Best lefty off all time? My vote is Koufax!

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by Tabe

Wait, his BB rate fell through the floor during the four years where the size of the strike zone was increased?!?! What a shock!

I didn't mention his K/9 rate in my post. There was nothing misleading at all about what I posted. You posted factually incorrect information. I corrected that and pointed out that the increased strike zone lined up with Sandy's four best years. Nothing misleading about that.

No, you didn't mention his K/9 rate, but you should have. That's my point. You implied that he became better at striking batters out because they increased the strike zone in his final 4 years. But his K/9 rate actually went Down during that time, not up. The differences are explainable through some other engineered metrics, but I'll ignore that as I don't want to go chasing down another tangent.

The part of your post that is misleading is that you compared Lefty Grove with Sandy Koufax, then you said that Koufax benefited from them increasing his strike zone in his final 4 years. What you failed to mention is the fact that prior to them increasing his strike zone, they SHRANK it in 1950. When they expanded it in 1963, they reverted it back to where it was originally, back when Lefty Grove was pitching! Pretty important little detail you left out.

[Snowman]

As far as mound heights is concerned, yes that definitely needs to be accounted for. It's something I've never looked at in a predictive model though. It's never been a relevant factor for the problems I've needed to solve for. It will almost certainly make Koufax less god-like than his numbers would otherwise indicate. How much less god-like though? I don't know. It would be a fun question to answer. Maybe if I get some free time I'll calculate its effect.

[Tabe]

Now you're just making stuff up.

Originally Posted by Snowman

No, you didn't mention his K/9 rate, but you should have. That's my point. You implied that he became better at striking batters out because they increased the strike zone in his final 4 years.

I did no such thing. I said his four best years lined up with the increased strike zone. Didn't mention strikeouts at all. Or imply any connection to them.

Originally Posted by Snowman

The part of your post that is misleading is that you compared Lefty Grove with Sandy Koufax

No, I didn't. My post about the strike zone didn't mention Lefty Grove. You made the - again - factually incorrect assertion that Grove had a larger strike zone to work with than Sandy. I corrected that. Didn't mention Grove at all or make any comparison between the two.

Originally Posted by Snowman

What you failed to mention is the fact that prior to them increasing his strike zone, they SHRANK it in 1950. When they expanded it in 1963, they reverted it back to where it was originally, back when Lefty Grove was pitching! Pretty important little detail you left out.

It kinda goes without saying that, if they increased the size of the strike zone to be the same as Grove's, it was previously smaller, hence why I, you know, didn't say it.

[BobC]

Gentlemen (and Ladies if any are watching along),

It is all well and good to keep debating the OP's question forever, but it seems none of you still realize this is a multi-part question. And apparently none of you have yet to really address one of those extremely important parts, making it virtually impossible to ever get even close to a consensus agreement on what typically ends up being the main focus of these (I'll put it politely) civil discussions.

Everyone keeps going back and forth about the "who" part of the question, without having first agreed on the "what" part of the question. And in this particular case, the "what" part of the question is, what is the exact definition that constutes someone being the "greatest" at something, like being a left handed MLB pitcher. Without everyone agreeing on the "what" first, it makes arguing about the "who" pretty senseless, and in some instances, downright stupid.

And with no agreement on "what" exactly constitutes someone being the greatest at something, the "who" part of the question will likely have multiple correct answers, all dependent on differing points of view as to what the correct definition of "greatest" is.

Think of it this way. Two guys sit down at a standard checker board, pull out their pieces and start playing. Problem is, one guy has regular checker pieces and starts playing checkers, the other guy has chess pieces and thinks that is the game being played. And at the end of whatever the heck they ended up doing, they both claimed they were right and they were the winner. Unfortunately, they never agreed on the actual game and rules they were going to play by first. See the problem boys........................?

[Carter08]

Originally Posted by BobC

Gentlemen (and Ladies if any are watching along),

It is all well and good to keep debating the OP's question forever, but it seems none of you still realize this is a multi-part question. And apparently none of you have yet to really address one of those extremely important parts, making it virtually impossible to ever get even close to a consensus agreement on what typically ends up being the main focus of these (I'll put it politely) civil discussions.

Everyone keeps going back and forth about the "who" part of the question, without having first agreed on the "what" part of the question. And in this particular case, the "what" part of the question is, what is the exact definition that constutes someone being the "greatest" at something, like being a left handed MLB pitcher. Without everyone agreeing on the "what" first, it makes arguing about the "who" pretty senseless, and in some instances, downright stupid.

And with no agreement on "what" exactly constitutes someone being the greatest at something, the "who" part of the question will likely have multiple correct answers, all dependent on differing points of view as to what the correct definition of "greatest" is.

Think of it this way. Two guys sit down at a standard checker board, pull out their pieces and start playing. Problem is, one guy has regular checker pieces and starts playing checkers, the other guy has chess pieces and thinks that is the game being played. And at the end of whatever the heck they ended up doing, they both claimed they were right and they were the winner. Unfortunately, they never agreed on the actual game and rules they were going to play by first. See the problem boys........................?

Fair point. It’s the greatest left handed pitcher of all time. I think that opens arguments for longevity versus peak greatness to come into play. My personal view is we avoid the argument that any random left hander in the majors today might technically throw better than anyone else in history because of advanced training and development. It’s a fair argument but just not fun. In my view, the greatest lefty is clearly Spahn. But I am biased as hell. I just love that guy. Carlton, Grove and Koufax are certainly in the mix.

[G1911]

It’s been discussed several times, there isn’t a whole lot of genuine disagreement. We have a troll, people conflating personal favorite with best and doubling down and insisting they are the exact same thing, etc. There is not much actual disagreement on reasonable but differing standards of what greatness is. Some favor peak over longevity (Botha re very reasonable standards that not everyone is going to exactly agree on, nor should they) but the advanced stats lead to the same answer either way: Grove wins best 4 years, best 5 years, best 7 years, best 10 years, most total career value.

[Carter08]

Originally Posted by G1911

It’s been discussed several times, there isn’t a whole lot of genuine disagreement. We have a troll, people conflating personal favorite with best and doubling down and insisting they are the exact same thing, etc. There is not much actual disagreement on reasonable but differing standards of what greatness is. Some favor peak over longevity (Botha re very reasonable standards that not everyone is going to exactly agree on, nor should they) but the advanced stats lead to the same answer either way: Grove wins best 4 years, best 5 years, best 7 years, best 10 years, most total career value.

Agree with just about everything you said. But for career, just using WAR, Spahn and Grove are within 6 games of each other. Spahn gave up 3 seasons for WW2 - pretty close. Food for thought.

[Mark17]

Originally Posted by G1911

It’s been discussed several times, there isn’t a whole lot of genuine disagreement. We have a troll, people conflating personal favorite with best and doubling down and insisting they are the exact same thing, etc. There is not much actual disagreement on reasonable but differing standards of what greatness is. Some favor peak over longevity (Botha re very reasonable standards that not everyone is going to exactly agree on, nor should they) but the advanced stats lead to the same answer either way: Grove wins best 4 years, best 5 years, best 7 years, best 10 years, most total career value.

+1
Plus Grove had over 100 more wins while stuck in the minors the first 5 years of his career. That's just for extra credit.

[earlywynnfan]

I know the big debate here is peak vs career, and I think that's a fun debate. However, in my opinion backed by lots of pretty statistics, Koufax' peak doesn't beat Grove's, although he was one hell of a strikeout pitcher. So if Koufax' peak doesn't make him the best, I don't see how he can be in the same breath as Grove overall, unless someone wants to make idiotic claims like "the 30's sucked, the 60's-on was the only real baseball."

But the rejuvenation of this thread has made me really think about RJ...

[BobC]

Originally Posted by G1911

It’s been discussed several times, there isn’t a whole lot of genuine disagreement. We have a troll, people conflating personal favorite with best and doubling down and insisting they are the exact same thing, etc. There is not much actual disagreement on reasonable but differing standards of what greatness is. Some favor peak over longevity (Botha re very reasonable standards that not everyone is going to exactly agree on, nor should they) but the advanced stats lead to the same answer either way: Grove wins best 4 years, best 5 years, best 7 years, best 10 years, most total career value.

Hey G1911,

Don't go getting mad at me, but here's another example of how different people's views and meanings directly influence and change their responses to certain questions. In your post, the very last word you ended with was "value". That word alone can spark a whole separate world of conjecture and debate.

For example, in an earlier response in this thread in rebuttal to someone's comment saying WINS is a totally meaningless statistic, it was then asked exactly what is the one sole thing all MLB players are paid and play the game for, or what is really the main reason most all fans buy a ticket to attend or turn on the tube to watch a game and see their team do? And let me add one more, what is the one single thing that ultimately ends up deciding who is considered the champion baseball team every year? There is only one simple response that completely and accurately answers all those questions..........WIN!

And though baseball is a team sport and games are not solely decided by a single player, isn't it arguable that the starting pitcher on each side at the start of every MLB game ever played has potentially the greatest impact and influence on whether or not their team will win?

So does this at all influence your definition of "value"?

[Carter08]

Originally Posted by BobC

Hey G1911,

Don't go getting mad at me, but here's another example of how different people's views and meanings directly influence and change their responses to certain questions. In your post, the very last word you ended with was "value". That word alone can spark a whole separate world of conjecture and debate.

For example, in an earlier response in this thread in rebuttal to someone's comment saying WINS is a totally meaningless statistic, it was then asked exactly what is the one sole thing all MLB players are paid and play the game for, or what is really the main reason most all fans buy a ticket to attend or turn on the tube to watch a game? And let me add one more, what is the one single thing that ultimately ends up deciding who is considered the champion baseball team every year? There is only one simple response that completely and accurately answers all those questions..........WINS!

And though baseball is a team sport and games are not solely decided by a single player, isn't it arguable that the starting pitcher on each side in every MLB game ever played has potentially the greatest impact and influence on whether or not their team will win?

So does this at all influence your definition of "value"?

If you’re going with wins, come onboard the Spahn train! It’s not even close.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by BobC

Hey G1911,

Don't go getting mad at me, but here's another example of how different people's views and meanings directly influence and change their responses to certain questions. In your post, the very last word you ended with was "value". That word alone can spark a whole separate world of conjecture and debate.

For example, in an earlier response in this thread in rebuttal to someone's comment saying WINS is a totally meaningless statistic, it was then asked exactly what is the one sole thing all MLB players are paid and play the game for, or what is really the main reason most all fans buy a ticket to attend or turn on the tube to watch a game and see their team do? And let me add one more, what is the one single thing that ultimately ends up deciding who is considered the champion baseball team every year? There is only one simple response that completely and accurately answers all those questions..........WIN!

And though baseball is a team sport and games are not solely decided by a single player, isn't it arguable that the starting pitcher on each side at the start of every MLB game ever played has potentially the greatest impact and influence on whether or not their team will win?

So does this at all influence your definition of "value"?

I don’t know why I would get at mad at you? I don’t think wins is a useful metric in the 5 inning starter era. It’s a decent point in the complete game era, as the stat pitchers were pitching too and predominated then alongside ERA. I think ERA, adjusted for park and league via ERA+, is a much better stat. I’ve never completely dismissed wins, it just has flaws. A pitcher who gives up 1 run in 9 innings will often lose when on a terrible team. Bob Friend was not a below average pitcher, for example.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by G1911

It’s been discussed several times, there isn’t a whole lot of genuine disagreement. We have a troll, people conflating personal favorite with best and doubling down and insisting they are the exact same thing, etc. There is not much actual disagreement on reasonable but differing standards of what greatness is. Some favor peak over longevity (Botha re very reasonable standards that not everyone is going to exactly agree on, nor should they) but the advanced stats lead to the same answer either way: Grove wins best 4 years, best 5 years, best 7 years, best 10 years, most total career value.

In what world does Grove win best 4 or 5 years?

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Snowman

In what world does Grove win best 4 or 5 years?

The statistics and math are up above in this very thread. Your troll game is falling off.

[frankbmd]

Originally Posted by snowman

in what world does grove win best 4 or 5 years?

1928-1932