Memory Lane on the brain

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Warren Spahn.

With 363 career wins, Spahn holds the major league record for a left-handed pitcher, and has the most by a pitcher who played his entire career in the post-1920 live-ball era. He was a 17-time All-Star who won 20 games or more in 13 seasons, won the 1957 Cy Young Award, and was a three-time runner-up during the period when only one award was given for both leagues. At the time of his retirement in 1965, Spahn held the MLB record for career strikeouts by a left-handed pitcher. The Warren Spahn Award, given annually to the major leagues' best left-handed pitcher, is named in his honor.

I'm with you, but careful Adam, you'll get the statisticians/data scientists coming out of the woodwork to tell you how Byung-Hyun Kim is so much better than Spahn. LOL

And Spahn lost 3+ full seasons at the start of his career to the war. He very easily could have been a 400 game winning pitcher. He's currently number six on the all-time wins list, but the three pitchers right in front of him, Pud Galvin (365), Christy Mathewson (373), and Grover Cleveland Alexander (373), are all within 10 games of Spahn in career wins. I think it would be a forgone conclusion that given those 3+ seasons he missed, Spahn would have easily won at least 11 games over those missing years, and ended up as number three on the all-time wins list as a result, trailing only Walter Johnson (417) and Cy Young (511). And depending on how good he was in those years, he could have ended up challenging Johnson for the number two spot as well.

Too bad wins don't mean much of anything, and Spahn has to look up to Kim though.