Your Questions About Shingles

admin answers:

Ooh, interesting

Gibson
Koufax
Young
Carlton
Feller
Seaver
Paige
Palmer

admin answers:

Johnson, Matthewson, Alexander, Gibson and Grove would excel.
The rest should do well, but not awesome

admin answers:

Koufax
Young
Feller
Paige

admin answers:

Probably Walter Johnson in terms of on-field accomplishments in the context of a player’s particular time period.

The top 4 all time in when taking into account a pitcher’s effectiveness per game and the length of their careers would probably rank Johnson, Grove, Grover Cleveland Alexander and Cy Young as the top 4 pitchers of all time.

In comparing these guys, Grove was more effective per inning pitched, but Johnson’s career was much longer. Young was a little below Johnson’s level of effectiveness per inning pitched, but Young’s career was much longer. Alexander was also better than Johnson on an inning-per-inning basis, but his career wasn’t nearly as long.

Christy Mathewson was probably the 4th best pitcher of his generation, behind Johnson, Alexander and Young. Mathewson had only one season (1905) in which he was the best pitcher in baseball, plus he had about 3 other seaons in which he was the best NL pitcher, but not as good as the best AL pitcher. And Mathewson was certainly never the equal of Walter Johnson.

If I was going to rate the pitchers you listed in order, I’d rank them:

1) Walter Johnson
2) Lefty Grove
3) Cy Young
4) Warren Spahn
5) Tom Seaver
6) Christy Mathewson
7) Bob Gibson
8) Sandy Koufax
9) Bob Feller
10) Steve Carlton
11) Nolan Ryan

I’d also throw in Alexander, Carl Hubbell, Robin Roberts and Greg Maddux to round out a top 15 (I’d leave out Roger Clemens because of his use of PEDs) I’d rank Alexander about 3rd on this list, behind Johnson and Grove.

Robin Roberts is very underrated, mostly because he had several years as the best pitcher in baseball, but that was just prior to the creation of the Cy Young award. The Cy Young award started at about the time when Young died in the mid 1950s. Had he died a few years earlier, they would have started the award sooner, and Roberts would have won it several times. But hey, that’s life.

Not that Roberts would be considered the best pitcher ever today had the Cy Young award existed earlier, but he would be regarded much more highly than he has been without having the Cy Young awards to show for it.

In reality, Satchel Page was probably the greatest pitcher ever if Walter Johnson wasn’t. I think it’s between those two.

I like your choices though…a nice mixture of recent players and old timers.

admin answers:

Which site had this?

But I think Koufax is the best pitcher ever. I doubt people would pick anyone over him to start the most important games.

All of these pitchers were great, and in different times. But the list is missing Pedro Martinez, he had a few of the best seasons ever.