Best Baseball Pitcher of All-time

[vajerzy]

Maybe even [the hated dodger] Don Sutton.

Glad to see you are uninformed in all aspects of baseball, not just the use of performance enhancing drugs.

That's not a nice thing to say.

Regarding Pedro Martinez- he is definitely one of the dominant pitchers in his era. I'm very interested in how he does this year since he's lost some off his fastball- I think he will do well based on his experience.

[Dan Gould]

As for the question of greatest of all-time, I don't think its possible for someone whose oldest memory of watching a great pitcher is Tom Seaver to make that judgment.

I hope I'm reading you wrong- but the best that I have seen is Seaver. That's my judgement. No one can answer the best of all time. A more appropriate question is who do you believe is the best in your lifetime.

I was not implying that anyone whose oldest memory of a great pitcher is Seaver then you aren't qualified to make that judgment. I was saying that as someone whose oldest memory of a great pitcher is Seaver, I am not qualified to make that call.

Your mileage may vary, as the saying goes.

Sorry for the confusion, I can see how my statement wasn't clearly specific to my own view.

[vajerzy]

Thanks Dan- that's what I thought.

I respect your knowledge of baseball.

[analogak]

Pedro Martinez is a crybaby, that's why.

not as big a crybaby as you!

[Randy Twizzle]

For me personally the best pitcher I ever faced was Tommy Dumas in the Babe Ruth league. He was one of those Ryne Duren type right handers. He even wore glasses like Duren. He was wild as hell and threw blazingly fast. It was scary just standing in the box facing him. I used to swing at the ball just so I could get the hell out of there. So one vote for Tommy Dumas.

[Quincy]

Tough call. Walter Johnson & Lefty Grove both were outstanding, but whereas in jazz since we become familiar with recordings from long ago and might feel comfortable thinking that a guy from the '20s was the greatest trumpeter (if you're into ranking musicians), it's harder to in sports I think. Both of these guys just faced white guys, although Koufax didn't have to face as many players from other countries like current pitchers.

Koufax had a great peak run once he moved to Dodger Stadium, but he also had the advantage of the higher mound and a by-the-book strike zone. How would he do with the more modern stupidly small strike zone, or conversely how would Pedro do back in the mid-60s?

On the other hand Pedro has never been the big innings horse. Could he have gone 9 in the older way of playing the game? Does it matter if he couldn't have? (because it is almost criminally stupid how Koufax was abused.)

I don't really believe he's the greatest, but my all-time favorite who I'd feel more than comfortable facing whoever you pick would be Bob Gibson. Killer attitude, the falling off the mound motion is my favorite (while wearing one of baseball's best looking uniforms), phenomenal postseason record, plus he could hit too (2 world series HRs in 3 series.) Easy enough to say Koufax, Seaver, Carlton & maybe Marichal were better amongst those who he pitched against at least part of his career, but go ahead, pick your best. No DH, so you might not want to pick Clemens.

Edited February 25, 2008 by Quincy

[GA Russell]

My dad took me to see Satchel Paige pitch for the Portland Beavers of the Coast league against the Seattle Rainiers in 1961. He had just joined the team, making a comeback.

He started and pitched four innings, not enough for the decision. He looked like Gumby out there - all rhythm, no muscle.

As I recall, the Rainiers hit nothing but ground balls. They never solved him.

*****

In his prime, I would say Sandy Koufax. Every start was an event. But that lasted only, what, four seasons? A few years ago I saw a film that showed Koufax pitching a dozen or so pitches, filmed from a stationary camera on a tripod. Every delivery was identical. Really amazing.

The last two or three years, Koufax would receive a cortizone shot from the doctor before every game. In one sense, I don't see that as too much different from the hitters who have used steroids. The difference it seems to me, and I think it is a big difference, is that the cortizone was administered by the team doctor candidly and above board. The steroid users would buy the substance on the sly and self-administer it.

*****

I lived in the Atlanta area from 1985-2002, so I saw Greg Mattox with the Braves on TV many times. My objection to calling him the greatest is that he pitched everything a foot outside and got the called strike. Of course, he had great control; and it wasn't his fault that the umps gave him the pitch. If the ump gave me a pitch I would take it too. But that prevents me from considering him one of the greatest.

Another 300 game winner, Tom Glavine, always got that foot-outside pitch too.

*****

From what I have read, the only competitor to Koufax for being so dominant over a three year period was Dizzy Dean. And apparently Ol' Diz was the best interview in the history of baseball!

*****

Edit to add: The best season a pitcher ever had that I am aware of was Steve Carlton in 1972 for the Phils. They were a very bad team. As I recall, at one point they had won 20 games, and Carlton had won 10 of them.

Edited February 25, 2008 by GA Russell

[paul secor]

I'd go with Warren Spahn. I only saw him late in his career, & I was just a kid, but he got a late start because of WWII and still won 363 games.

Lefty Grove and some of the early greats never pitched against black hitters - at least not in the major leagues.

Satch certainly deserves a mention.

Koufax had 4 great years, 2 pretty good ones, and 6 mediocre - that's being charitable - years. Not even close to doing enough to deserve to be called "The Best".

Edited February 25, 2008 by paul secor

[Dan Gould]

The Phils finished with 59 wins that year. Carlton had 27 of them!

As for the claim Quincy makes about Pedro "never being the big innings horse". From his last two seasons with Montreal to his first three with Boston, Pedro never pitched fewer than 213 innings per season. He missed a good portion of the next year with his arm injury, just missed 200 (199.3), had a 186 IP season and then his last year in Boston and first year in NY pitched 217 innings each. Its hard to say that he wasn't a big innings horse. He's not going to match the 250+ IP that other guys attained in another era (four men rotations, pitch-til-you-drop management) but in his era, he still seemed to me to be a pretty strong "horse" for a little guy (six top ten finishes in complete games, for example).

[Dan Gould]

I think some excellent points have been made about differences in strike zones. There's no doubt that Koufax and Gibson (and others) were amazing pitchers, but how much were they helped by the larger strike zone and the taller mound? To me its what makes Pedro's accomplishments more impressive - the strike zone got much smaller (though pre-Ques-tec, it was wider, too), the mound had been lowered, the hitters got bigger, the parks smaller, and he pitched (mostly) against a DH lineup.

If there was only a way (I'll bet there is, actually) to control for all these factors and come up with "normalized" stats.

But since its really a question of perception, we'll all have our own judgments. The more I think about it the more I would vote for Gibson, regardless of the advantages he had. Filthy stuff and a competitive streak that wasn't just off the charts, it obliterated them! If you go with a definition of "who do you want on the mound for a must-win game?" it's Gibby.

But Maddux gets the award for thinking-man's-pitcher or less charitably "got the most out of his less than devastating 'stuff'".

I've always loved the story (paraphrasing here) about Maddux getting into a jam, Cox coming out to talk to him, and he told him exactly how he would get the next guy out. "I'm gonna throw a ____ there, he'll foul it off to right. I'm going to come back with a ___ here, he'll lay off of it and then I'm going to get him to pop to second base with a ___ there."

And that's exactly how it went!

Edited February 25, 2008 by Dan Gould

[Hot Ptah]

No one has mentioned Cy Young.

Joe Falls once wrote about how he asked a young Tigers pitcher in spring training if he thought that he could win 20 games that year. The Tigers pitcher was confident that he could. Falls then asked him if he could win 20 games for 20 straight years. The pitcher's mouth fell open. Then Falls said, "then you'd only need another 111 wins to match Cy Young."

I do not recall reading any account by anyone who saw Cy Young in his prime and then saw some later pitchers too.

[paul secor]

Obviously Cy Young deserves consideration. But he played in the dead dead ball era and never had to pitch to black hitters. That's the reason I left him out.

[Aggie87]

Sidd Finch, hands down.

I saw him pitch once years ago, for the Corpus Christi Beach Dawgs, in the Continental Baseball League. Still can't believe what I saw that day.

Edited February 26, 2008 by Aggie87

[Dan Gould]

Obviously Cy Young deserves consideration. But he played in the dead dead ball era and never had to pitch to black hitters. That's the reason I left him out.

And another way to look at his record is to ask a pitcher if he thinks he could lose 20 games this season. Then tell him he'd need to do that 15 more times to match Cy Young's record number of losses.

We should also remember that wins aren't the best way to judge a pitcher because there are too many factors beyond his control that go into whether a win or loss is recorded. Scanning his baseball-reference page, his ERA+ and WHIP numbers are almost exactly the same as Greg Maddux. And for what its worth, in 1894, Young had a real problem with the long ball: he gave up 19 of them! And was in double figures the year before and the year after. He was a bum!

[Soulstation1]

Dwight Gooden was tough his first 2/3 years

[Quincy]

As for the claim Quincy makes about Pedro "never being the big innings horse". From his last two seasons with Montreal to his first three with Boston, Pedro never pitched fewer than 213 innings per season. He missed a good portion of the next year with his arm injury, just missed 200 (199.3), had a 186 IP season and then his last year in Boston and first year in NY pitched 217 innings each. Its hard to say that he wasn't a big innings horse. He's not going to match the 250+ IP that other guys attained in another era (four men rotations, pitch-til-you-drop management) but in his era, he still seemed to me to be a pretty strong "horse" for a little guy (six top ten finishes in complete games, for example).

Well, it's all relative, but only once did he crack the top 5 in his league in innings, though he did have 2 seasons over 230 IP. I don't consider barely making it over 200 to be "a horse." He also never cracked the top 5 in starts, though as you point out he has lead in complete games, albeit small numbers because of modern use of closers by managers. Given the shoulder injury he developed with less use than pitchers from the past I doubt he would have lasted long in the days of 4 man rotations when pitchers were supposed to finish.

Not being a horse isn't so bad though. Livan Hernandez was a horse. I'd rather have an ace like Pedro!

The above points by me are small stuff though. Pitching the way he did in Boston vs. the DH is insanely great, and his Montreal years get overlooked because he did it Montreal. The 3 years of injuries (2001, 2006-7) hurt him with career counting numbers as far as "the greatest" talk, but I would happily take him in my all-time starting 5 based on his ratios, especially when adjusted for the DH, ballpark, and the high scoring 'roid years.

[BERIGAN]

Satchel Paige.

I wholeheartedly agree.

However, he never faced the "great" Babe Ruth....no, wait! Babe Ruth never faced any of the greatest Black pitchers of his time.

[Overrated is a word I would use to describe Ruth....but that's another story.]

I'd really like to see you back up that last line.....

[tkeith]

Seaver had a tendency to choke in the big game -

there's only one choice - go with the Jew 'cause in baseball there's so few -

KOUFAX

Walter Alston felt differently. When a reported commented, tongue-in-cheek after Drysdale got shelled taking Koufax' spot on Yom Kippur, "I bet you wish Drysdale was Jewish, too." Alston replied, "Drysdale never turned down the ball."

[tkeith]

For me personally the best pitcher I ever faced was Tommy Dumas in the Babe Ruth league. He was one of those Ryne Duren type right handers. He even wore glasses like Duren. He was wild as hell and threw blazingly fast. It was scary just standing in the box facing him. I used to swing at the ball just so I could get the hell out of there. So one vote for Tommy Dumas.

Oh, best I ever faced was Rob Boston in Little League. He was about 6' tall at the age of twelve... hit puberty at the age of three... I had a single and a sacrifice hit off him... but I soiled my jock every time he wound up.

[tkeith]

*****

I lived in the Atlanta area from 1985-2002, so I saw Greg Mattox with the Braves on TV many times. My objection to calling him the greatest is that he pitched everything a foot outside and got the called strike. Of course, he had great control; and it wasn't his fault that the umps gave him the pitch. If the ump gave me a pitch I would take it too. But that prevents me from considering him one of the greatest.

Another 300 game winner, Tom Glavine, always got that foot-outside pitch too.

*****

I've heard this reasoning before, and here's my issue with it. In the 60's and 70's, most of the game was shown from one camera, located in left-centerfield. Now we have 35 cameras on the plate (including friggin' infrared or so it would seem). I don't think the strike zone has changed so much as has the way we watch a game. Live games don't strike me as having that different a strike zone from the one I saw as a kid. That pitch "a foot outside" is being shown in super slow motion from a camera directly above the plate. If there were a way to see that few on pitches from Don Sutton, Burt Hooton, Catfish and a host of other pitchers from the 70s, you'd find that they were getting those same calls. Good, proven pitchers get those calls (unless they're facing better, more proven hitters).

Also, in an earlier post (page 1, I think), somebody referred to the classic Ryan shellacking of the fool who charged him. The fool in question was Robin Ventura, and he got a serious lesson in etiquette that day.

[Dan Gould]

*****

I lived in the Atlanta area from 1985-2002, so I saw Greg Mattox with the Braves on TV many times. My objection to calling him the greatest is that he pitched everything a foot outside and got the called strike. Of course, he had great control; and it wasn't his fault that the umps gave him the pitch. If the ump gave me a pitch I would take it too. But that prevents me from considering him one of the greatest.

Another 300 game winner, Tom Glavine, always got that foot-outside pitch too.

*****

I've heard this reasoning before, and here's my issue with it. In the 60's and 70's, most of the game was shown from one camera, located in left-centerfield. Now we have 35 cameras on the plate (including friggin' infrared or so it would seem). I don't think the strike zone has changed so much as has the way we watch a game. Live games don't strike me as having that different a strike zone from the one I saw as a kid. That pitch "a foot outside" is being shown in super slow motion from a camera directly above the plate. If there were a way to see that few on pitches from Don Sutton, Burt Hooton, Catfish and a host of other pitchers from the 70s, you'd find that they were getting those same calls. Good, proven pitchers get those calls (unless they're facing better, more proven hitters).

The point that was being made, I believe, is that in the sixties, the top of the strike zone was still the letters, or the bottom of the armpits, and those strikes got called. That is no longer the case, and hasn't been for a long time. For a period of time, the strike zone was wider but with the use of Ques-Tec (iirc, that's the name of the system), umpires are being trained, and pretty effectively, to call pitches on the corners correctly.

And let's remember too that the most egregious use of the "foot outside is a strike" zone was Eric Gregg, who was in the group of umpires who submitted their resignations as a negotiating ploy. A large number of those umpires were ultimately rehired, but Gregg never got that call (and died last year, I believe) because he was such a poor home plate umpire.

[Dan Gould]

I wish I could remember the name of the best pitcher I ever faced but I do recall that he threw 76 mph on a little league field, and if I remember the "conversions" that ESPN displayed at the Little League World Series, that was like 95+ on a regulation size diamond.

I think I fouled a pitch or two off. Once.

[vajerzy]

I played 30+ adult baseball for 7 years here in Richmond VA- the toughest guy I faced pitched for Stanford U, was All Pac-10 his SR. year, MVP for something.......played AAA for the Royals- when he pitched against us the first time- that's been the only time I ever *HEARD* a fastball......his curve was like rolling a ball off the table......he hit 90+ during that game (someone had a gun).....he got 16 strikeouts against us in a 7 inning game.......didn't get me though- I singled and grounded out.......and I'm thinking "and he was released from AAA last year?" Imagine what the MLB guys throw......he was an anomoly in the league- most guys were mid 70s-low 80s. Heck I threw low 80s......

[Dave James]

I hit against Wayne Twitchell in Babe Ruth ball. He went on to a pretty fair career with the Philadelphia Phillies. I once stood in a batting cage and dialed it up 95 just to see what it was like. What it most reminded me of was facing Twitchell when I was 15.

I also pitched against him. At the time I couldn't throw very hard, but I had a pretty good 12 to 6 yakker that I made the mistake of throwing to him three times in the same at bat. It was that third one he hit. I think there's a fair chance that that ball has not come down yet.

Up over and out.

[JSngry]

For two consecutive games in 1938, it was Johnny Van Der Meer.