Let's mess this up some more — best MLB *pitcher* ever

I gotta go with Walter Johnson, because he won 417 games (second only to Cy Young's 511) with a ball club that was 1,559-1,609 (.492) in the 21 seasons he pitched. He completed 531 of 666 starts — one of every six of which was a shutout — and relieved in another 136 games. His lifetime ERA was 2.17.



I love arguin' this stuff. :bounce:

Maybe not the best, I just wanted an excuse to post this great SI cover. If only he hadn't gotten hurt maybe we could argue about it.

The Big Train couldn't throw that ball 168 MPH...pshaw! :)

Amazing performance

although he only did a couple seasons in the Majors, his Negro League record alone is legendary.

:popcorn:

as there were not a lot of good records kept for the Negro Leagues. But, for example, in 1934 he had a 31-4 record.

His first season in the majors, at the age of 42, he went 6-1 with one save.

His biography makes some pretty outlandish claims, such as winning 104 of 105 starts for the Bismark team, and pitching 29 games in one month for the same team. Hard to tell how much of that is true and how much is embellished. Joe DiMaggio faced him in the minor leagues, and called him the best pitcher he had ever seen.

And I have no reason to doubt it. Unfortunately, you can't objectively rate a guy on what others said about him.

There's an apocryphal story about an exhibition game wherein Paige faced Dizzy Dean. Dean (who was 30-7 his own self in 1934) put together a barnstorming team during the off-season one year. The story goes, they made a side bet on the game, and it went something like 18 innings and nobody got a hit.

I think a great argument can be made for Walter Johnson who is number 2 on the all time wins list and he played on some crappy teams in his day. Not to mention he chalked up over 3,500 strikeouts.

Another good case can be made for Christy Mathewson who won 373 games and only lost 188 which is an absurd .665 winning percentage not to mention the lifetime 2.13 ERA. He played on better teams than Johnson but you can't deny those numbers. Plus he was one of the true good guys of the game

And often with two or three days rest. Sometimes they pitched two games in a row. Unlike the pussies who pitch five, six innings these days.

Walter Johnson pitched in 802 games for a total of 5,914 innings pitched and Mathewson pitched in 635 games with a total of 4,780 innings pitched :wow: one has to wonder how their arms didn't fall off. Also Mathewson pitched 3 complete game shutouts in the 1905 World Series which ranks among the greatest WS performances of all times

Know how he died? It's truly sad. :(

got accidentally gassed by the Army in training and permanently scarred his lungs...a long and painful way to go

Ty Cobb was in Mathewson's unit — it happened in France — but got out of the room in time. He said he coughed up yellow gunk for weeks.

..."He played on better teams than Johnson" doesn't quite tell the whole story. Johnson played for a Washington franchise that was HORRIBLE for most of his career. Matthewson played for John McGraw's Giants, some of the best teams ever.

In their prime, a case can be made for Seaver, Clemens -- I notice Lefty Grove hasn't been mentioned in this thread, and he's got better rate stats than Johnson. Not to mention Paige (and Bullet Joe Rogan, but we don't have accurate numbers for them, and I doubt any of us saw them pitch in their prime). But Johnson pitched more innings than anyone not name Cy Young, and he pitched them better than Young did.

Big Train takes it.

In the last 50 years or so, I would have to go with Seaver or Koufax.

phil neikro, knuckleballer extraordinaire!!

of a time I got pissed off at the Dodgers. Knuckleballer Jim Bouton made a comeback with Atlanta in 1978 at the age of 39, and his lone win that year (he went 1-3, 4.97 in five starts) was against LA. I think he gave up one or two runs on like five hits.

After the game the Dodgers were all "Waaahhhh!" I think it was Davey Lopes who said, "He didn't challenge us." I was like, "Shut up, Davey. You got beat by an old man who hasn't pitched in the bigs for seven years. Deal with it."

And your a Dodgers fan?

:D

And boys never grow up, and never let go of their idols. :D

Koufax may have had the best stuff ever, but he had it for only six seasons. From 1955-60, he was 36-40, 4.10 with 405 walks in 691 2/3 innings. From 1961-66, he was 129-47, 2.19 with 412 walks in 1,632 2/3 innings — and completed 115 of 211 starts with 35 shutouts.

If an arthritic elbow hadn't held him to 12 seasons, or if it hadn't taken him half his career to stop being a thrower and start being a pitcher, he might've been the best ever. Six great years do not a "greatest" make.

But I can't believe how few people voted Ruth as greatest player in the other thread. Ruth was the best lefty in baseball for 5 years. He is my clear choice for greatest player, but how high up this list could he have been if not for switching to RF? I believe that Ruth still holds the consecutive scoreless streak for lefty's in WS play.

It's pretty hard to argue with 714 homers and a .342 lifetime batting average and an amazing pitching record before the Yankees got him and the country went homer-happy.

The reason I pick Mays is he had only a slight weakness in one of the five categories — hitting for average, though .302 lifetime ain't nothin' to sneeze at. In the other four (hitting for power, running, fielding, throwing) he was better than just about everybody. In other words, he was the best all-around player ever.

Ruth had good speed but even less chance than Mays to use it, with the awesome power on most of the clubs he played for. He had a better-than-average outfielder's arm but was an average fielder.

baseball with you!

And I agree that Mays was the better 'all around' player. I just value Ruth's O more than May's D. I like an all around player myself, my favorite (not best by any means) player is Andre Dawson. I liked to think of him as a poor man's Mays. (at least during his Expos tenure)

Big Train is a good pick for greatest pitcher. Seems to me that he has been at the top of the list forever. There is a good argument to be made for Satch Paige too.

Me, I like 2-1, 3-2, 4-3 games, not slugfests. I love the hit-and-run and the timely steal and an artistic double play and a 7-6-2 or 9-4-5 relay that nails (or just misses nailing) a runner at the plate or third.

I also love a timely homer, but I get tired of baseballs flying out of the yard after awhile. The most exciting play in baseball isn't a home run — it's an extra-base hit with the bases loaded, because you've got 13 guys in motion and a number of possible outcomes. Homers mean instant runs, but they also mean play stops.

It keeps the pitcher sweating, constantly having guys on base and keeping the momentum going. That's the formula for a REALLY big inning.

Still nice to hit a 3 run homer now and then in a tight ballgame tho! Ruth could hit a lot of non-homers and take a shitload of walks too. And ol Willie rounded the bases a helluva lot more times than almost anybody else ya know!

the steals, the bunts, the hit-and-run. I think Buck O'Neil said it best in the Ken Burns documentary, about how a good team could get runs without getting hits. "You'd get to first on a walk or hit by a pitch, then steal second, they'd bunt you to third, and go home on a sacrafice fly." So much more teamwork, required by every player, than just smacking one over the fence.

In the '60s, when I became a fan, the joke was a Dodgers rally consisted of Wills drawing a walk, stealing second, being bunted to third by Junior Gilliam and scoring on a sac fly by Willie Davis.

And it wasn't really a joke. :D

Just stats? Then the stats will decide. But Gibson, no more intimidating pitcher.

So he's my favorite.

I know, I know, he wasn't really the best, but I give him a lot of points for that mustache :D

Then he might've relieved Billy Hands. :D

pitcher I've seen in my lifetime. That guy was awesome.

Such a shame what happened to him. :(

he was called a whiner because he complained about having a dead arm after a couple of innings. Then he had those strokes in his prime. Just a real damn shame.

Maybe he wasn't the very best ever but, a guy like him deserves to be remembered. Man, he could go after a batter. I sure liked seeing him pitch.

Cause now we get into best pitcher ever or best career of best stretch, etc. There is a stretch of Gibson's 68 season--which is arguably one of the best seasons ever--that has what can be argues the best sustained performance ever. 1.12 era in 68 w/ over 300 innings pitched, I think, that year.

I've moved and my stats book are boxed away, but I found this:

The longest streak of consecutive wins by a Cardinal pitcher is 15, by Bob in 1968.

During his remarkable 1968 season, Bob pitched a span of 92 innings in June and July in which he allowed two runs, one of which scored on a wild pitch. "It's a shame it had to end that way, but I'm not disappointed. We won." Bob reflecting on the wild pitch that ended his 47 2/3rds consecutive scoreless innings.
http://www.ford-mobley.com/players/bobg.htm\


Somewhere in this streak, his stikeouts to IP is insane over a 10 game period.

And somewhere along the line, he pitched 3 complete games in a World Series; not 68 I don't think.

And weren't Gibson and Koufax the principle reasons the mound got lowered?

7 no-hitters and over 5,000 strikeouts.

Of course, I'm biased...