New Year's Day Trivia: Pitching Careers
 

Name the 12 pitchers with the best all-time career Adjusted ERA+. Minimum 1000 IP; includes the National Association and Negro Leagues.

For those unfamiliar with the stat, it's basically the best career ERA compared to the rest of the league and adjusted for park factors.

I was going to ask for the top ten, but three are tied for tenth, so it's twelve.

Pedro
Greg Maddox
Tom Seaver
Sandy Koufax

Great guesses! Pedro Martinez is on the list at #6.

The other guys are high up on the list but not in the top 12.

Damn, I thought all those guys were no-brainers. Thought I'd get the easy ones out of the way. :D

Maddux is the highest of the other three at #37. There are some surprising names ahead of him

Addie Joss and Satchel Paige?

Paige is correct! He is tied for #7.

Joss just misses the cut at #16.

Bob Gibson

If active pitchers are allowed Kershaw is near the top as last I checked he was neck and neck with Pedro, and with only 1000 innings as the criterion that would include DeGrom who might be a little bit ahead of Kershaw and Pedro. Hmmm 1000 innings isn't much I'm going to guess that Mariano Rivera also got to 1000.

Gibson is a bit lower on the list at #56.

You are 3/3, Scott!

Mariano is #1
Kershaw and DeGrom are tied for #4


That's 5 down, 7 to go.

Ah, I didn't realize how few innings 1000 is. Opens the doors a bit.

How about Quisenberry and Hoyt Wilhelm?

Not sure I understand adjusted ERA But I’ll throw out some pitchers with good numbers ( Addie Joss got adjusted from #2 to #16 ? 🙂 )

Ed Walsh
Walter Johnson
Christy Mathewson
Randy Johnson
Roger Clemens

Lefty Grove

Wilhelm is correct! He's tied for #10. Quisenberry just missed the list - he's tied for #13.

Good guesses. One is right: Big Train is tied for #10.

Walsh is tied for #13
Clemens is #16
Mathewson is #25
Big Unit is #28

Correct! Grove is #9.

So that makes 8 of the 12. The remaining four all played at least part of their careers in the Negro Leagues or the National Association

Hint #1: 3 of the 4 remaining are in the hall of fame.

Looks like you are including Negro Leagues, so I'll go with Bullet Rogan.

Correct! Rogan is #3 on the list.

Only three left to guess: #2, #7 (tie) and #10 (tie)

At least one of these two is wrong because neither in is the HOF:

Slim Jones and Jim Devlin

Jim Devlin is correct! He is tied for #7 on the list.

Two names to go...

Bruce Sutter?

Sutter is #25.

Two more players remaining in top 12. Both are HOFers, and both played all or some of their careers in the National Association or Negro Leagues.