Build a baseball dream team: Right-handed starter
May 25th, 2006Here’s the list for right-handed starting pitchers. Rank your top five. Use www.baseball-reference.com for stats:
Grover Cleveland Alexander
Three Finger Brown
Roger Clemens
Bob Feller
Bob Gibson
Ferguson Jenkins
Walter Johnson
Greg Maddux
Juan Marichal
Christy Mathewson
Kid Nichols
Jim Palmer
Gaylord Perry
Robin Roberts
Nolan Ryan
Tom Seaver
Ed Walsh
Cy Young
Cy Young
Roger Clemens
Christy Mathewson
Greg Maddux
Nolan Ryan
1. Gibson
2. W. Johnson
3. Seaver
4. Young
5. Mathewson
Second team: Clemens, Maddux, Feller, G. Perry, Marichal
I’m just going to say right now that if Walter Johnson doesn’t come out on top in this category, it’s a crying shame.
1. S. Paige (”the best and fastest pitcher I ever faced” - Joe DiMaggio; pitched 3 scoreless innings in the MAJOR LEAGUES at 58 yrs. old in 1965)
2. C. Mathewson
3. C. Young
4. G. C. Alexander
5. W. Johnson
This is by far the hardest to compare the modern era with the past. My modern list: 1. Clemens 2. Maddux 3. Seaver 4. Palmer 5. Gibson
Start Crying Tim…
…there is NO WAY that Walter Johnson is a slam dunk.
1. Young
2. Johnson
3. Gibson
4. Clemens
5. Seaver
How can a guy with a career ERA of 2.17 and 417 career wins on a pathetic team not be a slam dunk?
Brett,
Johnson is pretty close to a slam dunk. And it looks like the intial lists for RSP need a little bit of historic perspective.
Think about this. In the first year of the Hall of Fame, ‘36, only five men were inducted. They could have inducted many more than that, and the next year they did, but they wanted the initial class to be exclusive. The five men they put in were:
Cobb
Johnson
Mathewson
Ruth
Wager
Cy Young was left off of the lest, even though he had more wins, because he was not viewed to be in the same class as these guys. So, really you are left with two, Mathewson & Johnson.
Tim may be a little zealous in shutting out Mathewson, but Johnson’s numbers are better. He had 414 wins on mostly bad teams.
Paul
Greg Maddux
Nolan Ryan
Cy Young
Bob Gibson
Robin Roberts
OK I’ll buy it.
1. Walter Johnson
2. Satchel Paige
3. Cy Young
4. Greg Maddux
5. Roger Clemens
1. Walter Johnson
2. Christy Mathewson
3. Roger Clemens
4. Grover Cleveland Alexander
5. Bob Gibson
Maddux is more deserving than Gibson when you look at career stats but if I was building a team and could choose one to send out to the mound, I’d take Gibson.
1. Johnson
2. Clemens
3. Alexander
4. Young
5. Mathewson
This is by far the hardest list yet. I’m comfortable with all five on the list, but the order for the bottom four is a coin-toss, and I toyed with the list in several different ways.
I didn’t include Paige because there’s really no objective way of comparing his stats to anyone else’s.
Greg Maddux was close to making it, but I couldn’t justify having two contemporary pitchers among the top five of all time, and Clemens gets the edge over Maddux.
Gibson and Seaver were also in the hunt, and I can see an argument for including them. Ryan belongs nowhere near the top five, and isn’t even top 10.
1. Johnson
2. Matthewson
3. Paige
4. Clemens
5. Maddux
I hate the Cubs.
Johnson (not just trying to keep Tim from humiliating himself)
Mathewson
Young
Maddux
Marichal
There is a reason the award for the best pitcher each year is named after Cy Young.
I agree — because he has the most wins ever and is one of the greatest pitchers of all time.
Two words…Orel Hershiser…..
1. W. Johnson
2. C. Mathewson
3. S. Paige
4. B Gibson
5. R. Clemens
By far the hardest list. I probably wouldn’t argue with any of you on your lists, but I would love to have my list as the Cardinals’ starting rotation.
Ed Walsh was tough to leave off. Era 1.82, WHIP 1.00
If we had more verifiable stats Paige may be #1.
Had to have Gibby and The Rocket for their toughness.
Ryan is as tough as they come, but the numbers just don’t do it.
1. Gibson
)
2. Clemens
3. Ryan
4. Paige
5. Feller (but he spells it wrong…should have an “o” after the “F”
Watching a pitcher live can tell you a lot more than when you watch him on TV…
Having watched Ryan pitch live several times live…
and having watched Clemens pitch twice live…
…Ryan is not even close to being the pitcher Clemens is. He’s not even in the top 10, let alone the top five. Clemens, upon retirement, willl be in my top five.
This is easily the most difficult position by far.
I went with Paige as #1, but agree it’s hard to prove.
I admit, I probably put Johnson too low on my list (#5), but that was because of his winning percentage at under .600. But now that I think about it…I probably shouldn’t put as much stock in that in light of the fact that he probably didn’t get much run support.
Also, I’ve neglected to put active players on the list, and since Clemens is officially inactive, and we have no guarantee that he will return…and since he is on my fantasy team, he probably won’t…
So, for the first time, I want to change my list…
1. S. Paige
2. W. Johnson
3. R. Clemens
4. C. Mathewson
5t. C. Young
5t. G. C. Alexander
That is my final answer.
I really try not to put too much emphasis on wins and losses because more than pitching determines whether you win or lose. Walter Johnson had 38 1-0 wins and 26 1-0 losses. Not much run support there! 65 of his losses were shutouts.
What Mark Wohlers didn’t make the list? I am incensed.
Here are mine.
1. Cy Young-5 30 win seasons and 2803 career k’s? Are you kidding me?
2. Walter Johnson, of course.
3. Old Pete (alexander) - almost the same endurance as Young
4. Mathewson-ditto
5. Nolan Ryan
There’s going to be some brawls when my guys pitch. Don’t hug the plate unless you want one in the eye!
I am adopting a new name for myself. Three finger Brown. Does it matter that I have 5?
1. Cy Young
2. Nolan Ryan
3. Greg Maddux
4. Roger Clemens
5. Walter Johnson
6. Scott Gladin (Hey, I have a 10.50 ERA in 2 career IP, with 2 K’s. Oh, I forgot to mention I have 2 starts, and couldn’t record an out in the second inning of both games… Pitching wasn’t my thing. I should have unselfishly (word?) ranked myself in the catchers….)
This is a pretty tough list… I didn’t read any of the comments before I posted so as not to influence my votes.
Hey was Rocker a righty? I can’t remember. (Maybe we could put him as a fake third base coach, to make the other team think we’re calling a bunch of signs. They wouldn’t know the difference with all his twitching.) (Well, we’d have to put a few layers of duct tape over his mouth to shut him up. He might take a D-cell battery in the head.)
For those of you putting Nolan Ryan on your lists, I’m curious as to how you justify it.
Well, he was a master at making guys look silly walking out of the batters box towards the dugout - and he wasn’t afraid to protect the plate or his players. Just two examples of why he’s in the top five, in my opinion.
Gibson is conspicuously absent from too many lists as well, Tim.
Tim, these numbers stand out to me (I know you will probably disagree but this IS a subjective list, is it not?)
324 wins
222 Complete games
61 shutouts
5 no-hitters
5,714 K’s
Averaged only 3 intentional walks per year
Career average WHIP of 1.25 over a 27 year career
See, as good as Gibson was, I don’t think his numbers compare to those who are the best.
Gordon — here are the problems I have with Ryan. Yes, the numbers you gave are excellent (with the exception of his career WHIP, which isn’t that great).
But for his career, his 3.19 ERA was only marginally better than the league’s 3.57 ERA during the years he played. That ought to be one of the tests of a great pitcher — he should be considerably better than those he is playing against. Ryan was not.
And it’s a good thing he struck out a bunch of guys and averaged only three intentional walks per year — because he also averaged more than 4.5 walks per 9 IP (or more than one every other inning). Not only is that number not good, it’s terrible. I can’t justify ranking anyone who walks that many batters among the best of all time.
It’s funny that WHIP is a legit stat now. I think the Rotisserie guys made it up. It was always how I judged starting pitchers.
I justify Ryan by not only numbers but as was said earlier, there is an intimidation factor and a star factor. To some maybe overblown, but to me he is more of a legend than maddux or clemens. Perhaps that has to do with the latter being still active.
There is a dilemma in these kinds of lists. Of course choosing 5 means eliminating the others. This shouldn’t belittle their accomplishments, they all deserve to be there. In my opinion, paige’s ML numbers don’t justify his name there, but obviously there are other factors everyone else uses in their decision.
Looking back at the numbers, I still think Ryan should be there but if I had to choose another, it would be Gibson.
I will concede that Ryan wasn’t always dominant. I will even concede that he was only marginally better than most of his peers, but he was marginally better for a lot longer than the rest of his peers. 27 years as a pitcher? Come on, you have to give credit where credit is due.
You and I just value things differently, Gordon. You prefer a less-dominant player over a longer period. I prefer a more-dominant player over a shorter period.
There does seem to be a pattern of that in these discussions doesn’t there?
WHIP is still a very good measure of the quality of a pitcher. The three categories I mainly look at are ERA, WHIP and Strikeouts over a 162 game average.
As evidenced by the discussion we are going to disagree and by our own standards most of us will have legitimate arguments.
1.25 is an acceptable WHIP. As a rotisserie player I look for pitchers under 1.30. In this list of players the 1.25 of Ryan ranks 17th with the best being 1.00 of Ed Walsh. That is a pretty big margin for this stat. Ryan ranks 15th in ERA (3.19) in this list of players, but ranks first in strikeouts (245) over 162 games
I love Nolan Ryan as a pitcher and would take him on my team in a heartbeat. I personally didn’t think he was one of the top five pitchers based on stats, but I wouldn’t knock someone who included him either. I chose Clemens over Ryan because Clemens has a lower ERA (3.12), WHIP (1.17) and was 2nd in K’s (227) over 162 game avg.
1. Cy Young
2. Big Train
3. The Express
4. The Rocket
5. Pedro
On Pedro: “He’s the best I’ve ever seen,” said Jim Palmer, Hall of Fame pitcher and current Baltimore broadcaster. “I always said you need four things to be a great pitcher — location, movement, velocity, and deception. He’s got all those. Now, you add the intelligence he brings to the mound and we’re not talking about a mere mortal here.” plus he’s #2 all time in winning percentage ~ http://www.baseball-almanac.com/pitching/piwper1.shtml
Ryan pitched for some sorry teams most of his career. 7 no hitters is unatainable and his strikeouts would have been even higher if he would have pitched in the NL most of his career.
And the best game I ever saw was Clemens vs Ryan. what a game.
Found you courtesy of LJ hope you don’t mind me jumping in.
didn’t notice it was from the list, sorry didn’t read closer. In that case I’ll add Seaver but surely Pedro belongs ahead of Gaylor Perry.
You’re more than welcome to participate, Len. Thanks for stopping by.
Nolan Ryan voted best all-time from 1999 Mastercar/ Visa poll.
Clemens is on steroids.
Clemens lifetime ERA 3.11 with steroids.
Nolan Ryan with just Gatorade and some red meat with 3.19 ERA. Ryan has the most records of any pro athlete. 7 no-hitters, fewest hits allowed all-time per 9 innings, 5714 strikeouts, 61 shutouts, Reggie jackson, Pete Rose, Rod Carew, Thurman Munson, Ryne Sandburg, Darrell Porter, George Scott, Roberto Alomar, Will Clark, Ricky Henderson……many hundreds of hitters attest Nolan Ryan was the best they saw.
Fans forget pitchers like Ryan, Seaver, Gibson, Carlton,….etcetra