Best lefty off all time? My vote is Koufax!

[HistoricNewspapers]

Originally Posted by Tabe

Eh, he was still 900 Ks short of the record after pitching to 45. He would have needed another 3 full seasons of top-flight effectiveness to get there and he didn't miss that much time.

Point is, if you are going to assume with Koufax, you have to do the same with Randy Johnson. Johnson was averaging around 10 K's a game(it's ten for this exercise to make the math easy . He usually started 34 games a year. Just looking at the years where he missed significant time:


1994/95 missed 15 starts due to the strike......150 k's
1996 he only started 8 games................260 K's
2003 he only started 18 games.............160 K's
2007 he only started 10 games..............240 K's

That is 810 K's right there going into his last season.

2009 he only started 17 games.....?

2010 he retired even though he still had elite K ability having pitched through injury while still maintaining 8.1 K per nine innings in his last season.

So who knows how long he could have gone. A healthy Johnson easily had two or three years left after he retired.

Also, if he is within 100 strike outs when he decided to retire in 2010...seems to be a good chance he sticks it out for more seasons.

I personally don't see the need in adding the what if, but just being fair that if you apply it to one player, make sure you apply it to others as well.