[BobC]

Originally Posted by G1911

Plank Black Ink: 15
Average HOF black ink: 40

Plank Gray ink: 291
Average HOF gray ink: 185

This is what really hurts Plank, he never was really the best pitcher. He was the 2-5 pitcher in the league almost every season. He never had a bad year or really declined. He came into the league excellent and left excellent, which very few have done in lengthy careers. The only time he led in major stats was 1915, his year in the Federal League that was a much inferior league to the National and Americans.

WAR has Plank just a bit below Grove/Johnson/Spahn. Personally I think WAR is biased to modern players and disagree with much of what it weights more than other things, but it does a pretty good job of total value bettween players in a generation. Plank is at 90, Waddell 58, and WAR loves strikeouts which favors Waddell. If I was a GM, and I knew the future, I would draft Gettysburg Eddie for my team over Rube. I’ve got my ace until he’s 41, or a crazy guy whose brilliant but done at 32.

If we were to use the Koufax argument, that only a pitchers best matters, Waddell might be #1 all time. Even in his best years where he tore up the league and won ERA crowns, and granting that the newspapers are probably a little hyperbolic at the least, Waddell was undisciplined, unfocused, and rarely all there. I’m not sure there has ever been a greater left hand talent than him, though I don’t think his career was as valuable as Planks. Koufax was gifted the perfect park, with the perfect mound, in an expansion period. Waddell was given a period where strikeouts were tough to come by, and severe mental problems and no discipline. Both were great for a short time, but there was little room for peak Koufax to be better, Waddell even at his best is something of a disappointment.

Waddell has the cooler cards too. His E93 as another poster mentioned is gorgeous. His T206 pitching pose and Turkey Red are also beauties. Planks T206 gets the press, but it’s not an aesthetic favorite to me. I own none of either pitchers cards..

And that all is exactly why this is possibly a tougher decision than Spahn-Koufax. If I use the washing machine analogy, that may point more towards Plank also, but it is much less clear or decisive of a measure as it is for the Spahn-Koufax debate. This is an extremely tough call and primarily depends on one's specific definition of exactly what "greatest" actually means or entails.