Poll - MLB's all-time greatest starting pitchers

[J_Dee]

Catchers - 1. Johnny Bench,
2. Roy Campanella; 3. Ivan Rodriguez, 4. Yogi Berra, 5. Bill Dickey, 6. Mike
Piazza, 7. Gary Carter



First basemen - 1. Lou Gehrig, 2. Jimmie Foxx, 3. Albert Pujols, 4. Eddie
Murray, 5. Ted Kluzewski, T6. Hank Greenberg, Willie McCovey, Frank Thomas



Second basemen - 1. Rogers Hornsby, T2. Eddie Collins and Joe Morgan, 4.
Roberto Alomar, 5. Robinson Cano



Third basemen - 1. Mike Schmidt, 2. George Brett, 3. Eddie Mathews, T4. Wade
Boggs and Brooks Robinson



Shortstops - 1. Honus Wagner, 2. Cal Ripken Jr., 3. Alex Rodriguez, 4. Robin
Yount



Left fielders - 1. Ted Williams, 2. Stan Musial, 3. Barry Bonds



Center fielders - 1. Willie Mays, 2. Ty Cobb, 3. Ken Griffey Jr., 4. Tris
Speaker. T5. Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle



Right Fielders - T1. Babe
Ruth and Hank Aaron, 2. Frank Robinson, T3.
Tony Gwynn and Mel Ott


Now vote for starting pitchers. Your first vote gets five point, second, three, third, one.

My picks:


1. Walter Johnson (1.061 WHIP, 23,405 batters faced)

2. Christy Mathewson (1.058 WHIP, 18,912 batters faced)

3. I could have Tom Terrific, Roger Clemens (giving him the benefit of the doubt that he didn't use illegal PEDs), or Randy Johnson here, but I'm going with Cy Young for the ridiculous 168.4 WAR/79.3 WAR7 and 1.130 WHIP in 29,965

batters faced.

 

[JonathanW]

I have enough doubt about Clemens to drop him from my top 5, but he is still a HOF.

1 W. Johnson
2 Gibson
3 P. Martinez

Young has such a high WAR because he started like 80 games a year.

(I forgot about Gibson, so I am editing my list)
This post was edited on 1/23 8:24 PM by JonathanW

 

[assistbyhawkins]

Bob Gibson would top my list, his career was phenomenal and he had the greatest season any pitcher has ever had in 1968.

22-9, 1.12 ERA, 28 complete games, 13 shutouts, 304 innings and led the league in Ks. A year like that will never be duplicated in this day and age.

The rest of the list is tough.

Maddux has to be up there, as does Pedro, Clemens, Koufax, Seaver, Carlton. Wouldnt know where to begin.

 

[Tskware]

Would look at Randy Johnson and Nolan Ryan, for sure. Bob Feller, Carlton, Clemens, Seaver, awfully hard to come up with just a few.

 

[GhostVol]

Bob Gibson. For one reason: How many other pitchers can say that they pitched so well one season that they made baseball change the rules. That 1.12 ERA will stand for a LONG time.

 

[Tskware]

Originally posted by GhostVol:
Bob Gibson. For one reason: How many other pitchers can say that they pitched so well one season that they made baseball change the rules. That 1.12 ERA will stand for a LONG time.

I hear what you are saying, but he lost nine games that year playing for the NL champs, which leads me to believe that his performance was aided by the rules. IIRC, that was the all time lowest ERA for the entire major leagues in history. Sort of like saying that Sosa and McGwire and Bonds were the greatest hitters ever, when in reality they were the best during an era that overwhelmingly favored the HR.

Not taking anything away from Gibson, he was one of the all timers for sure, but I would not say it is mainly because of the 1.12 in 1968.

 

[TeoJ]

Walter johnson
Sandy Koufax
Nolan Ryan
Steve Carlton
Bob Gibson

I'd like my odds against anyone.

 

[cole854]

Originally posted by assistbyhawkins:
Bob Gibson would top my list, his career was phenomenal and he had the greatest season any pitcher has ever had in 1968.

22-9, 1.12 ERA, 28 complete games, 13 shutouts, 304 innings and led the league in Ks. A year like that will never be duplicated in this day and age.

Carlton 72, Guidry 78, and McClain in 68 as well......all comparable to Gibson's great year.

 

[Tskware]

Originally posted by cole854:

Originally posted by assistbyhawkins:
Bob Gibson would top my list, his career was phenomenal and he had the greatest season any pitcher has ever had in 1968.

22-9, 1.12 ERA, 28 complete games, 13 shutouts, 304 innings and led the league in Ks. A year like that will never be duplicated in this day and age.

Carlton 72, Guidry 78, and McClain in 68 as well......all comparable to Gibson's great year.

That was pretty much the point of my post as well. Cartlon was 27-10 with the worst team in the majors in 1972. And McClain won 30 games, but also with the WS champions behind him.

 

[JonathanW]

Wins & Loses are horrible gauges, especially for a single season (they are a bit better over a career with a larger sample size)! Every year you see a pitcher who consistently pitches very good or better, but gets much less run support than his fellow rotation members and thus has not a great W/L ratio, and likewise you see a pitcher who is mediocre or worse but get way more run support than his fellow rotation members and thus has a very good W/L ratio.

In Gibson's historic season he had 13 shutouts. In his other 21 starts, he still allowed only 2.33 runs, 1.81 earned runs per game. To further demonstrate the partially random variability in wins & loses, that same team had 2 other SPs (Briles and Carlton) with similar ERAs (2.81 to 2.99), and IP (243 to 232), and WHIP (1.25 to 1.18), and K rate (5.2 to 6.3); the first 2 stats were in Briles favor, the later 2 in Carlton's favor. Briles was 19-11, Carlton 13-11, very different W/L records.

 

[Tskware]

Originally posted by JonathanW:
Wins & Loses are horrible gauges, especially for a single season (they are a bit better over a career with a larger sample size)! Every year you see a pitcher who consistently pitches very good or better, but gets much less run support than his fellow rotation members and thus has not a great W/L ratio, and likewise you see a pitcher who is mediocre or worse but get way more run support than his fellow rotation members and thus has a very good W/L ratio.

In Gibson's historic season he had 13 shutouts. In his other 21 starts, he still allowed only 2.33 runs, 1.81 earned runs per game. To further demonstrate the partially random variability in wins & loses, that same team had 2 other SPs (Briles and Carlton) with similar ERAs (2.81 to 2.99), and IP (243 to 232), and WHIP (1.25 to 1.18), and K rate (5.2 to 6.3); the first 2 stats were in Briles favor, the later 2 in Carlton's favor. Briles was 19-11, Carlton 13-11, very different W/L records.

Although in general I agree with some of what you say, you can't dismiss Carlton's 1972 season so easily.

27-10 for a team that was 59-97 overall. Had 30 CG, with 8 SHO, WHIP was .993, 310 Ks in 346 innings. 27-10 with a team who was 32-87 in all other decisions, and had a .236 team BA. It was one of the greatest seasons ever for any pitcher.

 

[Tskware]

Just for the heck of it

I looked up the individual games that year, looks like Carlton won EIGHT games in 1972 when the Phillies scored 2 or less runs. That is just

 

[gamecockcat]

Maddux in '96: 19-2, 1.56 ERA (better than SECOND place by .9 !!!), WHIP < .9. Basically, the ML leader in almost every starting pitching category by a lot shot. And, his 1.56 ERA was in an era where every team had at least one guy hitting 50 HRs seemingly. Totally dominant.

 

[JonathanW]

For a 7 year period, during the thick of the steroid era and in 6 of those 7 years in the offense heavy AL East, Pedro Martinez was dominant.
- 3 Cy Youngs, a 2nd place & a 3rd place finish
- 118 Wins to 36 Loses
- 2.20 ERA, 0.94 WHIP, 11.3 K/9 across 7 seasons
- One season with a 1.74 ERA and 0.74 WHIP, the next best AL ERA was 3.70 (almost 2 runs higher), the next best WHIP was 0.45 higher, and he has an 11.7 WAR.

 

[TeoJ]

Originally posted by gamecockcat:

Maddux in '96: 19-2, 1.56 ERA (better than SECOND place by .9 !!!), WHIP < .9. Basically, the ML leader in almost every starting pitching category by a lot shot. And, his 1.56 ERA was in an era where every team had at least one guy hitting 50 HRs seemingly. Totally dominant.

Maddox was a great pitcher but he did get a lot of extra help.

 

[gamecockcat]

^Just curious - how much help does a pitcher need with a 1.56 ERA? Don't forget he won 20 games with the Cubs a time or tow, IIRC.

 

[TeoJ]

Originally posted by gamecockcat:
^Just curious - how much help does a pitcher need with a 1.56 ERA? Don't forget he won 20 games with the Cubs a time or tow, IIRC.

About 12 inches outside.

 

[3 fan]

Looking at the OP, is there any larger gap between first and second that Bench and Campanella? Johnny Bench is the greatest baseball player at his position of all time and it isn't even close.


And yes, I am a huge fan of Johnny Bench

 

[podgejeff_]

1. Walter Johnson
2. Roger Clemens
3. Grover Cleveland Alexander

I don't care what drugs Clemens probably took. Those same drugs were used by most of his competition. And he just dominated them anyway.

 

[podgejeff_]

For pitchers you probably make a 5 place vote.

For the record, if you were to do that, my next two would be Tom Seaver and then Greg Maddux.