Best lefty off all time? My vote is Koufax!

[brewing]

Kershaw is 49.6 innings behind Koufax.
To match Koufax he would have to do the following over his next 49.6 innings.
Lose 13 games
Give up 39 hits and walk 240 batters.
31 of those hits need to be HR's
Give up 96 Earned Runs, resulting in a nifty 17.12 ERA

And he'd still have more wins and strikeouts than Koufax. Keep in mind the difference of eras too. Koufax played in a pitching era and Kershaw in a hitter's era.
Same number of Cy Young Awards. Kershaw has 7 top 5 finishes in the award voting, Koufax has 4.

Maybe we tend to honor the baseball from the past more because we dig vintage baseball cards. But the numbers don't lie, Kershaw is better than the left arm of God.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/p...ershcl01.shtml
https://www.baseball-reference.com/p...oufasa01.shtml

[rats60]

Originally Posted by brewing

Kershaw is 49.6 innings behind Koufax.
To match Koufax he would have to do the following over his next 49.6 innings.
Lose 13 games
Give up 39 hits and walk 240 batters.
31 of those hits need to be HR's
Give up 96 Earned Runs, resulting in a nifty 17.12 ERA

And he'd still have more wins and strikeouts than Koufax. Keep in mind the difference of eras too. Koufax played in a pitching era and Kershaw in a hitter's era.
Same number of Cy Young Awards. Kershaw has 7 top 5 finishes in the award voting, Koufax has 4.

Maybe we tend to honor the baseball from the past more because we dig vintage baseball cards. But the numbers don't lie, Kershaw is better than the left arm of God.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/p...ershcl01.shtml
https://www.baseball-reference.com/p...oufasa01.shtml

You forgot pitch 3 no hitters, win 4 WS rings, 2 WS MVPs and somhow allow negative runs to bring his postseason ERA from 4.43 to .95.

[Mikehealer]

Nice Plank, Ted

[brewing]

Originally Posted by rats60

You forgot pitch 3 no hitters, win 4 WS rings, 2 WS MVPs and somhow allow negative runs to bring his postseason ERA from 4.43 to .95.

No I didn't. While no hitters are impressive having them vs not having them isn't that big of a deal to me. Just like championships in a team sport.

Koufax was amazing during the World Series. I never said Koufax wasn't great. Even if Kershaw has been pedestrian like in the playoffs, the far superior regular season performance of over 2200 innings means more to me.

I did forget to leave out his ERA+ which helps highlight the different eras they pitched in.
Kershaw is 157 2nd highest All Time
Koufax is 131

Others mentioned
Grove 148
Randy Johnson 135
Plank 122

[rats60]

Originally Posted by brewing

No I didn't. While no hitters are impressive having them vs not having them isn't that big of a deal to me. Just like championships in a team sport.

Koufax was amazing during the World Series. I never said Koufax wasn't great. Even if Kershaw has been pedestrian like in the playoffs, the far superior regular season performance of over 2200 innings means more to me.

I did forget to leave out his ERA+ which helps highlight the different eras they pitched in.
Kershaw is 157 2nd highest All Time
Koufax is 131

Others mentioned
Grove 148
Randy Johnson 135
Plank 122

When you can’t pitch well against the best teams in the postseason, you shouldn’t even be in the discussion in my opinion. The only thing that matters is winning championships, not dominating bad teams pitching 6 or 7 innings. Kershaw has only has 25 complete games in 12 seasons. Koufax pitched 27 complete games in 1965 alone. Then he pitched 27 more complete games in 1966. Kershaw’s regular season really isn’t even superior since he is letting someone else pitch the most difficult innings when a pitcher is tiring. Make Kershaw pitch 27 complete games in a season and let’s see what his ERA would be.

The pitcher controls the ball on defense. Despite being a team sport, it is the pitcher that can win a championship. Just look at 1965 when the World Series was tied at 2-2. Koufax went out and pitched shutouts in game 5 and game 7. Why can’t Kershaw do that even once to bring the Dodgers a championship? The Dodgers have been good enough to make the postseason 9 times and are 0-9 because Kershaw has pitched poorly.

ERA+ just tells me how weak the pitching was in those eras. They weren’t competing against Spahn, Gibson, Marichal, Bunning, Perry and Sutton.

[egbeachley]

I always thought it was Lefty Grove who, in 1930, pitched a quadruple-crown leading MLB in Wins, ERA, Strikeputs, and Saves.

Decided to look it up in Baseball Refenence. They have pitching WAR. Grove was the best lefty at about 9% greater than Randy Johnson. Koufax didn’t make the top 20.

Grove also had a better 4-year streak than Koufax, although I don’t know why people use that as a metric

[G1911]

I find it extremely odd to see it argued that playing in a high offense era should somehow hurt a pitchers all time ranking, and that guys like Koufax who played in the easiest possible circumstances (pitching park, on a high mound, during a deadball era) must be better because there were many other great pitchers then. Dominating in tougher circumstances should be an advantage.


As for the 4 year peak arguments, I think this appears solely because it is the only way to try and argue Sandy (even though Grove and Kershaw both have equal or better peaks and better overall careers) is #1.

[71buc]

I like Spahn and Carlton

[brewing]

Originally Posted by rats60

When you can’t pitch well against the best teams in the postseason, you shouldn’t even be in the discussion in my opinion. The only thing that matters is winning championships, not dominating bad teams pitching 6 or 7 innings. Kershaw has only has 25 complete games in 12 seasons. Koufax pitched 27 complete games in 1965 alone. Then he pitched 27 more complete games in 1966. Kershaw’s regular season really isn’t even superior since he is letting someone else pitch the most difficult innings when a pitcher is tiring. Make Kershaw pitch 27 complete games in a season and let’s see what his ERA would be.

The pitcher controls the ball on defense. Despite being a team sport, it is the pitcher that can win a championship. Just look at 1965 when the World Series was tied at 2-2. Koufax went out and pitched shutouts in game 5 and game 7. Why can’t Kershaw do that even once to bring the Dodgers a championship? The Dodgers have been good enough to make the postseason 9 times and are 0-9 because Kershaw has pitched poorly.

ERA+ just tells me how weak the pitching was in those eras. They weren’t competing against Spahn, Gibson, Marichal, Bunning, Perry and Sutton.

You win! Can I count you in to join my campaign to get Mickey Lolich into the Hall of Fame. His World Series performance against the defending World Champs in 1968 was amazing.

[Topnotchsy]

Originally Posted by brewing

Kershaw is 49.6 innings behind Koufax.
To match Koufax he would have to do the following over his next 49.6 innings.
Lose 13 games
Give up 39 hits and walk 240 batters.
31 of those hits need to be HR's
Give up 96 Earned Runs, resulting in a nifty 17.12 ERA

And he'd still have more wins and strikeouts than Koufax. Keep in mind the difference of eras too. Koufax played in a pitching era and Kershaw in a hitter's era.
Same number of Cy Young Awards. Kershaw has 7 top 5 finishes in the award voting, Koufax has 4.

Maybe we tend to honor the baseball from the past more because we dig vintage baseball cards. But the numbers don't lie, Kershaw is better than the left arm of God.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/p...ershcl01.shtml
https://www.baseball-reference.com/p...oufasa01.shtml

That's silly, and not simply as other people have mentioned (because of the Postseason). It's silly because we all know that Koufax's career averages are not spectacular because for the first half of his career, he was mediocre. Koufax wasn't "The Left Arm of God" for his entire career. No one argues that he was. For 5 seasons he was truly spectacular.

That does nothing to take away from what Kershaw has done in his career. I think he deserves the Koufax comparisons. But comparing career totals misses the story with Koufax in my opinion.