Quote:
Originally Posted by G1911
First, I don't entirely disagree. If we abandon "who had the best contextual career" framing to make it "what pitcher, if in their prime, was dropped in 2021 without any preparation would do the best", it's probably Randy Johnson. His career numbers are amazing, and he was a power pitcher who didn't put it together until he was 29 years old. Imagine if he figured it out at 25. Putting things in context of time and place, I would put Randy #2 behind Grove, though he is my #1 favorite and personal preference, as he is the one I grew up watching and we share a hometown.
I do think this chart, which I believe has been posted a few times now, is extremely misleading, at best. It just stops tabulating for Grove half way down Grove pitched more than 8 full seasons that are included here, he won 9 ERA crowns alone plus other full seasons. It's just factually wrong and really should stop being used. I think any reasonable person here should agree. I'm open to being the fool if there is any good reason this chart, which ignores much of Grove's career and implies he played 8 seasons, is somehow valid.
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The chart was more in relation to Koufax....Grove was just added for peak comparison....hence not all filled in for Grove and so I could have room to emphasize that Koufax was not contributing anything while Johnson was(while Grove was too).
No question Grove had a better career than Koufax.
There is no sensible argument that puts Koufax ahead of either Grove or Johnson. They both had Koufax's peak and they added a couple more four year peaks on top of that.
It really does come down to Grove and Johnson, but when you take into account the population factor of available VIABLE humans to compete against, and the fact that Grove's era actually went out of its way to eliminate a segment of the population to compete....and when you consider that Johnson had superior physical attributes that are the only known 100% measureables, then Johnson walks away as number one.
Johnson had tougher peers to outdistance.