Total dorks top 20 pitchers all time...

[steveringo]

Take this for what it is.... I wanted to combine the value of WAR & OPS+.... This list contains WAR (BR & FG), IP, ERA+, and some division, mulitplication and addition....

I started with 31 pitchers - FanGraphs top 30 in WAR plus John Clarkson as he was in BR's top 20 WAR.

As WAR is a cumulative stat, I divided both FG & BR by innings pitched, then multiplied that by 9 to get a 'per game war'... the range for FG was .277 to .122.... the range for BR was .274 to .090... I aded these together... the new range is .551 to .229...(Top ten = Pedro Matinez, Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Lefty Grove, Curt Schilling, Walter Johnson, Mike Mussina, Bob Gibson, Greg Maddux, Kevin Brown)...

I divided career adjusted ERA+ by 1500, to get a similar (yet less valuable) fraction... this range was .103 to .072.... (top ten = Pedro Martinez, Lefty Grove, Walter Johnson, Roger Clemens, Kid Nichols, Cy Young, Randy Johnson, Pete Alexander, Christy Matthewson, John Clarkson)

I added these two figures to get a final range of .654 to .301.... The top 20 of this random stat:

Pedro Martinez
Roger Clemens
Lefty Grove
Randy Johnson
Curt Schilling
Walter Johnson
Mike Mussina
Bob Gibson
Greg Maddux
Kevin Brown
Tom Seaver
Cy Young
Pete Alexander
John Smoltz
Bert Blyleven
Kid Nichols
Christy Mathewson
Juan Marichal
Fergie Jenkins
Gaylord Perry
Eddie Plank


I'm still formulating a conclusion....

 

[MilkSpiller22]

good attempt... But any top 20 (not to mention top 10) list that includes Kevin Brown must have some flaws... as I know you would be the first to admit that you give this metric little merit to answer the question who is the best pitcher...

Since I am a numbers guy too, I will attempt to make my own metric and see how it comes out...

 

[MilkSpiller22]

Also, what is your goal??

It looks like you want to know who is the best pitcher per game, not best career... the problem as you know, is the more someone pitches the harder it is to maintain that per game average... Look at your list, there is almost half of it from pitchers who pitched in the 90's-2000s...

 

[steveringo]

good attempt... But any top 20 (not to mention top 10) list that includes Kevin Brown must have some flaws... as I know you would be the first to admit that you give this metric little merit to answer the question who is the best pitcher...

Since I am a numbers guy too, I will attempt to make my own metric and see how it comes out...

It definitely inflated modern pitchers. I think when I divided by IP, it deflated pitchers that went deeper into games. I tried using Games Started in various combinations, but it really scewed the numbers...

It is difficult to combine raw stats with adjusted stats...

 

[steveringo]

Also, what is your goal??

It looks like you want to know who is the best pitcher per game, not best career... the problem as you know, is the more someone pitches the harder it is to maintain that per game average... Look at your list, there is almost half of it from pitchers who pitched in the 90's-2000s...

My goal was to use WAR, but to diminish it's value by adding ERA+... And since career WAR is just a sum of all the seasons, I tried to find a relative value for all pitchers... Maybe dividing it by seasons pitched would have worked better?

I guess I'd like to find out who has the most good seasons.... My main goal is to use a larger combination of available stats... I'll think about something new....

 

[MilkSpiller22]

It definitely inflated modern pitchers. I think when I divided by IP, it deflated pitchers that went deeper into games. I tried using Games Started in various combinations, but it really scewed the numbers...

It is difficult to combine raw stats with adjusted stats...

Yea, I would always recommend not to do that... you are better making your own adjustments...

I am not a fan of how they make adjustments anyway...

 

[MilkSpiller22]

It definitely inflated modern pitchers. I think when I divided by IP, it deflated pitchers that went deeper into games. I tried using Games Started in various combinations, but it really scewed the numbers...

It is difficult to combine raw stats with adjusted stats...

It did not just deflate pitchers who went deeper into the game it also deflated pitchers that pitch more games...

 

[broncosmitty]

With WAR, wouldn't dividing by appearance be more accurate than dividing by innings or nine innings?

There are a few names who Id never think of as Top 20. One is #5.

 

[WhiteMamba]

No Kofax

Tweek it

 

[WhiteMamba]

But good job.

I used to do this kinda stuff.

 

[MilkSpiller22]

I really wish that these sites had league averages... Baseball references has season leaders for most categories, but you can not find averages... it would be helpful to compare different generational players if we knew the difference between the generation... I understand WAR kind of does this, but I just don't trust replacement players...

 

[DaBoltsNIsles]

Blyleven & Perry, Really??

 

[broncosmitty]

Smiled when I saw Perry on there.

Steve knows why.

(This kind of thing is a bigger challenge than Im up for. Keep us filled in on the tinkering man.)

 

[obxyankeefan]

IP *3 - Hits - ER - BB + SO

divide it by seasons or starts

just a quick one off the top of my head, it would need to be tweaked

 

[StanMarsh51]

Blyleven & Perry, Really??

Both were historically underrated pitchers imo...

Just to put it into perspective:

Tom Seaver over his 4783 career innings had a 127 ERA+, 1.12 WHIP, 2.62 K/BB
Perry had a 4828 IP stretch (1964-1981) with a 123 ERA+, 1.15 WHIP, 2.65 K/BB
Blyleven had a 4703 IP stretch (1970-1989) with a 121 ERA+, 1.19 WHIP, 2.81 K/BB


So for all the accolades that Seaver gets (many consider him a top 10 pitcher of all time), Perry and Blyleven had comparable stretches in their careers to Seaver's overall career (of course, those two pitched longer than Seaver which kinda hurts their rate states).

 

[tducey]

Good effort but no Koufax is questionable for sure.

 

[MilkSpiller22]

Good effort but no Koufax is questionable for sure.

Koufax has become more legend than great. I don't know if he belongs on any top of 10 list.

 

[broncosmitty]

Koufax has become more legend than great. I don't know if he belongs on any top of 10 list.

Like Pedro, short and sweet greatness window.

Have to assume nobody was better in their final four seasons than Sandy. But hundreds were their first eight seasons.

 

[MilkSpiller22]

Like Pedro, short and sweet greatness window.

Have to assume nobody was better in their final four seasons than Sandy. But hundreds were their first eight seasons.

Pedro was better than Koufax. Yes you heard that. Pedro might have had a window of greatness but at least he was good outside that window. Koufax pitched for only 12 seasons and the first season he barely pitched. He had a window of 6 seasons of being amazing and pitched great in the playoffs too and won a championship. If you want to say Koufax had one of the best windows of greatness that's one thing, but his career numbers have him to be a low end HOFer.

 

[obxyankeefan]

IP *3 - Hits - ER - BB + SO

divide it by seasons or starts

just a quick one off the top of my head, it would need to be tweaked

Well that formula sucked. I took the top 104 by BR WAR then deleted the four that were primary relievers on that list. I took my bad formula and ranked them 1-100 by career, then 1-100 by season, then 1-100 by start. My top 20 from doing that is almost all dead ball era pitchers. I definatly need to tweak that formula.