Originally Posted by
Metal Ed
It depends on what you mean by greater. I could easily make a case for Spahn being better, if we are talking about skill. Walter Johnson has the higher value, Spahn was more skilled.
Walter Johnson or Warren Spahn.... to me this is like Babe Ruth vs. Ty Cobb.
Clearly, the Babe had a higher mathematical value than Ty Cobb (OK, Cobb had a higher offensive Win Shares total, but Babe crushes him in Win Shares/per game). But who was better? Well, in terms of value at the time that they played, the Babe. But I would argue that this was only because the Babe played under the one set of circumstances that were ideally suited to maximizing the value of his particular skill set. Cobb's skill set was easily greater, but he didn't have the luck of having the perfect set of circumstances like the Babe did. Babe's skill set was morelimited than Cobb's. But the Babe played under conditions that maximized the value of his more limited skill set. Under a different set of conditions, Ty would've been better.
There is no question whatsoever that Walter Johnson was a more valuable pitcher than Spahn.... in fact, there is little doubt Walter was a more valuable pitcher than anybody who ever lived. But that is because the game was working for him. Imagine the situation. Here Johnson is throwing 95-100 mph. Hardly anyone else in the league at the time could even crack 90 mph. And they didn't have batting machines feeding them 100 mph color-coded tennis balls all off season long. When Johnson pitched, the hitters were seeing something they had never seen before, and were hopelessly overmatched. There was simply not enough time in a 2 hour game to adjust their bat speed - not when only a handful of pitchers in the league were even within 5 mph of Sir Walter.
The hitters' precious reflexes simply hadn't had the opportunity to be honed and sharpened against a steady diet of 95-100 mph offerings.
And that was all Johnson had - speed and control. He didn't master his curve until well into his later years, when time had robbed him of some of his speed. And his curve was never thought of as being amongst the best in the world.
Like Babe Ruth, Johnson was a beneficiary of circumstance. He played in an era of 160 lb. hitters whose mechanical skills were nowhere near those of later generations. He played in Griffith Satdium, a pitcher's paradise. He threw a ball so lifeless and so dead, to hitters so weak, in a park so big, in a generation so bereft of uppercuts, that it didn't matter if he left it right in the middle of the plate - it was simply not going out of the park. Rarely could the poor hitter even manage to center the ball on the sweet spot of the bat. That's what happens when your reflexes have been sharpened against 75-85 mph fastballs for your whole career but you suddenly are asked to adjust to a 95 mph fastball.
Put him in a different environment, and watch him squirm. Can you imagine a starting pitcher with only one good pitch in the modern game? He'd have to develop a better breaking ball and/or change-up. A lot of BB fans like to just assume that he would've. Why simply make that assumption? Is that a fair assumption? Has every pitcher who needed a good second pitch been able to develop one? Well, no. Not at all. Some do and some don't.
Warren Spahn had far more skills than Johnson. He just didn't play in an environment that exploited his skills like Johnson did. Spahnie had a good fastball, not as good as Johnson's, but good. He had better breaking balls and many more types of breaking balls. And he had a phenomenal change-up. He was smart, cunning and knew how to pitch. Every pitch had a purpose, everything had a design. Walter Johnson was an idiot savant for his time. There was no thinking necessary for him. The only thinking he had to do was to decide whether to throw the fastball, or the really fastball.
Under different sets of circumstances, Spahn could easily have been better. If I had my choice right now in 2005 between the two of them - which one I think could better adapt their games to the modern era - it would be Spahn. Let today's hitters tee off on Sir Walter's straight-as-an-arrow, you-know-what's-coming-because-it's-all-he-has 95 mph fastball; it's nothing that about 30 or 50 other guys in the league don't have. Today's hitters would have a much more difficult time adjusting to Spahnnie's change, slider and curve.
That'll be two cents please.
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(Truncated it just for brevity's sake.) This is the kind of historicity and erudition we need much more of on this board!!
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