ESPN Top 100

[molenick]

I think if we made a list that was just based on career value and a list just based on peak value, there would be more (but not full) agreement. But it is true that pitchers seem to be harder to rank than hitters.

But since there is one list, everyone has to decide what they value most. The reason I rank (alphabetically) Alexander, Clemens, Gibson, Grove, R. Johnson, W. Johnson, Maddux, Mathewson, Seaver, and Young higher than Martinez is that they had longer careers and also high peak values. In some cases (not all) both their career and peak values rank higher than Martinez.

Martinez's four highest WARs were 11.7, 9.8, 9.0, 8.0 = 38.5
Grove 11.2, 10.4, 10.4, 9.8 = 41.8
Clemens 11.9, 10.4, 9.4, 8.8 = 40.5
Randy Johnson 10.7, 10.1, 9.1, 8.4 = 38.3
Gibson 11.2, 10.4, 8.9, 7.1 = 37.6
Seaver 10.6, 10.2, 7.8, 7.3 = 35.9
Maddux 9.7, 9.1, 8.5, 7.8 = 35.1.

Alexander, Johnson, Mathewson, and Young were in the 40s or 50s and obviously had much longer careers as well.

I used 4 years to get the peak-of-the-peak for each. Seaver and Maddux don't quite match Martinez but for me it's close enough that even a little credit for a long career makes me rank them higher. I rank Koufax below Martinez because his argument is entirely on peak value and his four best years (36.4) were not as good as Martinez's. I rank Spahn below Martinez because in my mind his long career did not offset his four best years "only" being 32.5. I feel the same about Carlton. To me Gibson was the closest call. I could go either way between the two, so I rank them 10 and 10a.

But I see an argument to get Martinez as high as second. First, put him over Gibson, Maddux, and Seaver because of peak vs. career. Then ahead of Clemens because of suspicion of steroids. Then ahead of Alexander, Walter Johnson, Mathewson, and Young because of dead ball stats being skewed (although I think the point of WAR is to try and unskew them a little). Then ahead of Grove because how can a player be better than someone who played 70 years later (that's really the only argument I see for putting Grove below Martinez…he was very similar to Martinez in that he dominated in a hitter's era but he was more dominant and did it for longer than Martinez).

But I can’t get him past Randy Johnson, who was just as dominant, pitched 1300 more innings, and has a higher WAR, WAR7, JAWS, and some other acronyms.

I'm sure I may have missed someone. I did not consider 19th century-only pitchers because it is hard to compare an era when pitchers could pitch over 600 innings and have a WAR of 20.5 (as Pud Galvin did in 1884). But if I did, Nichols would be my choice. I also did not include Negro League pitchers because I don't feel qualified weighing the statistics available with the reputations some players had.