Top 10 poll #14: #14 player in history - Runoff

[Cedrique]

Eh, the numbers aren't that great for him. 1980 was his best season ever until a stroke ended his career. 1979 was by far his best full season.

In 1979 he was 3rd in CY voting, with 5.6 WAR and 130 ERA+. The Cy winner that year was Bruce Sutter though, so depends how you feel about relievers winning that. 2nd in voting was Joe Niekro (same team, probably split some votes), and JR definitely had a better year than him. But Niekro had 21 wins back when those mattered to voters.

I do agree he was special and it was sad how it ended. I think I heard he ended up homeless for a while.

J.R. Richard Stats, Height, Weight, Position, Rookie Status & More | Baseball-Reference.com

Check out the latest Stats, Height, Weight, Position, Rookie Status & More of J.R. Richard. Get info about his position, age, height, weight, draft status, bats, throws, school and more on Baseball-reference.com

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No matter how you look at it he doesn't belong in the one hit wonder category. And the truth is Fidrych created an incredibly high bar for anyone to get even close to. Cy Young, leading the league in WAR, Complete Games, ERA as a rookie, then playing 27 games the rest of his career. Game, set, match.

 

[TheGoodMan19]

Eh, the numbers aren't that great for him. 1980 was his best season ever until a stroke ended his career. 1979 was by far his best full season.

In 1979 he was 3rd in CY voting, with 5.6 WAR and 130 ERA+. The Cy winner that year was Bruce Sutter though, so depends how you feel about relievers winning that. 2nd in voting was Joe Niekro, and JR definitely had a better year than him. But Niekro had 21 wins back when those mattered to voters.

I do agree he was special and it was sad how it ended. I think I heard he ended up homeless for a while.

J.R. Richard Stats, Height, Weight, Position, Rookie Status & More | Baseball-Reference.com

Check out the latest Stats, Height, Weight, Position, Rookie Status & More of J.R. Richard. Get info about his position, age, height, weight, draft status, bats, throws, school and more on Baseball-reference.com

www.baseball-reference.com

Playing for Astros team who couldn't hit the ball out of the infield.

Another one is Super Joe Charbonneau. Bad back in the "play through the pain" era killed hiscareer

 

[chappee11]

Gooden had one all time great season and a very good rookie season right before. That's it.

Looking at JR he actually had no great seasons, and a couple good ones. In 1980 he was having his best season ever, and then he had a stroke and his career was over. Not even a one hit wonder really.

Doval in 2023 looked like he could be an all time great closer. Now not so much.

Gooden had 5 seasons where he finished top-10 in Cy Young voting. You could say he peaked early, but he’s no one-hit wonder. Jason Hayward is more like that actually where he basically had his best season as a 20yo rookie and mostly never achieved those heights again.

The best place to look for these types of guys would probably be relief pitchers(like Doval) who catch fire or figure something out for a brief time and mostly flame out after that. The Red Sox had 2 guys like that in Ryan Brasier and Garret Whitlock. Tyler Matzek for the Braves was another great example. He kicked around for a number of years with no real success…then became the most important relief arm on a WS team…then was gone.

 

[msgkings322]

No matter how you look at it he doesn't belong in the one hit wonder category. And the truth is Fidrych created an incredibly high bar for anyone to get even close to. Cy Young, leading the league in WAR, Complete Games, ERA as a rookie, then playing 27 games the rest of his career. Game, set, match.

He is no doubt the most one-hit-wonderest of them all

 

[msgkings322]

Playing for Astros team who couldn't hit the ball out of the infield.

Another one is Super Joe Charbonneau. Bad back in the "play through the pain" era killed hiscareer

I lived in suburban Houston then, saw Richard pitch once at the Astrodome

 

[msgkings322]

Man though that 1985 season for Gooden was arguably the best EVER for a pitcher after World War I. Not 2, 1. Every other pitcher on this list is from the way back, including many names I never heard of.

Walter Johnson had more WAR in 1912 and 1913. The rest are all 1800s LOL with one in 1901 (Cy Young)

Next modern pitchers on this list are Carlton in 1972 and Clemens in 1997

Single-Season Leaders &amp Records for WAR for Pitchers | Baseball-Reference.com

Single-Season WAR Leaders:1.Pud Galvin+/20.5/1884/276, 2.Tim Keefe+/19.9/1883/273, 3.Old Hoss Radbourn+/19.2/1884/387, 4.Jim Devlin/17.7/1876/299, 5.John Clarkson+/16.7/1889/273, 6.Guy Hecker/15.5/1884/328, 7.Walter Johnson+/15.2/1913/144, 8.Charlie Buffinton/15.0/1884/368, 9.John

www.baseball-reference.com

 

[Cedrique]

Man though that 1985 season for Gooden was arguably the best EVER for a pitcher after World War I. Not 2, 1. Every other pitcher on this list is from the way back, including many names I never heard of.

Walter Johnson had more WAR in 1912 and 1913. The rest are all 1800s LOL with one in 1901 (Cy Young)

Next modern pitchers on this list are Carlton in 1972 and Clemens in 1997

Single-Season Leaders &amp Records for WAR for Pitchers | Baseball-Reference.com

Single-Season WAR Leaders:1.Pud Galvin+/20.5/1884/276, 2.Tim Keefe+/19.9/1883/273, 3.Old Hoss Radbourn+/19.2/1884/387, 4.Jim Devlin/17.7/1876/299, 5.John Clarkson+/16.7/1889/273, 6.Guy Hecker/15.5/1884/328, 7.Walter Johnson+/15.2/1913/144, 8.Charlie Buffinton/15.0/1884/368, 9.John

www.baseball-reference.com

Yeah, that's pretty good. And even back in the 80's no one was gonna let a 20 year old pitch 636 innings like Pud Galvin

 

[msgkings322]

Yeah, that's pretty good. And even back in the 80's no one was gonna let a 20 year old pitch 636 innings like Pud Galvin

The immortal Silver King had a better year at age 20 in 1888. Only 584 innings pitched though.

 

[Cedrique]

The immortal Silver King had a better year at age 20 in 1888. Only 584 innings pitched though.

Those guys (Silver King, Pud Galvin, etc.) would be great long reliever/closers today. They could let the entitled Gen Zers pitch their 5 innings every 5th day then close out the last 4 innings of Every Game.

 

[msgkings322]

Those guys would be great long reliever/closers today. They could let the entitled Gen Zers pitch their 5 innings every 5th day then close out the last 4 innings of Every Game.

Yeah their 87 mph fastballs with maybe one off speed pitch would mow 'em down today.

 

[Cedrique]

Yeah their 87 mph fastballs with maybe one off speed pitch would mow 'em down today.

They were Crafty!

 

[Cedrique]

And Wily!

 

[black francis]

Top 20 is Too soon for me to consider ohtani as an all time great.

 

[chappee11]

Man though that 1985 season for Gooden was arguably the best EVER for a pitcher after World War I. Not 2, 1. Every other pitcher on this list is from the way back, including many names I never heard of.

Walter Johnson had more WAR in 1912 and 1913. The rest are all 1800s LOL with one in 1901 (Cy Young)

Next modern pitchers on this list are Carlton in 1972 and Clemens in 1997

Single-Season Leaders &amp Records for WAR for Pitchers | Baseball-Reference.com

Single-Season WAR Leaders:1.Pud Galvin+/20.5/1884/276, 2.Tim Keefe+/19.9/1883/273, 3.Old Hoss Radbourn+/19.2/1884/387, 4.Jim Devlin/17.7/1876/299, 5.John Clarkson+/16.7/1889/273, 6.Guy Hecker/15.5/1884/328, 7.Walter Johnson+/15.2/1913/144, 8.Charlie Buffinton/15.0/1884/368, 9.John

www.baseball-reference.com

That is quite a list. It might be useful to rank it by WAR/IP to offset some of these guys throwing 600(!!!) innings in a season. 600 innings half a career for a pitcher now.

Gooden was otherworldly in 1985. His 229 ERA+ was incredible. Number of seasons where other pitchers beat 229 ERA+?

Clemens-0
Randy-0
Maddux-2
Pedro-2
Seaver-0
Koufax-0
Carlton-0
Ryan-0

Seasons with ERA+ over 200?

Clemens-3
Randy-0
Maddux-2
Pedro-5(!)
Seaver-0
Koufax-0
Carlton-0
Ryan-0
Gooden-1

 

[calsnowskier]

This poll will close in approx 6.5 hours. As it sits now, Clemens and Henderson will advance to the final runoff.

 

[Cedrique]

How could I forget to cast my vote? Classic Cedrique. Distracted by the discussions of Mark Fidrych and JR Richard I neither shat, nor got off the proverbial pot. I hope we don't all end up speaking German after this.

 

[Clayton]

Its really difficult to sort through the pitchers.

1. Walter Johnson
2. Roger Clemens
3. Cy Young

Okay. #4?

4. Randy Johnson
4b. Lefty Grove
4c. Tom Seaver
4d. Christy Mathewson
4e. Pedro Martinez
4f. Greg Maddux

Johnson and Seaver were good for longer. Grove was great for the longest. Pedro and Maddux had the best peaks relative to era. Mathewson maybe checks the most boxes. I see 6 pitchers who should go with very few position players in between them.

But also the question here is that if Cy Young isnt ahead of Johnson then is he just not on the list?

 

[calsnowskier]

Its really difficult to sort through the pitchers.

1. Walter Johnson
2. Roger Clemens
3. Cy Young

Okay. #4?

4. Randy Johnson
4b. Lefty Grove
4c. Tom Seaver
4d. Christy Mathewson
4e. Pedro Martinez
4f. Greg Maddux

Johnson and Seaver were good for longer. Grove was great for the longest. Pedro and Maddux had the best peaks relative to era. Mathewson maybe checks the most boxes. I see 6 pitchers who should go with very few position players in between them.

But also the question here is that if Cy Young isnt ahead of Johnson then is he just not on the list?

I have a hard time sifting through the pitchers. Their most important stat is essentially laughed at nowadays (wins). And I can’t really argue against that derision. But that stat is LARGELY era-driven, so it really can’t be used comparatively.

I think we need new stats to be able to judge pitchers. Something LIKE the PQS that puts every appearance into its own bucket and rates it. But it is a controversial stat itself, and would need a lot of manual labor to compose.

 

[Clayton]

I have a hard time sifting through the pitchers. Their most important stat is essentially laughed at nowadays (wins). And I can’t really argue against that derision. But that stat is LARGELY era-driven, so it really can’t be used comparatively.

I think we need new stats to be able to judge pitchers. Something LIKE the PQS that puts every appearance into its own bucket and rates it. But it is a controversial stat itself, and would need a lot of manual labor to compose.

Bob Gibson might have had the most dominant season ever. But then once adjusted by era it drops to the 6th best season ever. It kind of nukes his argument for going top 30 especially since he really only has 3 star ERA+ seasons. Tom Seaver honestly doesn't really stack up with ERA+, either.

Although at the same time, these older guys were pitching 40-50% more innings than Pedro and Maddux. Does that count for anything?

If you look at K to BB ratio, Young and Grove are really low compared to the rest of the names.

The guy that ends up checking the most boxes is Mathewson, imo.

 

[MilkSpiller22]

I have a hard time sifting through the pitchers. Their most important stat is essentially laughed at nowadays (wins). And I can’t really argue against that derision. But that stat is LARGELY era-driven, so it really can’t be used comparatively.

I think we need new stats to be able to judge pitchers. Something LIKE the PQS that puts every appearance into its own bucket and rates it. But it is a controversial stat itself, and would need a lot of manual labor to compose.

Problem with CY he played 10 seasons pre 1900. And that was most of his HOF caliber seasons.

Not to mention most baseball historians rank him third behind Mathewson and Johnson in that dead ball era.

Really not sure how to even start evaluating him.