Best lefty off all time? My vote is Koufax!

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Snowman

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.




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.




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.




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.




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.




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.




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.




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.

And now the real problem finally comes out. You're too busy talking about how you're the only person that knows statistics and everything else, but you can't even understand and answer the actual question that was asked. Who was the best lefty of all time? Not who was the most dominant lefty over some short period of time that if you had to win just one game you could pick that person at his most effective time in is career. It sure seems that is the question you're answering and not the one that was asked.

You are a hypocrite! I asked you to prove your points and show reasons why your positions are valid. I gave you a lot of detail, facts, explanations, conjecture, and what did I get in return? The pathetic non-response just above saying to YOUR knowledge you're the only person in this thread qualified to speak about statistics, you then say statistics like WINS don't matter and WAR is grossly misunderstood, followed by how we probably can't find any other statisticians to ever disagree with you, and then polished it off by saying Spahn wasn't just not quite as good as Kershaw, Johnson, and Koufax, he wasn't even remotely as good. Do I have it about right?

In an earlier post you went into how taking even marginal pitchers of today back in time, they would blow away the batters of yesteryear, and then went into how the players from then wouldn't even make today's rosters, and how pitchers like Grove and Spahn couldn't beat the batters of today either. You never gave factual evidence as to why any of this would be true or to support any of your statement. So I very simply asked you to prove what you said to me. And this was the lame-ass response I got back!!!!

So you didn't constructively answer or respond to anything, just stated how no one else apparently knows much of any anything about statistics, WINS are meaningless, WAR is taken out context, and restated how Spahn is no good. In other words, you effectively told me only you know what you're talking about, that you are right, and everyone else is wrong!

OMG When you first started posting on here, you were going at it and back and forth with many others (and still are) and saying how you were trying to get them to be more open minded and were presenting ideas and facts to make them realize and see there could be other results and valid points of view in regards to whatever was being discussed and argued. And you got many responses back that effectively just said that they were right, and you were wrong. And you would go after them about that. So now here we are with you simply telling me you're right and I'm wrong, and now doing to me what others were doing to you. And as I stated above, I think that kind of makes you a hypocrite.

So let me give you a chance to redeem yourself:

1. How can you prove today's pitchers would blow away yesterdays batters, and yesterday's players couldn't make it in todays game? (And saying because I said so, doesn't cut it.)

2. You keep mentioning statistics as though they are somehow proving your points regarding how old and current players would do if they switched and played in different eras. Exactly how, and specifically which statistics, are proving this?

3. You keep saying WINS are meaningless. How can that be when the only thing players get paid and play for, and fans watch for, is to see their team win? You can strike out 27 players in every game, never walk anyone or give up any HRs, have an ERA under 2.00, but if you still don't win any games, all of that doesn't mean crap.

4. Why do you keep insisting upon following the illogical step of saying to properly compare and rate players from different eras that you simply take someone from one era and just drop them into another time to see how they fare. Just like you complained about people misunderstanding WAR and using it out of context, you're guilty of the exact same thing in moving players between eras like that. To get a proper comparison within context, you wouldn't just move Randy Johnson from the 1990s back to pitch in the 1920s. You would want Randy to have been born around 1900 so he could grow up with the baseball rules, equipment, training, medical care,and so on, so you could then see how he would actually pitch during the 1920s, within the same context as everybody else pitching during that time. And the same thing going the other way. You'd want Spahn to be born around 2000 so he would be just now getting ready to pitch in the 2020s, within the same context of everyone else pitching the 2020s then. To argue that using WAR as a measure is out of context, but that simply switching players between eras is not, is another clear case of hypocracy.

5. You keep going on about being the only qualified statistician in this thread. Do you know what the definition of "statistician" is? - An expert in the preparation and analysis of statistics. Do you then know what the definition of "statistics" is? - A branch of mathematics dealing with the collection, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of masses of numerical data. And do you know what accountants, controllers, financial planners, CFOs, and CPAs mostly do? - Collect, keep, manage, inspect, analyze, and interpret large amounts of financial (numeric) data for the preparation af numerous reports, tax returns, financial statements, studies and analysis for various business and personal consulting, investing, tax planning, business operations, projections, audit engagements, and other miscellaneous projects and functions, amongst other things, in a real-world, hands-on scenario. And now, do you want to guess what I've been doing for the last 45+ years, in both the public and private sectors, and with some of the biggest and smallest companies there are? So what exactly is this mystery benefit you seem to be alluding to as a self-appointed statistical expert? All the statistics are meaningless when you're still looking at some things out of context. And you completely fail to take into account any unmeasurable intangible traits of the players, and also ignore the ability of people to adapt, adjust, and quickly learn when faced with new circumstances, such as being dropped into a new era to suddenly play ball. Why?