Well there you have it. After retiring…at age 42…Clemens wins his 7th Cy Young Award and his first in the National League.
That’s astounding, isn’t it?
And it’s time to debate: where does he rank?
Clearly, he’s a first ballot Hall of Fame player. They start polishing the plaque the minute they know he’s retired for good.
But where does he rank? Is he top five? Top ten?
Where does he rank with Koufax? With Gibson? With Walter Johnson?
What do you think, folks?
I think Clemens ranks with the best of all time. His stats are even more impressive than they seem at first glance, since he spent so much of his career in the quintessential hitter’s park, Fenway.
Warren Spahn is one of the very few guys who was as good for as long.
He shouldn’t have won the Award. There were better pitchers.
But where does he rank? I’m inclined to think he is probably the greatest pitcher of all time.
For the hell of it I went to baseballreference and, just using the pitcher’s adjusted ERA+, tried to figure out how many runs a number of great pitchers had saved their teams as opposed to a regular pitcher. Clemens really has no competitors in modern times:
Clemens: 643 runs
Seaver: 413
Carlton: 281
Perry: 312
Spahn: 110
Palmer: 317
Gibson: 339
Koufax: 224
Ryan: 225
Randy Johnson: 509
Maddux: 559
Alexander: 514
Mathewson: 397
Some of the old time pitchers have higher numbers - Cy Young is at 810, but that’s a different game.
The two purely 20th century pitchers who beat Clemens are Lefty Grove (649) and Walter Johnson (659.) That’s pretty much too close to call, and I am inclined to give Clemens the edge for playing against an integrated league.
This isn’t a great method because it’s based on average and therfore assumes a lot of average play has no value, which is wrong. It also only goes by earned runs, a flawed approach. But Clemens is really in a league of his own in modern times… I think he’s clearly number one.
Better. Better. Maybe better.
He’s unquestionably the best of the post-war era.
When you start going back farther, it gets tricky because the game was so very different then, and any comparison you make depends a lot on assumptions and choices on how you weigh things. Obviously, there’s the whole issue of today’s integrated and internationalized game vs. the pre-expansion era.
A quibble with RickJay’s runs-above-average is that it gives a slight advantage to pitchers in high-ERA eras. The higher the league-average ERA is, it becomes relatively easier to have a good ERA+. When the league ERA is down around 3-3.5, as it was for Alexander and Mathewson, it gets harder and harder to get lower.
If we count Cy Young, I’m inclined to say he’s the best. 511 is 511.
I’d also put Clemens behind Lefty Grove, noting that the 7 Cy Youngs point to the fact that Clemens has been somewhat inconsistient. Grove had and ERA+ above 120 14 times in 15 years. Clemens in contrast was good-but-not-great in 1993. 95, 99, 2002 and 2003. Gotta say though, that if Clemens plays another couple years, he’ll have an edge in longevity.
I’m inclined to put Clemens ahead of Johnson and Alexander, arguing that they weren’t nearly as good after the live ball was introduced. They didn’t adapt to the conditions Clemens faced his whole career. Mathewson is underrated nowadays, and I’d like to put him up there, too, but he doesn’t have the longevity.
I’ll also note that if Maddux’s career ends up running longer than Clemens’, he’s part of the conversation.
Best of all time?
He’s not in Hoss Radbourn’s class - at least not until he wins 59 games in a season.
And his moustache is distinctly inferior.
The fine folks at SABR conducted a very interesting experiment not too long ago (background here) called Baseball Survivor. They essentially had the best 100 players ever, and each week knocked off 3, 2, then 1 player to determine the best of the best. Keep in mind, this took place from id 2001 to mid 2002, so current players accomplishments since then aren’t taken into consideration.
The irritating thing is that I can’t find the final results on-line anymore. I have emailed SABR for an answer. I do remember that Walter Johnson was the highest ranking pitcher (Top 6 overall). Lefty Grove was 11th. Roger was fairly high on the list, and I an only assume his last 2 years would move him up a tad more. Once I get an answer from SABR, I’ll throw it in here.
Since the results don’t appear to be online right now, some more info:
Here
Thanks to Justin Kubatko, one of the main forces behind Baseball Survivor, I now have a link to pretty much all you need to know. Clemens came in 14th.
Gehrig’s too low.
Also, Roger Clemens had no right winning this Cy Young, but for my money he’s as good as there’s ever been. We’ll never see another power pitcher like that last as long as he has, I don’t think.
Why not? Who was better in the NL this year? The only people who come close are Randy Johnson and Ben Sheets, and they were on bad teams with bad records.
Perhaps, but I’d argue that it just makes up for the appalling decision in 1990 to give the award to Bob Welch because, in nothing more than an interesting historical coincidence, he won 27 games.
A cursory glance shows that Clemens was a vastly superior pitcher that year. He gave up about two-thirds as many earned runs as Welch and only a quarter of the home runs in just 10 fewer innings, walked 30% fewer batters and struck out about two-thirds more, tossed four shutouts to Welch’s two, and finished the season with an ERA under 2.00.
Consider as well that Welch started half his games in the Oakland Coliseum, while Clemens had half of his starts at Fenway Park. And while Welch was supported by a bullpen whose five main contributors posted a collective 12-10 record and included a closer having one of the greatest seasons any relief pitcher has ever had, the Boston bullpen’s five main pitchers were 12-19 and the lowest ERA among the bunch was above 3.00.
Really, the only knock I can think of against Clemens is that he made four fewer starts than Welch because he missed a few weeks at the end of the regular season with a sore arm. Quite trivial when put against all of the above, I’d argue. And Rocket Man did have 21 wins himself that year.
All in all, a terrible decision, IMHO.
Clinton’s fault. No doubt about it, because…hey, stop that!..ow!..stop!..OW!..wow, man uncool…
I think that Clemens is a great pitcher and deffinetly deserves all the props he gets. However, I feel that he ranks in the top 5 pitchers or all time when it comes to regular season games, and a top 15 pitcher when it comes to post season games. It’s not that I find him a dissapointment in the post season, I just think there are several other pitchers who have risen to higher levels in their own post season experience.
Randy Johnson didn’t come close. He outpitched Clemens in every statistic they bother to keep, save for a bunch of losses. I really, really don’t think wins and losses should be the be-all end-all stat that earns people Cy Youngs, especially when you’re only talking about a two-win difference versus significant differences in innings, ERA, strikeouts, walks, and WHIP.
A two-win and ten-loss difference. You can win a Cy Young on a bad team, but a 16-14 just isn’t good enough to get recognized.
I just looked up the stats and you’re absolutely correct. No question about it. Clemens should be 3rd or even 4th in the NL. Sheets pitched much better and even Peavy.
Well, obviously not, but my point is that the sub 1.00 WHIP and the K/BB ratio and all that should be enough, even if you lose 20 games. It’s an individual award. What else could the man do?
I’m just saying, for better or worse, the presumption of the award is that the best pitchers can get wins even on a bad team - the most famous example being Steve Carton winning 27 games for the 1972 Phillies, who won only 59 games that year. Pitching well enough to lose just doesn’t get rewarded, even when the performances are dominant and other numbers are good.