CTbballDad posted:LUV you’re certainly entitled to your opinion, but most everything you mention is opinion, not really based on facts or data.
Being top 50 sounds like a compliment, but considering there are only 77 pitchers in the HOF you put him in the bottom half.
You make the claim that his large number of wins was due to longevity. Below are the average wins per season including the pitchers you rank ahead of him:
- Maddux (23): 15.4
- Seaver(20): 15.5
- Gibson(17): 14.8
- Palmer(19): 14.1
- Carlton(24): 13.7
Now, most analytics guys will tell you Wins don’t mean anything, they love WAR. Seaver is #6 of all time, Maddux is #7. Total WAR can be positively influenced by numer of years (unless one has a negative WAR season, which surprising each player did). When you average per year, Seaver has a good advantage over Maddux, Gibson is essentially tied, Palmer and Carlton aren’t close.
Seaver and Carlton had .500 records in the post season, where Gibson and Palmer had exceptional records. Comparing many other stats from other eras is difficult, mound, dead ball, steroids, etc. But if you look at each pitchers ERA, they posted similar post season stats as they had in the regular. Maddux, Carlton and Palmer had higher post season WHIP, where Gibson and Seaver were better.
I know it's cheating, but if you throw away Maddux first post season as a 23 YO, he’d have a career 2.88 ERA.
Finally, as a huge Tom Glavine fan, I agree that he was better. IMO of course!
Ave wins per season for Maddox is a pure function of two things:
His durability/consistency and the inferior competition. As noted his durability is at the very top of history and if I was going to start a Franchise is something of exceptional value. My contention is that he took that durability and inferior competition and he maxed out his regular season numbers. It makes him a great pitcher to get you to the World Series, but once there his value drops significantly because the competition eliminated that value because of their quality.
I will confess to being a big Seaver guy and his 3 post season losses were to 69 Orioles 73 Reds and 73 A's. In that 73 A's WS loss Reggie Jackson said Seaver was the greatest pitcher he ever saw. All three of these teams were all time teams stacked with HOF guys that dominated baseball for a decade. They will never be confused with the 98 Pads or 99 Astros or 89 Giants that defeated Maddox.
I would tell you though that of the 77 HOF pitchers in a Game 7 - if we had to pick them to pitch that one game at the top of their form...I'd be willing to bet the majority of people would end up ranking Maddox about were I do or would have him lower.
But beauty is in the eye of the beholder...and in my view against good lineups the 89/90 fastball no matter how well located will get hit more and harder than better stuff. I really don't think that is a very controversial point of view. In fact I'd wager in a poll 75% or more would concur with that statement.
So I suppose this is the bottom line: If you gave the pitchers the same lineup to face give me Tom Terrific against Maddox every day and twice on Sunday. I am going to win 70% of those games I think.