Luv those Knicks wrote: I'm curious how Guidry's crazy season, or Cone's best year, or Gooden's or some of Maddox's years would compare.
Guidry's 1978 season he had a STF of 41. That's pretty damn good (cf Johan Santana 2004). David Cone, one of my all time favorites and probably the most underrated pitcher of the 1990s not named Kevin Brown, hovered in the mid-20s to mid-30s, topping at 41 in 1990. Maddux was between 20-30 for a long time. His numbers are somewhat low because he pitched in the National League and he generally played in front of an amazing defense. (STF factors in defensive quality in an indirect way.) Gooden put up a 52 in his rookie season, absolutely unheard of, then kind of petered out from there.
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/dt/guidrro01.phphttp://www.baseballprospectus.com/dt/coneda01.phphttp://www.baseballprospectus.com/dt/maddugr01.phphttp://www.baseballprospectus.com/dt/goodedw01.php What about Relievers, like Eckersly's amazing years?
Relievers are at somewhat of a disadvantage as STF also factors in innings pitched, which is somewhat understandable because a guy like Eck pitching 82 innings of great baseball is not the same as Pedro Martinez pitching 200+ of great baseball. Eck put up some great years:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/dt/eckerde01.phpDitto Trevor Hoffman:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/dt/hoffmtr01.phpOddly enough, Fruit Bat has generally good, not great, STF numbers:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/dt/riverma01.phpTom Henke had outstanding numbers, posting two STFs of over 40:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/dt/henketo01.phpWhy he never garnered much attention for the Hall is one of the biggest injustices ever, right behind Lou Whitaker and Bert Blyleven.
is an STF of 66 the best ever? Pedro did get that 1.7 something ERA in an era of offense, which is very impressive. Guidry, Gooden & Cone did theirs when the league's hitting wasn't what it is today.
STF takes into account league averages and (roughly) normalizes them to the same across eras in that a 10 in 1988 is league average, just as a 10 in 2004 is league average, even though the dude from 1988 may have better raw numbers (ERA, K, etc).
I don't have a subscription to Baseball Prospectus so I can't find an all-time list, but in my countless hours of idle time at work, I have yet to come across anything higher than a 66. Randy Johnson has occasionally hit the high 50s, but that's it:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/dt/johnsra05.php
Not even Clemens has come close:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/dt/clemero02.php