luv baseball posted:fenwaysouth posted:What happened? I went away for 6 days on a golf trip to Florida, and we're debating whether Greg Maddux is overrated or not. Really? Slow news day? The same Greg Maddux that was a first ballot HOFer with 97% of the vote, 355 wins, numerous Gold Gloves and Cy Young awards. Oh that guy, yes he was schmuck. Did HSBBWeb legalize marijuana in my absence?
Giant difference between overrated and schmuck. He was a great player...but not dominant against good teams IMO. Every List I have ever seen has him in the top 10 and I think that is wrong. For example - for the Red Sox faithful....would you rather have Pete or Schilling in Game 7 or Maddox? At the top of their games Maddox finishes 3rd in that horse race if you want to win. I can name about 40 more guys in 5 minutes without trying very hard including 2 guys on Maddox own team. No one would take Maddox over Smoltz although Glavine might be a 50/50ish split although Glavine was '95 WS MVP.
I know my position isn't really popular and contrary. Except for a couple of arguments on the facts there is a trend here that seems to think the a wise remark questioning sobriety or sanity serves as something witty or thoughtful.
It does not. Folks here are usually better then that.
But you haven't presented facts. You trotted out his postseason ERA as evidence that he wasn't an all-time great, and I pointed out that his post-season ERA of 3.27 was better than Pedro, Randy Johnson, Glavine, and Clemens -- and it was damn close to his career ERA of 3.16. And you said things like 250 of his wins were against terrible teams, without any facts to back you up.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion. But an opinion devoid of facts is unlikely to sway many people.
We get it, Smoltz and Schilling pitched better in the postseason than Maddux did. But ERA+ measures a pitcher against his contemporaries:
- Maddux: ERA+ of 132 (32% better than his league) across 5,000 innings; 4 Cy Youngs
- Seaver: ERA+ of 127 across 4,800 innings; 3 Cy Youngs
- Glavine: ERA+ of 118 across 4,400 innings; 2 Cy Youngs
- Smoltz: ERA+ of 125 across 3,500 innings; 1 Cy Young
- Schilling: ERA+ of 127 across 3,300 innings: 0 Cy Youngs
BTW, Seaver also benefited from expansion (4 new teams in 1969 and 2 in 1977).
If those guys were better than Maddux, then why didn't they pitch better than him?