Pitchers Report: The Top 10 Pitchers Since 1960

Matt Hoover

Sometimes it feels like baseball’s offseason is shorter than Brian Wilson’s attention span. It was slightly more than three months ago when Wilson’s Giants beat Detroit in a fairly entertaining World Series matchup that featured no shortage of star pitchers and catchers. Today, those same pitchers and catchers begin to report to spring training. The pitcher is arguably the most important and unique position in all of sports and has always been a fascination of mine. So in honor of their reporting today, let’s take a moment to recognize the best of their breed. These are my 10 best pitchers since 1960…

10. Jim Palmer (1965-1984), 3xCYA

Even before I was diagnosed with a severe case of Orioles’ fever last year, I had a tremendous respect for Jim Palmer. He finished in the top 5 in Cy Young voting 8 times in his 19 seasons (all with Baltimore), winning the award 3 times. He pitched more than 300 innings 5 times (more than anyone else on this list) and pitched at least 20 complete games 4 times. His career 2.86 ERA pales in comparison to his 2.09 ERA in 1975, his beast season, in which he accumulated an impressive 8.1 WAR rating. He won 20 games 6 times. In short, the dude was a stud. He was the best pitcher on the Birds’ 1971 staff, one of the all time great starting rotations. He also looks super good for 67 at the moment. Google him. It’s impressive.

9. Pedro Martinez (1992-2009), 3xCYA

The fact of the matter is that, despite what you’ve heard, for most of his career, Pedro was the rest of baseball’s daddy. His back-to-back 1999 and 2000 seasons were mind-boggling good, particularly considering the gaudy offensive numbers that typically came out of the steroid era. His 2000 season, in particular, ranks among the greatest ever. He posted a 1.74(!!!!) ERA while accumulating a 11.4(!!!!) WAR rating. Yuck. Shockingly, this was the second time in his career that he posted a sub-2 ERA. Few statistical achievements in sports get me off more than sub-2 ERAs, so I’m going to take a little break before I continue writing.

The Big Unit was a pretty intimidating guy.

8. Randy Johnson (1988-2009), 5xCYA

John Kruk still has nightmares about this dude, arguably the greatest power pitcher of all time. He’s the first (though certainly not the last) 300 game winner to appear on our list, and he also is second all time in strikeouts with 4875. In 2001 at the ripe age of 37, he won 21 games, posted a 2.49 ERA, struck out 372 batters(!!!!), and, along with teammate and co-Cy Young winner Curt Schilling, dismantled the juggernaut that was the turn-of-the-millennium Yankees. Some may complain that the Big Unit appears too early on our list, but his dominating persona can’t quite completely overshadow his very good but not jaw-dropping career 3.29 ERA. Still, Johnson was a pretty good pitcher. He gets a slight deduction for being really tall, though. All you tall people think you’re so superior to the rest of us. I’m a person, too!

7. Tom Seaver (1967-1986), 3xCYA

To be honest, I didn’t know much about Seaver before making this list. This can probably be attributed to the fact that he played most of his career on the New York Mets and I am too young to have realized that there was a time when the Mets played baseball and had good players on their team. Anyone vaguely affiliated with Jason Bay automatically loses points in my book. Honestly, how can a team in New York City’s market with one of the largest payrolls in their sport have remained bad for as long as they have? They have yet to recover from their epic collapse in 2007 when the 2007 Phillies, my favorite team of all time, swept them twice in two late-summer four game series en route to winning the division on the last day of the season. Come on, Mets. You’re better than that. Just ask Seaver, who racked up 311 career wins, a 2.68 era, and 3640 strikeouts in his impressive career. Sorry, Tom. I’d love to elaborate on your accomplishments, but we’re out of space.

6. Roger Clemens (1984-2007), 7xCYA, 1xMVP

I've deducted slightly because of the steroid thing. Not so much on principle, though; I just refuse to believe that Clemens could have had the super good run in 2004 and 2005 at ages 41 and 42 without ‘roiding it up, and this run is what really puts him over the top. Even without those two years, Clemens put up some monstrous numbers. Ignoring his aforementioned stint in Houston, He still had 316 career wins, a 3.21 career ERA, 4167 strikeouts, 6 Cy Young wins, and an MVP award (a rare accomplishment for pitchers). Clemens’s involvement in the steroid thing raises an interesting set of questions that I hope to eventually address in their own post on here. In short, though, I’m willing to accept his career numbers as legitimate since they’re what actually happened, but for the purposes of ranking players’ greatness, affiliation with steroids is detrimental. I still like Clemens in spot number six, though. Now, on to the top five!

5. Nolan Ryan (1968-1993), 0xCYA

Nolan Ryan was a tough dude.

You read that right. Nolan Ryan never won a Cy Young. That was about the only thing he didn't do, though. He struck out 300 batters in 6 different seasons and amassed a career total of 5714, good for the most of all time. 324 wins and a career 3.19 ERA aren't exactly things to sneeze at, either. He pitched 7 no-hitters. The best part about him, though, is how his longevity and his badassness snowball and feed off of each other. The dude pitched effectively from age 21 to age 41. He pitched more than 300 innings twice. He pitched double-digit complete games 9 times, highlighted by his 26 complete games in both 1973 and 74. Nowadays, he is forcing his badass style on young pitchers in the Texas Rangers’ organization, and the results are already showing through young stars like CJ Wilson and Matt Harrison. Ryan is probably the most badass pitcher on this list, but he’s not the best. He’s docked some points for having two first names. Having two first names is usually a pretty solid indication that you’re douchy.

4. Steve Carlton (1965-1988), 4xCYA

If Phillies fans think Roy Halladay and Cliff
Lee are workhorses, they should have seen
Lefty take the mound. Also, I hope whoever made
the decision that the Phillies weren't going to wear
powder blue anymore died painfully and alone.

In 1972, the Philadelphia Phillies, the losingest franchise in the history of professional sports, only managed to win 59 games. 27 of those wins, a whopping 46% of all of his teams’ wins, were credited to Steve Carlton. He pitched 346.1(!!!!) innings that season and pitched 30(!!!!) complete games on his way to amassing a 1.97(!!!!) ERA. (Let me reiterate, he started 41 games that year and threw a complete game in 30 of them! 30!! Carlton and Nolan Ryan were the last true horses and put Roy Halladay, Justin Verlander, etc. to shame.) Safe to say, Lefty’s 1972 campaign, in which he accumulated a WAR rating of 12.1(!!!!), was among the greatest individual seasons in pitching history. His 329 wins are good for 9^th of all time. He and Ryan wrestled back and forth for the career strikeouts title during their careers, but injuries late in his career have caused Carlton to settle for 4^th on the career list with only 4136. He won 20 games 6 times and pitched 300 innings twice. He pitched at least 10 complete games in 16 consecutive seasons. The dude is probably slightly less of a household name than Ryan, but quite possibly his only peer in badassery. He gains points because him and Phil Mickelson are probably the two most prestigious athletes to share a nickname and because the trio of Carlton, Michael Jack, and Pete Rose are probably the three best players ever to be on the same team in (or around, at least) their primes. Cool stuff. Probably the greatest Phillie of all time. But as usual in the NL East, Atlanta gets the last laugh….

3. Greg Maddux (1986-2008), 4xCYA

Here, we catch Greg Maddux mid-jumping jack.

He’s not as flashy as Pedro. He didn’t have the same presence as Johnson. He couldn’t throw as hard as Clemens. But Greg Maddux was the best pitcher of the last 25 years. He is a goofy looking guy. His mouth is perpetually opened. He is short and doesn’t look too tough. He did have one big thing going for him, though. He had a disgustingly good circle-change. He is also probably the smartest pitcher on this list, constantly outwitting his opponents in mental chess matches. He also, for all intents and purposes, invented using the black of the plate. In sum, he wasn’t a power pitcher; he was a craft pitcher. And he was a pretty good one. From 1992 to 1998, his ERA was below 2.50 in 6 of the 7 seasons. He won 4 consecutive Cy Youngs from 1992 to 1995, becoming the first player ever to achieve such a feat. His 1994 and 1995 campaigns were particularly impressive, as he posted ERAs of 1.56(!!!!) and 1.63(!!!!) and WARs of 8.5 and 9.4, respectively. For those of your familiar with the statistic called WHIP (one of the more underrated non-sabermetric baseball stats, in my opinion), his WHIPs were 0.896 and 0.811 in those two years (these are insane WHIPs). Statistically, he fell off pretty sharply in his final 5 or 6 seasons or so, but Mad Dog still posed some awesome numbers. His 355 wins are good for 8^th ever. He, Carlton, and Ryan are the only 5000+ inning pitchers on our list. 3371 strikeouts are good for 10^th ever, and he wasn’t a strikeout pitcher. He won 18 consecutive gold gloves and is widely regarded as the best defensive pitcher of all time. He was also the anchor of what was almost unquestionably the greatest starting rotation in the history of baseball. Along with Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, Steve Avery, and others, Atlanta’s pitching staff was the best in baseball throughout the 90s. There hasn’t been a pitcher better than him to come along since, but he still fails to match the achievements of two of his predecessors…

2. Sandy Koufax (1955-1966), 3xCYA, 1xMVP

According to baseball-reference.com, Sandy Koufax’s nickname was “The Left Arm of God.” I’m not sure what that’s all about, but if it’s true, I double dog dare you to name a better nickname in the history of sports. I sort of what to rename Out of Our League “The Left Arm of God” now, but that would probably be taking it too far. Can everyone start calling me “the Left Arm of God?” It’s even better because I’m not left handed. If I was called “the Left Arm of God,” I would never be upset about anything else in my life ever again. But I digress. Koufax was the original Hebrew Hammer. From 1963 through 1966, he had arguable the best 4 years that a pitcher ever had, winning 3 Cys and an MVP. He posed 3 sub-2 ERAs and a 2.04 ERA over these 4 seasons. He threw a no-hitter in each of these 4 seasons. He threw 89 complete games over these years including a whopping 11 shutouts in 1963. He struck out 300 batters 3 times in these 4 years. In 1965, he struck out 382 batters. I’m going to repeat that. In 1965, he struck out 382 batters. 382. Woah. Also in ’65, he pitched a 3 hit, 10K shutout in Game 7 of the World Series. He lacks the staying power of some of the other pitchers on this list, but his peak surpasses anyone we have seen so far. He retired on his own terms at age 30 in 1965 after winning his 3^rd Cy. You have to admire players that do that, in my opinion. The Left Arm of God reigned supreme over baseball in his prime.

1. Bob Gibson (1959-1975), 2xCYA, 1xMVP

Bob Gibson was one of the all-time greats.

I want to make 3 points here before we do anything else. 1) If Koufax was the Left Arm of God, Bob Gibson was the Right Arm of God. 2) No other player in the history of American professional sports that I know of was so dominant that his league changed the rules of the game to curb his dominance. 3) Gibson’s 1968 campaign was the greatest of all time. In 1968 (the original “year of the pitcher”), Gibson compiled a 22-9 record, a 1.12(!!!!!!!!!!!!) ERA and a 11.7(!!!!) WAR rating. His 28 complete games included 13 shutouts. That's 13 shutouts. He struck out a record 17 batters in one World Series game en route to leading his Cardinals to a World Series title. Like Koufax, Gibson lacked the staying power of pitchers like Carlton and Ryan, but he’s the only athlete ever (to my knowledge) to have literally changed his sport. After Gibson’s extreme dominance in ’68, Major League Baseball lowered the pitcher’s mound from 15 inches to 10 inches and shrunk the strike zone in ’69 as a direct response to Gibson’s mind-boggling effort the year before. These are sometimes called the “Gibson Rules” now. Gibson had the greatest prime in the history of pitching. He also managed to amass some impressive career totals: 3884.1 innings, a 2.91 era, 3117 strikeouts, and 255 complete games (including 13 consecutive seasons with at least 10 and 8 of 9 seasons with at least 20 between 1965 and 1972). Bob Gibson is one of the greatest baseball players of all time and the greatest pitcher of the last 50 years. He literally changed baseball forever.

So there we have it, folks. The 10 greatest pitchers since 1960. This was a tough list to compile. Many worthy pitchers were left off, and I’m sure arguments could be made for every one of these guys to be higher or lower. I’m excited for baseball to start up in 2013. Perhaps we’ll see another Bob Gibson esque performance this year. But let’s not kid ourselves. We won’t.