One Pitcher to Pitch one Game

[sturg1dj]

Ok, heres the deal, you have one pitcher to pitch one game for you. You can take any pitcher in their prime....who do you take



for me I look at how the pitchers did in big games so I take Bob Gibson

[soberdennis]

It is hard to argue against Gibson.
Others I would consider are, in no particular order
Hunter
Koufax
Gomez-never lost a WS game.
W. Johnson
Grove
Mathewson


If that was my pitching staff, I certainly wouldn't complain.

[DoubleX]

Koufax would be my first choice.

[west coast orange and black]

juan marichal is a top tier candidate.

[Myankee4life]

Randy Johnson or Pedro Martinez in their primes.

[Imapotato]

Cy Young, without a doubt

[WR's succesor]

what's that pitcher's name?
The guy who played for the Giants and under Ty Cobb in Detroit and threw a wicked screwball??

[Bill Burgess]

what's that pitcher's name?
The guy who played for the Giants and under Ty Cobb in Detroit and threw a wicked screwball??
Carl Hubbell. Boy did Ty blow it on that one. One of his worst judgments ever. Maybe his worst. But when Cobb left the Detroit organization, they still owned Carl. It was Ty's successor, George Moriarty, who let Carl go. But with Carl not throwing his best pitch, the screwball, under Ty's orders, he wasn't impressing anyone. At least not until he recovered his confidence to start throwing the screwball again.

Bill

[Bill Burgess]

For that one must-win game? I'd go with the staff of my All Time All Star Team A.

1. W. Johnson
2. Mathewson
3. Koufax
4. Ryan
5. Alexander
6. Paige

[KCGHOST]

I'd go with Koufax, though the Big Train is probably the way to go.

[64Cards]

Koufax. Saw Gibson win some big games for the Cards but Sandy was the best.

[Francoeurstein]

Koufax, Unit, Gibson, and The train were good.

[ElHalo]

This is the biggest no brainer of all time.

Seven innings of Pedro Martinez and two of Mariano Rivera.

What, that doesn't count as one pitcher?

[soberdennis]

This is the biggest no brainer of all time.

Seven innings of Pedro Martinez and two of Mariano Rivera.

What, that doesn't count as one pitcher?
Your answer reminds me of the saying they had in New York in 61-"If Ford and "Aroyo were asked to speak for 9 minutes total, Ford would speak for 7, Aroyo 2."
Seriously, I wouldn't mind Ol Hoss Radbourn either. He could pitch everyday.

[RedSoxVT92]

Walter Johnson, Koufax, Gibson, Joe Wood, Doc Gooden, and Pedro Martinez.

Hard to pick just one.

[flash143817]

Koufax



But if it was a 6 inning rain-shortened game...Pedro



I wouldn't even consider anyone except these two.

[Redfoot]

I'm surprised that Pedro Martinez's name has only popped up three times in this thread (now four), especially since 2000 was only 6 years ago. In that season:

- Pedro posted a 285 ERA+. That's the second best single season total in history, behind only Tim Keefe's 19th century mark of 294.

- In 217 IP, he allowed only 128 hits, or 5.31 H/9 IP. That's the fourth best single season total of all-time; two of the seasons ahead of him are from Nolan Ryan, who was issuing BBs like it was going out of style, and Luis Tiant who issued 73 free passes in his 1968 season. For the record, Pedro's mind-boggling H/9 IP was accompanied by a BB/9 of 1.33. Put them together and you have a WHIP of 0.74, for an entire season. 0.74. That's the greatest single season WHIP in baseball history. Accomplished in the American League, with the DH. In the steroid era. In Fenway Park. That's off the charts.

- He struck out 284 batters. His K/9 was 11.78, in the top 10 all-time (for what it's worth, his K/9 was 13.20 the prior season, 2nd best all-time). His K/BB was 8.88, 6th best all-time.

Pedro Martinez Version 2000 is the guy I want, hands down.

[give_it_a_ride]

Agreed. Pedro in 2000 was godly, and El Halo's suggestion sounds good to me. Future 1/2 ERA+ of all-time, if Rivera keeps on pitching (no signs of slowing) to get enough innings for qualification.

[baseball junkie]

I would pick the 20-year-old Dwight Gooden of 1985 and his 1.53 ERA and 226 ERA+.

[rugbyfreak]

Ok, heres the deal, you have one pitcher to pitch one game for you. You can take any pitcher in their prime....who do you take



for me I look at how the pitchers did in big games so I take Bob Gibson

Thing I like about this thread is that it's not stat-heavy, it's mostly gut. Even if you want to inject a guy's big-game numbers to support your case, that's optional, since some guys have chosen to take a guy who didn't have a lot of big-game expeience (Maichal, Johnson--2 WS w/Tain, but after his pime), but are saying that, in his pime, he could have ruled the post-season. Hard to disagree...

For me, I have one rule: I have to have seen the guy play to make this decision. So, I go with Gibson and Koufax, too close to call. In Koufax' case, I did not see him live, but have viewed entire tapes of certain big games (e.g. the epic Game 7 in '65). Gibby was so sickly unhittable in '68, that I am still in denial that he actually lost that Game 7 (had a shutout into the 7th).

Since this whole thing's contrived, I assume you can insert any year of his career into the mix. With that, hard to remember anyone better than Dwight in '85, although his post-seaon numbers do not back it up (0-4 in 8 PS series).

[yankillaz]

This is the biggest no brainer of all time.

Seven innings of Pedro Martinez and two of Mariano Rivera.

What, that doesn't count as one pitcher?

And you can have a two pitcher perfect game there...:D

[driver62]

And you can have a two pitcher perfect game there...:D

I would pick Bob Gibson followed by Whitey Ford.

[SABR Matt]

I'll take Pedro Martinez.

[KHenry14]

I'll take Koufax, closely followed by Gibson, and just after that Jack Morris. Any guy who throws a 10 inning 1-0 shutout in Game 7 of the WS needs to be mentioned.

[SABR Matt]

So I guess we just HAVE to mention Larsen too...LOL

Oh wait a minute...he SUCKED except for that perfect game.

[The Fordham Flash]

Greg Maddux. He won't blow anybody away but it won't matter - they'll have to hit pitches on the both corners at the knees all day long and won't be able to do much with them. He'll give them the old "comfortable collar" as Red Barber used to say. :radio

[csh19792001]

It depends completely on the era, the conditions, the ballpark, and the even the opposing team, of course.

The power pitchers who can't field of today would have a terrible time fielding all those bunts in the old days, and with guys choking up six inches on the bat, place hitting/chopping the ball, and never striking out, today's guys would be divested of their primary pitching weapon. They've learned to pitch to power hitters. Similarly, I don't think many deadballers would do real well right out of the box pitching a game in Houston or Colorado. I guess the question that's being asked assumes ceteris paribus, of course.

That said, I'll go with flash143817 here:

Koufax.

But if it was a 6-7 inning rain-shortened game...Pedro

[digglahhh]

I'm surprised we've had multiple mentions of Gooden.

You know me, if we aren't playing in the 1960's in Los Angeles, I'll take Pedro, especially if I have a top level closer.

[csh19792001]

I'm surprised we've had multiple mentions of Gooden.

You know me, if we aren't playing in the 1960's in Los Angeles, I'll take Pedro, especially if I have a top level closer.

If we're playing anytime before ~1975 and my pitcher might actually have to be counted on to finish a must win game, I'd take Koufax.

Bu you know me. ;)

[csh19792001]

Yeah, I know, we've been through this before, but to add to the story:

Pedro's career ERA in innings 7-9 is 3.01, which is 10% higher than his career ERA (I'd like to see what it is in innings 8-9, and have little doubt it would be significantly higher than 3.01). What if he'd been forced to pitch innings 8-9 every fourth day in his prime? Say he was somehow able to not get injured carrying that workload...what would all of those compounded innings do to his efficiency?

During his 4th time through the lineup (this is when he's actually really gone deep), Pedro's career ERA is 6.04 in 70 innings.

The average against him goes up from .196 through 91-105 pitches, then jumps up to .224 from pitches 106-120, and then all the way up to .236 in games when he's thrown 121-135 pitches. The career average against him overall is .208. Add to that the myriad of times he's gone on the DL for nagging injuries, even though he's been relatively coddled even in an era when pitchers have never been coddled more....

....and there ya go.

I'll take Koufax for 9 innings in the must win game 7. He destroyed his left arm for the Dodgers. I wish I had a scanner so I could share some of the pictures of his elbow/arm. It was truly disgusting what he endured- and his performance (including when it was absolutely as big as it got- in the World Series- is simply unbelievable.

A Entirely Different Take On Sandy. (http://www.chrisoleary.com/projects/Baseball/ProfessionalPitcherAnalyses/Documents/PitcherAnalysis_SandyKoufax.pdf)

Excerpt from Sandy Koufax : A Lefty's Legacy (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060195339/103-1918828-8326269?v=glance&n=283155)

When Sandy Koufax was a rookie, there was no such thing as sports medicine. You didn't rehab injuries. You lived with them, grew old with them. Ice was for martinis, not elbows. Koufax and the Dodgers trainers understood the paradox of his build-that which made him special also made him vulnerable. "Doc" Anderson, who worked on him for an hour and a half before every start, told reporters Koufax had "extreme" muscles, "the largest I ever worked on, and that includes Ted Kluszewski and Frank Howard. Muscles like that aren't ideal for a pitcher, but then I've always said that Sandy Koufax wasn't built to be a pitcher."

Every pitching arm is doomed. Soft tissue and bone can only give so much. The first intimations of his arm's mortality surfaced on Aug. 8, 1964, in Milwaukee. That night Koufax won his 17th game and became the first National League pitcher in the modern era to strike out 200 hitters in four consecutive seasons. He also singled and scored to begin the winning rally. Reaching base proved costly, however. He jammed his pitching arm diving back into second to beat a pickoff throw.

The morning papers made no mention of it. The big news was that he was experimenting with a new pitch, a forkball. He won his next two starts and was leading the league with a 19-5 record. But the morning after his 19th win, a shutout in which he fanned 13, he couldn't straighten his arm. The elbow joint made a squishing sound, and pockets of fluid protruded like hard-boiled eggs beneath the skin. His elbow was as big as his knee. The only difference was that his knee bent. He had to drag his arm out of bed like a log.

Tests were run; X-rays were ordered. Dr. Robert Kerlan, the noted orthopedic surgeon, took one look at the film and pronounced the bad news: traumatic arthritis. A diagnosis without a cure. Arthritis is an acute inflammation of a joint usually associated with old age. Pitch by pitch, season by season, the cartilage in his elbow was breaking down. Koufax's arm was old even if he wasn't.

Kerlan knew the long-term prospects weren't good. Pitching is trauma. The human elbow may be one of God's great inventions, but He didn't anticipate a major league fastball during those first seven days. The moment of maximum stress occurs just as a pitcher cocks his arm and begins to accelerate it forward. In that instant the elbow is subjected to what doctors call "maximum load," as two contrary forces, momentum and inertia, converge on the joint. It causes ligaments to stretch like salt-water taffy on a hot summer day.

Today arthroscopic surgery on elbows and knees allows professional athletes and middle-aged golfers like Koufax to return to competition in a fraction of the time they once needed to recover. Dr. Frank Jobe, Kerlan's partner, performed the first elbow reconstruction in 1974, less than a decade after Koufax retired. Tommy John, the surgical pioneer, returned to baseball and pitched for another 12 years. Jobe says, "If you had said to Dr. Kerlan, 'Why does [Koufax's] arm hurt?' he'd say, 'Because he throws so hard.' That's true. What he didn't know was that [Koufax] threw hard enough to stretch a ligament. It wasn't torn, but it was stretched enough to allow two bony surfaces to rub together. It must have just killed him."

Koufax always scoffs at such reports. "My heroism is greatly overstated," he'll say. On occasion he's been known to admit, "Maybe I just didn't want to think about how bad it was."

March is the cruelest month for pitchers, when rested arms renew the annual struggle for controlled velocity. Today pitch counts and early outings are meticulously monitored. Pitching a complete game in spring training is unthinkable, even without an arthritic arm. But on March 30, 1965, Koufax did just that. The next morning his roommate, infielder Dick Tracewski, was at the sink shaving when Koufax walked in. "He says, 'Look at this.' The elbow was black. And it was swollen. From the elbow to the armpit it looked like a bruise. It was a black, angry hemorrhage. It was an angry arm, an angry elbow. And all he says is, 'Roomie, look at this.'"

Quickly but quietly, Koufax returned to Los Angeles to see Kerlan, who told him he'd be lucky to pitch once a week. Eventually, and irrevocably, he would lose full use of his arm. Koufax told the doctor, "I'm trusting you to keep me going. I'm also going to trust you to say when you think I should quit."

They mapped out a schedule for the '65 season that called for Koufax to pitch every five days, which would have meant starting only 34 games instead of his usual 41. Koufax promised Kerlan he'd quit throwing between starts, no small concession for a man who routinely dragged Tracewski out of bed in the middle of the night in order to go throw.

Palliatives and temporizing were all medicine had to offer: cortisone shots in the joint, Empirin with codeine for the pain (which he took every night and sometimes during the fifth inning) and Butazolidin, an anti-inflammatory drug prescribed for broken-down thoroughbreds, so poisonous to humans that its use by them has been prohibited since the '70s. It had one major side effect. "It killed a few people," Jobe said.

Koufax didn't think twice. He rejoined the Dodgers in Washington, D.C., where they were scheduled to play an exhibition game against the Senators. He made headlines tossing a ball on the sidelines. SANDY PLAYS CATCH! one read the next day. He was wondered at and wondered about. No one knew what to expect, least of all him. He pitched three innings in his first outing the next day, striking out five of the 10 men he faced. Doug Camilli, his old catcher, was the last of them. He popped up. "Sore arm, my eye," Camilli yelled as he trotted back to the Senators dugout. Koufax regularly used a salve called Capsolin, derived from red hot chili peppers grown in China, to mask his pain. Players called it the "atomic balm" -- thick, gooey stuff, which is no longer marketed in the United States. Most pitchers diluted it with cold cream or Vaseline. Koufax used it straight, gobs of it. Nobe Kawano, the Dodgers' accommodating clubhouse man, always made sure he washed Koufax's laundry separately, but once, when the Dodgers donated used jerseys to a local Little League team, the lucky kid who got number 32 ran off the field screaming, "I'm on fire." He wasn't the only one. Lou Johnson wore one of Koufax's sweatshirts one cold night in Pittsburgh. First he began to sweat. Then his skin blistered. Then he threw up.

If heat was Koufax's salve, ice was his salvation. They didn't have ice packs then; they just plunged your arm in a bucket of ice and waited for frostbite to set in. Trainers fashioned a rubber sleeve for him out of an inner tube -- the height of medical technology -- later donated to the Hall of Fame.

Who could have predicted that by season's end he would pitch 335 2/3 innings and set a major league record by striking out 382 men (an average of 10.25 per game)? He never missed a turn.

[digglahhh]

What about if a bunch of those 8th and 9th innings were pitched in LA off the elevated mound with a bigger zone?

Round and round we go.

Chris, we've danced this tune so many times before.

Now is the time when you say,...:D

BTW, Thanks for the excerpt, good reading as always.

[flash143817]

I think the home/road thing is overblown on Koufax. He certainly was outstanding at home, but he was also good on the road. During his peak run, he only once had an ERA over 3.00 on the road. And in 1961 his road ERA was noticeably better than his home ERA. In 1965 he was under 2.00 both home and away.
Career-wise, he was an excellent 2.40 at home, but still a good 3.00 on the road. Advantage at home for sure, but most players perform better at home due to familiarity, etc. He was just an excellent pitcher, and likely would have been so in any park

[csh19792001]

I think the home/road thing is overblown on Koufax.

The "Well, he did so well in large part because he beat up on expansion teams those years" is another canard that has been thrown out there by many Koufax detractors- most of whom have (not coincidentally) done any reading or research on the man. I went back and researched the expansion hegemony postulate earlier this year.


Quick comment. In 1963 Koufax went 9-1 with an ERA of less than 1.00 against Houston and the Mets, two expansion teams that were not even in baseball a few years earlier. I seem to recall that Koufax remained mortal against clubs like Pittsburgh and Cincy. I suspect that if one subtracts his records against the really lousy team of the period then he look a lot more mortal that believed. Pitching is a lot more about defense than one expects.

Go ahead, please, someone subtract the Mets and Astros from Koufax's career and then reprint his yearly stats. PLEASE.

My response:


Oppon G GS CG SHO GF SV IP H BFP HR R ER BB IB SO SH SF WP HBP BK 2B 3B GDP ROE W L ERA
HOU N 4 4 0 0 0 0 22 20 96 2 12 10 7 0 22 1 0 0 2 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 4.09
HOU N 6 6 5 3 0 0 50.1 29 191 1 9 8 8 0 53 3 0 0 1 1 4 2 2 5 5 1 1.43
HOU N 2 2 1 1 0 0 14.1 9 55 0 2 2 3 0 20 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 2 0 1.26
HOU N 5 5 3 1 0 0 44.1 20 163 2 8 8 9 0 51 1 0 1 2 0 2 1 2 2 4 0 1.62
HOU N 5 5 2 1 0 0 35 33 142 4 11 7 6 0 30 0 1 1 0 0 8 1 1 1 3 1 1.80



Oppon G GS CG SHO GF SV IP H BFP HR R ER BB IB SO SH SF WP HBP BK 2B 3B GDP ROE W L ERA

NY N 3 3 2 1 0 0 25 16 101 1 6 6 11 1 29 0 0 1 0 0 3 0 2 1 3 0 2.16
NY N 4 4 2 2 0 0 31 15 111 1 2 1 4 0 35 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 4 0 0.29
NY N 3 3 2 1 0 0 25 18 94 1 4 4 4 0 23 1 0 1 0 0 2 0 2 0 2 0 1.44
NY N 5 5 4 1 0 0 43 21 159 2 8 6 8 1 48 1 1 0 0 0 4 0 1 2 4 1 1.26
NY N 5 5 4 0 0 0 38 28 157 2 14 9 15 0 38 0 2 1 0 0 5 0 3 4 4 1 2.13


Here's the gist...

His overall ERA was 1.95 overall, and versus the Mets and Astros combined it was 1.67 (42 starts, 322 IP). Not worlds better, certainly nothing more than would be expected against the worst two teams in the league.

How about the Pedro Martinez? He's pitched more against the Devil Rays (easily the worst modern team in baseball history) more than any of the other 30 teams except the Yankees. (Pedro had the good fortune of joining the AL the same year as the futile Rays did). He had that lousy club in his own division during his best years, and his ERA against them was a 1.99 overall. He pitched 135 of his 1383 innings against a team with a .407 lifetime winning percentage. What would his stats be if you took the Rays and the second worst team in the AL out of the equation as well?

The point being that I don't see Koufax as demonstrating hegemony over the nascent NL franchises. The disparity isn't statistically meaningful, or anomalous compared to most of the other greats, who faced similar situations in terms of the flux of the strength of opponents.

One could extract it from his performance year by year, but it would be somewhat superfluous- I think the point is fairly obvious.

For whatever reason, people want to take shots from the hip at Koufax- beyond the valid contentions that involve having a short career and pitching in Dodger Stadium. Most of the time these are unsubstantiated and unwarranted. I don't see the reason for the disdain and consistent slings and arrows- I can certainly see why people would dislike Pedro Martinez, for his headhunting, his bizarre behavior, his incessant whining and endless threats of retirement when he was with Boston, and for exuding a generally selfish attitude. It seems Koufax and he are compared/contrasted with every time either is brought up here. Ironically, however, from everything I've read and heard, one would be hard pressed to find a better person than Sandy Koufax among the alltime greats still alive.

I guess he's just not a sabermetric poster boy, though, so he's generally not going to fare well on the internet, given the general ethos and timbre of the crowd boards like this attract.

[Wade8813]

One pitcher - does that mean they're gonna go a complete game? That might change some people's answers a bit.

I think Walter Johnson in 1913 would be my first choice. 1.14 ERA, 0.780 WHIP, 243 K's, 36-7 record...

[Williamsburg2599]

I'll take paige,with the rules of his time,of course.

[flash143817]

One pitcher - does that mean they're gonna go a complete game? That might change some people's answers a bit.

I think Walter Johnson in 1913 would be my first choice. 1.14 ERA, 0.780 WHIP, 243 K's, 36-7 record...


Like I noted before...

If it's for a complete game with no available bullpen...then Sandy Koufax without a doubt.


If it's for a 6 inning rain-shortened game, then Pedro without question.


But it would definitely be one of those two for me.

I think Sandy's 0.95 ERA in the World Series showed pretty well that he always got it done on the biggest stage, on top of his phenomenal regular season performance. He played in 4 World Series and won 3 of them, chosen MVP twice. And the only one he lost really wasn't his fault. He lost his one start that series, but his team made 5 errors in his 6 innings of work.

[digglahhh]

I don't get infatuated with the "beating up on bad teams" trend.

So what, what is Sandy Koufax supposed to do? If you are an immortal you're going to destroy the weak comp, you're just so much better.

Yeah A-Rod will go deep off of Mark Hendrickson... he's A-Rod, he's Mark Hendrickson... what do you expect to happen.

He's Koufax, they're the Mets or Astros, whatever...

I only have two caveats here. One is that this goes out the window if you can make a convincing argument that a player's totals were artificially augmented by having him avoid the best comp. The other is that I would give some credit to those who had to face top level competition an inordinate amount of times. In other words, Pedro wouldn't lose credit for abusing Tampa, but we could get some extra credit for logging tons of innings against a dynasty.

Of course, the Red Sox had a very potent offense for the duration of Pedro's tenure and he didn't have to pitch against any of them either. I bet a lot of AL pitchers would have liked to not have to face Manny for a half dozen or so seasons...

[digglahhh]

For whatever reason, people want to take shots from the hip at Koufax- beyond the valid contentions that involve having a short career and pitching in Dodger Stadium. Most of the time these are unsubstantiated and unwarranted. I don't see the reason for the disdain and consistent slings and arrows- I can certainly see why people would dislike Pedro Martinez, for his headhunting, his bizarre behavior, his incessant whining and endless threats of retirement when he was with Boston, and for exuding a generally selfish attitude. It seems Koufax and he are compared/contrasted with every time either is brought up here. Ironically, however, from everything I've read and heard, one would be hard pressed to find a better person than Sandy Koufax among the alltime greats still alive.

I guess he's just not a sabermetric poster boy, though, so he's generally not going to fare well on the internet, given the general ethos and timbre of the crowd boards like this attract.

C'mon Chris, you know I'm a Pedro guy, are you going to lump me in here?

Whatever problem to SABR community has with Pedro, the traditional camp has with Koufax. This is a two way street. That's even assuming the dichotomy of perspective and preference you imply, which I don't. EH ranks Pedro higher than anybody else here, I think. He's got him at #4.

You have a task I don't envy. You have to defend a guy who does not have a legit argument for the greatest pitcher of all time, but it still rated as such by herds of common fans and sentimental (true or vicarious) Brooklynites.

I also object to your characterization of Pedro's behavior. I find him compelling, colorful and endearing. So do millions of his fans and the vast majority of his teammates.

We've been through this before and there's no need to do it again. I'd like to remind you of WJackman's opinion about these two guys. They're both incredible and it is unlikely that either could do what the other did. They were the archetypes of their respective contexts. I think that we should take the Pedro/Koufax rivalry as a mutual compliment. There are only a handful who one could claim to be better than either, especially at their respective bests.

[flash143817]

I don't get infatuated with the "beating up on bad teams" trend.

So what, what is Sandy Koufax supposed to do? If you are an immortal you're going to destroy the weak comp, you're just so much better.

Yeah A-Rod will go deep off of Mark Hendrickson... he's A-Rod, he's Mark Hendrickson... what do you expect to happen.

He's Koufax, they're the Mets or Astros, whatever...

I only have two caveats here. One is that this goes out the window if you can make a convincing argument that a player's totals were artificially augmented by having him avoid the best comp. The other is that I would give some credit to those who had to face top level competition an inordinate amount of times. In other words, Pedro wouldn't lose credit for abusing Tampa, but we could get some extra credit for logging tons of innings against a dynasty.

Of course, the Red Sox had a very potent offense for the duration of Pedro's tenure and he didn't have to pitch against any of them either. I bet a lot of AL pitchers would have liked to not have to face Manny for a half dozen or so seasons...

I thought that's what he was saying that Koufax dominated the bad teams just like any other historically great pitcher would have (or should have). But apparently people have unfairly criticized him for running up numbers against bad teams, when all the other greats were almost certainly doing the same thing.


As far as performing well against the best teams, Koufax was in the World Series 4 out of 7 years from '59-'66 and was consistently outstanding with his 0.95 career ERA in WS play (0.87 home, 1.04 road). I think he proved without a shadow of a doubt that he had no problem dominated the best teams as well as the worst teams.

[Outta Here]

I think Walter Johnson in 1913 would be my first choice. 1.14 ERA, 0.780 WHIP, 243 K's, 36-7 record...

LOL... Good choice! ;)

[rugbyfreak]

I'll take Koufax, closely followed by Gibson, and just after that Jack Morris. Any guy who throws a 10 inning 1-0 shutout in Game 7 of the WS needs to be mentioned.

Good call on Morris, KH. Though I did not choose him here, I am on record in other threads as naming his '91 Game 7 beauty as the greatest big-game pitching effort ever, and received some detractors. My point was, you cannot name a bigger game than a WS Gm. 7 (can you?), and his line in that game (CG ShO, 7H, 8K, 2BB) is damn near spotless.

[rugbyfreak]

Yeah, I know, we've been through this before, but to add to the story:

Pedro's career ERA in innings 7-9 is 3.01, which is 10% higher than his career ERA (I'd like to see what it is in innings 8-9, and have little doubt it would be significantly higher than 3.01). What if he'd been forced to pitch innings 8-9 every fourth day in his prime? Say he was somehow able to not get injured carrying that workload...what would all of those compounded innings do to his efficiency?

During his 4th time through the lineup (this is when he's actually really gone deep), Pedro's career ERA is 6.04 in 70 innings.

The average against him goes up from .196 through 91-105 pitches, then jumps up to .224 from pitches 106-120, and then all the way up to .236 in games when he's thrown 121-135 pitches. The career average against him overall is .208. Add to that the myriad of times he's gone on the DL for nagging injuries, even though he's been relatively coddled even in an era when pitchers have never been coddled more....

....and there ya go.

I'll take Koufax for 9 innings in the must win game 7. He destroyed his left arm for the Dodgers. I wish I had a scanner so I could share some of the pictures of his elbow/arm. It was truly disgusting what he endured- and his performance (including when it was absolutely as big as it got- in the World Series- is simply unbelievable.

A Entirely Different Take On Sandy. (http://www.chrisoleary.com/projects/Baseball/ProfessionalPitcherAnalyses/Documents/PitcherAnalysis_SandyKoufax.pdf)

Excerpt from Sandy Koufax : A Lefty's Legacy (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060195339/103-1918828-8326269?v=glance&n=283155)

When Sandy Koufax was a rookie, there was no such thing as sports medicine. You didn't rehab injuries. You lived with them, grew old with them. Ice was for martinis, not elbows. Koufax and the Dodgers trainers understood the paradox of his build-that which made him special also made him vulnerable. "Doc" Anderson, who worked on him for an hour and a half before every start, told reporters Koufax had "extreme" muscles, "the largest I ever worked on, and that includes Ted Kluszewski and Frank Howard. Muscles like that aren't ideal for a pitcher, but then I've always said that Sandy Koufax wasn't built to be a pitcher."

Every pitching arm is doomed. Soft tissue and bone can only give so much. The first intimations of his arm's mortality surfaced on Aug. 8, 1964, in Milwaukee. That night Koufax won his 17th game and became the first National League pitcher in the modern era to strike out 200 hitters in four consecutive seasons. He also singled and scored to begin the winning rally. Reaching base proved costly, however. He jammed his pitching arm diving back into second to beat a pickoff throw.

The morning papers made no mention of it. The big news was that he was experimenting with a new pitch, a forkball. He won his next two starts and was leading the league with a 19-5 record. But the morning after his 19th win, a shutout in which he fanned 13, he couldn't straighten his arm. The elbow joint made a squishing sound, and pockets of fluid protruded like hard-boiled eggs beneath the skin. His elbow was as big as his knee. The only difference was that his knee bent. He had to drag his arm out of bed like a log.

Tests were run; X-rays were ordered. Dr. Robert Kerlan, the noted orthopedic surgeon, took one look at the film and pronounced the bad news: traumatic arthritis. A diagnosis without a cure. Arthritis is an acute inflammation of a joint usually associated with old age. Pitch by pitch, season by season, the cartilage in his elbow was breaking down. Koufax's arm was old even if he wasn't.

Kerlan knew the long-term prospects weren't good. Pitching is trauma. The human elbow may be one of God's great inventions, but He didn't anticipate a major league fastball during those first seven days. The moment of maximum stress occurs just as a pitcher cocks his arm and begins to accelerate it forward. In that instant the elbow is subjected to what doctors call "maximum load," as two contrary forces, momentum and inertia, converge on the joint. It causes ligaments to stretch like salt-water taffy on a hot summer day.

Today arthroscopic surgery on elbows and knees allows professional athletes and middle-aged golfers like Koufax to return to competition in a fraction of the time they once needed to recover. Dr. Frank Jobe, Kerlan's partner, performed the first elbow reconstruction in 1974, less than a decade after Koufax retired. Tommy John, the surgical pioneer, returned to baseball and pitched for another 12 years. Jobe says, "If you had said to Dr. Kerlan, 'Why does [Koufax's] arm hurt?' he'd say, 'Because he throws so hard.' That's true. What he didn't know was that [Koufax] threw hard enough to stretch a ligament. It wasn't torn, but it was stretched enough to allow two bony surfaces to rub together. It must have just killed him."

Koufax always scoffs at such reports. "My heroism is greatly overstated," he'll say. On occasion he's been known to admit, "Maybe I just didn't want to think about how bad it was."

March is the cruelest month for pitchers, when rested arms renew the annual struggle for controlled velocity. Today pitch counts and early outings are meticulously monitored. Pitching a complete game in spring training is unthinkable, even without an arthritic arm. But on March 30, 1965, Koufax did just that. The next morning his roommate, infielder Dick Tracewski, was at the sink shaving when Koufax walked in. "He says, 'Look at this.' The elbow was black. And it was swollen. From the elbow to the armpit it looked like a bruise. It was a black, angry hemorrhage. It was an angry arm, an angry elbow. And all he says is, 'Roomie, look at this.'"

Quickly but quietly, Koufax returned to Los Angeles to see Kerlan, who told him he'd be lucky to pitch once a week. Eventually, and irrevocably, he would lose full use of his arm. Koufax told the doctor, "I'm trusting you to keep me going. I'm also going to trust you to say when you think I should quit."

They mapped out a schedule for the '65 season that called for Koufax to pitch every five days, which would have meant starting only 34 games instead of his usual 41. Koufax promised Kerlan he'd quit throwing between starts, no small concession for a man who routinely dragged Tracewski out of bed in the middle of the night in order to go throw.

Palliatives and temporizing were all medicine had to offer: cortisone shots in the joint, Empirin with codeine for the pain (which he took every night and sometimes during the fifth inning) and Butazolidin, an anti-inflammatory drug prescribed for broken-down thoroughbreds, so poisonous to humans that its use by them has been prohibited since the '70s. It had one major side effect. "It killed a few people," Jobe said.

Koufax didn't think twice. He rejoined the Dodgers in Washington, D.C., where they were scheduled to play an exhibition game against the Senators. He made headlines tossing a ball on the sidelines. SANDY PLAYS CATCH! one read the next day. He was wondered at and wondered about. No one knew what to expect, least of all him. He pitched three innings in his first outing the next day, striking out five of the 10 men he faced. Doug Camilli, his old catcher, was the last of them. He popped up. "Sore arm, my eye," Camilli yelled as he trotted back to the Senators dugout. Koufax regularly used a salve called Capsolin, derived from red hot chili peppers grown in China, to mask his pain. Players called it the "atomic balm" -- thick, gooey stuff, which is no longer marketed in the United States. Most pitchers diluted it with cold cream or Vaseline. Koufax used it straight, gobs of it. Nobe Kawano, the Dodgers' accommodating clubhouse man, always made sure he washed Koufax's laundry separately, but once, when the Dodgers donated used jerseys to a local Little League team, the lucky kid who got number 32 ran off the field screaming, "I'm on fire." He wasn't the only one. Lou Johnson wore one of Koufax's sweatshirts one cold night in Pittsburgh. First he began to sweat. Then his skin blistered. Then he threw up.

If heat was Koufax's salve, ice was his salvation. They didn't have ice packs then; they just plunged your arm in a bucket of ice and waited for frostbite to set in. Trainers fashioned a rubber sleeve for him out of an inner tube -- the height of medical technology -- later donated to the Hall of Fame.

Who could have predicted that by season's end he would pitch 335 2/3 innings and set a major league record by striking out 382 men (an average of 10.25 per game)? He never missed a turn.

Thanks, csh, fo referencing the Leavy book, one that I cannot say enough about, in terms of adding so much new material to the Koufax file. I have it on that short list of BB books that is a 100% MUST read for all serious BB fans/historians.

As for Pedro, I never liked him (to my discedit, but I'm a Yankee fan, what can I say?), but putting up some of the years he did, right smack in the middle of a slugger's era (and pitching in Fenway, to boot), makes him someone truly to be admired, and picking him here for this "one game" thread could not possibly be faulted. Now that he's with the Mets (who in my mind are far less of a threat to the Yanks than the Bosox), I actually kind of like him, and certainly when he retires, and I have dropped my petty, but inevitable, little fandom thing, I'm sure I will view his career with quite a bit more admiration.

Thanks for listening!

freak

[BiggestYankeeFan_in_Memphis]

My dream Rotation:
Ace-Koufax
2-Gibson
3-Ryan
4-Maddux
5-W. Johnson.
Closer- Rivera of course
SU-Eckersley

The main guy is obviously Koufax

[JeffB]

Ok, heres the deal, you have one pitcher to pitch one game for you. You can take any pitcher in their prime....who do you take



for me I look at how the pitchers did in big games so I take Bob Gibson


I take Bob Gibson, too, followed by Sandy Koufax. You can't argue with Gibson's stats when it counts the most: 7 straight wins in the World Series (2 in 1964; 3 in 1967 and 2 in 1968).

[baseball junkie]

Sad thing is that Gibson would probably get tossed in about the 2nd inning by today's umps.

[drjjpdc]

Here's something to think about Gibby's propensity for impatience on the mound. Gibson did not hit many batters by number or percentage. Do you realize that with 102, he is number 56 on the alltime list? That means such supposed nice or quiet guys like Jim Lonborg are higher on the list than Gibby.

[CanadianKid]

Walter Johnson or Bob Gibson

[digglahhh]

My dream Rotation:
Ace-Koufax
2-Gibson
3-Ryan
4-Maddux
5-W. Johnson.
Closer- Rivera of course
SU-Eckersley

The main guy is obviously Koufax

If you have Eck and Mo in the pen, then you only need 7 from your starter- all the more reason to go with Petey.

[xholdourownx]

My dream Rotation:
Ace-Koufax
2-Gibson
3-Ryan
4-Maddux
5-W. Johnson.
Closer- Rivera of course
SU-Eckersley

The main guy is obviously Koufax
Why would people pick anyone but Koufax. I will back this rotation 100%.

[tommydale1]

Bobo Holloman-stay with me here...
1) His career record is 3-7 with a 5.23 ERA
2) He didn't even finish a complete season in the majors
3) He never played in the post-season
THUS...
4) His biggest start was his major league debut
-he no-hit the A's in the biggest start of his life

Now I'll take him! He never failed in a big game :crazy

[Honus Wagner]

Al Spalding...80% of the time i'll win

if it's this week, maybe jered weaver or jon lester