Best lefty off all time? My vote is Koufax!

[cardsagain74]

Originally Posted by Koufax32fan

If you told me that I could have any pitcher during his peak period to pitch a complete season to save a manager's job and get his team to the World Series, I would choose Koufax.

By the way, that includes lefties and righties (even though I would consider Walter Johnson for the season and Babe Ruth for the game).

Pedro in '99-'00 and Maddux in '94-'95 did things over a two-year stretch that no one else has in the live ball era, and only Bob Gibson's '68 season could match for even one year. There isn't enough mainstream focus on ERA+ or those guys' seasons then (as they pitched in a pinball game) would be remembered with the same reverence as Gibson's 1.12.

It's tough for me to consider much what any pitcher (or hitter, for that matter) did before 1920. Walter Johnson was clearly the best out there during the last decade of the dead ball era, but it was such a different game when everyone was hitting a voit ball from gym class. And his numbers during the 1920s (when he was in his 30s) were very good, but nothing legendary and a clear step below what Grove and plenty of others did when they were the same age in the live ball era.