 19
to 21…
No, that’s not how many left-handed pitchers have won 300
games.
Volume 7, #17, June 9, 2009
The Greatest Lefty of All
Alright, so just who is/was the greatest left-handed pitcher in
major league history? Randy Johnson’s 300th win last week
brought this subject to the forefront of the minds of many of baseball’s
deep thinkers, and, although it was not many years ago that the
debate about Johnson was more along the lines as to whether or not
he was a Hall of Famer, now the question is, can the Big Unit be
considered the Greatest Lefty of All?
It’s amazing the effect one statistic can have, but there’s
no denying that, as this now 45-year-old marvel inexorably threw
his way towards his 300th win, his W Count has basically erased
any doubts the populace may have had as to his greatness. Since
only five other left-handers have previously reached 300 wins, it
is true that this is a momentous accomplishment, but it’s
also true that Randy Johnson has been a great pitcher since, oh
the mid-90s or so, and that his greatness has, in reality, just
been reinforced by his 300 wins, not created by same. But, does
that make him the Greatest Lefty of All?
With only six southpaws in the 300 Club, one would think that Johnson
has, as of this last week, pitched himself into consideration for
that designation, even if he really didn’t do that much last
Thursday to help his Hall of Fame chances… he’s long-since
qualified himself for that honor. And while there is no way to certifiably
state the identity of the Greatest Lefty of All, there is at least
some fun in trying. First, let’s use the left-handed 300 Club
as a starting point.
Warren Spahn 363
Steve Carlton
329
Eddie Plank 326
Tom Glavine 305
Lefty Grove 300
Randy Johnson 300
And that’s it. Six pitchers, one from the Deadball Days,
one from the Lively Ball Days of the 20s and 30s, and four moderns.
They also define three basic win groupings --- Glavine/Grove/Johnson,
Plank and Carlton, and Spahn, who spread-eagles the field. Two types
of pitchers. Power pitchers – Carlton, Grove and Johnson;
and finesse pitchers – Spahn, Plank and Glavine.
Sure, there may be other favorite candidates for consideration
– candidates with shorter careers and lesser win totals; notably
Rube Waddell, Carl Hubbell, Whitey Ford and Sandy Koufax. But, ultimately,
don’t you think staying power, the ability to go out there
year after year and win, and win, and win, is an important criteria
of a great pitcher? Thus, we give a “nice try” to Messrs.
Waddell, Hubbell, Koufax and Ford, while we stick to the half dozen
300 game winners. (Note: While it may be tempting, based on their
288 and 283 wins, to include Tommy John and Jim Kaat in this discussion,
they aren’t even in the Hall of Fame, and haven’t even
gotten particularly close to being elected – so how can they
be considered the greatest?)
There are a lot of ways to measure a pitcher’s greatness
while trying to be objective. Let’s start by looking at their
basic statistics.
W-L
Pct. IP BB SO ERA ERA+ WHIP
Spahn 363-245 .597 5243 1434 2583 3.09 118 1.195
Carlton 329-244 .574 5217 1833 4136 3.22 115 1.247
Plank 326-194 .627 4496 1072 2246 2.35 122 1.119
Glavine 305-203 .600 4413 1500 2607 3.54 118 1.314
Grove 300-141 .680 3941 1187 2266 3.06 148 1.278
Johnson 300-165 .645 4102 1490 4850 3.28 136 1.171
Well now… let’s first be reminded that Plank pitched
in the Deadball Era, with few runs, few home runs and few strikeouts.
And Carlton (at the beginning of his career) and Spahn (at the end
of his) both benefited from the second lowest-scoring era, also
known as… the Sixties. Conversely, Grove, Glavine and Johnson
all toiled in high-scoring eras… clearly a point in their
collective favor. Anecdotally, in case you don’t realize it,
three of them (Plank, Grove and Carlton) spent most of their careers
in Philadelphia; Spahn and Glavine were primarily Braves (though
in three different cities); and Johnson has been all over the place
– the Giants are his sixth team (not including two different
stays in Arizona).
Starting from the left and working across, as noted, Spahn is the
big chief as far as Ws are concerned, while Grove’s won-loss
percentage is equally far above the others... although Johnson has
done himself proud in that metric as well. Everyone’s win
percentages shouldn’t be any great surprise, since all six
pitchers worked most of their careers for pretty good, and sometimes
great, teams. Of course, you have a pretty good start on being a
good team if you have a Spahn or Carlton or Grove on your staff.
Staying power is another measure of greatness… all of these
guys pitched seemingly forever, and Johnson is still doing so at
45 and Grove being the youngest upon retirement at age 41. (For
that matter, Glavine still wants to at 43, although whether he’ll
get the chance is still up in the air.) Carlton and Spahn by far
threw the most innings.
The only numbers that really jump out in their strikeout and walk
data are Johnson’s and Carlton’s Ks and Plank’s
walks. (There’s a joke in here about him making enemy hitters
Walk the Plank, but we’ll let that pass.) Johnson is second
all-time in strikeouts, and Carlton was, at one time, the leader
in career strikeouts, dueling with Nolan Ryan for the honor over
a period of a couple of months or so back in the early 80s.
Their ERAs and, to a lesser extent, WHIPs, are somewhat a product
of the era they pitched in. Thus, Plank’s eye-catching 2.35
isn’t really as good as Johnson’s 3.28.What is far more
revealing are the Adjusted ERAs, adjusted for the context of era,
ballpark, etc. It is here that the greatness of Lefty Grove stands
out. Grove’s 148 is not only 12 percent higher (that’s
what these are, percentages – Grove’s career ERA was
48 percent better that the league norm, factoring in his home parks)
than runner-up Johnson, but it’s the third highest of all
time, behind only Mariano Rivera and Pedro Martinez. Johnson has
nothing to be ashamed of either, his 136 mark is 21st all-time and
15th among all starters. The other four are all really pretty much
the same. As for WHIP, it’s here that Plank’s control
and the dead ball help him, while Johnson is second in this stat
as well, despite playing in a high offense era and despite his control
troubles as a young fireballer.
At this juncture, all six have points in their favor. Spahn’s
wins and longevity. Carlton’s strikeouts and longevity. Plank’s
control, ERA and WHIP. Glavine… well, anyone who has pitched
almost his entire career in such a high-octane offensive era deserves
his props. The same is true for Grove, and his W-L percentage and
ERA+ are unsurpassed. As for the Big Unit – he’s pitched
in the same era as Glavine, has a better W-L percentage, a whole
lot more strikeouts, a good WHIP, and a very good ERA+. He looks
pretty good, at this point.
While judging relative success in the postseason can be an iffy
judgment, given the small sample sizes and the fact that the number
of post season opportunities available to Plank, Grove and Spahn
were far less than those of the other three, the relative importance
of these opportunities means that they need to be considered, at
least in brief.
W-L
ERA
Plank 2-5
1.32
Grove 4-2
1.75 (and two saves)
Spahn 4-3
3.05
Carlton 6-6
3.26
Glavine 14-16 3.42
Johnson 7-9 3.50
Although Connie Mack always said that Charles Bender was his “money”
pitcher, Plank somehow ended up facing Christy Mathewson a lot in
the World Series. In fact, of his six World Series starts, three
were against Matty (with one each against fellow Hall of Famers
Joe McGinnity and Rube Marquard.) Thus a 1.32 ERA translated into
a losing record. Although Grove did get beat twice, he was a terror
in 1929, 1930 and 1931, even though Mack only used him out of the
bullpen against the largely right-handed hitting Cubs in ’29.
And, really, there’s not that much to choose from among the
others – they were all basically .500 pitchers with ERAs comparable
to their regular season marks. Score one for Grove, with a nod to
Plank.
Now, let’s look at how many times each pitcher led his league
in arguably the three most important stats – the Pitcher’s
Triple Crown stats – wins, strikeouts and ERA. While this
may be somewhat unfair to the finesse pitchers these are the three
most important pitching metrics.
W
K ERA Total
Plank 0
0 0 0
Grove 4
7 9 20
Spahn 8
4 3 15
Carlton 4
5 1 10
Glavine
5 0 0 5
Johnson 1 9 4 14
Now that’s interesting. Bet you didn’t know Eddie Plank
never lead his league in one of the three Triple Crown stats. For
that matter, he only had 15 points on the Black Ink Test, so he
hardly ever led the American League in any categories. Essentially,
he was a very good pitcher for a long time, but not really a dominating
one. At the opposite extreme, Grove won seven straight strikeout
crowns AND has the record for ERA titles, and he has 108 points
of Black Ink. Spahnie didn’t do too badly there, either, he
had 101 as part of his eight times leading the NL in wins. The others’
Black Ink totals include 96 for Johnson, 66 for Carlton and 29 for
Glavine. Grove, Spahn and Johnson look strongest here.
Finally, are there any mitigating factors in terms of circumstances
that might have held down any of these pitchers’ totals? Well,
yes. Plank wasn’t “discovered” until he was 25
(actually, almost 26) and just out of Gettysburg College…
scouting systems really didn’t exist in those days. Connie
Mack heard about him by word-of-mouth.
It’s well-known that Grove didn’t make the majors until
about the same age (he debuted a month after his 25th birthday),
since Baltimore Orioles owner Jack Dunn kept him in the minors far
longer than his talent would have indicated – is those days
there were no farm systems and no reason to sell a player to the
majors if it wasn’t financially feasible.
Spahn was a genuine war hero, fighting at the bridge at Remagen
during World II – he didn’t win his first game until
1946, when, like Plank and Grove, he was 25. However, this is a
factor that some have postulated as working in Spahn’s favor,
since he didn’t throw a lot of innings in his early youth
– he was in the army instead. But, wait a minute, look at
his minor league stats. Although he only threw 66 innings at the
age of 19 in 1940, he was out there for 212 innings at age 20 and
248 innings (plus another 16 in the majors) at 21. So maybe those
three years (1943-45) off helped save his arm, or maybe he would
have been ready to go long before he won his first major league
game in 1946. He won 36 games with ERAs under 2.00 in the minors
in 1941 and 1942. Maybe he would have won 400 without the war. We’ll
never know.
So there you have it. Who’s the best, the Greatest Lefty
of All Time? Randy Johnson is great, alright, maybe the third greatest
ever, but ultimately it comes down to Grove and Spahn (with Carlton
fourth, Plank fifth and Glavine sixth). There’s no denying
that 148 ERA+, a good 30 percent better than Spahns’. Just
like there’s no denying those nine ERA titles and those seven
straight K crowns. Just think what his numbers would have been like
if he’d been in the majors at 21, as his pure talent would
have indicated. Maybe he would have won 400 as well since, in the
five seasons between the ages of 20 and 24, Grove won 111 games
in the minors, all but three in the very fast competition of the
International League. We also cannot leave out the fact that there
is a fair body of opinion out there that either Walter Johnson or
Lefty Grove was the Greatest Pitcher of All Time. And while he may
have been a jerk (there’s a fair body of opinion about that,
too), that certainly makes Grove, hands down, the Greatest Lefty.
-- John Shiffert
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