There's a very real chance that his military service kept him from becoming #2 all-time in wins (54 away) and certainly cost him sole possession of 3rd place (10 away). I think wins in a given season are a crapshoot and kinda meaningless (1987 Nolan Ryan in one direction, 1973 Paul Splitorff in the other), but when you start racking up over 300 for a career it means something, as evidenced by the names anywhere near that total.

Ok, I guess Nolan sucked until he was 42 then. :(

Obviously satire. But the generational Great longevity pitchers exist. Walter, Christy, Sandy, Spahn, Nolan, Johnson, etc. It is possible.

I love the argument of people saying Walter Johnson threw something like 80mph. It's hilarious. Every human male in the United States wanted to be a baseball player, most of them played on town and factory teams. To think throwing 90+ is impossible for the time is laughable. Sure the majority were probably only slinging in the 80s max. But the outliers are obvious, and the player accounts are incredibly numerous of what Walter and Joe Wood did. (Joe probably blew out his arm as one of the earliest examples of what throwing really hard does to the arm). Walter did not throw close to 100. That's a fact, I'd say maybe 95 could've been Walters fastest pitch ever.

There is a common factor to this longevity though. Tall pitchers with long sweeping, very elastic deliveries (barring Nolan, I have zero clue how he pitched so long like that). Is it a coincidence, maybe. But Paul is tall and his delivery is a bit like the sweep of a right handed Randy Johnson.

We shall see.

Nolan worked his ass off in the gym. That documentary on him went into it in some detail.

Yes for any given game, but he pitched half his games there and they didn't, so statistically it's to his relative advantage. Look at Koufax home and away, huge disparity, and that feeds into his overall stats because half his games during his peak years were in a cavernous pitcher friendly park. That's why some metrics adjust for park factors.

He also had beautiful mechanics.
Obviously there is some concern with Skenes', e.g. Curt Schilliing.

Compared to Johnson at least.[emoji3166]

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Over 350 wins, triple digit WAR total, over a dozen AS appearances, a Cy Young, a few no hitters. Led the league in whip, strikeouts, ERA, complete games, etc many times. All done after his early career was interrupted by a calling to see real action in WW2. Hard pressed to figure how he’s not one of the all time great pitchers. It’s fun to play devils advocate but it doesn’t hold water when trying to knock Spahn.

I am a huge Spahn fan, I am just pointing out your logic was inherently flawed on the park effects point.

A pitcher’s main goal is to get a win. When he went up against pitchers in what some call a pitcher friendly park he way more often than not won that battle. Hard to do a kabookie dance around that fact.

Spahn has said the opposite. Warren when asked about how many more games he could have won if he had not served in the military has said that his service matured him and made him a better pitcher. Without his military service, it is very possible that Spahn wins a lot fewer games and his career looks very different than it does today.

In 1942 Spahn won 0 games and gave up 15 runs, 10 earned in 15 2/3 innings before being sent back to the minor leagues.

I disagree. A pitcher's main goal is to limit the opposition in order to maximize his team's chances of winning. The metrics showing how good a player was at doing that -- which take into account any park effects -- tell us much more than mere wins and losses.

In the late 70s I attended a day game at Wrigley and that evening the Yankees were playing in Milwaukee. We made it to Milwaukee in time and got decent seats. Before long we realized that sitting behind us was Warren Spahn. He looked for all the world just like an everyday "older" guy.

Disagree. Main, perhaps sole, goal is to win. Everything else is rather secondary. What you wrote sounds rather silly compared to that fundamental fact of the sport. If a pitcher realizes his team is up big and he can stay in the game but give up some runs and still get the win so the bullpen can rest, that’s valuable to a team but won’t necessarily show up in the stats. Not sure what you’re arguing here. Spahn wasn’t elite?

Oy. So a pitcher who wins 8-7 did better than one who loses 1-0? If you really think that I can't help you. Of course Spahn is elite, who said he wasn't? I am just saying it's a legitimate point to bring up park effects.

The pitcher that wins 5 games 8-7 is better than the one that wins 2 games 1-0. But I am positive the stats will favor the latter.

A pitcher can only control how much he limits the other side. How well his own team does on any given day is a fortuity. The stats rightly focus on the former.

You don’t think guys like Maddux and Spahn have a sense of a game and can give up a run or two but secure a win rather than go all out and have to come out of the game? I feel like they’re playing chess to your checkers.

A hypothetical pitcher who goes 25-0 but gives up an average of 10 runs a game would be a terrible pitcher, not a great one. A pitcher has very low influence on his teams scoring (today with the universal DH, he has 0 influence), only on the other teams scoring.

He looked like an everyday older guy by the time he was in his early 40's.

Brian (older looking guy card not mine)

Checkers player!!:D He knew he could give up 10 runs with no impact on the game, so he intentionally eased up so he could stay in the game and save the bullpen, don't you know?

With respect players' wartime service, I know a lot of them say that the extra time would not have had a major impact on their careers, but I don't buy that. Any career in any field that is interrupted by years of doing something else entirely causes a lag in training and skill acquisition that has to be made up later.

No, because if you give up a run or two you don't know where that will lead. And who says you can just turn it back on if a game gets close?

Maybe I'm wrong but my impression was that guys like DiMaggio and Williams picked right up where they had left off?

You’re right, Spahn wasn’t supremely effective at eating tons of innings and getting wins for his team.

Show me where I said a single negative thing about Spahn? Can you not separate a discussion about park effect statistics from some imagined criticism of Spahn? Talk about a straw man or red herring or whatever it is. Man, if I'm playing checkers, I don't know what you're playing here.

Tridimensional, only beginners use a checkerboard to play a game of chess.:D

My Cardinals beat him !
Crushed him for two runs

His first loss. What a pitcher. Solid road win for the Cards.

When is the last time you saw a starter pitch into the 9th inning?

Paul Skenes last night