I wanted to say that the only downfall to this is (or maybe to the argument for Koufax) that Koufax's peak, was shorter than seven years. He Burned bright, and quickly. Looking at the final four years of his career, in comparison to Grove's best four and Johnson's best four, Grove still edges him out, just barely in terms of WAR. To be quite frank, however I'd really be happy with any of them starting a "do or die" game for me!

The debate about whether and to what extent longevity and milestone stats matter will never be settled. It's come up for the millionth time with the retirement of Posey. I tend to agree that JAWS is a pretty good compromise.

I agree, IF you are talking HOF-worthiness, because 7/10 years is a pretty good measure for an average HOFer. Cumulation stats are less and less valuable as players take better care of themselves and play longer. If Koufax was playing today he'd be on a strict pitch count and would last longer but would have cumulative stats a lot more like Kershaw's.

Whether it’s the best 4 years (a number selected solely with the goal of making Koufax try and win), best 5 years, best 7 years, best decade, or best career value, it doesn’t seem to matter for LHP. The math-centered answer relative to context is still Lefty Grove. His margin of victory changes, but he still comes out on top with any of them.

I would think on best 4 or 5 years Unit would be way up there?

Do not forget about Greg Maddux

4 years 92, 93, 94, 95 with 4 Straight Cy Young Awards

I thought this was about lefties.

Brain fart. My Bad.
Maddux is a Righty.

Up there, but not quite there. Using Baseball Reference WAR, though frankly I'm not a big fan of WAR:

Top 4:
Grove: 11.2, 10.4, 10.4, 9.8 = 41.8
Johnson: 10.7, 10.1, 9.1, 8.6 = 38.5
Koufax: 10.7, 10.3, 8.1, 7.3 = 36.4


Top 5
Grove: 11.2, 10.4, 10.4, 9.8, 9.5 = 51.3
Johnson: 10.7, 10.1, 9.1, 8.6, 8.4 = 46.9
Koufax: 10.7, 10.3, 8.1, 7.3, 5.7 = 42.1



These are the methods trying to punish Grove and reward other favored candidates, but Grove still wins. I'd put Johnson and Spahn 2nd and 3rd. Spahn obviously fairs poorly in top 4 or 5 season only ranking as his great value was his consistent excellence and not short greatness. My takeaway from the first 630 posts last year was that there is no math-based rational argument for Koufax at all, but the emotional ties to him are very strong for a great many.

Perhaps the most succinct and accurate statement in the entire thread. There is no place for math or rationale in the heart of a fan(atic).

I agree a lot with this. He's not a "sexy" pick. I don't mean that literally.. he just wasn't a flashy hero type.

Other factors against Spahn were a small market mostly not so great team, a very ordinary physical stature and looks, and success based more on relentless consistency and finesse than blowing people away. But especially as was pointed out missing the years he did, a remarkable career. Destined to forever be at or near the top of those underrated lists we do once in a while.

Randy Johnson in his prime followed by Koufax. Nobody else is really even close IMO.

Minor comment is I think Spahn is slightly overlooked in these conversations. He’s just on the fringe of them but should be right in the mix in my opinion. Guy gave up a solid 3 years for service in his early going too. More than anything though this thread has made me realize how good Grove was.

I would rank them like this
Grove
Johnson
Spahn
Carlton
Koufax/Kershaw even at this point anyhow gun to my head I would take Kershaw.
Hubbell

Could see flipping Johnson and Spahn.
Koufax just too short a career, however great his peak, and I think it's been show that peak benefited a lot from pitching in Dodger Stadium. Take away the good looks, the heroic pitching in pain, the not pitching on Yom Kippur, etc., I think the mystique of Koufax goes away to an extent.

Peter. I like the list. And you have some valid points.
But I would probably put Spahn ahead of Johnson and probably put Koufax ahead of Kershaw

What if the question was "As the GM of a new franchise, which starting LHP would you pick first, assuming you had them for their entire career?"

Now you've got to weigh peak vs. longevity. What is more important?

The guy who wins by best 4 year peak, best 5 year peak, best 7 year peak, and total career value: Grove.

I should have put Kershaw on my list as well. For some reason, I was just thinking HOFers, not active players. But ya, Randy Johnson, Sandy Koufax, and Clayton Kershaw.

However, as perhaps the only statistician in the room, I feel like I have to ask; what stats are you guys looking at that makes you think Lefty Grove and Warren Spahn are even in the conversation? I don't get it. Are you only looking at games played or something? Lol. Wins? Complete games? Warren Spahn was an above-average pitcher, at best, for a really long time. The one year he won the Cy Young in, the only statistical category he led the league in was Wins, a near meaningless statistic when evaluating how good a pitcher is.

Lefty Grove had like 5 strikeouts per 9 innings pitched (and he led the league in Ks his first 7 years in the league). That's indicative of how terrible pitchers were back then, not of how great he was. Nobody threw their arms out back then because pitchers in the 1920s & 30s were effectively playing catch, not because they had superior genetics or throwing motions. They were only concerned with ball placement, not throwing heat ("top right corner! haha, he'll never see THAT coming"). Lefty Grove probably wouldn't even make a major league roster today. The guy's career WHIP is 1.278! That's not good. If he was your starting pitcher on a fantasy baseball roster, you'd lose money.

The only argument against Randy Johnson is that he was a late bloomer. He had serious control issues until he was about 29 years old. But after that, he was as dominant as they come, right or left-handed.

I don't have a strong opinion on the "Koufax career greatness" debate, but I can answer yes to your question w/ two other names:

Nolan Ryan and Pete Rose

Not sure if you’re serious or just doing that thing where someone just tries to be contrarian. Spahn and Randy Johnson have basically an identical WAR and Spahn did it pitching one fewer season than Randy because of the 3 seasons he lost in WWII. Spahn’s stats are below. They are rather nice.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/p...pahnwa01.shtml

Babe Ruth
 

Babe Ruth is by far and away the greatest lefty of all time. Everyone else is fighting for 2nd place

I am a huge Ruth guy.

But as a left handed pitcher the sample size is to small

During his time as A Red Sox pitcher he was amazing but the number of years is to short to make realistic comparisons

WAR is a great statistic for some things, but it's not very useful if you're trying to compare pitchers from different eras. It's normalized by season. Replacement level talent from back when Lefty Grove was pitching probably wasn't much better than the guy in your church softball league who works at the steel plant and who was the 2nd best pitcher in his high school of 400 students. The overwhelming majority of pitchers from that era, possibly even all of them, would not make a major league roster today. They definitely improved by the time Spahn was throwing, but still, even then, replacement level players were far worse than they are today. And they make up the denominator in the WAR calculations. Being 10 wins better than some guy you just grabbed from the coal mines in 1927 is not the same thing as being 10 wins better than some kid who destroyed hitters in Cuba and who throws 99 mph heat but occasionally struggles with control in 2021, so he bounces back and forth between triple A ball and pros. Teleport that Cuban kid back to 1927 and nobody hits him. NOBODY. Not even Ruth. That kid would have a WAR of +25 back then. Just imagine some kid showing up next season throwing the ball 112 mph. Not even Mike Trout could hit him. Could you imagine Randy Johnson in his prime pitching to the hitters in the 1920s? He would probably throw 10 no hitters per year lol. The difference is night and day.

That’s sort of a different argument. I agree if Randy Johnson prime went back in time he’d probably be better than Spahn and anyone else. Or if you put Spahn in the current game he might not be as good. Spahn might even be average compared to today’s pitchers. But he was far better than barely above average in his time. He was dominant.

So if Lefty Grove was so mediocre, what are your thoughts on Walter Johnson?

Lefty Grove, then Randy Johnson, then Warren Spahn

Damn James....you read that quick as lightning!

I edited because I was wrong about how many guys still played both ways during Brown's years. And no, I wouldn't rank him really low. My point was that assuming with no doubt that "he's the best ever" (based on how the game was back then) doesn't make much sense.

But on the list of best RBs of all time I think it would seem wrong to rank Jim Brown 2,000th simply because you think he wouldn’t start for Oregon in today’s game competing against kids that have gone through more modern training.

Are you serious? First of all there are like 500 posts on this topic in this thread. Look at WAR, ERA+. Compare Grove’s figures to the league, number must be put into the context of time and place. Grove won 7 consecutive K crowns, are we really going to use strikeouts as an argument against him? He led the league with the lowest WHIP 5 times. A statistical argument should incorporate context. He dominated his time and place like no other lefty, and he produced pretty good counting stats.

The argument for Spahn is his extremely long career and consistently excellent but not great seasons.

Just read the thread.

I think the logic of Travis' argument would also dictate that Jesse Owens was slow, Mark Spitz was mediocre, Bill Russell would be a bench player today, and so forth. It's a fair argument if you're consistent with it, but personally I think it is much more meaningful to evaluate athletes relative to their time than on an absolute scale.

Even if we dismiss everyone before a randomly selected year to include only ones arbitrarily favorite candidates, how does one possibly come to the conclusion that Spahn was “an above average pitcher, at best”. At best. 100 WAR, 365 wins, 3 ERA crowns, 5 WHIP titles, 119 ERA+ In over 5,000 innings. This is merely above average, *at best*.

Surely someone can come up with a hot take that isn’t utterly absurd and can stand up to even cursory logical examination.

Spahn does well by the Bill James/Baseball Reference metrics.

Hall of Fame Statistics
Black Ink
Pitching - 101 (6), Average HOFer ≈ 40
Gray Ink
Pitching - 374 (3), Average HOFer ≈ 185
Hall of Fame Monitor
Pitching - 260 (8), Likely HOFer ≈ 100
Hall of Fame Standards
Pitching - 66 (10), Average HOFer ≈ 50
JAWS
Starting Pitcher (13th):
100.1 career WAR | 51.4 7yr-peak WAR | 75.7 JAWS | 4.8 WAR/162
Average HOF P (out of 65):
73.3 career WAR | 50.0 7yr-peak WAR | 61.7 JAWS | 4.5 WAR/162

I’m hard pressed to find a standard by which Spahn isn’t excellent. That Hall Monitor number is nuts.


If we must dismiss Spahn for playing so long ago, how is Koufax eligible for consideration though? They are contemporaries. Spahn win the NL ERA crown the year before Koufax’s streak began, retired one season before Koufax. 11 of Sandy's 12 seasons were played with Spahn in the league.

And in how many of those did Spahn have a better year? Perhaps half?

This should be pretty easy, as the winner is clear each year but 1:

1955 Spahn
1956 Spahn
1957 Spahn
1958 Spahn
1959 Spahn
1960 Spahn
1961 Spahn (wins ERA crown at 40)
1962 Debatable - WAR gives it to Spahn, Koufax won ERA title with far less IP.
1963 Koufax
1964 Koufax
1965 Koufax

I guess we need an argument that the first half of Koufax' career somehow isn't relevant to the evaluation. You only take his great years. Maybe within those great years you disregard any mediocre to poor games. Then you compare the sliver that's left to everyone else. After all he is KOUFAX.

The thread asks who is the best lefty of all time? Ruth was a lefty & he was the greatest baseball player of all time. The question isn’t who was the best lefty pitcher…

"Hey Warren, how come you didn't win more often that award that DIDN'T EXIST for the first FOURTEEN years of your major league career?"

Also, Spahn led the league in complete games in 1957, the year he won the CYA. He got 15 of the 16 votes for it, though, so obviously the consensus was he was the best that year.

After all, he is KOUFAX seems to be the linchpin of every argument for him, consistency be damned he must be evaluated under separate standards from every other contender. It’s only been like 18 months, perhaps next year a logical, consistently applied argument will be put forth for Koufax.

Koufax had an astounding peak, an amazing talent and 4 year run, I thought. But if Spahn is “above average, at best”, then Koufax, who has less than half of Spahn career value, must be a straight up bum.

Since you're much more statistically adept than I am you might look into the point that he benefited disproportionately from pitching in Dodger Stadium. I've seen the case made but cannot find it.

Either Grove or Spahn was the best. Grove spent his first 5 years in the minors, playing close to his home and birthplace in MD, winning 111 games. Then, as a 25 year old rookie, he began his ML career which saw him win 300 games against 141 losses, a better than 2-1 ratio.

Spahn had 363 ML wins and also began his ML career late, because of the war.

I'll take Grove as the best and a very close second is Spahn. If I was a GM I'd prefer Warren, as he was a much more congenial fellow. So it's a toss-up.

If Grove begins his career in the majors, and if not for WW2, both Spahn and Grove may have been 400 game winners. Their career ERAs were virtually the same.

Gee, I’m almost sorry I dug this thread up…almost.

All kidding aside, the commentary and analysis is very entertaining..enlightening even. For sure one of my favorite baseball subjects.

There will never be a consensus on this topic…and I think that should suit us just fine.

The road argument takes up a lot of the #100's and #400's posts. The benefits of Dodger Stadium are apparent, like for many other pitchers in that park during this period, the gap is often astronomical. His total home/road splits:

1955
Home 2.25
Away 4.08

1956
Home 7.50
Away 3.76

1957
Home 3.70
Away 4.10

1958
Home 3.70
Away 4.10

1959
Home 2.71
Away 5.50

1960
Home 5.27
Away 3.00

1961
Home 4.22
Away 2.77

1962
Home 1.75
Away 3.53

1963
Home 1.38
Away 2.31

1964
Home 0.85
Away 2.93

1965
Home 1.38
Away 2.72


1966
Home 1.52
Away 1.96


Once the Dodgers move to Dodger Stadium in 1962, Koufax becomes Koufax. Doesn't hurt it was also an expansion year. After Koufax becomes Koufax, his away ERA's, relative to the league, are fairly similar to what they were in 1960 and 1961. His 1966 Away performance is amazing even in the low run context of 1966, but other than that the gap is huge the other years of his greatness.

Only if we ignore context.

Relative to time and place, against the league:
Grove: 148 ERA+
Spahn: 119 ERA+

Raw:
Grove: 3.06
Spahn: 3.09

Grove beat his league average by 48%, which was for a very long time the all-time record for a starter. Spahn by 19%.

What a coincidence…JUST finished reading a chapter on Cool Papa Bell in Joe Posnanski’s truly awesome The Baseball 100 book.

It starts and ends with Owens’ apparent reluctance to race Cool Papa because he didn’t think he could beat him. More likely, they were two of the fastest humans on earth at the time, their legend so mighty, there was no point in racing, lest they risk tarnishing the loser’s legacy. Leave the world wondering who was truly faster forevermore.

Sorry, too coincidental not to mention. Back to southpaws…

*But seriously, The Baseball 100 is an absolute must read.

I think it was Satchel who said, he once hit a line drive past my head and I turned around to see the ball hit him in the ass as he slid into second.

So he basically had four truly great years.
Now of course he quit at 30 so he's probably in people's minds getting implied credit for what he "would have" done had he not quit.

Wasn't he also the guy who could turn off a light switch and hop into bed before the room got dark?

Aaron you got me on that technicality. You would be correct

Based the 670 plus comments they are all trending towards the greatest left handed pitcher conversation.
So in this case I will flow with them.

Yes lol. I think Paige said that too actually.

Imagine the 1933 Pittsburgh Crawfords -- Bell, an aging but still great Oscar Charleston, a rookie named Josh Gibson, and a pitcher named Paige.

From what I learned here, that Crawford team is about par with a 2021 little league team.

[QUOTE=earlywynnfan;2162002]From what I learned here, that Crawford team is about par with a 2021 little league team.[/QUOTE

That's absurd. They were at least good enough for the office softball team.

Prove it!

Problem is, you and everyone else has absoluetly no way to do so, so you and others comfortably keep spouting this crap about how players from today's modern era are always so much better than those from long past, and while you can't possibly prove it, nobody can disprove it either, so lucky you.

The argument you and others make is akin to taking an Indy car and driver from today and putting them on a track against cars and drivers from 100 years ago. You completely ignore the different eras in baseball and all the changes in rules, equipment, facilities, training, medical care, and on and on. You want to really and properly compare players from today against those from 75 or 100 years ago, then have your Kershaws, Johnsons, and Koufaxs be born at the same time as those that actually played 75 or 100 years ago, and grew up under the same conditions, training, rules, and so on that those players back then had. Then, and only then, could you possibly have any chance to really compare pitchers from different eras to decide who was the best lefty of all time. But your earlier comments questioning Grove, and especially Spahn, even being in the conversation as the greatest lefty pitcher of all time is hands down the dumbest thing I've seen you say here on Net54, to date. And trust me, you've got a lot of other doozies to your credit.

You mentioned how Grove and Spahn don't even have the statistics to match up with all the other, more recent pitchers on that all time list, but all those statistics are nothing but crap, and don't always truly tell you anything comparable for players across different eras. When people go to a game in person, their favorite sports bar to watch on the big screen, or just turn on the tube at home to watch their team play, they don't care how many strikeouts a pitcher has, or how many hits, walks, and HRs he did or didn't give up. Most all fans, be they 8 or 88, in that present moment in time really only care about one thing, and one thing only, did their team WIN..........PERIOD!!!!!!!! Its after the fact that all the statisticians and analysts run the numbers so they can compare them and argue about who was better and did what, and on and on. But all these statistics are meaningless because all that really matters, all that baseball players are paid to do as their one sole task, is to win. And that is something Grove and Spahn did, was win.

And especially in Spahn's case, he won a lot. More so than any other left handed pitcher in any era, and it really isn't close. Yet you said he was just an above average pitcher (probably the next dumbest thing you've ever said on this forum so far), and downplayed his entire career as just being long and how that apparently doesn't count much towards him possiblly being the best lefty pitcher ever. Well there's an old sport's cliche' (and cliche's are cliche's because they are inherently so true) and that's - "The best ability, is availabity". And Spahn was around and available to rack up more wins than anyone else on that all time lefty list. And to top it off, Spahn did that losing three of his prime pitching years while in the service, and pitching on some not so hot teams early on in his career. In fact, at one time there was an old saying that the Braves fans had popularized that I don't know if you're familiar with - "Spahn and Sain, and pray for rain". I don't think any other lefty on the list was ever immortalized in a saying like that showing just how important he was to his team. And yet despite the so-called statistical shortcomings you were pointing out, Spahn had some unmeasurable, intangible talent or ability that still allowed him to inspire his teammates to thrive and do their utmost to help the team win behind the confidence he obviously instilled in them whenever he pitched. And if that isn't a sign and testament to somebody's greatness, then I don't know what is, but it sure ain't something you just pull off a stat sheet.

And don't try pulling that crap about how Spahn can't be that great because he didn't win all kinds of championships and MVP and Cy Young awards. He was 1 for 3 in World Series, being a world champ only once, with an overall WS record of 4-3 I believe. He won the Cy Young award just once, but believe he was an all star 14 times. And though never actually winning the MVP award, he got votes for the honor in 15 different years. Arguably in baseball, your starting pitcher probably has the greatest impact of any single player on whether their team will win or lose a game. But of all the major U.S. sports, baseball is the only one where a star player, in this case the starting pitcher, doesn't get to play in every game. In fact, realistically, a starting pitcher usually only gets to pitch in about every fourth or fifth game a team plays. Even if a starter were to win every single game he starts during a season, he still can't single handedly carry his team to the playoffs and the World Series. So again, don't even think about going there.

Also in talking about this greatest lefty argument, a lot of you ignore a pitcher's entire career and focus just on some arbitrary peak period when they were at the absolute best. Talk about meaningless stats, this is a timeless move by statisticians and analysts to mine a statistical database to select just the arbitrary period or information that reinforces or validates the argument or theory they are putting forth, and not necessarily the correct or true answer. You had mentioned Johnson not really starting to take off till it was already later in his career. Well Koufax was a rookie in '55, but didn't hit his peak till the early '60s, before finally retiring a few years later while still fairly young, for health reasons. So he was somewhat of a late bloomer as well. And over the first six years (exactly half) of Koufax's career, he had a cumulative losing won-loss record. Meanwile, Johnson had a similar overall losing record over his first seven years in the majors, accounting for about a third of his career. So when you then go to determine an all time greatest left hander, why would you even consider two pitchers who couldn't even have an overall winning record for major portions of their careers, and at the start of their careers no less? That makes absolutely no sense at all. All people are doing is cherry picking these pitcher's best years to make their arguments, and ignoring entire careers. I thought the question was best left handed pitcher of all time, not most dominant left handed pitcher for a specific, arbitrary period of time during their career that someone gets to pick and choose at their discretion. IMO those are two entirely different questions. And if it is the latter question, I could reasonably argue that the best, most dominant thing any pitcher can do is pitch a perfect game, so maybe we just look to LHPs that threw one, which interestingly enough includes both Koufax and Johnson. But then many others would argue there are other LHPs, like Dallas Braden or Tom Browning, who have also pitched perfect games, but would never be thought of as the greatest or most dominant ever lefty pitcher. So one game is too short, then why not one particular year, or even two? Why instead pick a five or seven year period then, unless maybe one of the reasons is it helps the person doing the period selection to better make the argument for whom they want to be considered as the all time best?

Again, the question was ALL TIME best lefty, not just best or most dominant lefty for a randomly selected portion of their career. Perhaps another way to approach this was through the question someone posed to possibly help decide this greatest lefty of all time issue, and that was - "If you're a GM starting a team today, who is the first lefthander you would select for your team?". But there people go using that modern bias of today and forcing the old time pitchers to suddenly come up to start against today's players, without giving them the same benefits as growing up with all the modern advancements and advantages that someone like Kershaw had. At least if you're going to do that, let pitchers like Spahn and Grove be born the same year as Kershaw was so they get a chance, the same as Kershaw, to learn and develop knowing the modern game they're going to be asked to pitch in. Otherwise its going to be like taking a 1930 or 1950 Indy car driver, AND HIS CAR, and just dropping them into the 2022 Indy 500 race. It is not a fair comparison, and they won't stand a chance.

But maybe we should ask that question a different way, remembering that we're looking for the ALL TIME greatest left hander, and not just the greatest left hander pitching against today's modern players. So instead of a GM picking a lefty for a team today, how about you're a GM picking a team in 1942, the same year Spahn was a rookie and first played in the majors!!!!!! It's easy to tell how Spahn would do and that he'd end up with 363 wins, but how would pitchers like Johnson, Kershaw, and Koufax do back then, what with different rules, equipment, training, facilities, medical care, pitching so many more innings, and especially losing three years to the service. Would those lost years especially push Koufax and Johnson to being even older before finally figuring out what they were doing as pitchers to become the studs they were, and thereby maybe dramatically change for the worse how their careers ultimately turned out? Do any of them even come close to Spahn's 363 career wins? Who knows? Given that scenario, would you really expect any other lefty on that list to equal, or better, what Spahn achieved. I'm guessing there may be a lot of people that would be inclined to select Spahn, in that case.

And speaking of how players from older eras are often automatically being assumed to not be able to fare well at all against modern players, what if you could bring Grove and Spahn forward in time to pitch against today's modern players, what makes you so sure they wouldn't do well. Remember, Koufax and Johnson started their careers with six and seven years of so-so/lousy pitching, respectively. Well, I feel Grove and Spahn were pitchers more than hurlers, so who's to say that if you transferred them both to pitch in today's modern game that they wouldn't be able to pretty quickly figure out how to adapt and change the way they pitch so they could consistently win, at least a lot faster than the years it actually took Koufax and Johnson to finally figure out they were doing wrong and finally get their you-know-what together. Doesn't seem like you may have ever considered that distinct and viable possibility.

I don't honestly know who I'd say the greatest left handed pitcher of all time is, to date, but to not consider how modern lefties would have fared as pitchers had they grown up and pitched in different, earlier eras is just shortsighted and fails to consider and account for the ALL TIME aspect of the question. But to even suggest that Grove, and especially Spahn, couldn't possibly succeed in pitching against modern players, and didn't at least belong in that conversation, is again as I said above, one of the dumbest things you've ever said on this forum!

I'm reminded of a supposed exchange between Ty Cobb and a reporter in 1950 or so. The reporter asked Cobb, if you played today, what do you think you would hit?

Cobb replied, .270 or so.

The reporter asked, are today's players really that much better than in your day?

Cobb replied, no, but I am 65.

The superiority of the modern athlete is easily proven in track and field and weightlifting events, where there are actual, unbiased metrics to do so. The 4 minute mile seemed impossible during the deadball era, and wasn't accomplished until 1954. From Wikipedia:

A four-minute mile is the completion of a mile run (1.6 km) in four minutes or less. It was first achieved in 1954 by Roger Bannister, at age 25, in 3:59.4. The "four-minute barrier" has since been broken by over 1,400 athletes, and is now the standard of professional middle distance runners in several cultures.

In the 65 years since, the mile record has been lowered by almost 17 seconds, and currently stands at 3:43.13, by Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco, at age 24, in 1999.

There, I've proved athletes of today are superior to those of 100 years ago. Lucky me.

The thing about the mile record is that it hasn't been broken since 1999, which I find unbelievable.

I'm not saying every year, or every 5 years, there is advancement. But in 1910 a 4 minute mile was fantasy. According to Wiki, it's fairly common now. It stands to reason this applies to other physical abilities as well.

Usain Bolt would be faster around the bases than Jim Thorpe, or Hans Lobert, or any pre war human being for instance, and skill superiority like that, of the modern athlete is, in fact provable.

Spaeth --- +10.

This whole OP is certainly a case of evaluating Mr. Koufax's 6 peak years relative to his time. He killed 'em all, even in in breakout 1961 season, save for '62 when he got injured toward the season's pennant stretch. As Vin Skully remembered in Ken Burns The Story of Baseball, the Dodger fans used to rise in unison and applaud THUNDEROUSLY when Sandy would walk out to the mound to warm up. It was that kind of respect. --- Brian Powell

.300 was what the quotes attribute to what he'd hit; not .270

I've heard of a similar story from around the 1980s/1990s with a reporter asking Yogi Berra about Joe DiMaggio.

Yeah, but what about a human ancestor from back around the time of the Ice Age that suddenly caught the attention of a hungry predator? I could see them breaking a 4 minute mile out of necessity. Its just that none of us were there to view and actually time the run. So there's one way I'm looking to disprove your comment. And also my original statement was refering to baseball players, and more specically pitchers. Not track athletes, basketball, or football players. In which case go look at the likes of David Wells, C.C: Sabathia, or even better, Bartolo Colon. I rest my case and am back to being correct in my original statement, and unlucky you.

Truth be known, people tend to keep improving such things as records are broken, so others then make breaking that new record their priority and train with even more focus and conviction. Plus people now start training and specializing for such goals at ever earlier ages, like the Williams sisters whose story is documented in the latest Will Smith movie "King Richard". Plus you have further impovements due to advances in medicine and science, training techniques, and even diet and nutrition. Humans have kind of advanced now to the point where you won't see much in the way of gains in new records. There is a point where the human body will hit its physical limit, but then can't go beyond that.

For example, read somewhere that the fastest a human body could possibly throw a baseball is supposedly around 110 MPH. But what's the current record, around 102 - 103 MPH? To get closer to that top speed though you'd have to find a human with the absolutely perfect body and physique, and then they'd actually have to be interested in throwing a ball that fast. And be willing to put in the training and effort to acheive it. Chances are there is a human or two on the planet that could do it, but they have neither the knowledge of that potential ability, nor the desire to act on and train for it. And some sports are given to advantages simply based on size or height. Baseball is one of those sports where physical size isn't always an advantage, nor indicative of the better players (Altuve, Jose' Ramirez, etc.). So the idea of modern ballplayers all being that much better athletes than those playing 75 or 100 years ago is not going to be that great, and will most likely be even less going forward from today.

Well, I heard it was Lefty O'Doul being asked the question at a banquet where Cobb was present. I think he told that story in The Glory of Their Times if I'm not mistaken. So I guess there are multiple variations floating around.

Yes, he was very good in that era (though I wouldn't say he was dominant). You can't have a 1.28 WHIP and a 5 K/9 rate and ask people to refer to you as a dominant pitcher. But he was very good relative to his peers. The problem I have is when I'm asked to compare him to modern pitchers. He would be above average at best today. Or rather, the pitches he threw back then would be above average at best today. Perhaps he would be a totally different pitcher today, but when you look at the rate stats that matter, and compare those to the arms on mounds today, he's not even good. Those rate stats probably wouldn't even make the all-star game today let alone be in discussions for a CYA or MVP, and they are stratospheres away from GOAT discussions.


Walter Johnson was legitimately dominant. There are a lot more advanced metrics that matter, but there are at least two stats that everyone can understand that translate well across eras: WHIP and K/9. Obviously, there's more to pitching than just that, but those two stats alone are FAR more important than Wins, complete games, and ERA. And when comparing across different eras, especially dead ball vs live, they're more important than even normalized values such as ERA+, xFIP, and WAR, each of which depends on the talent level of one's peers. A lot of these stats are fancy z-scoring style statistics that aim to simplify performance in a way that casual fans can understand. Obviously, WHIP can be influenced by multiple external factors as well, like the defensive skill of your teammates, the ballparks you pitch in, etc. xFIP does a pretty good job of separating out much of what a pitcher cannot control, but it only works well at comparing pitchers within similar eras. The problem with comparing someone like Walter Johnson to Randy Johnson is that the game itself was just played so differently, particularly with respect to HRs. You're limited with many of the advanced metrics if you want truly unbiased comparisons.

Much of my argument has to do with the fact that I think many people here misunderstand WAR and when/where it applies. A pitcher like Warren Spahn gets a lot of "credit" (via stats like WAR) for having a 1.28 WHIP not because he pitched in an era where hitters were just THAT much better back then than they are today, but rather because pitchers were just THAT much worse. Here's an example between Warren Spahn and Clayton Kershaw that highlight what I'm talking about.

Here is what's wrong with using WAR for answering the question of "who was better"?

Warren Spahn's 1947 stats (his best WAR season):
289.2 IP, 2.33 ERA, 170 ERA+, 3.35 FIP, 1.14 WHIP, 3.8 K/9, 9.4 WAR

Clayton Kershaw's
198.1 IP, 1.77 ERA, 197 ERA+, 1.81 FIP, 0.86 WHIP, 10.8 K/9, 7.7 WAR

Those are arguably each of their best seasons. Kershaw's performance though isn't just marginally better, it is MILES better than Spahn's. The delta between a 1.14 WHIP and a 0.86 WHIP and a 3.8 K/9 vs a 10.8 K/9 is the difference between Michael Jordan and the best pickup player at your local YMCA. These guys are not even in the same league, metaphorically speaking. And while you may like to point out that their ERAs are fairly close, or that they both won 21 games those years, I promise you, those stats don't matter nearly as much as you think they do. When I build my predictive models for betting on baseball, ERA and Wins don't even make it into the model at all. Not because I haven't tried, but because they have no statistical significance whatsoever, in the presence of the other variables when it comes to predicting future performance. They are rejected by mathematics, not bias.


This is a whole new can of worms to open up, but I believe one can make a pretty strong case for Jim Brown still being the greatest RB of all time despite the difference in eras. He's certainly in the conversation. But basically, it comes down to the fact that the delta between performance in football between eras isn't as great as the delta between MLB pitching performance between eras, though it certainly still exists. The Jim Brown problem is much more difficult to sort out mathematically than Warren Spahn vs pick your favorite modern lefty. I don't even think Spahn is a top 20 lefty, let alone top 3. Whereas I think Jim Brown is almost certainly top 5, and quite possibly the GOAT.


See my point above. WAR and ERA+ just aren't relevant statistics to the question of "who was better" across different eras, despite their inventors attempting to create them for precisely that purpose. Look at Spahn vs Kershaw lines above. You tell me who was more valuable between those two seasons. It's not the one with the higher WAR.


Jesse Owens was fast as hell. The fastest of his time. But his personal best was 10.2 seconds in the 100m. Usain Bolt would have beaten him by almost 15 feet! Owens' time wouldn't even QUALIFY for the Olympics today, let alone compete for a medal.

Bill Russell? lol. Ya. Possibly the most overrated athlete of any sport ever. He's not even a top 25 NBA player. Sorry. I could go off on this one. I won't.


He was very good for his time. Perhaps even great for his time. I'm saying he is above average at best when comparing him to modern talent.


Koufax's peak was absolutely incredible. I care more about a player's peak than I do about their longevity if we're talking about who was "better", though both matter to some extent. It's the same reason why I think Michael Jordan is better than Kareem and Lebron.

Koufax was a special player though. His highest single-season strikeout total was 382, which just so happens to be exactly DOUBLE Spahn's best single-season total of 191. His 6 year stretch from 61 to 66 is one of the greatest stretches by anyone in history, let alone lefties. And while he did benefit from throwing in a pitcher's park, a pitcher's park can't give you 10 K/9. The guy was absolutely dominant, and he was also particularly dominant when it mattered most with 2 World Series MVPs, 3 rings, a 0.95 career postseason ERA, and a career 0.825 postseason WHIP.


Call it however you want to call it. But to my knowledge, I'm the only person in this thread who is actually qualified to speak about statistics. Everyone praising Spahn keeps pointing to statistics that either don't matter (wins) or that are grossly misunderstood and taken out of context (WAR). I challenge you to find any other statistician who disagrees with me on this. Spahn wasn't just not quite as good as Koufax, Randy, and Kershaw. He wasn't even remotely in the same league as them.

Ever heard of Bill James? He ranked Spahn 36 and Koufax 51. Out of all players. And Lefty Grove... wait for it... 19.

Bill James is a statistician. Quite a well known one in baseball circles. So much for your challenge.

Here's a challenge for you: get your ego in check.

A statistician should know an appeal to authority is not a rational argument, and is a fallacy. Who do you think invented WAR? Bill James is not a statistician? What baseball statistician ranks Koufax as the greatest total lefty ever? Your appeal to authority is not only ridiculous, it’s also just completely untrue even if it wasn’t an absurdly terrible fallacy.

Every argument for Koufax just gets more and more absurdist, and thus far all of them have relied on ignoring contextual math, emotion, and a surprising number of appeals to authority that should be evident to even their authors will not stand up to any examination at all. Again, if Spahn is to be punished for his time, then so must Koufax. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

It's more like an appeal to an authority of one, himself.

Who else would have so massive an ego as to not only disregard everyone else who posts here, but more importantly all the scores of people including of course statisticians who have evaluated baseball players and compared them for decades, people who for the most part were dedicated followers of the game?

In Travis' universe though, he is the only intelligent being it seems, no one else matters.

+1

I disagree that K/9 translates well over eras. Regardless of pitching, certain eras feature more strikeouts than others, and that doesn’t even get into whether a pitcher was a strikeout pitcher or not. Warren Spahn was never a strikeout pitcher and neither was Greg Maddux. That shouldn’t be held against them, because both used other effective and equally legitimate, means to win - a lot.

Yep, I'm very familiar with his work. I reference it often. Bill James was ranking overall career contributions in the list you're referencing. Not the same thing. Nice try. So much for your challenge to my challenge. There's no scenario in hell where Bill James thinks Warren Spahn had better stuff than Sandy Koufax or that he would pick him to start in a game 7 over Koufax either. If you're asking "who was better", I'm answering that as who you'd pick to start in a fictitious game 7. Not who is going to rack up more wins over the course of two decades.

Keep ridiculing me all you want. I know how these threads go. You guys ask questions that can only be answered by someone with a strong background in statistics. Then you all weigh in with a bunch of irrelevant, nonsensical arguments, displaying your complete lack of statistical aptitude (which you mistakenly believe you actually have quite a strong grasp of). Then an actual statistician weighs in and you call them an imbecile and a know-it-all. Then you point to a bunch of shit you don't understand to make your points, the statistician rolls his eyes, does a face palm, and you call him arrogant and stupid.

I don't really care who you think is the best. I'm just telling you what the numbers say. If you want to change the question to "who provided more cumulative value over the course of their career?", then sure, Spahn is in that conversation. But that's a different conversation. What we're talking about here is "who was the best"?

If you go up to any coach and ask them who their best pitcher is, exactly zero of them are going to respond with, "well, Mikey here has thrown 20 no hitters each of the past 5 seasons, so he's pretty good, but I'm going to have to go with uncle Jimmy because he's been above average for the past 20 years and he has more total wins than Mikey."

There's a word for anyone who would pick Warren Spahn over Sandy Koufax to start in a fictitious world series game 7, and that word isn't 'statistician'.

Hysterical. Perhaps you should have first stated your definition as the pitcher who, at his absolute peak, I would pick to start one key game. Very few people would make that their criterion I don't think, including of course Bill James, but at least we could have a discussion being on the same page.

Agree. Seems like a different question altogether. I’d probably take 1985 Doc Gooden, albeit a righty, over anyone for one game but he’s sadly not in the conversation for best of all time.

If we're narrowing it to just one year or a few years, I would say Gooden (although I'd hesitate because of his youth), The Big Train at his zenith, Grove at his zenith, 68 Gibson, 72 Carlton, Unit during that 4 year stretch, Pedro during his very peak, or 63/66 Koufax. Hard to go wrong with any of those guys.

Wow, you've just moved the goal posts so much a Vikings field goal kicker might actually be able to kick one through.

Okay, you pick Koufax to win one game, and out of the dugout steps the Sandy of 1960, when he was 8-13 with a 3.91 ERA. Good luck.

Why don't you just say Koufax was the best ever because if you needed to win a Game 7, you want Koufax on the day he threw a perfect game.

If I'm the only statistician in the room and we're discussing statistics, then yes, my opinion is the only one that should matter. Just like if we were discussing how the Supreme Court might rule on an upcoming case and a room full math geeks was debating it with a constitutional attorney, then the attorney's opinion is the only one worth listening to in that discussion. Or if a room full of blue collar parents were in a room with one doctor and they were discussing whether or not to give a sick child some antibiotics, then that doctor would be the only opinion worth listening to. If this were a forum full of other statisticians, then we could all sit and debate the subtle nuances that separate and differentiate certain metrics over others and debate the relevance of each. But you guys aren't capable of that debate. You guys have no clue what you're talking about. You're not statisticians. You don't even understand which statistics are more relevant than the other ones, let alone how to calculate the more advanced statistics and what their implications are. And from my cursory read of this thread so far, you guys don't even have an elementary understanding of the subject, let alone that's capable of having this debate. You guys just want to sit here and talk out your asses like you always do. So carry on pointing to articles that you don't understand (but think you do), and keep drawing your invalid conclusions. After all, it's what lawyers do best!

Keep arguing with statisticians about statistics. You got this one guys! Warren Spahn is the GOAT! :rolleyes:

Wins and losses are meaningless of course, and ERA is so passe. I am sure our data scientist has some metric like the square root of the average velocity plus 3 times the average number of rotations on the curve ball divided by the percentage of balls put in play minus the average launch angle of extra base hits surrendered.

This attorney would listen respectfully to what other people had to say and would not feel the need to, as G puts it, appeal to his own authority. This is very different from using one's knowledge to explain why other people might be wrong. And by the way, other people usually have intelligent and worthwhile things to say even if they lack a particular expertise. Lots of guys here are not lawyers but they make interesting and worthwhile common sense points on threads about legal issues. You're just a massive egotist which of course ultimately is a sign of insecurity. Here are two choices on how to post an opinion.

1. Here's my opinion and why.
2. Here's my opinion and why, I'm the only one here entitled to have an opinion, and anyone who disagrees with me is a moron.

Which do you think most people respect more?

Now that we've established the rules, awesome.

I'm a data analyst. Looking at the data tells me that Koufax had nowhere near the career of Grove or Spahn, and thus he can not be the greatest lefty ever because other lefties have been better for longer.

Since I am the only data analyst in the room, which I will just assume because that suits my interest in declaring myself infallible, I will now declare that everyone else is thoroughly incompetent and incapable of using numbers correctly, and thus everyone else is completely wrong. I am automatically right, because of my series of assumptions and unstated ground rules I have completely made up precludes any other opinion than my own. I will simply ignore that this is a completely nonsensical appeal to authority and just double down on that fallacy.

Yes. Something like that.

The difference is I first answer, "here's my opinion and why". THEN you guys respond with, "you're an idiot and your opinion isn't worth shit". THEN I say, "uh, whose the one arguing about statistics with the statistician"? Big difference. But again, nice try.