I’m talking about the 28 years since Ron Guidry’s 1978 season.
25 Wins
3 Losses
1.74 ERA
16 complete games
9 shutouts
I can’t recall Clemens, Randy Johnson, Maddux, Gooden or anyone else having a season quite THAT good. But I want to be sure before I go around saying it.
Pedro Martinez, 1999/2000?
Greg Maddux 1994/1995?
Clemens 1997 or even last year?
Big Unit 2001/2002?
Yes Guidry had A) a lower ERA, and B) more innings pitched. But both of those are
probably due to the place (Yankee Stadium) and time (70’s AL) he pitched in. You
could probably spend an hour dissecting and comparing each above season (and I
know people who do just that), but my money is on Maddux 94-95. Sure there was
a strike, so we don’t know if he would keep up a 1.50-something ERA for a full season,
but he did it for 2 partial seasons (where he got 200 IP anyway in both), so that’s
got to count for something.
Pedro looks pretty good too but injuries hurt him in comparison with the others.
Dwight Gooden, 1985:
24-4, 1.53 ERA, 268 strikeouts, 16 complete games, 8 shutouts.
1978 Guidry had 1 more win, 1 less loss, 1 more shutout. 1985 Gooden had .21 lower ERA and twenty more strikeouts with three fewer walks.
I’d say 1985 Gooden is comparable, if not a little better.
There’s a stat called Adjusted ERA+, which attempts to adjust ERA for context (league ERA and the park the pitcher pitches in, IIRC). By that measure, Pedro’s 2000 is the best of the modern era (post 1900). Maddux’s 1994 and 1995 are also in the top 5 (along with two from the teens, Dutch Leonard’s 1914 and Walter Johnson’s 1913).
Guidry is 27th (post 1900 only). There’s 11 seasons better than Guidry’s since 1978 - Pedro in 97, 99, 00 and 03; Clemens in 90, 97 and 05; Maddux’s 94 and 95, Doc’s 85, and Kevin Brown (!) in 96.
It’s not a perfect stat - it needs an adjustment for innings pitched - but it’s one fair way to measure. There’s other advanced metrics out there that might show a different result. I’d say that Pedro’s 2000 and Maddux’s two great years (where he also led the league in IP and was a great fielder as well) are clearly better than Guidry’s. Guidry’s big edge is wins, which I don’t put a lot of stock in when ranking pitcher’s performance.
Interesting stat that I would not have guessed - Pedro in 2000 and Guidry in 1978 were both 7th in their leagues in innings pitched.
Denny McLain’s 1968 season (with a 31-6 record, 1.96 ERA, Cy Young award, A.L. MVP, and World Series Championship) should also be considred to be among the best seasons for a starting pitcher.
That was a great year. It falls outside the parameters of the OP, however.
Neither do I, really. But I don’t consider minor differences in ERA all that important either. For example, Gooden 1985 2.53 ERA vs. Guidry 2.74 represents 1 less run every 45 innings. The difference in ballpark sizes more than makes up for this difference.
I must do some more research on the Adj. ERA. Of course, there’s really no way to factor in other qualitative differences. An example is that a pitcher on a great offensive team will naturally give up a few extra runs since the goal is to maintain the lead, and get the game over.
I know the OP specifically defined “since 1978” but I can’t resist pointing to the 1884 season of Charlie “Old Hoss” Radbourne. 59-12 in 75 games (73 of them starts)
I know the OP specifically defined “since 1978” but I can’t resist pointing to the 1884 season of Charlie “Old Hoss” Radbourn. 59-12 in 75 games (73 of them starts) with an ERA of 1.38. 441 strikeouts, too.
Dang premature posting!
(Bolding mine)
Depending on where you are headed with that, I may agree with you. If you’re talking about the idea of “pitching to the score” (some pitchers can pitch just well enough to win) then I disagree – the nice folks at Baseball Prospectus have done a fair amount of work and found no evidence to support that thesis. However, if you’re talking about the result of the managerial tactic of trading runs for outs when ahead in a game, then I definitely agree.
The “adjusted” in ERA + is ballpark-adjusted. After factoring in the ballparks, Gooden’s ERA in 1985 was 2.26 times better than average, and Guidry’s in '78 was 2.08 times better. Guidry gave up fewer baserunners, though.
Personally, I think Pedro’s 2000 blows the rest out of the water by a significant margin.
Other then the pitchers themselves who said they do that. But what would someone who actually plays the game know?
In terms of ERA+, perhaps. However, Martinez pitched only 217 innings that year; Guidry pitched 273.2, and Gooden 276.2, in their big years. That makes a fairly big difference.
RealityChuck:
Sure, they usually do say it right after a game in which they give up two big home runs in the seventh inning to make a 7-1 lead a 7-5 lead. I mean, there’s certainly no chance whatsoever that what an athlete claims he was trying to do could be at all self-serving, right?
Come on. What sort of idiot would deliberately pitch in a way that he knows would make it LIKELIER TO GIVE UP RUNS? What, are they trying to blow leads?
Well, sure it does; it’s a huge difference. And the number of innings he (didn’t) throw that season are the only reason that “Martinez, 2000,” isn’t one of those phrases every baseball fan hears a thousand times. But be fair, we’re not talking about “in terms of ERA +, perhaps.” We’re talking about in terms of ERA +, K/9, K/BB, WHIP (.7 fucking 37? That’s rarified air for a closer), and opponent’s average, in each of which categories that season was either the very best ever, or one of the very few best ever.
That’s not to say that 6 starts plus another inning and change per start isn’t significant. It’s just my opinion that the innings he did pitch were so retardedly effective that I’d take 30 short Pedro starts over 35 longer starts by the other guys.
No – they just are taking it easy so they don’t get as tired or maybe injure their arm. You throw more junk because a hit or even a home run is not likely to hurt the team. Why waste your arm on a 90+ fastball and a 80 mph one is easier, and a mistake isn’t going to hurt.
Also, the batters are probably not trying as hard, either – when you’re down six runs, it’s harder to work up the concentration; what you do will probably not make any difference.
But it’s nice that Baseball American can look at statistics and read the minds of the pitchers to know what they’re thinking on the mound. :rolleyes:
Complete games and innings pitched are the two stats that are possibly the least comparable over the years.
The number of innings pitched and the complete games, when graphed, would look like a stock that was booming in 1978 and is in bankruptcy now. I wish I had the stats, but the complete games stat is now 1/10 of the complete games in the 70’s.
One of the best measures is to look at how Guidry compares to his peers, not those pitching now.
In other words, who dominated their peers more than anyone else?
Wow, Chuck, I don’t think I want you playing for my team! 
My husband pitched up through college and would always go at it like the game was on the line- that’s why he played. I know an MLB player who was changed from a pitcher to a position player and he was the same way.
But I guess it’s possible that by the time some pitchers get to the bigs, they don’t care like that anymore.