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Great
Pitching Seasons
Do people recognize how great a 1999 and
2000 Pedro Martinez really had? In my view, he has established
himself as the best pitcher in at least 40 years, surpassing even the
run Greg Maddux had in the early 1990s.
Want evidence? OK, try this - in 1999, Martinez pitched 213.1
innings, giving up 160 hits and walking 37 batters. That means
that he allowed 8.31 baserunners per 9 innings. The next best in
the AL was Eric Milton, who allowed 11.04 baserunners per 9 innings - a
gap of 2.7 BR9. That is an astonishing number, one that the game
has never seen before - for instance, in 1968, Bob Gibson smoked the
National League with a 22-9 record and a microscopic ERA of 1.12.
He allowed just 7.68 BR9, yet 8 NL pitchers were within 2 BR9 of this
mark (Tom Seaver was the closest to Gibson, allowing 1.1 BR9
more).
Remember Ron Guidry's 1978 season, when he went 25-3?
He allowed just 8.52 BR9, but the nearest competitor was within 1.05
BR9.
In his heyday, Sandy Koufax was widely heralded as the most dominant
pitcher the game had ever seen. Indeed, he racked up 3 unanimous
Cy Young Awards in 4 years, something that has never accomplished before or
since. In none of those years did he beat the nearest competitor
by more than 0.8 BR9 - in 1965, Koufax's best year in this regard, 9
pitchers were within 2.7 BR9 of him.
In fact, go way back to Walter Johnson, maybe the best pitcher who ever
lived. Only once did he approach the kind of edge that Pedro had
in 1999 - in 1913, Johnson's MVP season, he went 36-7 and had a 1.14
ERA. He allowed 7.02 BR9, about 2.3 BR9 lower than the
competition.
Now remember that both Johnson and Koufax had
extremely favorable pitcher's parks to throw in throughout their careers
- Koufax absolutely loved cavernous Dodger Stadium (which has the lowest
run index of any ballpark in the game's history), and Johnson and the
Senators played in Griffith Stadium, with one of the ten lowest run
indexes the game has ever seen. Martinez pitches in Fenway
Park,
one of the game's liveliest ballparks.
Based on the foregoing, then, one can make a good case that no pitcher
was ever stingier than Pedro Martinez in 1999 when it came to
allowing baserunners.
Now consider this: in 2000, he pitched
217 innings, allowing 128 hits and issuing 32 walks. That means he
allowed 6.64 BR9, more than 4 BR9 better than second-place Mike Mussina.
Case closed.
A very good way to measure a pitcher's success is to look at his ERA
compared to the league average ERA. Here are the top 20 relative ERAs since WWII - the "relative
ERA" is the ratio of the pitcher's ERA to the league average ERA:
| |
Pitcher |
W-L |
ERA |
Lg.
Avg. ERA |
RERA |
| 2000 |
Pedro Martinez |
19-9 |
1.74 |
4.91 |
.354 |
| 1994* |
Greg Maddux |
16-6 |
1.56 |
4.21 |
.365 |
| 1968 |
Bob Gibson |
22-9 |
1.12 |
2.99 |
.375 |
| 1995* |
Greg Maddux |
19-2 |
1.63 |
4.18 |
.379 |
| 1999 |
Pedro Martinez |
23-4 |
2.07 |
4.86 |
.425 |
| 1985 |
Dwight Gooden |
24-4 |
1.53 |
3.59 |
.426 |
| 1996 |
Kevin Brown |
17-11 |
1.89 |
4.34 |
.435 |
| 1997 |
Roger Clemens |
21-7 |
2.05 |
4.57 |
.449 |
| 1997 |
Pedro Martinez |
17-8 |
1.90 |
4.22 |
.451 |
| 1964 |
Dean Chance |
20-9 |
1.64 |
3.63 |
.455 |
| 1981* |
Nolan Ryan |
11-5 |
1.69 |
3.70 |
.456 |
| 1978 |
Ron Guidry |
25-3 |
1.74 |
3.76 |
.463 |
| 1966 |
Sandy Koufax |
27-9 |
1.73 |
3.61 |
.479 |
| 1953 |
Warren Spahn |
23-7 |
2.10 |
4.29 |
.490 |
| 1964 |
Sandy Koufax |
19-5 |
1.74 |
3.54 |
.492 |
| 1990 |
Roger Clemens |
21-6 |
1.93 |
3.91 |
.494 |
| 1955 |
Billy Pierce |
15-10 |
1.97 |
3.96 |
.497 |
| 1997 |
Randy Johnson |
20-4 |
2.28 |
4.57 |
.499 |
| 1971 |
Tom Seaver |
20-10 |
1.76 |
3.47 |
.507 |
* Strike-shortened
How does one choose among
these seasons? In an era of five-man rotations and early hooks,
the impressive stats posted by Martinez and Maddux should probably be
looked at with some skepticism. For instance, Warren Spahn threw
265 innings in 1953, and threw 24 complete games; Koufax in 1965 and
1966 completed 27 games each time. Martinez threw 7 complete games
in 2000, and just 5 in 1999; he didn't have more than 220 innings in
either season.
Notice that Denny McLain's 1968, when he went 31-6, does not appear here
- his ERA of 1.96 was spectacular, but relative to the league average
his relative ERA of 0.658 doesn't come close to the top seasons on this
list. Of course, he logged a league-high 336 innings; but given
that his ERA was only good enough for fourth place that year in the AL,
you have to believe that he wasn't as valuable to his team as Bob Gibson
was to the Cards.
Prior to the expansion in 1961, my chosen statistical measure can be
misleading because of the concentration of talent, the various live ball
and dead ball eras that have gone by, and the fact that pitchers often
threw vast numbers of innings relative to contemporary hurlers.
But a few seasons stand out (bold indicates led the league):
| |
Pitcher |
W-L |
ERA |
RERA |
IP |
| 1914 |
Dutch Leonard |
19-5 |
1.00 |
.366 |
224.2 |
| 1913 |
Walter Johnson |
36-7 |
1.14 |
.389 |
346.0 |
| 1906 |
Mordecai Brown |
21-7 |
1.04 |
.397 |
277.0 |
| 1912 |
Walter Johnson |
33-12 |
1.39 |
.416 |
369.0 |
| 1905 |
Christy Mathewson |
31-9 |
1.28 |
.428 |
338.2 |
| 1909 |
Christy Mathewson |
25-6 |
1.14 |
.440 |
275.0 |
| 1901 |
Cy Young |
33-10 |
1.62 |
.443 |
371.1 |
| 1915 |
Pete Alexander |
31-10 |
1.22 |
.444 |
376.1 |
| 1918 |
Walter Johnson |
23-13 |
1.27 |
.458 |
326.0 |
| 1919 |
Walter Johnson |
20-14 |
1.49 |
.463 |
290.1 |
| 1884 |
Old Hoss Radbourn |
59-12 |
1.38 |
.463 |
678.2 |
| 1907 |
Jack Pfiester |
14-9 |
1.15 |
.467 |
195.0 |
| 1931 |
Lefty Grove |
31-4 |
2.06 |
.470 |
288.2 |
| 1907 |
Carl Lundgren |
18-7 |
1.17 |
.476 |
207.2 |
| 1902 |
Jack Taylor |
23-11 |
1.33 |
.478 |
324.2 |
| 1908 |
Addie Joss |
24-11 |
1.16 |
.486 |
325.0 |
| 1933 |
Carl Hubbell |
23-12 |
1.66 |
.519 |
308.2 |
| 1894 |
Amos Rusie |
36-13 |
2.78 |
.522 |
444.0 |
| 1884 |
Guy Hecker |
52-20 |
1.80 |
.539 |
670.0 |
| 1912 |
Smokey Joe Wood |
34-5 |
1.91 |
.572 |
344.0 |
In addition, Pete Alexander's 1916 deserves special mention: he went
33-12, posted an ERA o f 1.55 and a relative ERA of 0.598, all in a
ballpark - the Baker Bowl -
that was all of 280 feet down to the right-field foul pole. And
Big Ed Walsh went 40-15 in 1908, logging 464.0 innings of work (139 more
than Joss, his nearest competitor) and posting a miniscule ERA of 1.42 (RERA
of 0.594), a tremendous accomplishment for a very high workload.
Jack Chesbro did something very similar back in 1904: a 41-12 record for
the Yankees, over 454.2 innings pitched, an ERA of 1.82 (a RERA of
0.70).
But for sheer relative dominance over an extended cycle of innings
pitched, my vote goes to Charlie "Old Hoss" Radbourn, who
carried the 1884 Providence Grays on the back of his microscopic ERA of
1.16, when the league average was 2.98 - exactly what it was in
1968. Walter Johnson and Christy Mathewson might have been better
in single seasons, but Old Hoss pitched twice the number of
innings that the Big Train and Matty put up.
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