Viola had more than half of his games, starts, innings, wins, strikeouts and everything else good with the Twins, not to mention that that’s where he won his Cy Young Award and his World Series ring. How is he not primarily a Twins pitcher?
Because I don’t think of him as one, I guess. You raise a good point, but for whatever reason, I just don’t think of him as being an iconic pitcher for the Twins. Maybe it was the fact that he sounded like he was from out of town, and he left town? Or maybe I’m constantly reminded of Blyleven because he’s half of the TV announcing team.
Santana was an awesome pitcher as a Twin - I saw Erickson’s no-hitter, and it was the second most dominant pitching performance that I saw a Twins pitcher deliver (in person) behind a Santana start where he gave up 3 runs (IIRC). Santana was just blowing away hitters, making them look foolish. Erickson’s drop-off-the-table sinker was awesome, but Santana at his best was head and shoulders better.
Either Viola or Santana would make great candidates. And I’m not sure who I’d pick, given time to think about it. But on the spur of the moment, I went with Blyleven. And I might wind up with him after long consideration, too. He was a damn fine pitcher.
Feller is almost certainly the best known star pitcher for the Indians and would probably be named by 9 out of 10 Indians fans. I’d pick him (or maybe Addie Joss who I know about only by reading) if we’re playing AL rules. But if we don’t get a DH, you couldn’t do much better than Bob Lemon. He was often used as a pinch hitter going 31 for 109 (0.284) in that role. He had 37 career home runs as well – second highest for a pitcher.
For what it’s worth, Ted Williams thought of him as a tougher pitcher to hit than Feller.
For the Astros, I have to go with Mike Scott from 1986. I still remember the NLCS that year, and the devastating game 6. Despite their later World Series appearance against the White Sox in 2005, I think that the 1986 team was the best Astros team ever, in no small part thanks to Mike Scott and his split finger fastball.
Coulda sworn I’d already posted this, but along the lines of what I said in the quintessential hitter thread, neither Steve Rogers nor Dennis Martinez is the Washington Nationals’ quintessential pitcher, since neither one of them has ever pitched an inning as a Nat.
It’s too soon for the Nats to really have a quintessential pitcher. I haven’t done an exhaustive search, but it looks like the current leaders in WAR as a Nat are Jordan Zimmerman (7.2), Tyler Clippard (7.0), and John Lannan (6.9). Livan was 5.5 as a Nat, and Strasburg’s at 5.0.
I would argue that this is somewhat misguided.
The argument has actually been made, and it’s fairly logical, that ERA+ actually exaggerates the contribution of pitchers in high offense years. So in fact Maddux’a ERA+ gives you a somewhat high estimate of his value.
Without getting deep into the math, the thing with ERA+ is that if more runs are scored it’s possible to have a much better ERA+ than if fewer runs are scored. If teams don’t score much you can’t be THAT much better than everyone else because there isn’t as much room to BE better.
The thing is that no matter how much better you are than average, you can only win a game once. Maddux’s best season was 1995 (he had a better ERA+ in 1994, but the season was interrupted) when the average team scored about four and a half runs per game. If you allow 4 runs per game, that’s good. If you allow 3.5 runs per game, that’s even better, but that extra half run is actually a tiny bit less valuable than the first half run. Going to 3 runs per game is better still but, again, a tiny bit less valuable. Beating a team 5-1 isn’t any better than beating them 5-2.
It is interesting to note that Spahn’s best ERA+ season is 1953, with 188. Maddux beat that three times and missed y one point another year - and yet according to WAR, Spahn’s 1953 is just a little bit less valuable than Maddux’s 1995, and better than any other Maddux season, simply because he was helping his team win just as many games by pitching about as well as anyone could, plus he pitched more innings than Maddux did.
It’s also interesting to call up a list of the best ERA+ seasons of all time. With one exception, Bob Gibson in 1968, all of the Top Ten happened either
- During the dead ball era, or
- During the steroid era.
In the top 25, there are only 3 seasons not in the deadball or steroid era; Gibson, Gooden’s 1985, and Lefty Grove in 1931. That pattern continuyes on down the list, with the odd exception cropping up like Guidry in 1978, but other it’s dead ball, steroids, dead ball, steroids; it starts to break up around #50. Kevin Brown’s 1996 ranks much higher than Steve Carlton’s incredible 1972 season. Doesn’t that seem a tiny bit, well, suspicious?
Anyways, I don’t mean to tell Braves fans who to choose. But Spahn, to my mind, sort of embodies the MILWAUKEE Braves, while the ATLANTA Braves are kind of a different entity, and in a way their Quintissential Pitcher is not one man, but the Maddux-Glavine-Smoltz trifecta, which is surely the greatest trio of aces to ever pitch together for a long period of time.
Yeppers.
Since, as you point out, “if more runs are scored it’s possible to have a much better ERA+ than if fewer runs are scored,” is it fair to assume that overrepresentation of the dead ball era among the best ERA+ seasons is largely because because starters pitched so many more games and innings than now?
Echoing my thoughts on the Nats, which I feel should be generalized across the board, treating the Boston, Milwaukee, and Atlanta Braves as distinct teams from a fan perspective, ditto the Brooklyn/LA Dodgers, the NY/SF Giants, etc.
Not possible, since ERA+ is an inning-by-inning stat. If I were to hazard a guess, it would be that the talent pool was still pretty shallow back then.
How would pitching more games help your ERA+? It would inflate your WAR and counting stats.
I suspect the reason the deadball era shares the other half of the ERA+ seasons is just that the calibre of play wasn’t as high then so there were more extremes of performance. I can’t prove that, but it’s my theory.