Write On Sports LLC - "The Best Pitcher of All Time (Part One)" by Troy Somero

The Best Pitcher of All Time (Part One)

2007-05-31 21:11:28 | By: Troy Somero

The biggest news story in Major League Baseball this week is the return of Roger Clemens to the big leagues. With The Rocket returning to the Yankees as early as this weekend's series with the Red Sox, baseball fans are wondering if Clemens will be as effective this season as he has been throughout his career.

While it is quite clear that Roger Clemens is one of the best pitchers of all time, one has to wonder what Clemens' place in pitching history will be when he hangs up his spikes for the very last time. Since 1986 Roger Clemens has been the very best pitcher in baseball, but does his 1986 – present reign compare favorably to the careers of legendary, dead-ball pitchers like Cy Young and Christy Mathewson? In addition, how do the dichotomous careers of 1960s greats Bob Gibson and Sandy Koufax compare to that of Clemens? Has Clemens' career even been better than the respective careers of his contemporary rivals in Pedro Martinez, Greg Maddux, and Randy Johnson?

In short, is Roger Clemens the best pitcher of all time? If not, then who is? Over the next week I will undertake three-part study in order to determine the answer to the following question: Who is the best pitcher of all time?

In order to determine who the best pitcher of all time is, one first needs to determine how to compare the many men who have thrown the baseball during the almost 200 years of baseball history. The simple answer to this contextual problem is one word: statistics. Statistics are more objective than mere opinion and can therefore take personal bias and skewed truthfulness out of a usually subjective debate such as this one. However, the decision of which statistics to use for such a study and how to use them is subjective in of itself.

In order to take all factors (when a pitcher pitched, where he pitched, who he pitched against, how long he pitched for, etc.) into consideration, the group of statistics chosen needs to be equally distributed across these factors to determine that one of the factors does not supersede the rest. Most baseball minds would agree that the best pitcher of all time would need to fulfill two requirements. First, he would have to have impressive career statistics that set him apart from the other greats. Second, he would have to have pitched long enough to be considered the greatest pitcher of all time. Therefore, I have attempted to combine each of these requirements equally in this study by choosing eight statistics to view today. The first four statistics are geared more towards a pitcher's career longevity, while the second four statistics view a pitcher's career numbers regardless of longevity.

Win Percentage:
There is no better gauge of a pitcher's success on the mound than his ability to both win games and not lose games. The greatest pitcher of all time needs to win when should win and avoid losses as often as possible.

Wins:
While win percentage is important, some pitchers can have a solid win percentage and only pitch half the number of games as their competitors. The greatest pitcher of all time needs to be someone who has won a significant number of games when compared to the thousands of other pitchers who have pitched in the majors.

Innings Pitched:
Like the two statistics listed above, this stat is catered towards a pitcher that has put up impressive numbers game-in and game-out over a long career. Great pitchers eat up innings, so nothing less should be expected from the game's greatest pitcher.

Strikeouts:
Striking a batter out is the most dominant thing that a pitcher can do to a batter. It takes a long, strong career to garner a significant number of strikeouts, and it also takes a long, strong career to be considered the greatest pitcher of all time.

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Strikeouts-to-Walks Ratio:
Strikeouts over the course of an entire career are important, but great pitchers also need to exhibit great pitch control. If a pitcher walks just as many batters as he strikes out, then all of his career strikeouts are for naught. This ratio ensures that the greatest pitcher of all time is one who has superb pitch control.

ERA:
The ultimate pitching statistic, which tells all baseball aficionados how many runs a pitcher gives up per game throughout his entire career. While win percentage and total wins take a pitcher's ability to win into account, these two statistics also depend on the offense that supports a pitcher. A great offense creates more wins, but at the same time great offense never affects a pitcher's ERA.

Adjusted ERA:
An index-based number that attempts to neutralize park factors and hitters' performances. This stat takes ERA to a higher level, figuring out what a pitcher's ERA would be throughout his career if he pitched under the exact same conditions as every other pitcher in baseball history. *(Note: Unlike the standard ERA, the higher a pitcher's adjusted ERA is, the better it is.)

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WHIP:
The greatest pitcher of all time is also a pitcher who allows few runners on-base. This statistic provides an excellent look into just how many base runners a pitcher has allowed per inning throughout his entire career.

With each of the eight statistics described above, we can now take a look into how the top pitchers of all time compare across each of these statistics. In the chart below there are two different comparisons. The career stats courtesy of baseball-reference.com are under each of the eight category headings in the chart. Next to each of these columns are columns labeled "Rank". These columns show the rank that each pitcher has for each respective statistic across the entire history of the game. For example, the first two cells in the chart demonstrate that Bob Gibson has a .591 career winning percentage, which ranks him 141 st all time for career win percentage amongst all pitchers.

Chart 1

Player	Win%	Rank	Wins	Rank	IP	Rank	K	Rank
Bob Gibson	0.591	141	251	44	3884.3	44	3117	13
Christy Mathewson	0.665	17	373	3	4780.7	18	2502	29
Cy Young	0.618	72	511	1	7354.7	1	2803	19
Greg Maddux	0.62	69	336	10	4670.7	21	3204	11
Grover Alexander	0.642	33	373	3	5190	10	2198	49
Joe Wood	0.672	11	117	408	1436.3	718	989	416
Lefty Grove	0.68	9	300	21	3940.7	42	2266	45
Nolan Ryan	0.526	508	324	14	5386	5	5714	1
Pedro Martinez	0.691	4	206	99	2645.7	194	2998	15
Randy Johnson	0.654	25	282	31	3834.3	47	4591	3
Roger Clemens	0.662	20	348	8	4817.7	15	4604	2
Sandy Koufax	0.655	24	165	194	2324.3	277	2396	38
Steve Carlton	0.574	204	329	11	5217.3	9	4136	4
Tom Seaver	0.603	103	311	18	4782.7	1	3640	6
Walter Johnson	0.599	116	417	2	5914..7	3	3509	9
Warren Spahn	0.597	122	363	6	5243.7	8	2589	24
Player	K:BB	Rank	ERA	Rank	Adjusted ERA	Rank	WHIP	Rank
Bob Gibson	2.33	116	2.91	139	127	41	1.188	110
Christy Mathewson	2.96	31	2.13	8	135	20	1.059	5
Cy Young	2.3	124	3.62	57	138	15	1.13	35
Greg Maddux	3.37	15	3.08	190	135	20	1.137	44
Grover Alexander	2.31	112	2.56	48	135	20	1.121	32
Joe Wood	2.35	107	2.03	4	146	3	1.085	10
Lefty Grove	1.91	282	3.06	179	148	2	1.278	362
Nolan Ryan	2.04	219	3.19	243	112	255	1.247	255
Pedro Martinez	4.28	3	2.81	102	160	1	1.026	3
Randy Johnson	3.24	21	3.23	259	137	17	1.164	76
Roger Clemens	2.97	29	3.1	200	144	8	1.17	83
Sandy Koufax	2.93	33	2.76	90	131	33	1.106	22
Steve Carlton	2.26	141	3.22	250	115	182	1.247	254
Tom Seaver	2.62	52	2.86	122	127	41	1.121	30
Walter Johnson	2.57	59	2.17	11	146	3	1.061	6
Warren Spahn	1.8		3.09	192	118	135	1.195	120

The chart above details the information we needed (how the greatest pitchers of all time ranked across our chosen statistical categories), but there is still something lacking in order to draw a more simplistic conclusion from the many numbers highlighted above. The chart below resolves this issue. This second chart takes the average of all of the rankings for each pitcher across all eight categories into account. The first statistical column indicates the average of all of the rankings (Rank) columns above. The second statistical column re-ranks the sixteen pitchers based on this average ranking in the column to the left.

Chart 2

Player	Average Rank Across All Categories	Index
Walter Johnson	5.5	1
Christy Mathewson	5.625	2
Pedro Martinez	6	3
Roger Clemens	6.5	4
Cy Young	6.625	5
Grover Alexander	7.75	6
Greg Maddux	7.875	7
Joe Wood	8.5	8
Randy Johnson	8.875	9
Tom Seaver	9.25	10
Sandy Koufax	9.625	11
Bob Gibson	10	12
Lefty Grove	10.125	13
Nolan Ryan	11	14
Warren Spahn	11	14
Steve Carlton	11.125	16

With this second chart there is now an easy-to-understand comparison amongst the greatest pitchers of all time across the eight categories outlined at the start of this study. There are many impressive conclusions to gather from this chart.

First of all, it is clear that Walter Johnson is the greatest pitcher of all time in the context of this study. If you do not know who Walter Johnson is, do not feel too embarrassed, as so-called "Big Train" has not thrown a pitch in the majors since 1927. Johnson did pitch in Major League Baseball for twenty seasons, which helps to explain why to this day he still ranks second all-time in wins, third in innings pitched and sixth in strikeouts. Longevity aside, Johnson's career statistics are just as impressive when his twenty seasons are taken out of the context of number of years pitched. Johnson also ranks third all-time in both ERA and adjusted ERA and fifth in WHIP. Subjectively, many more baseball fans would name Cy Young or Nolan Ryan off the top of their heads as the greatest pitcher of all time. Objectively, it is clear that as of the end of the first part of this study, the title of baseball's G.O.A.T. belongs to Walter Johnson.

With study striving to eliminate subjectivity as much as possible, it is comforting to see a mix of baseball eras at the top of these rankings. Two dead-ballers – Johnson and Christy Mathewson – rank in the top two, but two pitchers who are still active – Pedro Martinez and Roger Clemens – rank third and fourth, respectively, in this number-crunching. The one pitching era that seems to suffer from this study is the middle years of the nineteen century, as Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, Lefty Grove, Warren Spahn and Steve Carlton all fall out of the top ten and all had major league careers that fell between 1940 and 1990.

Perhaps the most impressive conclusion to come to at this point in the study is the fact that the five best pitchers on the second chart (Johnson, Mathewson, Martinez, Clemens, and Cy Young) really should be considered the five best pitchers of all time. The difference in final ranking between Johnson and Young ( 1.125) is the same as the difference between Young and Randy Johnson (1.125), who ranks sixth in the chart above. Clearly these men have set themselves apart from the other eleven pitchers in this study in terms of the combination of statistical longevity and statistical superiority.

While the course of a pitcher's entire career can accurately portray just how good of a pitcher he is, there is another way to gauge who the best pitcher of all time is. The question to answer in this context is which of these pitchers would have the best 162-game season if all factors (ballpark, year, run support, defense, etc.) were equal for all pitchers? Part Two of this study takes a look at this scenario.