When he had command of his slider -- which was very often -- he was tough to beat. Also notice how he was almost never injured.

This is not correct. MLB enlarged the strike zone for, what a coincidence, Sandy's best four seasons:

https://www.mlb.com/glossary/rules/strike-zone

I have a feeling facts aren’t going to get in the way of a false narrative.

Well that's a bit misleading isn't it? 8 of Koufax's 12 seasons he was subject to a smaller strike zone. And 4 of his 5 best K/9 seasons also were during that time with the smaller strike zone, NOT the larger strike zone as you state. What made Koufax so great in his later years wasn't his ability to strike people out, but rather his newfound ability to control the ball better and stop walking batters. His BB rate fell through the floor, but his strikeout rates were actually slightly better before he became the left arm of god. All of Lefty Grove's seasons had the same strike zone as Koufax's final 4 seasons.

I see you're still pitching a tent in the Walmart parking lot. Do you need some water? Maybe a sandwich or two?

[QUOTE=Snowman;2164645


I see you're still pitching a tent in the Walmart parking lot. Do you need some water? Maybe a sandwich or two?[/QUOTE]

Great argument!

You forgot to explain away the higher mound!

We Cannot argue against greatness

As all those discussed are Great just hard to determine the greatest lefty with the variations from era, mound heights, liveliness of the ball, dimensions of the park, etc.

So we are just nit picking to put our great at the top of the Greatness List and that is the fun of it.

If I'm reading a more recent post by member "Snowman" correctly, during 3 of Koufax' 4 WS years, he had the exact same strike zone as Grove.

But, if you use the "statistics in a vacuum" approach, which I was trying not to do in my original post, you are correct: Koufax has better stats.

I would take either one of them as my greatest and I would love to be have been able to see either pitch in person

This is what I’m talking about. I must be a homeless person because I can see you offer nothing but elementary fallacies. You are completely unable to engage with facts, form a coherent argument that makes any rational sense, or even simply not make appeals to your ego and self-professed but completely unsupported total authority.

Wait, his BB rate fell through the floor during the four years where the size of the strike zone was increased?!?! What a shock!

I didn't mention his K/9 rate in my post. There was nothing misleading at all about what I posted. You posted factually incorrect information. I corrected that and pointed out that the increased strike zone lined up with Sandy's four best years. Nothing misleading about that.

I for one am shocked that a member who was banned from Blowout has done nothing but cause problems here.

When analyzing Koufax, you just can't ignore the first 6 years of his career and only go by his later 6 year span. His first 6 years his W/L was 36-40 with ERA well over 4. - far, far away from the stuff of legendary greatness. During the first half of his career I wouldn't even pay money to see him pitch.

Now the second half of his career, yes, outstanding. Possibly even the best 6 year span of any pitcher ever.

Koufax career at home ERA 2.48, away 3.04
Grove career home ERA 3.04, away 3.05
Obviously, the home park benefited Koufax a whole lot.

One guy to pitch one game at the height of their career, Koufax might be your man. But overall value to a team for their career there is no way Koufax is the man.

I am also shocked. Shocked so many members are playing along with the silliness.

No, you didn't mention his K/9 rate, but you should have. That's my point. You implied that he became better at striking batters out because they increased the strike zone in his final 4 years. But his K/9 rate actually went Down during that time, not up. The differences are explainable through some other engineered metrics, but I'll ignore that as I don't want to go chasing down another tangent.

The part of your post that is misleading is that you compared Lefty Grove with Sandy Koufax, then you said that Koufax benefited from them increasing his strike zone in his final 4 years. What you failed to mention is the fact that prior to them increasing his strike zone, they SHRANK it in 1950. When they expanded it in 1963, they reverted it back to where it was originally, back when Lefty Grove was pitching! Pretty important little detail you left out.

As far as mound heights is concerned, yes that definitely needs to be accounted for. It's something I've never looked at in a predictive model though. It's never been a relevant factor for the problems I've needed to solve for. It will almost certainly make Koufax less god-like than his numbers would otherwise indicate. How much less god-like though? I don't know. It would be a fun question to answer. Maybe if I get some free time I'll calculate its effect.

Sandy's best 4 years also lines up with expansion. Sandy was 14-2 vs. the Houston Colt .45s (1.90 ERA) and 17-2 vs. the Mets (1.44 ERA.) Those weak expansion clubs combined to give him 31 wins against just 4 losses. Take that away and Sandy is a lifetime 131-83 pitcher.

Did anyone else point out that it's not surprising that the OP picked a pitcher with a qualifier?

Now you're just making stuff up.

I did no such thing. I said his four best years lined up with the increased strike zone. Didn't mention strikeouts at all. Or imply any connection to them.

No, I didn't. My post about the strike zone didn't mention Lefty Grove. You made the - again - factually incorrect assertion that Grove had a larger strike zone to work with than Sandy. I corrected that. Didn't mention Grove at all or make any comparison between the two.

It kinda goes without saying that, if they increased the size of the strike zone to be the same as Grove's, it was previously smaller, hence why I, you know, didn't say it.

Gentlemen (and Ladies if any are watching along),

It is all well and good to keep debating the OP's question forever, but it seems none of you still realize this is a multi-part question. And apparently none of you have yet to really address one of those extremely important parts, making it virtually impossible to ever get even close to a consensus agreement on what typically ends up being the main focus of these (I'll put it politely) civil discussions.

Everyone keeps going back and forth about the "who" part of the question, without having first agreed on the "what" part of the question. And in this particular case, the "what" part of the question is, what is the exact definition that constutes someone being the "greatest" at something, like being a left handed MLB pitcher. Without everyone agreeing on the "what" first, it makes arguing about the "who" pretty senseless, and in some instances, downright stupid.

And with no agreement on "what" exactly constitutes someone being the greatest at something, the "who" part of the question will likely have multiple correct answers, all dependent on differing points of view as to what the correct definition of "greatest" is.

Think of it this way. Two guys sit down at a standard checker board, pull out their pieces and start playing. Problem is, one guy has regular checker pieces and starts playing checkers, the other guy has chess pieces and thinks that is the game being played. And at the end of whatever the heck they ended up doing, they both claimed they were right and they were the winner. Unfortunately, they never agreed on the actual game and rules they were going to play by first. See the problem boys........................?

Fair point. It’s the greatest left handed pitcher of all time. I think that opens arguments for longevity versus peak greatness to come into play. My personal view is we avoid the argument that any random left hander in the majors today might technically throw better than anyone else in history because of advanced training and development. It’s a fair argument but just not fun. In my view, the greatest lefty is clearly Spahn. But I am biased as hell. I just love that guy. Carlton, Grove and Koufax are certainly in the mix.

The first "agreement" needed is: Greatest! or Greatest Career!

Sent from my moto g(6) using Tapatalk

It’s been discussed several times, there isn’t a whole lot of genuine disagreement. We have a troll, people conflating personal favorite with best and doubling down and insisting they are the exact same thing, etc. There is not much actual disagreement on reasonable but differing standards of what greatness is. Some favor peak over longevity (Botha re very reasonable standards that not everyone is going to exactly agree on, nor should they) but the advanced stats lead to the same answer either way: Grove wins best 4 years, best 5 years, best 7 years, best 10 years, most total career value.

Agree with just about everything you said. But for career, just using WAR, Spahn and Grove are within 6 games of each other. Spahn gave up 3 seasons for WW2 - pretty close. Food for thought.

+1
Plus Grove had over 100 more wins while stuck in the minors the first 5 years of his career. That's just for extra credit.

I know the big debate here is peak vs career, and I think that's a fun debate. However, in my opinion backed by lots of pretty statistics, Koufax' peak doesn't beat Grove's, although he was one hell of a strikeout pitcher. So if Koufax' peak doesn't make him the best, I don't see how he can be in the same breath as Grove overall, unless someone wants to make idiotic claims like "the 30's sucked, the 60's-on was the only real baseball."

But the rejuvenation of this thread has made me really think about RJ...

I guess it's fitting that Kevin started this thread, as it has dragged on and on with no resolution in sight. :D

LOL But it isn't priced at $18,000 and it didn't originate in Honus Wagner's house.

Hey G1911,

Don't go getting mad at me, but here's another example of how different people's views and meanings directly influence and change their responses to certain questions. In your post, the very last word you ended with was "value". That word alone can spark a whole separate world of conjecture and debate.

For example, in an earlier response in this thread in rebuttal to someone's comment saying WINS is a totally meaningless statistic, it was then asked exactly what is the one sole thing all MLB players are paid and play the game for, or what is really the main reason most all fans buy a ticket to attend or turn on the tube to watch a game and see their team do? And let me add one more, what is the one single thing that ultimately ends up deciding who is considered the champion baseball team every year? There is only one simple response that completely and accurately answers all those questions..........WIN!

And though baseball is a team sport and games are not solely decided by a single player, isn't it arguable that the starting pitcher on each side at the start of every MLB game ever played has potentially the greatest impact and influence on whether or not their team will win?

So does this at all influence your definition of "value"?

If you’re going with wins, come onboard the Spahn train! It’s not even close.

The problem with Spahn and Grove is that once you control for the factors outside of the vacuum, both players' numbers get significantly worse. But apparently, I'd have to prove that in order for anyone to believe it in this thread. However, even if I did, you guys would still argue with the proof, so what's the point? I already know that Grove and Spahn's numbers are deceiving. If you were a more reasonable and receptive audience, I might be motivated to prove it. But alas, here we are.

Just keep pointing out W/L records. You guys got this!

Yes, we realize you can’t and won’t put up a shred of evidence to support your assertions. Even the homeless guy realizes this.

Come on man, you came up with something on another thread I thought was genuinely amazing and funny and gave you props. This is just common trolling. I could prove it but you would argue with me so I won’t? You know you’re trolling at that point.

If I can prove to you that win/loss records mean absolutely jack shit, will you promise to stop posting them as your arguments for why player A is better or worse than player B?

I don’t know why I would get at mad at you? I don’t think wins is a useful metric in the 5 inning starter era. It’s a decent point in the complete game era, as the stat pitchers were pitching too and predominated then alongside ERA. I think ERA, adjusted for park and league via ERA+, is a much better stat. I’ve never completely dismissed wins, it just has flaws. A pitcher who gives up 1 run in 9 innings will often lose when on a terrible team. Bob Friend was not a below average pitcher, for example.

Just trying to point out how different people can have different views, opinions, and definitions of things. Yet all the talk and debate about it still won't get a consensus answer. Also trying to help people to realize there might be different ways to view things, and maybe point to such that they hadn't considered before. They have to be open minded and receptive though. Oftentimes the way people react and respond in situations and debates like this tell you an awful lot about a person, the good, and most definitely the bad. But no names please! :D

I have an idea: How about you actually prove something, instead of just saying you could or might or would if you had time or whatever.

In no particular order:
Why Grove's stats get worse when you take away the vacuum (and Koufax's get better)
Why Ryu is better than Spahn
Why Grove's era, and even more so, Ruth's era, are not worthy of inclusion

We need a metric that is independent of fielding, team strength, opposing team strength, stadium, and even result (not just of the game but of the pitch itself, after all you could throw a fabulous pitch and Hank Aaron might still hit it out). We need to focus solely on the pitch itself -- the quality of each pitch a pitcher threw during his career, with some appropriate mechanism to average or to assign relative weights to different ones. Any other metric has too many confounding variables.

Don't disagree with you at all, just throwing out different ways to maybe look at and interpret things out there. And I just wanted to make sure you didn't take me the wrong way in making friendly banter and conversation. LOL

And I get the thinking about how the 5 inning games nowadays change the overall perspective of WINs. But, would you agree or disagree that even if a starting pitcher only goes 5 - 6 innings anymore, how well they pitched and the situation when they left will generally still have a dramatic impact on the outcome of that game, and the decisions and choices of their manager, coaches, and teammates in finally deciding who wins? I'm wondering if the impact of shortened appearances by starting pitchers in the modern game on the final outcomes of their games started isn't being discounted too greatly? Problem is, this is one of those types of questions that there are no statistics for.

Too often people who rely solely on things like statistics and numbers to explain everything forget they're often dealing with other humans, where every single one of us is different, and many other not easily measured or immeasurable factors. In such cases, those that tend to rely on these single dimensional, one-sided types of arguments often seem to declare themselves the victors as they opine about how their views are the only ones really supported and that matter. You know, the classic "I'm right and you're wrong!" argument. I wonder if in reality such people don't just not really win as they'd have you believe, but actually turn out to be the biggest losers of all!

You claim to be superior to the rest of us because you say you are a statistician. Yet you continue to avoid providing any meaningful statistical analysis to support your view.

But we are too stupid to understand the complex statistical analysis you continue to fail to provide. You, sir, are a troll and an arrogant one at that. Arrogant to the point of being amusing... and far from the smartest person in this room.

All you want to do is dismiss things most managers, and general managers, and team owners value most: Wins and dependability over the long haul.

Managers ask their starting pitchers to do one thing - keep the game close, to give their team a good chance to win. I doubt many managers send their starter to the mound by saying, "See if you can get 10 strikeouts today..."

Link?

In what world does Grove win best 4 or 5 years?

The statistics and math are up above in this very thread. Your troll game is falling off.

1928-1932

A pitcher has great impact on his team's winning or losing if he pitches 5 innings. The problem, I think, is that like almost every other stat that is based on a short event or short sequence of events, the Win is based on a full 9 innings, and when a pitcher throws half that, while his impact is significant, he is being credited or debited for things he didn't control.

In single events and small samples, even on good teams, wins and losses don't balance out fairly. Bob Gibson in 1968 was much greater than his 22-9 record would suggest. Hugh Mulcahy went 13-22 on a bad team in 1940, but his ERA was 8% better than the league. There are many other examples. The discrepancies today are even larger, DeGrom's 10-9, 1.70 season for prime example.

Over the course of a career, luck will generally balance out for a pitcher on a good team. It won't so much for a pitcher on a bad team. Nobody who sucks gets to make 363 decisions. Nobody who wins 363 games is 'above average, at best', but sorting the stat fields by wins and using that to rank pitchers is, I think, not very effective. The further down that list you go, the less properly ordered it gets.

Winning and losing has far more variables than the pitchers performance, even in a complete game. A guy with a 1.00 ERA can lose all his games because his teams offense sucks, which he has no control over. A pitchers job is to give up as few runs as possible, to give his teams offense the best chance of creating a win by needing to score less runs to win. I think contextual ERA is the most significant single stat. I'd disagree with many and put IP right up there next to it; the balance of "how much better were they than the league at not giving up runs?" and "how much did they pitch to give their team that benefit?". Spahn ain't no slouch in these metrics either, or any reasonable metric.

There are many valid arguments to be made, for multiple pitchers. Kershaw, Johnson, Spahn all have reasoned cases that can be made. Personally, I am biased in favor of Johnson, not Grove, but we should let actual numbers guide us and not our emotional leanings. I think the argument for Grove using so many different statistics that are generally recognized as key by fans, historians, and statisticians (yes, guess who invented all the modern ones putting Grove at the top?) make Grove's case far stronger than anyone else's. I'd love to hear a rational argument for Koufax that isn't "I have fond memories of him", "context is irrelevant", "baseball sucked before Koufax debut and his exact contemporaries suck because they are from the old days" and "I am infallible", and use reasoned, logical, contextual arguments to support the claim.

G1911,

Great comments and don't really disagree with anything you're saying. Many valid points to questions we can never definitively answer. Still think we may be discounting the wins too much, but not sure there's any statistical way to reconcile that and possibly make a more comparable and meaningful measure of this for different pitchers across different eras.

By the way, don't you find it at least a little refreshing to be able to rationally, intelligently, and civily discuss topics like this once in a while on this forum, where the parties act responsibly and are respectful of each other and behave like adults? I know I do, and appreciate being able to do so with others like yourself. Too bad that isn't always the case with some though...............

Ignoring your personal attacks... I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that there ARE statistics that answer this question though. This is precisely what the entire field of statistics was developed for. The entire point of the mathematical discipline of statistics is to be able to make probabilistic estimates about the outcomes of future events using whatever data we have available. The more skilled you are as a statistician, the more accurate your predictions are. As far as your question goes about how much impact a SP has over final outcomes depending on how many innings he pitches, I assure you this exact problem is well understood. In fact it is extremely well understood. It is by far, the single most important factor in the models I build for betting on baseball games. It is also the single most important factor that the sports book handicappers use in their models when they set the betting lines. There are many other factors at play, but at the end of the day that entire industry is about predicting the outcomes of future events with data and statistical theory. And the casinos are pretty damn good at making predictions.

This is also how and why the entire field of sabermetrics was developed. People wanted to bet on baseball games but they quickly realized that the standard statistics that have been used for decades were not very useful for making predictions with because many of those stats are highly subject to luck. So they engineered new statistics that account for factors outside of an athlete's control and that focus in on what they actually have power over. The aspects of their game that are within an athlete's control are the only factors that have predictive power with respect to how well (or how poorly) they will perform in the future. Any statistic that cannot accurately predict future performance is a poor choice for evaluating one's skill level. Knowing that someone is hitting 0.375 at the all-star break tells us very little about how well he will hit for the rest of the season despite it being a seemingly large sample size of 350 at bats. A deceiving statistic like batting average is another great candidate for paving the way for another heated debate between a regular baseball fan and a statistician. One could ask "who is the best hitter this season?" and the casual fan will point to the guy with the 0.375 AVG, but the statistician looks deeper and points out that he benefited from having a 0.430 BABIP while player B is hitting 0.369 with a 0.300 BABIP. In this case, player B would be the clearly better hitter despite having the lower batting average since BABIP is useful for understanding how much of a role luck played in their performances.

People keep talking about wins here as ultimately being the only thing that matters. I agree. Winning games is what matters most. That's why we statisticians use Wins as the dependent (or target) variable in our predictive models. But the difference is that you guys seem to be conflating the "wins" statistic that is awarded to a pitcher with the actual wins and losses which can only be attributed to the teams. These are not the same thing. A pitcher cannot win a game. Assigning them "wins" and "losses" has always been a bad measure of performance. Not just in the modern era. And it turns out that a pitcher's win-loss record is actually an extremely poor predictor of a team's likelihood of winning a game. And furthermore that in the presence of other statistics, it is in fact not predictive at all of their likelihood of winning a game. This is why it is a poor measure of performance. It tells you nothing at all about how well they pitched or are likely to pitch in the next game. It only tells you what the outcome was of a set of prior games. If you want to know how "good" a pitcher (or hitter) is, then you have to look at statistics that only they can control. Otherwise, you're looking at how lucky or unlucky they got rather than how well they performed. This is the job of the statistician. To find the signal in the noise. To control for factors outside of their control. To remove elements of luck.

I find it humorous that when I posted in the thread about the role of artificial intelligence in grading cards that everyone praised and valued my inputs when it seemed to reinforce their views about grading. But when my views are shared here, where they are in conflict with the majority opinion, everyone shits on me.

It sure is! Look at that, we can agree on the common sense that it is not completely worthless, and differ on the multiple reasoned judgements of just how much the win is worth, without absurd egotism and bizarre trolling.

I wonder which lefty had the best winning percentage compared to his teams winning percentage.

Pot meet kettle. Dropping into these threads with an opposing view is like visiting the monkeys at the zoo who throw poop at people. Except this monkey throws back.

Fantastic, so can you now make a sabrmetric argument for Koufax? Most of them don’t put Koufax very highly at all. No? Just trolling?

Also if you read the thread you would know Koufax has actually had the most supporters, and his detractors have spent nearly a thousand posts requesting a mathematical argument for him. Everyone shits on you because you declared yourself God, refused to make a coherent argument, insisted on your infallibility while refusing to make any specific actual support for your bizarre statements, and then insulted everyone.

At least I’ve only insulted your argument, not your person. You sure can’t say the same. Stones in glass houses complaint here.

Again, Koufax has had more supporters than any other candidate in this thread.

Link?

The link to where you did this is the thread you are posting in. Your trolling has hit rock bottom now I see.

You keep claiming I said shit I never said. So each time you do that, you'll get a request from me asking for a link.

This is a fascinating subject. I really enjoy analyzing baseball history and player performance.

There seem to be a few disconnects in this debate.

One disconnect is how much weight to place on counting stats. Pro-Spahn posters in this thread rely on longevity and counting stats with what appears to be a decent peak, with a pretty good ERA+ across his peak years etc. Anti-Spahn posters believe he was a pretty average pitcher in regard to “stuff” since his K/9 doesn’t blow your hair back and wins are team dependent. He pitched a lot of innings and a lot of years, but innings eaters can’t get to GOAT status if they don’t provide elite innings. Essentially that Spahn’s peak is not enough to be the best lefty ever, even with all the counting stats. Koufax’s stats are obviously much different. One very good year, 5 off the charts years, some mediocre years, early retirement and nowhere near the overall counting stats of Spahn. Anti-Koufax posters essentially dismiss him outright because his lack of counting stats eliminate him from lefty GOAT status. He essentially didn’t pitch long enough to even be in the conversation. I tend to agree that the weaknesses of both Spahn and Koufax as described above eliminate them from lefty GOAT status. Both clearly were great pitchers though.

Another disconnect here is how to compare players by era. Snowman appears to be arguing that Grove’s pitching competition was weak and therefore his stats should be discounted a great deal. The ERA titles, ERA+ etc is tainted by weak pitching competition. Essentially that Grove was much better than his pitching peers, but since his pitching peers were very bad, him being much better than them should not be as impressive as the stats appear. I have always wondered about this, but I have no way of figuring out how to crunch the numbers to argue one way or the other. The 1920s / early 1930s batting averages went nuts. Hitters went crazy. How much of this was a result of bad pitching during those years? Anyway, Snowman, I am curious how stats can help us figure out which time periods were strong and which time periods are weak. It has always been something of a mystery to me. On a similar note, WAR is a bit misleading to me since it seems to value relative to replacement where replacement level is determined differently every year. The value of a replacement level player could be very different in a time period where quality of play overall is very high as compared to a time period where quality of play was lower. But how in the world can we figure out relative quality of play?

Oh, all right already, here's a Link:

No, no, no, he was Linc, lol. As in Lincoln.

I wonder through the eyes of 2021 how much of that show would now appear to be stereotyping.

This is Link! Lancelot Link!

Here are even more links. How many links do you need?????

Still waiting for your expert statistical analysis that accounts for all factors and proves one pitcher was better than the other.

My kind of links:
https://i.ibb.co/2MmyDbH/links.jpg

[QUOTE]
"I find it humorous that when I posted in the thread about the role of artificial intelligence in grading cards that everyone praised and valued my inputs when it seemed to reinforce their views about grading. But when my views are shared here, where they are in conflict with the majority opinion, everyone shits on me."


I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to all members with whom I have disagreed with over the years for not shitting on them.;)

Randy Johnson is best lefty of all time and is in serious discussion for best pitcher of all time as well.

To get to your question, any argument to be made that Koufax's peers were better than Grove's also means that Randy Johnson's were better than Koufax's. Johnson's were indeed better than Koufax's, as were Koufax's better than Grove's.

The measurable's such as running speed, throwing speed, height, strength, bat speed, all show that players have gotten continually better generation after generation. This is fact. I can show more charts in another post. It is not a matter of evolution, although selective breeding is a factor. Most of it is a result from the sheer number of population growth and the addition of more parts of the world to draw players from.

Realize that we are on the cusp of having 8 billion people in the world right now to draw from, compared to 2001 where there were 6.2 billion, to 1965 where there were only 3.8 billion people in the world to draw from...and in 1935 appx 2.3 billion.

In reality, Grove and Koufax's population in the US and world wide viability of players to choose from, were closer in comparison. Wheras Johnson had it tougher, and anyone after Johnson even tougher.

People from yesteryear don't like to hear that. I'm from yesteryear, but the reality is the reality.

When you add the selective breeding of people who have found mates with the purpose of creating athletic off spring to make millions, and the advances in sports science to train them at a young age to maximize their MPH(with command) and their bat speed, that creates a vast difference between generations above and beyond what the logic of more people to draw from creates.

Of course Grove's generation actually excluded minorities from the US, making his peers even more worse than Koufax's.

However, in 1965 the league was still 78% white. In 2001 it was only 60% white so it is clear that the pool of players reached further out in 2001 than in even 1965. 1965 was still more homogonized than 2001.

That is X many more people in the world who can throw 95 MPH(with control) for Johnson and modern players to compete against, X many more people who can hit 430 foot home runs, X many more people who can throw a cannon from the hole at SS, etc...

There is more of that to expound upon and I will in a week, but Johnson does not even need that aspect to best Koufax. It really isn't that close, and I address some of the common things the Koufax camp says(and have addressed them earlier in the thread).

Best ERA+ seasons:
Johnson....Koufax.....Grove
197........190............217
195........186............189
193........160............185
188........159............185
184........143............175
181........122............165
176........105............160
152........101............160
135.........93
135.........Not good enough to pitch enough innings to qualify
118.........Not good enough to pitch enough innings to qualify
112.........Not good enough to pitch enough innings to qualify


Johnson had unrivaled physical tools. No pitcher in MLB history can match his physical tools. He was six foot eleven and threw over 100 MPH with a ridiculous slider....WITH COMMAND(after a few year learning curve). Some pitchers had one or two of those tools, but nobody had ALL of those tools like he did.

Let me explain why the physical tools are of such importance. Why would you take another pitcher over Johnson if the other pitcher was ten inches shorter, threw three miles an hour slower, had lesser command, and similar or less breaking pitches? The only other factor would be mental make up. Do they have the ability to handle being a professional player? Johnson obviously answered that question. Do they have the mental ability to thrive for a long time? Johnson answered that question YES.

Environments a player plays in severely muddles or hides statistical measurements, but the tools are concrete. The tools are a known. A lot of the statistical measurements are unknowns because environment muddles them. An environment can give false perceptions of ones true ability. Six foot eleven cannot be muddled. 100 MPH cannot be muddled. Nasty slider cannot be muddled. Command cannot be muddled. The only other obstacle is mental make up and thrive to succeed. He obviously passed that only unknown hurdle.

So when you are weighing all this, the physical tools play a vital role in solving the dilemma of cross era comparison.

Johnson had the results to back it up.

Johnson was umpire proof. He didn't need the inches off the plate like Maddux and Glavine often did to excel to the levels they did.

He was era proof. He didn't need lineups in the league where numbers six through nine were zero threats and hit basically zero power...like which occurred in other eras where scoring was depressed, or era's like the 30's where only the elite few were legit power threats.

In fact, he pitched in probably the toughest era to be a pitcher, with the live ball, DH, and steroids. Any pitcher that can handle the toughest environment to pitch in, surely would have no problem in the eras where it was pitcher friendly.

He didn't need a dead ball to excel or last a long time.

Johnson was stadium proof. He didn't need to rely on a certain stadium to make him dominant. Make no doubt, DOdger stadium helped Koufax tremendously.

Johnson had peak dominance and longevity dominance.

He was the guy that if you lined all these historic pitchers up at a local baseball field standing shoulder to shoulder, then watched him unleash what he had, he would be the guy every single coach would pick. Coaches would be drooling.

If you want to play the "what if" game people do with Koufax, realize that JOhnson missed two plus seasons worth of starts in his prime too. What if johnson didn't get hurt?

What if Clemens was not taking steroids and then the second place finisher(randy johnson) adds TWO MORE Cy Youngs?

My favorite what if? What if Johnson got to pitch off an eight inch higher mound, and had strikes called at the chest??

What if Koufax pitched in Coors Field half his career games...then there wouldn't even be this thread because Koufax's numbers would look much different, even though his ability would not be any different ;)

First, I don't entirely disagree. If we abandon "who had the best contextual career" framing to make it "what pitcher, if in their prime, was dropped in 2021 without any preparation would do the best", it's probably Randy Johnson. His career numbers are amazing, and he was a power pitcher who didn't put it together until he was 29 years old. Imagine if he figured it out at 25. Putting things in context of time and place, I would put Randy #2 behind Grove, though he is my #1 favorite and personal preference, as he is the one I grew up watching and we share a hometown.


I do think this chart, which I believe has been posted a few times now, is extremely misleading, at best. It just stops tabulating for Grove half way down Grove pitched more than 8 full seasons that are included here, he won 9 ERA crowns alone plus other full seasons. It's just factually wrong and really should stop being used. I think any reasonable person here should agree. I'm open to being the fool if there is any good reason this chart, which ignores much of Grove's career and implies he played 8 seasons, is somehow valid.

Andrew,

Some very insightful points, and all make logical sense. Statistics can only tell a part of the story, and at best, can utilize hard, factual numbers to help determine probabilities. They completely ignore the human factor though, along with a myriad of other unkown factors and circumstances that can be occuring at any point in a game, and then change in the blink of an eye. For example, I wonder how the statisticians did, and have since, handled the statistical records for pitchers that came up against the Astros a few years ago. Is it fair to record data from such games and use that to compare those pitchers to those that never faced the Astros? And how would statisticians possibly adjust their data, should they even decide to, so as to be fair to all parties concerned? And that is just one of an infinite number of factors that statistics maybe can't always explain, measure, or even record properly.

The biggest problem in merely relying upon statistics to try to measure and compare things to me is the context, which I feel that despite what some statisticians will try to tell you, they do not have accurate, consistent,and reliable ways to really measure and account for all the differences that can occur. As another example, take the person that argues a good comparison can be achieved by magically transporting say Randy Johnson from his peak years as a pitcher, and suddenly dropping him back into the time that Lefty Grove pitched. That person may automatically declare that based on statistical data, the players back in Grove's day were weaker batters and nowhere near as good as the batters Johnson faced, so he's certain Johnson would blow everyone from back then away (at least almost everyone). But that kind of argument is so out of context as to be laughable. I've said before that that would be akin to taking an Indy car driver, and his car from today, and dropping them into an Indy race back in 20s or 30s, against cars and drivers from back then. To make such an excercise not be so completely out of context, wouldn't it make much more sense to have Randy Johnson be born the same year as Grove, so he could grow up and learn to pitch under at least more similar circumstances and with more comparable context? That way you could really have a more meaningful and honest comparison between them as pitchers. And to make it possibly even more fair and measurable, you'd then want to also have Grove born the same year as Johnson to then see how those two would have fared and measured up in Johnson's day. Though by all means not a perfect, or even possible, this exercise would likely be a much better and more comparably contextual way to compare two pitchers.

And in trying to name an all tlme great, I'd suggest having everyone on the list for that title being magically born, grow up, and then play in the same era/time as everyone else on the list. That way you could better compare how each player fared, when they played under at least much more similar context and conditions, in all the different times/eras that everyone else on the list played in. My guess is that if you then looked at each different time/era like a separate season, you could use everyone's statistics from just that time/era to hopefully agree on a clear winner. And then to determine the all time greatest, you see who ended winning the most times/eras measured. Will never happen though, but makes so much more sense than just plain statistics.

And another point in regards to statisticians and statistics. If the claim is made that the basis for even starting and coming up with sabermetrics and statistical analysis to begin with was for gambling purposes, I can't argue and don't disagree with that logic and thinking at all. In fact, it makes perfect sense as something humans would do to take advantage and make money off others. However, statisticians may forget to take into consideration the origins of the statistics they espouse and then attempt to apply them to situations for which they were never originally intended. For if statistics truly were created to assist people with their gambling, that generally entails one team or athlete competing against another team or athlete(s) TODAY! Not one team or athlete competing against another team or athlete(s) from an entirely different time or era. So if as claimed, statistics were created for gambling purposes, the context they were originally created under was for comparison of ONLY current teams and players going against each other. Now the fact that statisticians may have found success with current statistical comparisons for their gambling purposes is fine, and I don't argue their applicability at all. But I'm afraid some narrow-minded, narcissistic, and vain glorious statisticians may have felt that since their (or their statistical colleague's) statistics can, and have, accurately functioned to pick gambling winners (some of the time, but certainly not all of the time), that they have carte blanche to assume they must, therefore, be more intelligent than the average person, and that their statistics are the be all and end all answer for all other sports comparison type questions then. Like choosing a greatest at something between players/athletes, even though they may have been from different times/eras and, therefore, most certainly would have competed under (often radically) different context. They completely seem to disregard the context under which they have asserted that such statistics were originally created (gambling) and falsely push that they are appropos for whatever comparative argument they want to now make utilizing them. However, they may continually appear unable to provide specifics of such statistical analysis and formulas when requested (though this is supposed to be a mathematical science with a foundation in facts and details), appear to have disregarded any attempt to even account for or measure potential statistical error, and most certainly have ignored the human element and context involved in the attempt to expand the usefullness and applicability af statistical measures developed originally for something entirely different.

A long time ago I realized what I think is a cosmic truth, "The more I learned, the dumber I became!". Seems like every time I'd learned something new, I'd suddenly find out there was even so much more I didn't know. I try to keep an open mind in debates like this, and I'm the first to admit when I'm proven or shown to be wrong. But someone simply arguing with little to no proof or support for the arguments, and expecting people to swallow their continual "I'm right, and you're wrong!" rhetoric, is just asinine and juvenile. I'll sit and listen to anyone's thoughts and theories, and honestly (and civily) debate with them, and logically consider their points and positions (and the resulting merits of such), and offer what I feel is appropriate rebuttal when warranted. And I've found that the vast majority of people on this site are of a similar ilk. To bad it doesn't always include everyone..............

Randy led the league in ERA 4 times and in wins once. His post season record was just 7-9. He was a solid pitcher and deserves to be in the conversation, but I'll still take Grove, then Spahn of the lefties, and Walter for best overall.

If you lined up all the pitchers in the game in 1960, the guy who all the coaches and scouts would be drooling over, concerning raw ability and potential, wouldn't be Koufax, Drysdale, Spahn, Gibson, Pierce, Ford, Pascual, or any of those guys. It would've been a fellow named Steve Dalkowski.

This has been a truly enjoyable thread, even if I’m out of my depth with much of the analysis.

Can’t help but wonder how the narrative would’ve unfolded with just the slightest tweak to the title:

Best Most revered lefty of all time? My vote is (still) Koufax!

Despite the iron clad arguments for Robert Moses, Warren Edward, and Randall David, none…and I mean none carried the mystique and the aura of Sanford. Metrics cannot adequately quantify that.

Also, his peak fell during a perfect storm of West Coast expansion, the end of the Golden Era, and the ushering in of the pitching era. It was the right time and the right place for a guy like Koufax to dominate the scene like he did. There were so many great pitchers during his time, but Koufax’s artistry was unmatched…even if his stats don’t support it.

Best: Grove

Best if everyone was randomly dropped in 2021 at their peak with no preparation and the advantages of modernity only given to the development of modern pitchers: Johnson

Most revered and worshipped: Koufax

Most interesting story: Dalkowski

Johnson gets no hobby love. His RCs in the same sets sell for a fraction of Griffey's.

Sad, but so true.

To be fair, pitcher-hitter hobby disparity aside, Johnson was a late blooming 25 year old still trying to find himself in ‘89…and was a solid 4 years away from resembling anything like the Big Unit.

Meanwhile, Griffey hit the ground running as a teenager the same year and never looked back.

Both eventually became titans at their position, but the hobby loves the long ball. That much cannot be argued.

Randy Johnson won MLB’s Warren Spahn Award as the best lefty the first four times it was issued. Not the Grove Award or the Koufax Award. Just sayin’. :)

So what did your statistics predict that Koufax would do in 1967??? That's the big hangup with Sandy - he didn't pitch long enough for many to consider him the best left-handed pitcher in MLB. Just how short does the window need to be before you deem it 'too short'? Four years? Two years? A single season? A single game? One pitch?? To me, if you are going to be considered 'the best', you've got to balance peak with longevity. Integrate under the curve.

You're cherry picking on Johnson. Don't forget 5 Cy Youngs, 3 2nds and a 3rd. Solid pitcher is just a bit of an understatement.

Touche.

Love that Spahn has his own award, but the list of winners is somewhat dubious beyond Johnson, Kershaw, and Sabathia. Then again, so is the Cy Young Award. Mike Flanagan and Willie Hernandez anyone?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Spahn_Award

EDIT: Hot off the press…add Robbie Ray to the list of lefty Cy Young and likely Spahn Award winners.

Some of the 89 Fleer Randy Johnson Marlboro versions have gone crazy. I know of one that recently went for $13,000. Even the more normal versions have greatly increased in price over the last year.

OK, but can't you get his Upper Deck RC in PSA 10 for not much more than $100?

How many would Grove have won, had the award existed?

Since some want to discount or dismiss win-loss stats, is ERA to be considered the best gauge? Johnson, against his peers, led his league in that stat exactly 4 times in his 22 year career. Grove led his league in ERA 9 times in his 17 year career.

Where did I say a single word against Grove? I ranked him first and have not backed off that.

Has a “Cypothetical Young Award” thread or poll ever been tossed around here for pre-1956?