[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by timn1

I dunno guys, I guess I'm just contrary, and I agree that Johnson was the greatest pitcher of all time, but . . . I don't see the whole "if he hadn't been on such wretched teams" argument.

I figure the Senators' W/L record while he was on the team (August 2, 1907 through 1927) at 1531-1559 - that's .49546.

After that horrible 1907 season, where he was with them for only two months, they had 10 winning and 10 losing seasons during his time there (and 3 of the losing seasons were 76-77, 75-78, and 74-79). From 1908-1927 they finished first twice and last once. They finished 1-4 in the standings 11 times, 5-8 9 times.

Also, the 1-0 games: should we give him wins in all 26 that he lost? How many 1-0 games did he win anyway?

I'm not saying the Senators teams were great but they weren't horrible - just middle-of-the-road. I don't see you get many more wins for Johnson unless you put him on a team that played .600 ball for 20 years (in other words, the Yankees after 1920).

For comparison I looked up the W/L records of Cy Young's teams between 1890-1911 (in partial seasons including the team's record only while he was there) and I got 1582-1426, .526. I figure Pete Alexander's teams at 1470-1314, .528. Definitely better teams but not by a huge margin.

How does this translate to wins?
If you take the 3090 games (1531-1559) the Nats played when Johnson was with them and give them a .525 Winning PCT instead of the real .49546, that would be 1622 wins instead of 1531. That's a "win shortfall" of 91 wins over the 20+ seasons. During his career Johnson won 27% of the team's wins (417 of 1531). 27% of the 91-win shortfall would be 24 or 25 extra wins, just over one game a year. That's not nothing, but doesn't transform his stature (after all, he's already the best ever).

Tim

That analysis seems to me to be somewhat confounded by the fact that you're taking Johnson into account in assessing how good a team the Senators were versus other teams. What if you looked at how many runs per game they scored versus other teams? EDIT SEE NOW THIS POINT WAS MADE ALREADY