERA+ with a league leading 290 IP
1959 he had a 119 ERA+ with a league leading 292 IP

Maybe 1955 can be considered mediocre if one stretches the bounds of mediocrity, but I don't see '58 or '59 as mediocre with leading the league in IP and also being high enough above league average in ERA, enough to make him well above mediocre.

All his other seasons his ERA+ was over 120...and none of those can be considered mediocre.

dallasactuary

Point taken, and my use of the word "average" was simply for want of a better word. Think of it as "average" in the context of pitchers who might plausibly qualify for a list of greatest pitchers. An ERA+ of 115-125, the range where Spahn spent most of his career, is very good compared to the entire universe of pitchers, but it's really nothing special in this context. That is, pretty much every pitcher on my list had lots of seasons in that range, so those seasons don't do as much to move a pitcher up or down the list as their great seasons do. Spahn's top 10 seasons in ERA+ include 7 seasons in this "average" range"; that's more than almost everyone in the top 100 (Blyleven, for example, has only 1).

Coinstartled

@dallasactuary said:
20 game losers come in a few varieties: they pitch badly for godawful teams (Roger Craig and Al Jackson on the 1962 Mets), they pitch a ton of games well for bad teams (Wilbur Wood, 1973 White Sox), or - Roberts' category - they once pitched great and their manager keeps them in the rotation when they pitch poorly hoping for the magic to return.

The year Roberts lost 20 he was actually pretty bad, but not as bad as his 10-22 record might indicate; mostly, his team only gave him 3.4 runs in support when he started. Jack Sanford, on the same team, was 19-7 that year. He was good, but not as good as his record might indicate; mostly, his team gave him 4.9 runs in support when he started.

But pitchers can also have great seasons with a W/L below .500 (Nolan Ryan, 1987, 8-16), and mediocre pitchers can win 20 games (Catfish Hunter, 1973, 21-5). Learn how to identify that Ryan was great in 1987 and Hunter was mediocre in 1973, and you'll never feel the need to look at W/L records again.

,,,and Our American Cousin had a great cast, with the exception of John Wilkes Booth.

,276 ERA in 1987 was exceptional for Ryan. I will give you determined or hard fought, but not a great season. Baseball is not played in a vacuum. An individual players stats cannot be excised from the team performance with such surgical precision.

Ryan was paid to deliver wins and in 1987 he did not. 8-16 is putrid regardless of ERA.

Coinstartled

Checked Ryan's BA in 1987 to make sure I didn't miss some spectacular performance as decent hitting pitches occasionally, as they say, help their own cause.

Ryan batted .062 for the season with four hits, one of which was certainly a spectacular home run.

Tabe

@Coinstartled said:

Ryan was paid to deliver wins and in 1987 he did not. 8-16 is putrid regardless of ERA.

Ryan gave up 7 runs in the entire month of July 1987.

He went 0-5.

That was part of an 11-start stretch where he won 1 game, despite giving up 3 ER or less in 10 of those 11.

Coinstartled

So Tabe...was he great that season?

Looked up a few prominent NL pitchers of the era that came to mind and checked their career batting averages in that league.

Orel Hershiser .202
Greg Maddux .171
John Smoltz .160
David Cone .155
Nolan Ryan .107

Not a lot is asked of pitchers at the plate, but in the NL, they still do of course generally have 2, maybe three at bats in a quality start. Had Ryan hit a Maddox like .171 rather than a paltry .62 as he did in 1987, that translates to about 8 more hits, maybe a couple of runs and maybe a 9-15 or even a 10 and 14 season rather than the 8-16 season he recorded.

One hears about the horrible teams than Ryan played on, but Houston was 76-86 that year. 68-70 minus Nolan's decisions.

Coinstartled

Baseball stats work well with insomnia. I probably did this the hard way but I added the net wins above .500 on the Ryan teams that had winning seasons. Net losses as well for the teams in losing seasons. Began with the 68 Mets through the 93 Rangers.

Winning seasons produced 183 wins over .500. Losing seasons recorded 120 games under .500.

The teams Ryan played on (1966 excluded as Ryan only pitched 3 innings) had a net of 63 wins. NR had a career W/L of 324-292 with a net of 38 wins. His teams were still a tad above .500 with his decisions excluded.