I disagree...a pitcher plays defense..he doesn't score runs. Nolan Ryan in 1987 led the league in ERA yet he still had 16 losses and only 8 wins. His team couldn't score runs...that's not Ryan's fault.

If your team doesn't score any runs, don't give up any runs. When you have a good lead, you're going to throw the ball over the plate. If you give up a couple runs, nobody cares. A great pitcher should be able to give up only one run if his team scores two. If his team scores ten, he can allow the other team to score a few. Please don't forget that pitchers did bat back then.

Bob Gibson - What a hardass/competitor what a pitcher should be, he had the pitches, the mind, the determination and the "balls". If I had to pick one guy to pitch one game I think he might be my guy.

That doesn't make any sense to me...if you give up one run over 9 innings, but still lose 1-0 that doesn't qualify as a great pitching performance, but if you win the game 9-8 that qualifies??

In 1996 Roger Pavlik was 15-8 with a 5.18 ERA...do you believe that's a better season than Nolan Ryan's 1987 season?

With corrections for prevailing era conditions, a dead heat between Walter Johnson and Lefty Grove--check out Grove's neutralized stats at www.baseball-reference.com. Put him in the National League in 1966, playing at Dodger Statdium, and virtually every one of his seasons looks as good or better than Koufax circa 1965-1966. Remember, Lefty pitched when the entire league hit .280 plus, and a good number of the stadiums were of the bandbox variety.

Nice thread,

Larry

For Robert W... Casey wasn't the one holding Whitey back. Jim Turner did that. Casey picked the players and then asked Jim to give him a pitcher. Casey and Jim went back to Mudhen days before Jim ever reached the majors. Casey and Jim had been told by the owners to not let any of the pitchers get too many wins in a season, lest they try to use that as a reason to get more money during contract negotiation.

iwantitiwinit, you have me thinking that if it was just ONE game, and Mr. Gibson had fire in his eyes, he may well be my choice, too. But over a career, Walter Johnson is still tops for me.

It doesn't make sense that the only thing a pitcher needs to do is give up less runs than his team scores?

Kid Nichols
 

Nichols had a 10 year span that in each season he won more than 20 games and 7 seasons he won more than 30 games. I believe he has more 30 win seasons than any other pitcher in the history of the game. 9 of the 10 years he won more than 25 games-I would think that is pretty dominant in any era

I really like Matty, but voted for Johnson. If you listen or read The Glory of Their Times, all of those guys talk about Walter Johnson as the greatest. I know there has been 50 years since that book was written, but his numbers say alot.
For a single season Hoss Radbourn had "Fifty Nine in 84"

Lots of great replies.

Bob Gibson, 1968 - Never ONCE knocked out of a game that year. Only times he was lifted were for pinch hitters. How incredible is that?

Pedro Martinez - Pedro's lack of durability kills his shot at greatest of all-time but his 2000 might be the best single year ever. 0.737 WHIP, 11.8K/9, and an ERA of 1.74 - when the next best ERA was 3.70! He was TWO RUNS BETTER than every other pitcher in the league. That's just unreal. Pedro's WHIP was the best of all-time. His ERA+ was the best in the post-1893 era.

For a career, I would probably go with Walter Johnson or Roger Clemens. Clemens was boosted by steroids, no question - but he was also pitching against roided up monsters. .658 win%, 6 20-win seasons, 7 Cy Young awards (should be 8), an MVP, and so on.

Tabe

So in a game you need to win you'd start 1996 Roger Pavlik over 1987 Nolan Ryan? Wins are nice, but they do not even begin to tell the story of how effective a pitcher is.

+1

Wins should just be a part of the equation; to ignore the other components isn't logical.

Who was the greatest?
 

You know where my vote went, but there should be more votes for Satchel Paige and Bob Feller.
Hank Thomas

Regardless of era pitched in, Walter Johnson followed closely by Christy Mathewson.

Lets have a poll for the most overated pitcher of all time and I bet Sandy Koufax gets the same percentage of votes in that poll than the one we are participating in right now. He WAS Ron Guidry, their stats are basically identical but people would laugh at Guidry as the greatest of all time yet Koufax gets 10% of the vote? Just shows how much popularity plays into the equation. I know people will disagree BUT, the numbers dont lie, he and Guidry are eerily similar.

Three cool dudes.

If I had to give the ball to one guy, to win one game, I'd go off the board: Catfish Hunter.

I don't remember Guidry pitching 4 no-hitters, including a perfect game, winning the pitching triple crown three times, or winning 3 Cy Youngs when only one was awarded. Nor did he have a 0.95 ERA in the post season. Guidry was a very good pitcher, but he was a far cry from being anywhere close to as dominant as Koufax.

If Roger Pavlik will give me a win and Ryan won't then I'll take Pavlik all day long.
So you'd rather your favortie team has the league's lowest ERA than win the World Series? To think that anything but winning games is important isn't logical. Giving up only one run may be impressive, but when it comes down to it all that matters is winning the game.

Rotisserie baseball has ruined how people look at stats. If you play for a team which doesn't score many runs, your ERA is going to be lower than if you played for a team which scores a lot of runs. This is true in most cases.

I think you are missing the point. The point is that if Roger Pavlik and Nolan Ryan got the same run support, Nolan Ryan would have many more wins.

Catfish was a great pitcher, but...

If my life depended on winning one game? Without hesitation, Pedro Martinez. Look at the era he pitched in, compare him to the rest of the league. It's not even close....

On a side note...

No disrespect to Nolan Ryan, but as good as he was at times, he was a .500 pitcher on .500 ball clubs. Did he really make his team better when he pitched?

Career numbers do not lie.

Koufax and Guidry are almost the same guy. I wasn't talking about No-Hitters or the "the pitching triple crown" but you could get into the same arguments with Guidry as his best single season was better than Koufax's best single season and Guidry played in a much more hitter friendly League and Era than Koufax did.

Just going off the numbers Koufax gets a VERY slight edge in career stats but they are so very similar that if names were removed from the occasion and you just looked at numbers it is extremely close.

The point is that you can take 2 similar guys, one is the best ever in some people's eyes while the other gets not even a hint of a mention.

Nor do career statistics tell the entire truth. Koufax and Guidry had similar career won-loss numbers, true. Koufax dominated in every other important pitching category, without nearly the same type of run support Guidry was getting, going up against the Gibsons and Marichals of the league. Almost .5 ERA lower, 600 more strikeouts in 2 less years, 14 more shutouts in 2 less years, a substantially better WHIP, and a league leader in every important pitching category far more often than Guidry. In the 5 years before he retired, Koufax was always in the top 5, most often 1st or 2nd. It isn't even close. Guidry never had that type of run. Guidry was a real good pitcher, but the fact that he achieved some similar won/loss numbers in two more years doesn't make him the same pitcher as Koufax.

There's a lot more to it than the final numbers. If career statistics "do not lie," then I suppose Eppa Rixey is basically the same pitcher as Bob Feller because they won the same number of games, had similar ERAs, and had similar WHIPs. Don Sutton and Steve Carlton, who pitched pretty much at the same time, had similar won/loss records and ERAs. Does that make Sutton the same pitcher as Carlton? Intuitively, I know that's not right.

Adjustments to Pitching Stats
 

Here's something I've always wondered about, but have never been enough of a stat guy to look into: Walter Johnson, for example, pitched most of his career with a very weak hitting team behind him, so for 1/7th of the games during that time, he never got to pitch against those relative weaklings in his league. Conversely, he never got a pass on some of the strongest hitters in his league by having them on his team. I'm sure there are other examples of this disparity among the other pitchers, some going the other way. For his time especially, when teams played each other 22 times a season, i would think this could have a serious impact on a pitcher's numbers, and maybe hitters, too. Think of this: Walter Johnson faced Ty Cobb 365 times in his career. In other words, Cobb had almost 2/3 of a season just against Johnson! If Cobb had been on Johnson's team, he never would have had to hit against him. And think of Lefty Grove: he never had to face three of the best hitters in his league during his prime: Foxx, Simmons, and Cochrane. And they never had to bat against him. Just wondering if any of the SABR type adjustments take this into account.
Hank Thomas

I voted for The Big Train...

But I was distressed to see no mention of Carl Hubbell at all. In three pages of posts, I would have thought his name would appear just once. Not that I read every word of every post...

But regardless of whether I missed it, seems like King Carl is one of the most overlooked/under-rated Pitchers of all-time...

And that's why TEAMS are measured by wins but players are judged by their individual stats.

Do you seriously want Ray Oyler as your starting shortstop because his team won a World Series? Or Miguel Tejada, whose teams never even won a postseason series?

Tabe

You're suggesting I believe that if A.J. Burnett gets a loss, it's CC Sabathia's fault. Of course not. :D But when a pitcher pitches, it's his job to win the game, whatever the circumstances are. I don't care if your ERA is two- if you can't consistently give up less runs then the other team scores then you aren't a good pitcher. Each day a pitcher goes out there his goal is to get a win for his team. Not pitch a shutout. Not keep his WHIP under 1. Sure, he wouldn't mind getting a shutout, but he knows as long as he keeps the other team under their score he's fine.

Sure, we can speculate that if a certain pitcher got more run support he would have gotten more wins. Thing is, he didn't. There's no way to know something that didn't happen.

By the way, right now I'd take Ray Oyler over Miguel Tejeda. (I know he's deceased)

edited to add- I'm talking about starting pitchers- not position players and relief pitchers.

Pitchers like Hubbell and Alexander who had one HUGE shining moment often get overlooked for their career because of that one moment...for Hubbell it was the AS game strikeouts and for Alexander it was the Lazzeri strikeout.

While this thread is about the best starting pitcher ever, I thought I'd share this article from the Wall Street Journal about the man who might be the greatest pitcher ever:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...092034092.html

Good article. There definitely is an argument that the Great Rivera (as Jon Miller calls him) is the best pitcher ever.

To those that said CY Young, he struck out a guy every 3rd inning, gave up the most hits / most losses. He's the Favre of baseball, some nice records, but when you throw a complete game every time out there you're bound to get some records. Don't get me wrong 511 wins is amazing, but over 300 losses is pretty bad.

I'm a sucker for stats so I picked Cy..

the best I ever saw would be Tom Terrific.. and having never seen the pre war guys its hard to get a feel for them vs simply looking at the stat line.

I love it when the subject of unbreakable records comes up and folks overlook CYs 511 wins.. I simply point out that a pitcher could win 20 games for 20 years in a row and still be 100 wins shy of CY.. that is the MOST unbreakable record IMO of any record in sports...

Greatest Pitcher Ever
 

I typically break these type of questions into 2 categories: (1) Peak Value and (2) Overall 10+ year career. My peak value choice is easily Sandy Koufax who from 1963 - 1966 was the benchmark that all pitchers will forever be measured against. He was virtually un-hittable. (Peak value honorable mention candidates include Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, Greg Maddox, Grover Alexander, Walter Johnson and Mathewson).

Over a 10+ year career it would have to be Walter Johnson who remarkably won 417 games with a 2nd division ball club. Honorable mention goes to Christy Mathewson and Tom Seaver with Seaver Bill James' choice as the arguable premier post WWII pitcher.

Greatest pitcher Ever
 

Jay,

Interesting article but it leaves out one critical pitching perspective aspect. You CANNOT compare a pitcher who NEVER has to throw more than 2 innings to a pitcher that has to go 6 - 9 innings. Starting pitchers simply cannot throw at 100% capacity every pitch of every inning. A relief pitcher is afforded the luxury of "blowing" on every pitch. True, Rivera's dominance as a relief pitcher has truely earned him #1 relief pitcher status, but you cannot compare a one inning pitcher to a hurler required to throw "at a minimum", 70 - 80% of a full game. Starters and relievers have to be placed in separate buckets, and it is impossible to compare the two.

FYI, this in no way diminishes what Rivera has accomplished with basically one pitch. He is a remarkable first ballot Hall of Famer who, in a relief pitching role, we may never see the likes of again!

Regards,
Joe T.

I am amazed, baffled and perplexed at how people rate Rivera as the greatest pitcher of all time. I don't doubt is greatness, but let's take a look at his greatness compared to others.

His job is to get THREE outs a game. Can you imagine Bob Gibson if he needed to get only three outs each time he pitched. He would drill the first guy in the back, then strike out the next three. Seriously, I would love to ask Gibson the question if he only had to close, and he did that excellently, that he would be considered the greatest pitcher of all-time. I think he would chuckle. One season, Gibson pitched 302 innings and had a 1.12 ERA! I know that you all know that stat but please read that again. Rivera has pitched more than 80 innings in only one season during is career. Now read that stat again.

Another point about a closer, especially Rivera. For a team to win a game, the team must score more runs than the other team. It becomes far more difficult when the team is behind and has to come up with runs to come from behind to win the game. How many times has Rivera helped his team come from behind to win a game? You can probably count this number on one hand.

Also, the point that Hank Thomas brought up is one that is so overlooked. Whitey Ford is considered on of the greatest pitchers of all time. But he never had to pitch against his Yankees, the dominant team by far of his time. Mariano Rivera never had to pitch against the dominant team of his time. The Yankees over the past 17 years are clearly the best team of this era, especially the hitters. Rivera never had to pitch against these guys. What would is stats be if he had to close against this group one out of 6 times?

And finally is a big deal to end the game 3 outs early? I don't minimize this, but saying that he is the greatest pitcher of all time is like saying that the guy who watched Michael Jordan for the last minute of 5 games is more valuable than the guy who watched him for the first 47 minutes of those games. Maybe this player did a great job at crunch time. But each basket counts no matter when it is scored. Likewise, each run counts no matter when it is scored.

Rivera is a great pitcher, but when he only averages 78 innings per year, this is not close to the best of all time. Let me quote you some other stats. Walter Johnson had a career record of 417-279 in 5914 innings. (Rivera pitched 1207 innings.) But of those 279 losses, Washington was shut out in 65 of those games. SIXTY-FIVE of is losses occurred because is team did not score a single run. Give him the Yankees hitting and there would never be a discussion of who the greatest pitcher of all time was.

So it baffles me when writers state that a pitcher who gets three outs each time he works is better than this?

Cy

Pedro...
 

If we are not focusing on longevity, it's Pedro, hands down. Everyone talks about Koufax's last five years as if they are untouchable, but Pedro was actually better than Koufax over a seven year stretch from 1997-2003; and Pedro was pitching in an era dominated by hitters, while Koufax pitched in an era dominated by pitchers.

Here are Pedro's stats from 1997-2003:
118-36, 2.20 ERA, 0.94 WHIP, 213 ERA+

Pedro in his prime was the best pitcher I have ever seen and I'm a NYY fan. If I had to win one game, I'd give the ball to Pedro, circa 1999-2000.

Pitchers in my lifetime
 

I saw Koufax, Gibson and Maddux in person many times. They are the three best pitchers in my lifetime. I'm not much of a stat guy and can only go on what I witnessed. Of the three I believe Gibson was the best

He had 511 wins. His winning percentage was actually very good. Compare his winning percentage to other greats and he's in the top bunch. The record he holds for the most losses gives him an impression that he had a low winning percentage. .618 is not low.

Giving up the most hits is just a novelty stat. Same thing with strikeouts. Because he pitched the most innings of any pitcher, he is going to have some of these records. If you want to go that route, he also has the record for games started, innings pitched, batters faced, complete games and earned runs. You can make an argument that ERA means something, but an out is an out whether it's a flyball at the wall or a strikeout. Also, three and a half strikeouts per game was not that low in those days.

Don't undermine his RBI!

I've said it before, but I think you guys are being very shortsighted about Rivera. What he is able to do is incredible. You and I will never see a more dominant pitcher in our lifetimes. Rivera is a gamer. I wouldn't give the ball to any other pitcher in history in the ninth inning of game 7 of any World Series.

Rivera's post-season numbers:

8-1 with an 0.71 ERA in 139 IP with 42 saves, 86 hits allowed and only 21 walks.

I'm not saying Mariano is the best pitcher of all time. But I would agree that he is the most dominant pitcher ever to step onto the mound.

Here's another interesting stat concerning Walter Johnson vs. Mariano Rivera.

Mariano Rivera pitched in 1200 innings, total. Walter Johnson pitched 110 complete game shutouts. Plus Walter lost 26 complete games 1-0. That means that Walter pitched more complete game shutout innings plus 1-0 loss innings than Mariano pitched in his entire career (1224-1200).

Cy

What do the hitters say?
 

This is an almost impossible task to determine by the stats, but why should we even try? First, who did the hitters from each generation name the most often? That should give you one pitcher from each generation, more or less. Then take what the hitters say about the pitchers they've seen pitch during their lifetime, especially the old-timers who stayed in the game a long time as managers, scouts, coaches, etc. That should boil it down to a select few. Then get out the numbers and start crunching them if you want. And I don't think you can compare relief pitchers to starters. As others have said, we have no idea what it would have been like for Walter Johnson or Bob Feller, for example to only have to get through one inning at a time. Then there's the element of criteria: are we talking about the pitcher with the nastiest stuff, or the most effective pitcher? All this is great fodder for discussion.
Hank Thomas

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Eddie Feigner/ Rich Hoppe, faced both and Hoppe's pitches sounded high to me, but were called strikes.

Rawn

Lol! I watched my Dad's team play against them once in the mid-late 80's. It was a great show and Feigner was awesome.

Mario's a "non-starter"
 

With all due respect, gentlemen, Rivera's not even lined up in the starting blocks against guys like Grove, Johnson, Koufax, Martinez, Mathewson, Alexander and Spahn (13 20-win seasons?? Imagine having your staff ace every year for 17-18 years!!!). Sorry, Rivera's out of his element here, and simply a non-starter (pun intended!).

Makes for some good controversy, though, albeit quite short-lived!

Larry

Late entry
 

I heard about one pitcher who could top them all ... named Sidd Finch

I think the fact that Rivera threw just 1-1/3 innings in a 5-game LDS series against the Tigers and had absolutely zero impact on the outcome of the series, pretty much puts to rest the idea that he - or any other reliever - is even in the discussion as "greatest pitcher ever".

Tabe

Had Walter Johnson been a closer instead of a starting pitcher, today we would be referring to Rivera as the second best closer ever!
Val

I think the polls closed and my vote would be for Walter Johnson (no big deal), followed by Lefty Grove or Cy Young

... The best season ever?
Well, even though the game was really different I'd go with Old Hoss in '84 (1884). He won 59 games in the regular season and the triple crown. He lost 12 with 441 Ks and an ERA of 1.38. He also "single-handedly" (his right, to be specific) carried Providence to the National League crown, pitching almost every game down the home stretch.

Then, in the earliest precursor to the World Series, he led the "Grays" over the New York Metropolitans winning all three games played with an ERA of 0.00. The "Mets" back then had another future HOFer, Tim Keefe, who Hoss beat in two of the games.

The pitching numbers back then are really hard to compare to anything . For example no relief pitching -- Radbourn led the league with 2 Saves. The Sabermetric numbers are equally out of whack; Radbourn's WAR was about 20.

But Radbourn didn't just win a lot -- a whole lot -- of games that season. He carried his team all the way and then dominated in the post-season like a combination of Johnson & Schilling in 2001...

Only two pitchers in the history of baseball have ever won the pitching triple crown three times: Walter Johnson and Sandy Koufax. Let's compare Ron Guidry to Koufax again.