The Greatest Living Pitcher

Last week, I set out to identify – for myself – the “Greatest Living Baseball Player”.  I came up with Willie Mays in that role and did not get any real opposition.  I did not consider pitchers in that exercise – – or Designated Hitters either – – and said that I might try to identify the greatest living pitcher one of these days.  That statement got several notes of encouragement from family members and readers so I thought I would give it a go – – so to speak.  I fully expect plenty of disagreement with this selection.

As before, I have my own personal “ground rules” for this search; I did not consider any relief pitchers/closers for the title.  That means several excellent members of the Hall of Fame will not be under consideration here including:

• Dennis Eckersley
• Rollie Fingers
• Mariano Rivera
• Lee Smith
• Bruce Suter

I began this exercise the same way I began the previous one; I went to the Hall of Fame website and looked over their listing of the living Hall of Fame members.  That search gave me a list of 9 pitchers that I felt deserved a second look:

1. Steve Carleton
2. Tom Glavine
3. Sandy Koufax
4. Randy Johnson
5. Greg Maddux
6. Juan Marichal
7. Jim Palmer
8. Nolan Ryan
9. John Smoltz

I recognized quickly that this list is too long for close consideration given that I would probably be adding a few names of active players or those not yet eligible for Hall of Fame induction.  Therefore, I did a triage on the list above and dropped Glavine, Marichal, Palmer and Smoltz leaving me with 5 living Hall of Fame members.

Considering the not-yet-inducted members of the Hall of Fame, I made a preliminary list of seven more names:

1. Madison Bumgarner
2. Gerrit Cole
3. Jacob deGrom
4. Clayton Kershaw
5. Shohei Ohtani
6. Max Scherzer
7. Justin Verlander

Just because I like symmetry, I chose to remove Bumgarner and deGrom from this list to have 5 current Hall of Fame members and 5 someday-to-be Hall of Fame members on my consideration list.

Here began the much more difficult winnowing  of the list:

• Carleton:  He must be on this list simply because of his 1972 season.  The Phillies were an awful team in 1972 finishing in last place in the NL with a record of 59-97; but Carleton won 27 games that year by himself – – 46% of the team wins for a season.  He completed 30 games that year and at one point was the winning pitcher in 15 consecutive starts.  He was in the major leagues for all or part of 24 seasons and had a career ERA of 3.22 over more than 5200 innings.
• Cole:  He has been in the major leagues for 10 years now having spent half of his career working for some less-than-competent Pirate teams.  His career record so far is 126-67 with a career ERA of 3.21.
• Johnson:  He was in the major leagues for 22 seasons.  He was selected to the All-Star team 10 times, and he won the Cy Young Award 5 times.  He ranks second to Nolan Ryan in all time strikeouts having registered 4,875 Ks.  He also has a perfect game to his credit.
• Kershaw:  I don’t want to hear about how his playoff record does not match his regular season performance; Clayton Kershaw is a great pitcher.  He has been in the majors for 15 seasons; he led all of MLB in season long ERA 4 times and in another season his ERA was 1.69 but that was not even the best ERA in the National League.  He is a nine-time All Star, a three-time Cy Young winner and was MVP once in 2014.
• Koufax:  He was in the major leagues for 12 seasons.  From 1963 through 1966, his record with the Dodgers was an eye-popping 97-27.  His ERA over those four seasons was 1.85.  He was an All-Star 6 times, the Cy Young winner 3 times and the MVP once.  He threw 4 no-hit games and one perfect game.
• Maddux:  He spent 23 years in the major leagues.  He was an eight-time All-Star, a four-time Cy Young winner and he received a gold glove for fielding in 18 seasons.  He started 740 games and threw just over 5000 innings with a career ERA of 3.16.  His career strikeout to walk ratio was 3.37 and for the 3-year stretch from 1995 to 1997 his strikeout to walk ratio was 7.46.
• Ohtani:  It is way too soon to have him on a list such as this one, but I have him here because he is a baseball unicorn.  He is achieving statistical feats that have not been seen since Babe Ruth and that statement alone allows him to be under consideration here.  He has been in the major leagues for 4 seasons and in that time, he has been rookie of the Year, a two-time All-Star and the league MVP once.
• Ryan:  Let me do this one with a series of numbers.  27 seasons in MLB; 5386 innings pitched; 5714 strikeouts (more than one per inning over 27 years); gave up 6.6 hits per 9 innings – the lowest in MLB history’; started 807 games and completed 222 of them.  In his career, he threw 7 no-hit games.  ‘Nuff said…
• Scherzer:  He has been in the major leagues for 15 seasons and is signed with the Mets for two more.  His record is 198-99 and his career ERA is 3.11.  He has thrown 2 no-hitters in his career.  He has 8 All-Star appearances and 3 Cy Young Awards.
• Verlander:  He has been in the major leagues for 17 seasons, and he missed all of the 2021 season while recovering from elbow surgery.  His career record is 231-142 with an ERA of 3.26.
  Three times, he has led all of MLB in total wins for a season and is currently leading MLB in wins with a record in 2022 of 15-3.  He was Rookie of the Year in 2006; he has been on the All-Star team 9 times; he has 2 Cy Young Awards and an MVP award.

The only “easy” elimination from this list is Shohei Ohtani simply because he has not been in MLB long enough to have accumulated enough stats to match others on this list.  However, remember that he has been compared to Babe Ruth by various stat-folks and that simple comparison means he should be kept in mind when someone down the line compiles a list like this one.

After that “elimination” I took a walk with the list of 9 possibilities in hand and just did a free association with my recollections about these pitchers.  When I came back, I had the list narrowed down to three:

• Sandy Koufax
• Greg Maddux
• Nolan Ryan

            Given another 15 minutes or so to ponder that troika here is my pronouncement:

• The Greatest Living MLB Pitcher is – – – Sandy Koufax.

            As noted above, I do not expect anything resembling unanimity on this choice and there are sound arguments to be made in favor of others on my list and others that never made it onto my list.  Let the discussion begin…

Finally, today’s exercise has been about an evaluation of “greatness” made even more difficult by the time span of the achievements of these pitchers.  So, let me close with an observation by Michael Jordan on that subject:

“I believe greatness is an evolutionary process that changes and evolves era to era.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………