Greg Maddux will be remembered as the best pitcher of his generation. In the end, there's not much debate about that.
Others are in the discussion. Randy Johnson and Tom Glavine. Curt Schilling and Pedro Martinez and Mike Mussina.
Any list begins with Maddux, though. His 355 victories are the most in this era of the five-man rotation. Since World War II, only Warren Spahn has won more games.
 | Complete game: Greg Maddux announces retirement | Associated Press | Mon Dec 8 | 0 |
It's hard to argue against his numbers, and he compiled them during the rise of the steroid era.
#1 - Mon Dec 8, 2008 7:40 PM ESTI'm sorry, but reputation aside, Roger Clemens belongs in the discussion and wins the discussion. It's not even close, really. The numbers may look similar, but Clemens did it the far harder DH league for almost all of his career, and did it in front of inferior defenses and at the prime of his career for significantly more innings.
Roger Clements career ERA+ (that's the ratio his era to the league average) was 143, while Greg Maddux's was 132. For reference, Roger Clemens beats Maddux in era relative to league average by about the same amount that Maddux beats Mike Mussina who's only a borderline Hall of Fame candidate.
As for the steroid allegations, they are still only allegations, and my view on steroids and records is that if the league allowed the player to play and didn't suspend him, then everything counts. Because if we are going to start to cherry pick players and stats not to include, then we might as well wipe the entire steroid era off the books permanently. Besides, how can we be certain that Maddux did not use any performance enhancing drugs? Andy Pettitte was one of the last players most people would have suspected, why not Maddux?
#2 - Mon Dec 8, 2008 10:21 PM ESTSorry Adam, you obviously never watched Maddux pitch. Sure he was given the outside pitch, but so was Clemens. But did you ever watch that 4-seamer slide back across the plate to the left-hander? I bet not. It came right over the plate. The reason that his WHIP went over 1.00 was that he lost that 3 mph on his fastball. But he still won.
Clemons was good no doubt. But Maddux didn't do steroids/human growth etc. He stayed legal, took what the umpires gave him and won. And he was a humble person, not arrogant!
If all you can do is say strikeouts are what measure a person, then I feel sorry for you.
What do I care about watching them pitch? Pitching is about results! It's not just strikeouts either. Clemens was pitching in a harder league, against a DH and doing it better. In his best seasons, he was pitching more innings than Maddux, which meant teams had to rely less on crappy relievers.
Its my belief that both Greg Maddox and Roger Clemens are the two greatest pitchers to come around in years and I dont care what league they pitched in they both played against some of the gratest hitters of all time who could of or could not of been taking steroids. Its my opion that they should both be first ballot Hall Of Famers
#3 - Tue Dec 9, 2008 7:30 AM ESTThen you have to say that Mark McGwire should be in the Hall as well as Barry Bonds?
That is interesting to say the least. Do we just say that cheating is okay as long as the only person(?) who gets hurt is the individual? What about all the people who played fair and didn't take the steroids/hgh? Or are they just suckers?
Maddux and Glavine were part of a sub-era in baseball, the "foot off the plate strike" era. How else do two guys without the knuckleball who can't throw 90 win 300 games?? Once the strike zone was shrunken, while still good, Maddux and Glavine had a hard time being "great". I think first ballot hall of fame, sure, but the greatest pitcher of our time is the "I think I'll lie 'cause I know the Bushes" Rocket, by a mile.
#4 - Tue Dec 9, 2008 7:42 AM ESTYou're in Easy Mode. If you prefer, you can use XHTML Mode instead. |
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Pretty cool gif animation of him throwing last night.
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