Champions of the world in 1997 and 2003 -- and now?
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Pedro
well, on sunday, Pedro Martinez only hit 90 mph once on the radar gun, and many of his pitches were in the 60s, but he is crafty and still knows how to fool batters, and he was the winner of the game.... My buddies Mr. Super Fan and French both claim that he's a lock on the hall of fame, despite having less than 220 victories now at the tail end of his career. Seems like a low number to me.... if you want to talk about someone who had a few great years, then Dale Murphy should be in the Hall, too .... but there you have it.... I'm glad I saw him, even if the Marlins lost.
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Pedro Martinez has won 3 Cy Young Awards.
5 of the 10 best single seasons (as measured by ERA+) by a pitcher in the history of baseball have been since 1968. One was Bob Gibson's legendary 1968 season, and it is number 7. Greg Maddux has two of them, number 4 and number 5. Pedro has two of them, number 2 (!) and number 9.
Walter Johnson's best season is 10th on the list.
Christy Matthewson's best is 11th, Dwight Gooden's is 12th, Roger Clemens is 13th and Pete Alexander is 14th.
Pedro's 3rd best season is equivalent to Lefty Grove's best season at 18th on the list. Koufax's best season is 56th.
On a career basis, Pedro is tied for 3rd on the all time list in winning percentage, and 4th all time in WHIP. Christy Matthewson is 6th, Walter Johnson is 7th, Greg Maddux is 54th, Roger Clemens is 87th, Jim Palmer is 96th, Bob Gibson is 110th.
But, he spent 6 years playing for mediocre to poor Dodgers and Expos teams, so a casual fan who doesn't bother to review his stats might confuse him like some lesser pitcher like, say Whitey Ford, with with about 230 victories, or Catfish Hunter with 224, or Sandy Koufax with 165. Of course all three of them are in the Hall. . .
Pedro vs. Dale Murphy.
I like Dale Murphy. But comparing Dale Murphy to Pedro Martinez is absurd.
Here are a few stats to consider when comparing Pedro to Murphy.
We know Dale doesn't do very well on traditional measures like batting average and HR and RBI, so lets give him the benefit of the doubt, and look a little deeper.
In Murphy's best season, he had a slugging percentage of .5795, the 471st highest slugging percentage in the history of the game. His best OPS season ranks 404.
What if we equalize by using the + stats? His best OPS+ is not even in the top 500. Consider this: Dale Murphy's best season by the OPS+ measure scores 157. Dick ( I still think of him as Richie) Allen's CAREER OPS+ is 156 and he is not in the Hall
What if we use runs created, the stat Bill James created to try to get around the tyranny of old-fashioned, less fair, stats like BA and RBI? Murphy's best season is the 257th best season in the history of the game.
For 2 or three years, Dale Murphy played very close to the level that a hall of famer averages over a long career, and for most of the rest of his career, he was better than average. In short, he is at best a marginal hall-of famer.
For 2 or 3 years, Pedro was the best or second best right handed starting pitcher in the modern history of baseball, while for most of the rest of his career, he was just an ordinary hall-of-famer.
but I LIKE Dale Murphy ...
I like Dale Murphy too. I may not LIKE him, though.
But if I ran into him on the street, I'd offer to buy him a beer, and talk about those early '80s Braves teams that I followed so closely, only he doesn't drink because he's a Mormon.
He was a very good player, and in the course of his career he made somewhere between $15 million and $20 million, which should ease the pain of never playing in a World Series, and of being not quite good enough to make the Hall.
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