Best lefty off all time? My vote is Koufax!

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Snowman

Well shit, why didn't you say so earlier?! We have a data analyst in here folks! Sounds like you guys are in great hands! I'm sure you guys will have no problems sorting this one out now.

Yes, it’s an absolutely horrible and illogical argument, isn’t it? My appeal to authority is utterly absurd and completely illogical.

Maybe an actual case, argued on the merits of its evidence and not professed authority and other fallacies, can be presented.

[G1911]

Using WHIP (of course without any adjustment for context, because that math would hurt Sandy), Kershaw is number 1. But he’s active and his number is changing every year. The lowest WHIP for a retired player is Reb Russell. Perhaps he’s the GOAT.

I’ll be disappointed if this advanced statistical basis for Koufax that only certified professionals are capable of understanding turns out to be WHIP.

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Originally Posted by G1911

Using WHIP (of course without any adjustment for context, because that math would hurt Sandy), Kershaw is number 1. But he’s active and his number is changing every year. The lowest WHIP for a retired player is Reb Russell. Perhaps he’s the GOAT.

I’ll be disappointed if this advanced statistical basis for Koufax that only certified professionals are capable of understanding turns out to be WHIP.

I would point out that Kershaw is the live ball era career leader in both WHIP and ERA in an era of high scoring.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards

I would point out that Kershaw is the live ball era career leader in both WHIP and ERA in an era of high scoring.

I think there is a fine, good-faith argument for Kershaw. I think he falls well short, because the greatest of all time is a combination of 1) how good he was and 2) how long he was good. Kershaw has not had a long career at this point in time, even by the standards of pitchers today he's missed a lot of time. On the other hand, he has aged well as his velocity declines and while he isn't the dominator he was, he may have several good seasons left. He could end up #1 when all is said and done. Active players are very difficult to rank because at age 33, to make Kershaw #1 we have to assume the future, which I don't think is reasonable.

If we'd like to count him, Kershaw is #1 and Reb Russell is #2.

I'd rather have grove for 4,000 innings than Kershaw for 2,500 Innings. Kershaw's best is on par or possibly even better than Grove's best, but not by the margin to cover this huge gap in my eyes.

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by G1911

I think there is a fine, good-faith argument for Kershaw. I think he falls well short, because the greatest of all time is a combination of 1) how good he was and 2) how long he was good. Kershaw has not had a long career at this point in time, even by the standards of pitchers today he's missed a lot of time.

To be fair, Kershaw had already had more great seasons than Koufax did by five years ago.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Tabe

To be fair, Kershaw had already had more great seasons than Koufax did by five years ago.

I think he falls short of being the greatest ever, at this point in time. I don't think that Koufax is what is keeping him back from that title at all.

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by G1911

I think he falls short of being the greatest ever, at this point in time. I don't think that Koufax is what is keeping him back from that title at all.

I agree on both counts.

[cammb]

Originally Posted by Tabe

To be fair, Kershaw had already had more great seasons than Koufax did by five years ago.

I would say Kershaw is indeed a great pitcher, but he is no Koufax.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by cammb

I would say Kershaw is indeed a great pitcher, but he is no Koufax.

Look at his three Cy Young seasons where his numbers are just phenomenal, as well as his next two best seasons, and I'd be curious why you think they don't measure up to Koufax. PS If the issue with Kershaw is post season, yeah I agree with that.

[Exhibitman]

We have a variation of this debate regularly on the boxing thread, of the 'Tyson would have killed Ali' or 'Frazier would have broken Klitschko in half' variety. The truth is that athletes in each era contended with the rules and limits and inconveniences and attitudes of the sport in each era and would train up accordingly. Joe Louis in 1937 is a 190# killing machine relative to his peers; in 2000 he would be 220# because of the training differences. Guys back then kept in shape primarily by fighting; now it is a lot of weight-lifting and core power exercises and comparatively few actual fights. Same is true of baseball. The season a Grove pitched or a Spahn pitched simply cannot be compared with what a Kershaw pitches today on raw numbers. Saying that Grove had a worse ERA or Spahn barely struck out anyone is meaningless out of context. Grove led the AL in strikeouts seven straight seasons and went over 200 once. He led the league in ERA 8 times but never went below a 2.06. It wasn't the same game strategically. It was guys who hit for super high averages and rarely struck out. Look at Earl Averill. Pretty average HOFer from the thirties. Hit .318 and had a high of 58 strikeouts. The attitude was that a strikeout was a failure, not a price to pay six times to get one HR, which is why if you look at the yearly stats there are virtually no prewar players with 100+ strikeouts but there are dozens every year now. If you look at the really rarified territory--200+ K's a year--they are all post-2000. Dave Kingman was a punchline; today he would be a superstar. Spahn led the league in strikeouts four years, never once over 200 and he pitched an average of 300 innings a year in that stretch. Koufax in his last two seasons pitched 54 complete games (led the league each time with 27) with 13 shut outs. In 1968 Bob Gibson pitched 28 complete games and did not even lead the league. Kershaw has pitched 24 complete games in his entire 14 year career. Max Scherzer has 12 and led the league three times with 4, 2 and 2. It is just a different game. That's why a peak WAR analysis makes more sense than comparing raw stats if you want to assess players of different eras.

[Touch'EmAll]

Yes. peak value and career value can be quite different. This can lead to different answers depending on the question - "Would you rather have player X at their peak for one game" vs. "Would you rather have player X or Y when constructing an all-time team."

Way back when Bill James published his Baseball Abstract, he had Koufax #2 Peak Value, and #7 Career Value (amongst lefties). Note: Grove #1 in both instances.

Interesting fact - Career One-Hitters: Ryan 12, Feller 12, Koufax 2

Considering how much time missed due to military service, Feller pretty impressive. How many more No/One hitters if he didn't miss time? Debate for another time, but Bill James has Feller #5/#6 for Peak/Career righties. Off the top of my head I would rank Feller higher.

[earlywynnfan]

So greatest lefty of all time is about one WS Game? Then maybe we should discuss Harry Brecheen.
But I’ll play. WS Stats:
Koufax: 57 IP, ERA 0.95, WHIP .825 36H/6ER/2HR/11W/61K
Grove: 51+ IP, ERA 1.75 WHIP 1.013 46H/10ER/0HR/6W/36K

If you look at the two “best” WS for both, where they made multiple starts, Koufax faced the Yankees and the 1964 Minnesota Twins. Grove faced the Gas House Gang. Koufax faced teams that hit far more homers while having far smaller batting averages, and Grove the opposite. Logic tells me that Koufax would allow more homers and Grove more hits. And the statistics bear this out.
I’ve always been taught that statistics shouldn’t exist in a vacuum. The difference in WHIP is easily identified through the lens of the era. I haven’t looked closely, but I’ll assume half of these games were pitched at either Dodger Stadium or Shibe Park. One pitcher pitched off a higher mound.
Koufax had noticeably more strikeouts than Grove, but also noticeably more walks. I think it’s pretty clear that Koufax had better stats, if you don’t look at the competition they faced. But how is one of these “The Greatest Lefthander of All Time” and one of these “Barely better than your church softball player”??

Oh, and for the record, Grove DID blow his arm out. He was regularly listed in the conversation of “hardest thrower ever” between Johnson, Feller, and Ryan. And he came back from it to, among other things, lead the league in ERA several times. All before modern medicine.

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by earlywynnfan

One pitcher pitched off a higher mound.

Same pitcher also got a larger strike zone that coincided with their best seasons.

[Carter08]

Minor point but Spahn hit 35 dingers. Joe Torre fondly recalled the manager pinch hitting Spahn for him on a few occasions.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Carter08

Minor point but Spahn hit 35 dingers. Joe Torre fondly recalled the manager pinch hitting Spahn for him on a few occasions.

But Koufax hit a HR off Spahn in a 1962 game.

[Snowman]

I never said WHIP was some advanced metric that was sufficient for settling the debate. I used it as an example of a basic statistic that isn't normalized by how strong or weak the rest of the pitchers in the league are. I chose it because I figured you guys could at least understand it and used it as a contrast to normalized statistics. Stop taking my words out of context.

My top 3 are Koufax, Randy, and Kershaw, and not necessarily in that order. Grove was great, but I discount his era. Spahn was very good for his time, but would be above average at best today. Those are my opinions. Take them or leave them. I don't care.

Modern pitching is far superior to pre-war pitching. It's not even remotely close. As I stated above, wins is one of the worst predictors of a pitcher's future success. ERA is highly subject to variance (aspects that a pitcher cannot control). WAR is great for comparing pitchers in a similar era, so long as you understand that it is a counting statistic (and what that implies). However, if you understand how WAR is calculated, then you'd know that in an effort to control for variations in league wide hitting talent from year to year, it's creators adjust for how well someone pitches relative to their peers. The problem with this adjustment from a statistical theory standpoint is that it simply trades one form of variance for another by trading the variance in league-wide hitting talent for the variance in league-wide pitching talent. They have solved one problem by creating another. The clue for this is even in the name (wins above "replacement"). This means their WAR calculations depend on how good or bad replacement level pitching was in that era (or for a rolling 3 year window). If you instead used a 2021 replacement level pitcher as the baseline for Warren Spahn's stats, his WAR value would drop significantly. These are not my opinions. These are all facts that can be easily proven. Again, as stated above, this is also why I said WAR and wins should not be used to determine who was "best". If you want to have a real discussion around who was best, then we'd need to dive into some of the more advanced sabermetrics (and no, I'm not talking about WHIP). But I have zero interest in discussing that with you guys because you don't even understand basic statistics, let alone the statistical theory needed to have this discussion, as evidenced by Peter's cute little ridiculing formula above. Just because you can't wrap your heads around some of the more advanced sabermetrics doesn't mean they don't matter.

Anyhow, I'm done here. I'll let the net54 intelligentsia committee settle this debate. It sounds like you guys are in great hands. After all, there are data analysts, CPAs, and financial planners in here! And they are "good with statistics". Lol

[Peter_Spaeth]

How does your analysis factor in Koufax' first 6 seasons (half his career, total WAR 6.8) or do you just disregard it? Since you haven't I don't think actually given us your analysis, but just talked down to us about how stupid we are, it seems a reasonable question.

One other aside, Koufax first pitched 66 years ago and last pitched 55 years ago. He's a lot closer in time to Grove (who pitched until 1941, just 14 years before Koufax started) than to today's pitchers. Why do you completely discount Grove because he pitched in prehistoric times, but apparently treat Koufax' numbers as legit?

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

How does your analysis factor in Koufax' first 6 seasons (half his career, total WAR 6.8) or do you just disregard it? Since you haven't I don't think actually given us your analysis, but just talked down to us about how stupid we are, it seems a reasonable question.

One other aside, Koufax first pitched 66 years ago and last pitched 55 years ago. He's a lot closer in time to Grove (who pitched until 1941, just 14 years before Koufax started) than to today's pitchers. Why do you completely discount Grove because he pitched in prehistoric times, but apparently treat Koufax' numbers as legit?

Because he's KOUFAX. Logical consistency doesn't matter. Math doesn't matter. Context doesn't matter. He's KOUFAX. It's irrelevant that Spahn pitched 11 of Sandy's 12 years, Spahn and Grove must be dismissed as pitchers of antiquity, for the dominant pitcher of modernity, Koufax, who hasn't pitched in 55 seasons. But even though our argument centers on defining the best of "all time" as the best of an arbitrarily and completely inconsistently decided modernity (hence, it's not really of "all time", now is it?), we will dismiss Kershaw too, who is the obvious choice if the modernity argument is made sincerely because....

Well I'm sure there's a super advanced statistical argument you and I are too stupid to understand, even though no actual statistical argument has been given, simply a series of fallacies, references to common unadjusted statistics that are then walked back, and an appeal to statistical authority.

[earlywynnfan]

Originally Posted by Snowman

I never said WHIP was some advanced metric that was sufficient for settling the debate. I used it as an example of a basic statistic that isn't normalized by how strong or weak the rest of the pitchers in the league are. I chose it because I figured you guys could at least understand it and used it as a contrast to normalized statistics. Stop taking my words out of context.

My top 3 are Koufax, Randy, and Kershaw, and not necessarily in that order. Grove was great, but I discount his era. Spahn was very good for his time, but would be above average at best today. Those are my opinions. Take them or leave them. I don't care.

Modern pitching is far superior to pre-war pitching. It's not even remotely close. As I stated above, wins is one of the worst predictors of a pitcher's future success. ERA is highly subject to variance (aspects that a pitcher cannot control). WAR is great for comparing pitchers in a similar era, so long as you understand that it is a counting statistic (and what that implies). However, if you understand how WAR is calculated, then you'd know that in an effort to control for variations in league wide hitting talent from year to year, it's creators adjust for how well someone pitches relative to their peers. The problem with this adjustment from a statistical theory standpoint is that it simply trades one form of variance for another by trading the variance in league-wide hitting talent for the variance in league-wide pitching talent. They have solved one problem by creating another. The clue for this is even in the name (wins above "replacement"). This means their WAR calculations depend on how good or bad replacement level pitching was in that era (or for a rolling 3 year window). If you instead used a 2021 replacement level pitcher as the baseline for Warren Spahn's stats, his WAR value would drop significantly. These are not my opinions. These are all facts that can be easily proven. Again, as stated above, this is also why I said WAR and wins should not be used to determine who was "best". If you want to have a real discussion around who was best, then we'd need to dive into some of the more advanced sabermetrics (and no, I'm not talking about WHIP). But I have zero interest in discussing that with you guys because you don't even understand basic statistics, let alone the statistical theory needed to have this discussion, as evidenced by Peter's cute little ridiculing formula above. Just because you can't wrap your heads around some of the more advanced sabermetrics doesn't mean they don't matter.

Anyhow, I'm done here. I'll let the net54 intelligentsia committee settle this debate. It sounds like you guys are in great hands. After all, there are data analysts, CPAs, and financial planners in here! And they are "good with statistics". Lol

I'm sorry, is Grove "great" or "probably wouldn't even make a major league roster today"? Why do you discount his era?