greg maddux is the greatest pitcher of our generation. or is he? debate...

Another one I cannot belive I missed is Juan Marichal, who walked only 709 men in 3507 innings.

In terms of career statistics, Marichal is the most similar pitcher to Maddux in major league history, although when you look at the details there’s some big differences between them; Marichal put up gaudy numbers in a day when offense wasn’t anything what it’s like now. Whereas Maddux has onw the Cy Young Award four times, Marichal NEVER won it, because there was always someone better around, and his career ended very quickly where Maddux’s probably won’t. But as control pitchers go, Marichal was awesome.

Also with similar control was Carl Hubbell, the great Giants ace, who walked 725 men in 3590 innings. Hubbell is a dead match for Greg Maddux - in a way, I think he’s more similar to Maddux than Marichal is, although Marichal has a higher similarity score. Like Maddux, Hubbell he had a long string of outstanding seasons without ever having an off year, and he was basically the same kind of pitcher in terms of results, although he was a very different type of pitcher (he was a sidearmer.) Both Marichal and Hubbell had better BB/IP ratios than Maddux.

In his career up to this year Maddux has walked 1.99 men per nine innings; that is only the 85th best ratio of all time, but most of the guys ahead of him were either:

A) dead ball era pitchers, or
B) Guys who did’t pitch nearly as long.

Pitchers better than Maddux who are active now, going into 2001, include Rick Reed, Shane Reynolds, and Doug Jones; there might be a few others but they haven’t piched much. Some other modern pitchers who rank ahead of Maddux with a substantial number of innings pitched include

Carl Hubbell
Juan Marichal
Robin Roberts
Bret Saberhagen
Dan Quisenberry
Bob Tewksbury
Lew Burdette
Curt Davis
Paul Derringer
LaMarr Hoyt

[nitpick]Wins and losses have only moderate correlation to how well a pitcher is actually pitching, dependent as they are on a variable (run support) over which the pitcher has effectively zero control. 15-1 may impress the Cy Young voters, but several other AL pitchers–Tims Hudson and Wakefield, for example, or even Mark Buehrle–can be said to be having qualitatively better years than Clemens. Heck, Mike Mussina’s 11-8 and having about as good a year as the Rocket.

Clemens is a first-ballot, inner-circle Hall of Famer, no question, but let’s not get giddy about his win-loss record this year.[/nitpick]