Who was the best pitcher of the steroid era?

And to kick off the debate, I’ve invited Danny Stahl, our friend and long-suffering Royals fan – and  amateur baseball analyst – to share his thoughts. He has written a very thorough and thoughtful essay, in which he comes to a very unfortunate conclusion for those who love Pedro…

Here it is, published in all its Pedro-hater (i.e. Maddux-loving) glory:

Who’s the best pitcher of our era?

So let me start by defining the question. ‘Best’ is a combination of every possible factor one would consider, and I’ll do my best to compile a list of pitchers who any somewhat knowledgeable baseball fan would consider. ‘Our ‘ is the Generation Y group who has grown up in this ‘era’ of baseball often described as the steroid era.

For me, the era starts on April 23rd, 1988. No, that’s not my birthday – that was 33 days earlier. No, April 23rd was Steve Carlton’s last game, and he was out of this world good (he won 27 games for a team that won only 59), so he’s the line I’m drawing.
Since then I can come up with only a handful of pitchers who are to be considered for this great honor. They are in no particular order:

Representing Starters:
Pedro Martinez
Roger Clemens
Randy Johnson
Greg Maddux
Tom Glavine
John Smoltz

Representing Closers:
Mariano Rivera
Trevor Hoffman

… ok so right off the bat, I was joking about both closers. Both were great in their own ways, but cannot be included in this list. I think the modern day 1-inning closer is bogus and proof of that is how bad the Royals are despite having the league leader in ERA starting every 5 days and one of the league’s best closers at the end. Closers play a smaller and smaller role these days.

OK, moving on. I’m going to eliminate John Smoltz due to his time spent as a closer, and Tom Glavine for being only the 2nd best on his own team behind Maddux. So that leaves Martinez, Clemens, Johnson, and Maddux. Once again, I’m making a speed judgment call, but because this is the ’steroid era’ we’re discussing, beating the big monsters at the plate is more impressive when you DON’T join in on the ‘roid party. Clemens eliminated. (Oh and he’s a jackass and I don’t like him, so according to Hall of Fame statute #5 Voting shall be based upon the player’s record, ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to his team) Roger has none of the bolded whatsoever. (http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3525/3238924680_891732c539_o.jpg).

Getting down to 2 was a bit harder, so I could actually do a one-on-one analysis. I chose to eliminate Johnson for a few reasons. First is that this blog loves Pedro, and next is the fact that Randy was great between the ages of 35-40, which is a little unbelievable to have happened without steroids. [Editor's Note: wo, wo, calm down, no one is accusing anyone of anything]. Also Randy too is a jackass, and was at his best when he got to move to the #2 slot behind Schilling on the Diamondbacks. So here we go, here’s the fight of the era, Pedro -vs- Madd Dog. We’ll start with some basics and go from there.

Pedro:
214-99 (.684), 2.91 ERA, 3117 K’s, 757 BB’s

Maddux:
355-227 (.610), 3.10 ERA, 3371 K’s, 999 BB’s

It’s even. Pedro wins in winning percentage, Maddux is 8th all time in wins. Pedro has a slightly lower ERA, Maddux has more K’s. So what in the world could separate these two? Here’s a few more detailed stats to go along with it.

K/BB-> Advantage Pedro
Pedro: 4.14
Maddux: 3.37

K/9-> Advantage Pedro
Pedro: 10.1
Maddux: 6.1

ERA+ -> Advantage Pedro
Pedro: 154
Maddux: 132

BB/9 -> Advantage Maddux
Pedro: 2.4
Maddux: 1.8

WHIP -> Advantage Pedro
Pedro: 1.051
Maddux: 1.143

Seems like I’m going to go with Pedro doesn’t it? Well I’m not and here’s why…

Greg Maddux is quite possibly not only the best pitcher in our era, but the best of all time. He’s 8th all time in wins, and has put together a longer more consistently productive career than anyone in baseball history. Despite the fact that people often say that Pedro had a “Kofax’esque” career, he has had 14 seasons of at least 20 starts. He played roughly from ages 21-35 in which he led the league in ERA 5 times, K’s 3, and Wins once, but also had seasons with win totals of 10, 11, 14, 13, 7, 14, 9, and 5. Remember, he played for the Red Sox and Mets, who averaged 4.93 runs/game in his lowest total year (2008). Pedro has only led the league in wins once (23) and despite lower totals, Maddux has done it three times (20, 16, 19).

During that same age span, Greg Maddux never won FEWER than 15 games. In fact he did it from ages 22-38, threw in a season of 13 wins, and then got another 15-win season at 40. His streak of 15+ win seasons is 17 years. For 17 straight years, he was great, posting a 3.10 ERA and never failing to get his team the wins they needed from their starter. I understand that he only won 20 games once, but never posting a season under 10 wins for 20 years surely makes up for it. I have to give the nod to the Mad Dog for all of this, and go ahead and throw in his 4 Cy Youngs and 18 Gold Gloves for fun.

Bring on the controversy, but my pick is the Mad Dog. And hey, chicks dig the longball.

-Danny Stahl

To those who love Pedro, or somehow Johnson, or – dare I say – even to those who love Clemens, you’d better bring your A-game. Danny Stahl has thrown down the gauntlet.

Open Thread: Who is the Best Pitcher of the Steroid Era? is a post from: Free Pedro

People like to point out that the Sox went 20-3 starting on August 10 that year, a stretch that put the Red Sox in the playoffs in a year in which they’d in the World Series for the first time in, well, a while. They seem to think that this game was the catalyst. Setting aside the fact that there were 16 days between this win and the very good stretch of baseball that the sox played in mid-to-late August, the truth is that we overstate how impressive that type of stretch is. I’ll spare you all the math–feel free to email me if you want to see it and have an interest in learning a little about binomial distributions–but the chance of a team with a .605 winning percentage having a 20-3 run at somepoint in a season is a little over 36%. Consider further that, with the trades they had made and whatnot, the team was better than a .605 team at that point, and it becomes even more likely that they’d have an .869 stretch over 23 games. Still, I think this was one of the few games in a baseball season that can have a real long-term impact.

Mariano Rivera has been calling the Red Sox his daddy for some time now. While Rivera is successful in his save attempts over 90% of the time versus the rest of the leage, he’s successful about 79% of the time versus the Red Sox. More than 20% of his blown saves have come against the Sox, far more than against any other team. This data is not an abberation, the stats suggest (at over a 99% confidence interval) that the Sox are in Mariano’s head. The Sox turn him from the closer with the second highest career save percentage of all time into Byung Hyun Kim (no joke). Do I think that a dramatic walk-off in a penant race can put the Sox in his head? Yes, I do. Dave Roberts helped, too.

This win was not the catalyst that put the Sox into the playoffs. It didn’t make them any more likely to win the Series in ‘04. So celebrate July 24, 2004 because it was a fantastic game on its own merit. That, and because Mariano now trembles at Fenway.

Happy Hit A-Rod in the Face Day is a post from: Free Pedro