[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by timn1

Sorry, I never said that. There is definite correlation between K rates and success - extreme power pitchers in general do have more success and have much longer careers than extreme finesse guys.

But there's a lot of space between the extremes. For me the issue is between Ryan, who seemed to believe his primary mission was to strike everybody out all the time, and guys like Maddux, Glavine, Spahn, later Grove, later Matty, and probably later Walter, who struck out above-average numbers of batters because they knew how to get the most out of their arms and their knowledge of the game. But they didn't have an obsession with velo and strikeouts and they understood that the primary goal was for the team to win more games than their opponents. If they struck out 12 and won, great - if they struck out 5 and won, equally great!

I just can't get past someone with that incredible arm totaling 292 losses - losing 48 games for every 52 he won! (And it's not like we have a small sample size to evaluate )

No pitcher controls how many runs his own team scores which is half the determinant of a win or a loss. He can only control how many he gives up. Ryan's ERA was essentially the same as Carlton's.