A few weeks ago, I was
having dinner with my cousins and they asked me “who do you think is the
greatest pitcher of all time?” I answered truthfully and said I was not sure.
There are so many different answers to that question. No one answer is wrong.
While I was thinking about it, I did some statistical research on this question
to see if there is any clear cut answer.
The first list I
looked at was the all-time wins list. Four of the top five pitchers in this
category pitched pre 1940. Cy Young, Walter Johnson, Grover Alexander and
Christy Matthewson all had outstanding careers. The only post 1940 pitcher here
is Warren Spahn. Does wins really matter? The first 4 pitchers on this list pitched
almost every other day. As time came along, a 5 man rotation came along and
having a 30 win season was very, very rare. We all know that some records are meant not to
be broken. Cy Young’s 511 wins, or even Walter Johnson’s 417 wins, will never
be matched.
The next stat I looked
at was career Strikeouts. The top 5 all pitched from the 1960’s or later. The
number of strikeouts in a pitchers career shows how much of a power was shown.
Nolan Ryan still sits atop the career charts at 5714 strikeouts. Another record
meant to not be broken. Nolan does have over 300 career wins, but is nowhere
near the top of the all times win list. Unless Max Scherzer strikes out 300
plus batters per season, no one will reach even Randy Johnson’s total of 4875.
After looking at
strikeouts, I looked at the third leg of what is known as the “Pitchers Triple
Crown”, ERA. Again, after looking at the top 5 in this category, not even 1 of
them are in the top 5 in strikeouts or wins. Crazy right?? You would think that
maybe the All Time ERA leader would be Walter Johnson or Cy Young because they
played in the “Dead Ball” portion of the Modern era of baseball. The list that
includes Ed Walsh, Addie Joss and Jim Devlin, isn’t very imposing.
All 3 of those
categories are legitimate to try and put a finger on who is the greatest
pitcher of all time. Yet to me, of the top 5 in each category, there is not 1
pitcher that repeats itself in each category. I started to dig even further.
There are “lists” to help determine the answer to this question. Here I looked
at overall winning percentage. On the top 5 potion of the list is Spud Chandler,
Clayton Kershaw, Whitey Ford, Dave Foutz and Bob Caruthers. All great pitchers
in their lifetime, but yet again not 1 single repeat. This is so frustrating. 4
big categories and not 1 repeat offender.
The above 4
categories have come to show me that there are so many great and different pitchers
throughout the history of baseball. If I had to choose who the greatest pitcher
in baseball history, it comes down to a tie, Sandy Koufax and Bob Gibson. They
faced each other numerous times in their career. I know Koufax’s career was cut
short at the age of 30, but just that small sample size proved to us a lot of
what he had to offer. Bob Gibson was unbelieve. He set a single season record for
ERA. In 1968, he went and pitched 3 games in the World Series and won all 3
games for St. Louis.
Never forget that
Stats don’t always mean that a person is the greatest in their sport. Barry
Bonds being the all-time home run leader, Pete Rose being the all-time hits
leader or Rickey Henderson being the all-time steals leader does not mean that
any of them are the greatest hitter of all time. Everyone has their own opinion
in this category. Most of the time, you would not be wrong.
