Quote:
Originally Posted by cardsagain74
His peak has nothing to do with that. It's just about the problem with llining up who was the "best" based only on lifetime WAR total.
Would you say that Phil Niekro should be considered a better pitcher than Bob Gibson or Pedro Martinez? Or twice as good as Ron Guidry?
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Niekro being twice as valuable as Guidry, sounds about right. Guidry had a short peak, short career. Niekro was effective for an almost absurd amount of time. I wouldn't take him over Gibson, but Pedro also had a very short career (short term peak only, I would probably take Pedro as #1 all time but he's nowhere near my #1 for a career because his career was so short). Niekro hurled twice as many innings as Pedro. Was Pedro twice as good as Niekro? His dominance was such that I could see a good argument either way.
Gibson hurled 1,600 innings less than Niekro, so I don't think it's unreasonable to trade some length for less dominant effectiveness. Again, I can see it either way. Every pitching judgement here is a trade off between dominance vs. more effective seasons.
Niekro, Gibson and Pedro are close in career WAR, but none of them are close in Innings. If anything, this seems to show it does reward career dominance and not just length, as Pedro with half the career service time is just a tad below Niekro.
I'm not a fan of WAR, but when the discussion is all time, career statistics like WAR are not unfair to use.