Not with that physique! (Sorry, Greg! You know I love u! :))
Seriously, always loved to watch him pitch. And I always appreciated his love for baseball tradition. He is a National League guy, who wants to be thought of as a baseball player, not a baseball pitcher. The Cubs always wore the pinstripe jersey when he pitched. He still wore stirrups. Plus, all reports are that he was a great teammate. He was really my kind of baseball player.
I’ll never forget what Michael Barrett said about him when Maddux left the Cubs the second time. It was something like:
“Oh, Maddux is a great guy…well, no, I won’t say he’s a great guy, but he’s a great teammate.” I thought that was hilarious, and always kind of wondered what he meant by that.
AL Cy Young winners from 1992 to 1995: Dennis Eckersley, Jack McDowell, David Cone, Randy Johnson. Maybe someone can match up the stats to see if Jack McDowell was really better than Greg Maddux in '93.
Michael Barrett is a young guy and a bit of a hot head (Wikipedia says he’s been involved in several on and off field fights). On the other hand, Maddux spends all of his free time playing golf with Tom Glavine and John Smoltz. Practically the definition of “really laid back”.
I have trouble arguing about Maddux. Objectively, I think we make a mistake considering the 90’s a pure hitters era. When you water down talent through expansion, it lets star hitters beat up on bad pitchers, but it lets star pitchers take advantage of bad hitters too. Bad hitters have the advantage on bad pitchers, so offensive numbers go up, but it does make things easier for great pitchers. I don’t think it is a coincidence that 5 of the most dominant stretchs by pitchers ever (Santana, Clemens, Johnson, Pedro, and Maddux) have occurred in the last 20 years. An era Thus, I think ERA+ overestimates their value. Can we do SD of ERA above the mean? I wonder if that stat is anywhere. I also think that we have to acknowledge that Maddux got advantages by generous umpires.
That said, I can’t argue against the guy. I like him entirely too much. He was on an arch-rival, and I always rooted for him. I don’t know that he was better then Clemens, but I’m happy he now is generally considered to be. I was thrilled he won that last game.
My point is you never know how the vote woulda turned out. Maybe he would have edged out Eck’s phenomenal 1992, maybe not. But we know how Koufax did in the voting against the AL pitchers. You can’t just walk in, plop his 4 CYs on the table, and say “I got 4, you got 3— I win.”
So if the writers somehow decides the Joe Blow was better than Koufax for those 3 years, would Koufax be any worse of a pitcher? Hell if Joe Blow was 27-2 with an era of 1.08 for those 3 seasons, would Koufak be any less of a pitcher?
Except, as Tom Scud showed, Jack McDowell was edged by Maddux in nearly every category. And in hindsight, Jack McDowell was never more than a decent pitcher.
As a Mets fan, I just kind of reflexively semi-disliked the guy when he was a Brave, but I’ve come to respect him as one of the smartest in the game. There’s this quote from an article in ESPN magazine:
I don’t know where I’d rank him, but guys who win that many games and dominate so consistently are going to be few and far between in the coming years.
Oh, you’re right about Barrett…he got into a dugout fight with Carlos Zambrano once, who is only about twice his size!
I understand that Maddux is particular about who catches for him, so who knows if there was some conflict between him & Barrett…although who cares? He’s certainly earned anything he demands from a team.
In 1993? Maybe McDowell, maybe Johnson–better W-L, comparable WhIP. Not obviously better, but either could have taken the Cy away from Maddux. Point is, you’ll never know.
Now, back to those pesky post-season stats…
I’m really not trying to be a prick here–my point is that there’s a legitimate case to be made that Koufax has a more impressive peak, and would get some knowledgable people placing him higher than Maddux. You might be unpersuaded, but others would still call it like that, and you can’t simply claim they’re misinformed. If I want to emphasize post-season stats, a dominating peak, a less diluted league, far more IP and K and several other points as being how I make that call, I’m making a legitimate argument that you’re not obliged to buy into.
I spent a good part of the '90s watching Maddux pitch, and he became the standard by which I compared all other pitchers. Which is terribly unfair, but I didn’t care.