RealGM

Sure, it

It's actually funny you bring this up, because I believe it was yesterday that on ESPN they had a story where a GM said this about Santana, "Most dominant pitcher I can remember," and that shocked the hell out of me.

Oh, and my answer is clearly Pedro.

It must've been Bill Bavasi that said that.

Pedro

Pedro, it's pretty easy for me

I'll play devil's advocate for a minute and note that Koufax pitched in a four-man rotation.

This means that in three of his final four seasons Koufax pitched 311, 335 2/3, and 323 innings; the most innings Martinez has ever pitched in a season is 241 1/3. And Koufax made 40, 41, and 41 starts; the most starts Martinez has ever made in a season is 33.

Isn't 40 or more starts from the best pitcher in the game better than 33? Do those extra games make up for the differences between Koufax's and Martinez's rate stats? You be the judge.

I also have to wonder what the effect on Koufax's rates stats might have been if he had pitched in a five-man rotation like Martinez and his arthritic elbow had thus gotten an extra day's rest before each start, but that is purely conjecture.

Hard to argue against Martinez 1997-2003, but I think Koufax 1962-1966 is a close call.

Pedro and it isn't even close. Pedro's ERA+ from 1997 to 2003:
219, 163, 243, 291, 189, 202, and 210.

Koufax from 1961 to 1966: 123, 141, 159, 187, 160, and 190.

As you can plainly see Pedro had 4 years in which he was better than Koufax's best year.

(in case you don't know, ERA+ is adjusted for park, year and league. The league average for every year is 100. so if you multiple a pitchers era+ by his era you get the league average era)

BTW: Santana is good, but he isn't even the best lefty of the last 15 years. That honor belongs to Mr. Randy Johnson.

Someone is a tad bit overrated on this board. Pedro didn't even have the best four year stretch in my generation.

SDM wrote:Someone is a tad bit overrated on this board. Pedro didn't even have the best four year stretch in my generation.

Then who did?

pedro was fantastic for his great stretch but he never pitched over 300 innings like koufax.

And Koufax never had to face steroid juicin' DHs. He also was pitching from a higher mound.

http://www.tangotiger.net/pitchLogKoufax.html

Here is a game by game log of Koufax's career using data from Retrosheet. While you can see that Koufax was certainly abused at times, he had some amazing short games. He had 62 starts where he threw less than 100 pitches (give or take a few, I counted myself). That reduces the luster on 314 "workhorse" starts.

Koufax is a great pitcher and I don't mean to minimize what he did but Pedro is obviously the better pitcher. Koufax is a lefty, pitching in a pitcher's park in a pitcher's era. Pedro pitched in a hitter's era, against DHs, with a lower mound. And absolutely dominated despite those conditions.

If you go by BP's translated stats, Pedro has a lower ERA (2.94-3.23), a slightly lower K/9(9.8-10.0) but a much lower BB/9 (1.9-3.0). Pedro is the better pitcher. mahalo
~Chach~