[Snowman]

Originally Posted by Carter08

That’s sort of a different argument. I agree if Randy Johnson prime went back in time he’d probably be better than Spahn and anyone else. Or if you put Spahn in the current game he might not be as good. Spahn might even be average compared to today’s pitchers. But he was far better than barely above average in his time. He was dominant.

Yes, he was very good in that era (though I wouldn't say he was dominant). You can't have a 1.28 WHIP and a 5 K/9 rate and ask people to refer to you as a dominant pitcher. But he was very good relative to his peers. The problem I have is when I'm asked to compare him to modern pitchers. He would be above average at best today. Or rather, the pitches he threw back then would be above average at best today. Perhaps he would be a totally different pitcher today, but when you look at the rate stats that matter, and compare those to the arms on mounds today, he's not even good. Those rate stats probably wouldn't even make the all-star game today let alone be in discussions for a CYA or MVP, and they are stratospheres away from GOAT discussions.

Originally Posted by earlywynnfan

So if Lefty Grove was so mediocre, what are your thoughts on Walter Johnson?

Walter Johnson was legitimately dominant. There are a lot more advanced metrics that matter, but there are at least two stats that everyone can understand that translate well across eras: WHIP and K/9. Obviously, there's more to pitching than just that, but those two stats alone are FAR more important than Wins, complete games, and ERA. And when comparing across different eras, especially dead ball vs live, they're more important than even normalized values such as ERA+, xFIP, and WAR, each of which depends on the talent level of one's peers. A lot of these stats are fancy z-scoring style statistics that aim to simplify performance in a way that casual fans can understand. Obviously, WHIP can be influenced by multiple external factors as well, like the defensive skill of your teammates, the ballparks you pitch in, etc. xFIP does a pretty good job of separating out much of what a pitcher cannot control, but it only works well at comparing pitchers within similar eras. The problem with comparing someone like Walter Johnson to Randy Johnson is that the game itself was just played so differently, particularly with respect to HRs. You're limited with many of the advanced metrics if you want truly unbiased comparisons.

Much of my argument has to do with the fact that I think many people here misunderstand WAR and when/where it applies. A pitcher like Warren Spahn gets a lot of "credit" (via stats like WAR) for having a 1.28 WHIP not because he pitched in an era where hitters were just THAT much better back then than they are today, but rather because pitchers were just THAT much worse. Here's an example between Warren Spahn and Clayton Kershaw that highlight what I'm talking about.

Here is what's wrong with using WAR for answering the question of "who was better"?

Warren Spahn's 1947 stats (his best WAR season):
289.2 IP, 2.33 ERA, 170 ERA+, 3.35 FIP, 1.14 WHIP, 3.8 K/9, 9.4 WAR

Clayton Kershaw's
198.1 IP, 1.77 ERA, 197 ERA+, 1.81 FIP, 0.86 WHIP, 10.8 K/9, 7.7 WAR

Those are arguably each of their best seasons. Kershaw's performance though isn't just marginally better, it is MILES better than Spahn's. The delta between a 1.14 WHIP and a 0.86 WHIP and a 3.8 K/9 vs a 10.8 K/9 is the difference between Michael Jordan and the best pickup player at your local YMCA. These guys are not even in the same league, metaphorically speaking. And while you may like to point out that their ERAs are fairly close, or that they both won 21 games those years, I promise you, those stats don't matter nearly as much as you think they do. When I build my predictive models for betting on baseball, ERA and Wins don't even make it into the model at all. Not because I haven't tried, but because they have no statistical significance whatsoever, in the presence of the other variables when it comes to predicting future performance. They are rejected by mathematics, not bias.

Originally Posted by Carter08

But on the list of best RBs of all time I think it would seem wrong to rank Jim Brown 2,000th simply because you think he wouldn’t start for Oregon in today’s game competing against kids that have gone through more modern training.

This is a whole new can of worms to open up, but I believe one can make a pretty strong case for Jim Brown still being the greatest RB of all time despite the difference in eras. He's certainly in the conversation. But basically, it comes down to the fact that the delta between performance in football between eras isn't as great as the delta between MLB pitching performance between eras, though it certainly still exists. The Jim Brown problem is much more difficult to sort out mathematically than Warren Spahn vs pick your favorite modern lefty. I don't even think Spahn is a top 20 lefty, let alone top 3. Whereas I think Jim Brown is almost certainly top 5, and quite possibly the GOAT.

Originally Posted by G1911

Are you serious? First of all there are like 500 posts on this topic in this thread. Look at WAR, ERA+. Compare Grove’s figures to the league, number must be put into the context of time and place. Grove won 7 consecutive K crowns, are we really going to use strikeouts as an argument against him? He led the league with the lowest WHIP 5 times. A statistical argument should incorporate context. He dominated his time and place like no other lefty, and he produced pretty good counting stats.

The argument for Spahn is his extremely long career and consistently excellent but not great seasons.

Just read the thread.

See my point above. WAR and ERA+ just aren't relevant statistics to the question of "who was better" across different eras, despite their inventors attempting to create them for precisely that purpose. Look at Spahn vs Kershaw lines above. You tell me who was more valuable between those two seasons. It's not the one with the higher WAR.

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I think the logic of Travis' argument would also dictate that Jesse Owens was slow, Mark Spitz was mediocre, Bill Russell would be a bench player today, and so forth. It's a fair argument if you're consistent with it, but personally I think it is much more meaningful to evaluate athletes relative to their time than on an absolute scale.

Jesse Owens was fast as hell. The fastest of his time. But his personal best was 10.2 seconds in the 100m. Usain Bolt would have beaten him by almost 15 feet! Owens' time wouldn't even QUALIFY for the Olympics today, let alone compete for a medal.

Bill Russell? lol. Ya. Possibly the most overrated athlete of any sport ever. He's not even a top 25 NBA player. Sorry. I could go off on this one. I won't.

Originally Posted by G1911

Even if we dismiss everyone before a randomly selected year to include only ones arbitrarily favorite candidates, how does one possibly come to the conclusion that Spahn was “an above average pitcher, at best”. At best. 100 WAR, 365 wins, 3 ERA crowns, 5 WHIP titles, 119 ERA+ In over 5,000 innings. This is merely above average, *at best*.

Surely someone can come up with a hot take that isn’t utterly absurd and can stand up to even cursory logical examination.

He was very good for his time. Perhaps even great for his time. I'm saying he is above average at best when comparing him to modern talent.

Originally Posted by G1911

After all, he is KOUFAX seems to be the linchpin of every argument for him, consistency be damned he must be evaluated under separate standards from every other contender. It’s only been like 18 months, perhaps next year a logical, consistently applied argument will be put forth for Koufax.

Koufax had an astounding peak, an amazing talent and 4 year run, I thought. But if Spahn is “above average, at best”, then Koufax, who has less than half of Spahn career value, must be a straight up bum.

Koufax's peak was absolutely incredible. I care more about a player's peak than I do about their longevity if we're talking about who was "better", though both matter to some extent. It's the same reason why I think Michael Jordan is better than Kareem and Lebron.

Koufax was a special player though. His highest single-season strikeout total was 382, which just so happens to be exactly DOUBLE Spahn's best single-season total of 191. His 6 year stretch from 61 to 66 is one of the greatest stretches by anyone in history, let alone lefties. And while he did benefit from throwing in a pitcher's park, a pitcher's park can't give you 10 K/9. The guy was absolutely dominant, and he was also particularly dominant when it mattered most with 2 World Series MVPs, 3 rings, a 0.95 career postseason ERA, and a career 0.825 postseason WHIP.

Originally Posted by BobC

Prove it!

Problem is, you and everyone else has absoluetly no way to do so, so you and others comfortably keep spouting this crap about how players from today's modern era are always so much better than those from long past, and while you can't possibly prove it, nobody can disprove it either, so lucky you.

The argument you and others make is akin to taking an Indy car and driver from today and putting them on a track against cars and drivers from 100 years ago. You completely ignore the different eras in baseball and all the changes in rules, equipment, facilities, training, medical care, and on and on. You want to really and properly compare players from today against those from 75 or 100 years ago, then have your Kershaws, Johnsons, and Koufaxs be born at the same time as those that actually played 75 or 100 years ago, and grew up under the same conditions, training, rules, and so on that those players back then had. Then, and only then, could you possibly have any chance to really compare pitchers from different eras to decide who was the best lefty of all time. But your earlier comments questioning Grove, and especially Spahn, even being in the conversation as the greatest lefty pitcher of all time is hands down the dumbest thing I've seen you say here on Net54, to date. And trust me, you've got a lot of other doozies to your credit.

You mentioned how Grove and Spahn don't even have the statistics to match up with all the other, more recent pitchers on that all time list, but all those statistics are nothing but crap, and don't always truly tell you anything comparable for players across different eras. When people go to a game in person, their favorite sports bar to watch on the big screen, or just turn on the tube at home to watch their team play, they don't care how many strikeouts a pitcher has, or how many hits, walks, and HRs he did or didn't give up. Most all fans, be they 8 or 88, in that present moment in time really only care about one thing, and one thing only, did their team WIN..........PERIOD!!!!!!!! Its after the fact that all the statisticians and analysts run the numbers so they can compare them and argue about who was better and did what, and on and on. But all these statistics are meaningless because all that really matters, all that baseball players are paid to do as their one sole task, is to win. And that is something Grove and Spahn did, was win.

And especially in Spahn's case, he won a lot. More so than any other left handed pitcher in any era, and it really isn't close. Yet you said he was just an above average pitcher (probably the next dumbest thing you've ever said on this forum so far), and downplayed his entire career as just being long and how that apparently doesn't count much towards him possiblly being the best lefty pitcher ever. Well there's an old sport's cliche' (and cliche's are cliche's because they are inherently so true) and that's - "The best ability, is availabity". And Spahn was around and available to rack up more wins than anyone else on that all time lefty list. And to top it off, Spahn did that losing three of his prime pitching years while in the service, and pitching on some not so hot teams early on in his career. In fact, at one time there was an old saying that the Braves fans had popularized that I don't know if you're familiar with - "Spahn and Sain, and pray for rain". I don't think any other lefty on the list was ever immortalized in a saying like that showing just how important he was to his team. And yet despite the so-called statistical shortcomings you were pointing out, Spahn had some unmeasurable, intangible talent or ability that still allowed him to inspire his teammates to thrive and do their utmost to help the team win behind the confidence he obviously instilled in them whenever he pitched. And if that isn't a sign and testament to somebody's greatness, then I don't know what is, but it sure ain't something you just pull off a stat sheet.

And don't try pulling that crap about how Spahn can't be that great because he didn't win all kinds of championships and MVP and Cy Young awards. He was 1 for 3 in World Series, being a world champ only once, with an overall WS record of 4-3 I believe. He won the Cy Young award just once, but believe he was an all star 14 times. And though never actually winning the MVP award, he got votes for the honor in 15 different years. Arguably in baseball, your starting pitcher probably has the greatest impact of any single player on whether their team will win or lose a game. But of all the major U.S. sports, baseball is the only one where a star player, in this case the starting pitcher, doesn't get to play in every game. In fact, realistically, a starting pitcher usually only gets to pitch in about every fourth or fifth game a team plays. Even if a starter were to win every single game he starts during a season, he still can't single handedly carry his team to the playoffs and the World Series. So again, don't even think about going there.

Also in talking about this greatest lefty argument, a lot of you ignore a pitcher's entire career and focus just on some arbitrary peak period when they were at the absolute best. Talk about meaningless stats, this is a timeless move by statisticians and analysts to mine a statistical database to select just the arbitrary period or information that reinforces or validates the argument or theory they are putting forth, and not necessarily the correct or true answer. You had mentioned Johnson not really starting to take off till it was already later in his career. Well Koufax was a rookie in '55, but didn't hit his peak till the early '60s, before finally retiring a few years later while still fairly young, for health reasons. So he was somewhat of a late bloomer as well. And over the first six years (exactly half) of Koufax's career, he had a cumulative losing won-loss record. Meanwile, Johnson had a similar overall losing record over his first seven years in the majors, accounting for about a third of his career. So when you then go to determine an all time greatest left hander, why would you even consider two pitchers who couldn't even have an overall winning record for major portions of their careers, and at the start of their careers no less? That makes absolutely no sense at all. All people are doing is cherry picking these pitcher's best years to make their arguments, and ignoring entire careers. I thought the question was best left handed pitcher of all time, not most dominant left handed pitcher for a specific, arbitrary period of time during their career that someone gets to pick and choose at their discretion. IMO those are two entirely different questions. And if it is the latter question, I could reasonably argue that the best, most dominant thing any pitcher can do is pitch a perfect game, so maybe we just look to LHPs that threw one, which interestingly enough includes both Koufax and Johnson. But then many others would argue there are other LHPs, like Dallas Braden or Tom Browning, who have also pitched perfect games, but would never be thought of as the greatest or most dominant ever lefty pitcher. So one game is too short, then why not one particular year, or even two? Why instead pick a five or seven year period then, unless maybe one of the reasons is it helps the person doing the period selection to better make the argument for whom they want to be considered as the all time best?

Again, the question was ALL TIME best lefty, not just best or most dominant lefty for a randomly selected portion of their career. Perhaps another way to approach this was through the question someone posed to possibly help decide this greatest lefty of all time issue, and that was - "If you're a GM starting a team today, who is the first lefthander you would select for your team?". But there people go using that modern bias of today and forcing the old time pitchers to suddenly come up to start against today's players, without giving them the same benefits as growing up with all the modern advancements and advantages that someone like Kershaw had. At least if you're going to do that, let pitchers like Spahn and Grove be born the same year as Kershaw was so they get a chance, the same as Kershaw, to learn and develop knowing the modern game they're going to be asked to pitch in. Otherwise its going to be like taking a 1930 or 1950 Indy car driver, AND HIS CAR, and just dropping them into the 2022 Indy 500 race. It is not a fair comparison, and they won't stand a chance.

But maybe we should ask that question a different way, remembering that we're looking for the ALL TIME greatest left hander, and not just the greatest left hander pitching against today's modern players. So instead of a GM picking a lefty for a team today, how about you're a GM picking a team in 1942, the same year Spahn was a rookie and first played in the majors!!!!!! It's easy to tell how Spahn would do and that he'd end up with 363 wins, but how would pitchers like Johnson, Kershaw, and Koufax do back then, what with different rules, equipment, training, facilities, medical care, pitching so many more innings, and especially losing three years to the service. Would those lost years especially push Koufax and Johnson to being even older before finally figuring out what they were doing as pitchers to become the studs they were, and thereby maybe dramatically change for the worse how their careers ultimately turned out? Do any of them even come close to Spahn's 363 career wins? Who knows? Given that scenario, would you really expect any other lefty on that list to equal, or better, what Spahn achieved. I'm guessing there may be a lot of people that would be inclined to select Spahn, in that case.

And speaking of how players from older eras are often automatically being assumed to not be able to fare well at all against modern players, what if you could bring Grove and Spahn forward in time to pitch against today's modern players, what makes you so sure they wouldn't do well. Remember, Koufax and Johnson started their careers with six and seven years of so-so/lousy pitching, respectively. Well, I feel Grove and Spahn were pitchers more than hurlers, so who's to say that if you transferred them both to pitch in today's modern game that they wouldn't be able to pretty quickly figure out how to adapt and change the way they pitch so they could consistently win, at least a lot faster than the years it actually took Koufax and Johnson to finally figure out they were doing wrong and finally get their you-know-what together. Doesn't seem like you may have ever considered that distinct and viable possibility.

I don't honestly know who I'd say the greatest left handed pitcher of all time is, to date, but to not consider how modern lefties would have fared as pitchers had they grown up and pitched in different, earlier eras is just shortsighted and fails to consider and account for the ALL TIME aspect of the question. But to even suggest that Grove, and especially Spahn, couldn't possibly succeed in pitching against modern players, and didn't at least belong in that conversation, is again as I said above, one of the dumbest things you've ever said on this forum!

Call it however you want to call it. But to my knowledge, I'm the only person in this thread who is actually qualified to speak about statistics. Everyone praising Spahn keeps pointing to statistics that either don't matter (wins) or that are grossly misunderstood and taken out of context (WAR). I challenge you to find any other statistician who disagrees with me on this. Spahn wasn't just not quite as good as Koufax, Randy, and Kershaw. He wasn't even remotely in the same league as them.