Best Pitcher Ever?

Is Roger Clemens the best pitcher ever?

My old college buddies have been chattering lately about him and his lousy luck with the Astros this season and last. He’ll be 44 years old this week, and despite his 2-4 record so far in this abbreviated season, Clemens' ERA is 2.09, his Whip is 1.04, and he’s struck out 40 batters in 47-1/3 innings.

It occurred to me that Clemens might go down in history as the greatest pitcher ever. He currently has 343 wins, 8th all time. Here is the list of guys ahead of him:

Cy Young
Walter Johnson
Pete Alexander
Christy Mathewson
Pud Galvin
Warren Spahn
Kid Nichols

Only Warren Spahn pitched after 1930. Galvin and Nichols mostly pitched in the 19th century. The era that those old timers pitched in was so different that they are virtually uncomparable. And frankly, who the hell has any idea how good ol’ Pud was? Anyone who saw him pitch is dead.

Baseball reference shows that Clemens’ closest comparisons are Tom Seaver (by a lot), Greg Maddux and Steve Carlton. Here are the career stats for Clemens as of the end of 2005:

Wins 341
Losses 172
IP 4704
K 4502 (2nd behind Ryan)
ERA 3.12/League ERA 4.46
6 AL Cy Young Awards, 1 NL CY
1 MVP (1986)

Seaver was 311-205, 4782 IP, 3640 K, 2.86/3.64 ERA/League ERA, 3 CY

Maddux at the end of 2005 was 318-189, 4406 IP, 3052 K, 3.01/4.15, 4 CY

Carlton was 329-244, 5217 IP, 4136 K, 3.22/3.70, 4 CY

Spahn was 363-245, 5243 IP, 2583 K, 3.09/3.65, 1 CY

Let's also look at:

Mathewson was 373-188, 4780 IP, 2502 IP, 2.13/2.88 ERA. Mathewson was 2nd for the 1911 MVP.

Johnson was 417-279 for those lousy Senators, 5914 IP, 3509 K's, 2.17/3.17. Johnson also won 2 MVP's. I sure would have liked to see Walter Johnson pitch.

A note about the Cy Young award: They didn't have Cy Young awards back when Mathewson was pitching because for some of that time, ol’ Cy was still pitching. The award was introduced in 1956, the year after Cy died at the age of 88. From 1956-1966 there was a single award for the entire major leagues. In 1967 they expanded the award to one for each league. So for the first half of Spahn’s career it didn’t exist, and during the second half of his career there was only 1 award annually, not two.

Clemens compares favorably to these guys. Incredible win total, great win-loss percentage, almost a strikeout per inning for over 2 decades. Though his ERA is not pristine, his ERA is much better than the league ERA, and in fact is lower than the league ERA by more, much more, than any other pitcher above. Clemens spent almost all of his career in the post-Ron Blomberg DH era, so all AL ERA’s are up substantially from previous periods.

I mention Ron Blomberg because my college buddies who started this discussion and I were there behind home plate in Fenway on April 6, 1973, the day Blomberg ruined AL baseball. BTW, he was quoted that day when asked how he liked being a DH, saying, “I don’t know how I’ll make out as a designated hitter, I’ve never done it before.”

I’m ready to give Clemens the nod. Does anyone have any other suggestions for research?

Bob Feller would probably have been under consideration except for missing his 4 prime years during WWII, the big one. He had 24, 25 and 27 wins before the war, and 26 in 1946. Another 100 or so wins would have allowed him to finish with around 360 wins. His K's would have been around 3500+, which would have been pretty close to Johnson's record at that time. Like Clemens, though, his ERA was higher: 3.25,(league average 3.97) though it probably would have been a little lower factoring in the loss of his prime years.

One other guy to speculate about is Babe Ruth. The Babe was 94-46 with 488 K’s in 1221 innings. His ERA was 2.28 (league 2.77). Here’s something you probably didn’t know: the Yankees trotted him out to pitch a game in 1930 at the age of 35 and again in 1933 at the age of 38. He won them both with complete games. His previous pitching appearance was in 1921 (2 appearances, 2 wins). You can only wonder what his numbers would look like if he didn’t make the switch to outfield.

And looking at the Babe’s stats, I see he played an occasional inning at first base for the Yankees after Gehrig joined the team. He certainly was versatile.

Since I mentioned Cy Young, I took a little look at him too. His numbers were just so massive as to defy comparison. I’ve written about him before as holding the two most unbreakable records in sport: most wins (511) and most losses (316).

Here are a few other Cy Young records that aren’t going anywhere either:

Most Innings – 7,354

Galvin is 2nd with 6,003, Johnson 3rd with 5,914. The next 6 players are from the modern era: Phil Niekro, Nolan Ryan, Gaylord Perry, Don Sutton, Spahn and Carlton. Clemens is 19th, Maddux 29th, the highest two active players.

Most Batters Faced – 30,058

That’s a funny statistic, and I included it just because it’s such a big number. The list of innings eaters is pretty much the same list.

Hits Allowed – 7,092

Galvin is second with 6,405. Somebody named Bobby Mathews is third with 5,591. Then again, it’s mostly the usual suspects.

Complete Games – 749

Galvin is second with 646. Seaver is tied for 99th with 231. No active player is in the top 100. This record is going nowhere.

Incidently, Galvin is the only other pitcher with over 300 losses, (310). Nolan Ryan is 3rd with 292.

One other thing about ol’ Cy: He never won the Cy Young award.