Best lefty off all time? My vote is 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.

[cammb]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

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.

I am from the old school where innings pitched, strikeouts, complete games and shutouts mean something. Yeah, he is no akoufax

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by cammb

I am from the old school where innings pitched, strikeouts, complete games and shutouts mean something. Yeah, he is no akoufax

Look at Kershaw's K/9 it's quite high. Higher than Koufax actually. As for the other stats, it's hardly Kershaw's fault that he pitches in an era that thinks differently about starting pitchers and days between starts and pitch counts.

[G1911]

Kershaw has pitched more innings (2,454) in his career than Koufax (2,324) did.

Kershaw (2,670) has more strikeouts than Koufax (2,396) did.

Kershaw has a better K/9 than Koufax, 9.8 to 9.3.

Koufax had 40 Shutouts, Kershaw has 15. Kershaw is the active leader, as complete games are dead (unfortunately, personally).

This old-school argument (which I don't think is generally invalid or necessarily bad, innings matter a lot I think, CG's not so much) doesn't seem to support Koufax over Kershaw.

[Carter08]

I have no problem agreeing that wins might be an overrated stat and peak years can outweigh longevity. That said, when Spahn has 198 more wins than Koufax and 178 more wins than Koufax those numbers are just too astronomical for me to overcome. I mean those are would be really high win counts on their own but they are just the delta between Spahn and two greats.*

*Just purchased a PSA Type 1 autographed photo of Spahn from 1942 and am accordingly very biased.

[Carter08]

Originally Posted by Carter08

I have no problem agreeing that wins might be an overrated stat and peak years can outweigh longevity. That said, when Spahn has 198 more wins than Koufax and 178 more wins than Koufax those numbers are just too astronomical for me to overcome. I mean those are would be really high win counts on their own but they are just the delta between Spahn and two greats.*

*Just purchased a PSA Type 1 autographed photo of Spahn from 1942 and am accordingly very biased.

I meant 178 more wins than Kershaw.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by G1911

Kershaw has pitched more innings (2,454) in his career than Koufax (2,324) did.

Kershaw (2,670) has more strikeouts than Koufax (2,396) did.

Kershaw has a better K/9 than Koufax, 9.8 to 9.3.

Koufax had 40 Shutouts, Kershaw has 15. Kershaw is the active leader, as complete games are dead (unfortunately, personally).

This old-school argument (which I don't think is generally invalid or necessarily bad, innings matter a lot I think, CG's not so much) doesn't seem to support Koufax over Kershaw.

The old school argument, it seems to me, automatically discounts anyone from the past two decades or even longer. I get the romantic notion that men were men in the good old days and today's pitchers are wimps, but the game is what it is, today's pitchers don't choose to be rested more or to be on pitch counts.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

The old school argument, it seems to me, automatically discounts anyone from the past two decades or even longer. I get the romantic notion that men were men in the good old days and today's pitchers are wimps, but the game is what it is, today's pitchers don't choose to be rested more or to be on pitch counts.

I think the argument of innings per game and complete games is not a very good one; the game is just different. I don’t think it should be dismissed because it’s not a pitchers choice; we hold things against pitchers for many reasons out of their control. It wasn’t Smoky Joe Wood’s decision to blow his arm out either. Any metric intended to exclude entire eras is, I think, unreasonable in the context of an “all time” argument. Yet this is the most frequent type of argument made; most all time arguments end up where people are attempting to structure an argument to simply effectively, if not explicitly, exclude eras they don’t like as much. Kershaw is a wimp, Grove sucked and the 19th century just doesn’t count for all time at all.

What I think is a better argument than the one posited, if one wants to go down this road and to attempt to exclude modernity, is total innings. If a pitcher pitches less innings in a game or season because teams want to avoid injury and extend careers (at least, that’s how I remember the arguments a couple decades ago) those innings should be effectively made up by that extended career. But we don’t see this. The last 20 years or so has seen plummeting innings (there is of course a general downward trend through all of baseball history) but pitchers don’t seem to ever make those innings up later in their careers, by extended careers with healthy carefully nursed arms. It seems pitchers are blowing out as fast as ever, though I’m too lazy to track down a dataset tonight.

I’m not saying I agree with this, but this seems the better way to dismiss modernity if one is so inclined: it’s not their fault, but they are used poorly and have less value because their careers are so needlessly short as a result.

Personally, I think “all time” is obviously a context centric argument, and all eras must be included and should generally balance out. An all time won’t balance perfectly because greatness is so very rare that samples of it will naturally fluctuate without bias or without era preference. One season may have 5 players have truly great seasons in context, and another only 1 because of random chance.

I would exclude modernity in the sense of active players, because we cannot reasonably evaluate the totality of something that is not complete. But all time should include 1876 to the most recently retired player, and generally see a fairly even number of players from each era in the conversation. People tend to gravitate to dead ball, the mid 20’s to early 30’s, the 50’s and 60’s, or the ultra modern and gloss over the other eras.

Personally, I think the modern way of using pitchers makes strategic sense but is boring and wimpy as hell and one reason I’ve lost most interest in the current game. The players as great as any other era, but it’s boring and baseball has lost the feel of a pastoral romance that made it the national pastime.

[Mark17]

Originally Posted by G1911

I think the argument of innings per game and complete games is not a very good one; the game is just different. I don’t think it should be dismissed because it’s not a pitchers choice; we hold things against pitchers for many reasons out of their control. It wasn’t Smoky Joe Wood’s decision to blow his arm out either. Any metric intended to exclude entire eras is, I think, unreasonable in the context of an “all time” argument. Yet this is the most frequent type of argument made; most all time arguments end up where people are attempting to structure an argument to simply effectively, if not explicitly, exclude eras they don’t like as much. Kershaw is a wimp, Grove sucked and the 19th century just doesn’t count for all time at all.

I agree with this.

Originally Posted by G1911

What I think is a better argument than the one posited, if one wants to go down this road and to attempt to exclude modernity, is total innings. If a pitcher pitches less innings in a game or season because teams want to avoid injury and extend careers (at least, that’s how I remember the arguments a couple decades ago) those innings should be effectively made up by that extended career. But we don’t see this. The last 20 years or so has seen plummeting innings (there is of course a general downward trend through all of baseball history) but pitchers don’t seem to ever make those innings up later in their careers, by extended careers with healthy carefully nursed arms. It seems pitchers are blowing out as fast as ever, though I’m too lazy to track down a dataset tonight.

I don't think the goal was to have pitchers extend their careers so much as to reduce injuries and always have a "fresh" arm on the mound. Back in the day, pitchers would pace themselves out of necessity. Not all of Christy Mathewson's pitches were his top effort. In his book, "Pitching in a Pinch," he says he didn't throw his fadeaway more than a few times per game because it was hard on his arm. So when you look at a statistic like strikeouts, for example, modern guys who are only expected to throw 65 or 70 pitches in their start can give 100% on every pitch. Grove and Spahn couldn't; they had to pace themselves. They would've much preferred getting a fly out with one pitch, than a strikeout with 5 or 6 pitches.

So, just as people argue that Grove/Spahn were great over a long period of time and Koufax is given an unfair advantage if the criteria is to only look at his best 5 seasons, I would also say that modern pitchers have an unfair advantage over the old-timers (including Koufax) on a per pitch basis, because every one of their pitches is their 100% best, while with the old-timers, maybe they were bearing down with 80% of their pitches, but easing up a bit, for expediency, 20% of the time.

Originally Posted by G1911

I’m not saying I agree with this, but this seems the better way to dismiss modernity if one is so inclined: it’s not their fault, but they are used poorly and have less value because their careers are so needlessly short as a result.

Personally, I think “all time” is obviously a context centric argument, and all eras must be included and should generally balance out. An all time won’t balance perfectly because greatness is so very rare that samples of it will naturally fluctuate without bias or without era preference. One season may have 5 players have truly great seasons in context, and another only 1 because of random chance.

I would exclude modernity in the sense of active players, because we cannot reasonably evaluate the totality of something that is not complete. But all time should include 1876 to the most recently retired player, and generally see a fairly even number of players from each era in the conversation. People tend to gravitate to dead ball, the mid 20’s to early 30’s, the 50’s and 60’s, or the ultra modern and gloss over the other eras.

Personally, I think the modern way of using pitchers makes strategic sense but is boring and wimpy as hell and one reason I’ve lost most interest in the current game. The players as great as any other era, but it’s boring and baseball has lost the feel of a pastoral romance that made it the national pastime.

I agree with this, especially the last paragraph.

[cammb]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

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.

It is not if Kershaw measures up to Koufax or not. I have seen Koufax pitch plenty of times as well as Kershaw. Koufax made me grin every time he struck some one out. That curve ball was sick. I am not a dodger fan but loved a great pitcher when I saw him and ,TO ME, he will always be the best. I can say the same for Mickey Mantle. I hated the yankees but loved to see Mantle at bat.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by cammb

It is not if Kershaw measures up to Koufax or not. I have seen Koufax pitch plenty of times as well as Kershaw. Koufax made me grin every time he struck some one out. That curve ball was sick. I am not a dodger fan but loved a great pitcher when I saw him and ,TO ME, he will always be the best. I can say the same for Mickey Mantle. I hated the yankees but loved to see Mantle at bat.

This is “my personal favorite” not “the best of all time”.

[cammb]

Originally Posted by G1911

This is “my personal favorite” not “the best of all time”.

This is "my personal favorite AND "the best of all time!"

[Mark17]

Originally Posted by cammb

This is "my personal favorite AND "the best of all time!"

Your rationale suggests had you seen Grove go 28-5 in 1930 and 31-4 the following year (and 2-1 in the World Series each of those years) you'd say Grove.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Mark17

Your rationale suggests had you seen Grove go 28-5 in 1930 and 31-4 the following year (and 2-1 in the World Series each of those years) you'd say Grove.

This. A fond memory and sentimental attachment has nothing to do with any objective question of best, it is purely “my favorite”. These are completely different things.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Nostalgia bias.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by cammb

It is not if Kershaw measures up to Koufax or not. I have seen Koufax pitch plenty of times as well as Kershaw. Koufax made me grin every time he struck some one out. That curve ball was sick. I am not a dodger fan but loved a great pitcher when I saw him and ,TO ME, he will always be the best. I can say the same for Mickey Mantle. I hated the yankees but loved to see Mantle at bat.

I think it was in Jane Leavy's book, Mantle is quoted as saying to Roseboro the first time he sees Koufax's big curve, how in the *&^*( am I supposed to hit that?

[cammb]

Originally Posted by peter_spaeth

i think it was in jane leavy's book, mantle is quoted as saying to roseboro the first time he sees koufax's big curve, how in the *&^*( am i supposed to hit that?

b i n g o !!!!!

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I think it was in Jane Leavy's book, Mantle is quoted as saying to Roseboro the first time he sees Koufax's big curve, how in the *&^*( am I supposed to hit that?

Play against Sandy anywhere other than Dodger Stadium

[clydepepper]

First Game I ever saw on TV influenced me a lot:

31x42 SANDY KOUFAX Autographed Poster.jpg

1964 Topps- KOUFAX Strikes Out 15 PSA.DNA.jpg1963 World series Game1 Ticket - Sandy Koufax PSA-DNA.jpg

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by clydepepper

First Game I ever saw on TV influenced me a lot:

Attachment 487395

Attachment 487398Attachment 487399

That's the game I was referring to. If I recall Koufax struck out the side in the first, then (allegedly) stared over at the Yankee dugout although Whitey Ford denied it and it does seem out of character.

[clydepepper]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

That's the game I was referring to. If I recall Koufax struck out the side in the first, then (allegedly) stared over at the Yankee dugout although Whitey Ford denied it and it does seem out of character.

He struck out the first five, but, as the added photo shows, Mickey got him late.

Ooops! Tresh got him in the bottom of the eighth in that game, Mickey got him in top of seventh in Game 4.

As important as I say this game was to me, I'm getting older...so there...at least I caught it before everyone else did.

.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Koufax apparently really did not like throwing at people or even brushing them back, which played a role in the Roseboro Marichal incident. But, and I think this is from the Leavy book, once he got so angered by Lou Brock's baserunning antics that he drilled him hard in the back. Brock picks himself up, walks slowly to first, and promptly steals second.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Tabe

Play against Sandy anywhere other than Dodger Stadium

LOL but Game 1 was in Yankee Stadium.

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

LOL but Game 1 was in Yankee Stadium.

Didn't say you could always hit it but, if you're going to, outside of Dodger Stadium is the way

[Deertick]

Now that it has been definitively established that Grove was the best LHP of all time and Koufax should not even be in the discussion, is there a statistician who can create a formula to determine whether any given poster is either:
A) A common troll
B) An insufferable egotist
or
C) Just generally a complete AH?

Bonus points if the algorithm can determine historical Net54 ranking.