While watching Randy Johnson pitch last night, I heard the announcer say he was perhaps the best left-handed pitcher ever to play the game. While he certainly is one of the best, who is number one? Let's go to the stats- and while we're at it, let's throw in some crazy comparisons.
I will narrow the field to four: Johnson (all-time strike out leader among lefties), Steve Carlton (Once the all-time strikeout king), Warren Spahn (more wins than any other lefty) and Sandy Koufax (perhaps the greatest pitcher to ever play).
Koufax had a short career, while the other three had careers that were quite long. Spahn and Johnson pitched well even in their 40s, while Carlton declined at that age. Carlton retired with four Cy Young Awards, the most by any pitcher ever at the time of his retirement.
One way to establish how dominant a player was is to compare him to his peers, players of his era. Each one of these pitchers had their own decade of dominance- Spahn in the 1950s, Koufax in the 1960s, Carlton in the 1970s, and Johnson from 1994-2004. Let's go to the numbers.
Number of times leading league in strikeouts:
Spahn- 4
Koufax- 4
Carlton- 5
Johnson- 9
Number of times leading league in wins:
Spahn- 8
Koufax- 3
Carlton- 4
Johnson- 1
Number of ERA titles:
Spahn- 3
Koufax- 5
Carlton- 1
Johnson- 4
Based on these numbers alone, it looks like Carlton needs to be dropped from consideration. Despite being a workhorse and a dominant pitcher, he just can not stack up to the others.
Three to go.
How much should durability count? Is longevity an importnat ingredient in greatness? Certainly, Spahn and Johnson are considered greats in part because of their ability to rack up wins year after year. Koufax was forced to retire at 30 due to an arthritic shoulder. He retired in the same year he led the league in wins, strikeouts, and ERA. While longevity can contribute to greatness, Koufax should not be penalized (at least too much) for not having a long career.
Winning percentage-
Spahn .597
Koufax .655
Johnson .658
While Johnson has the lead, he also had the benefit of pitching in an era where relief pitching is far more dominant than it was in the 50s-60s. Look at the complete game stats:
Spahn 382
Koufax 137
Johnson 95
and Koufax compiled that number in 155 less starts than Johnson.
This is not to say that Johnson is a lesser pitcher- but it does make the winning percentage of Koufax at .655 far more impressive than Johnson's .658. What would Spahn's winning percentage be if he had a 40 save closer pitching behind him?
In every strikeout category, Koufax has the edge. Johnson led the league in Ks/9IP an astounding 9 times, but over the course of 15 seasons. Foufax did it 6 times, in only 9 seasons. Johnson has led the league three times in Walks+Hits/IP. Koufax did it four times.
Bye bye Randy. You ain't no Sandy.
And then there were two. Spahn vs. Koufax.
Spahn also led the league in Walks+Hits/IP four times, but over a much longer career. Each was named The Sporting News' Pitcher of the Year four times, back when TSN was THE baseball authority. Koufax has an equal number of statistical league leads equal to Spahn, in a far shorter span. Koufax won three Cy Young awards in four years, in an era when only won award was given out for all of baseball. In that four year span, the one time he did not win the award was 1964, when it was given to Dean Chance. In 1964, Koufax was 19-5 with a 1.74 ERA.
The career of Koufax is the epitome of dominance. No other pitcher distanced himself from his peers as Koufax did, and the numbers back that up.
posted by The leftist southpaw @ 3:36 PM
4 Comments:
Any discussion of "the greatest left-handers of all time" which omits Lefty Grove, widely regarded by baseball historians as THE greatest pitcher of all time, is a bad joke.
Grove won 9 ERA titles. Until Clemens (7 titles) came along, nobody else had more than 5. Nobody else who has won 300 games, or even 250, has a W-L % near Grove's .680. And Grove got screwed out of the first 5 years of his career because a minor league private team owned his rights, which they sold to Connie Mack for over $100,000. Otherwise, Grove wins 10 or 11 ERA titles and god-knows-how-many games. At least 360, probably more like 400.
And Grove was not a Dead Ball pitcher, who got to lob in 3/4 of his pitches, like Johnson, Young and Mathewson did. He pitched his entire career with the live ball, and he did so in parks that were atrocious for left-handed pitchers. He won his last four ERA titles after his 35th birthday, as a left-handed pitcher in Fenway Park. (Reread that sentence a few times.)
Someone needs to rewrite this thread. Or delete it.
Hey, you people need to remember that Spahnie missed four years because of WW-II and pitched 2 no-hitters after (or near) 40 yrs old. His only rap is he didn't know when to quit.
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Lefty Grove really cannot be considered the greatest pitcher because he picked which games he wanted to pitch in and avoided pitching against the best teams. He also frequently left the mound whenever he wanted.
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