How Great Was Lefty Grove?

[Floyd Gondolli]

That Warren Spahn was so overrated. All he did was win.

It helps a bit when you never face the two best lineups in baseball (in an 8 team league) for a decade.

To wit: The Braves were .540 without Spahn, 1950-1959. The Phillies were .475 without Robin Roberts those same years.

[ol' aches and pains]

It helps a bit when you never face the two best lineups in baseball (in an 8 team league) for a decade.

To wit: The Braves were .540 without Spahn, 1950-1959. The Phillies were .475 without Robin Roberts those same years.

So now we're deducting points from Spahn because he didn't have to face his own team? Jesus, what a man gotta do?

[Freakshow]

We also have to consider that for roughly 100 years in MLB, wins were by far the most important statistic. In the past 30 or so years, pitchers pitch to ERA, and other much more sophisticated and valid/reliable metrics.

When Spahn et. all pitched, they probably didn't even know their ERA.

And the further back you go, the more irrelevant all others measures of pitcher greatness was.

Wins were literally all that mattered- or were measured- before the 1950's.

We have to evaluate pitchers and hitters and fielders based on what they were motivated to accomplish, as much as we evaluate them using the advanced metrics which didn't even exist during their respective eras.

ERA became an official statistic in the early teens (1912 NL, 1913 AL), even before RBI (1920). The Sunday stats and the annual guides listed pitchers in order of ERA (or alphabetically), not Wins. So ERA, while it doesn't predate Wins, has been held as important for more than a century.

I mean it was obvious, even to those Primitives before 1950, that Wins had a significant dependence on your team's strength. Most of the baseball world thought that ERA was a better measure of how well a guy pitched.

Other pitching stats that have long had importance include WL Pct, strikeouts, and shutouts.

[Los Bravos]

So now we're deducting points from Spahn because he didn't have to face his own team? Jesus, what a man gotta do?

I tried to engage him on that about a month ago (a couple of pages back in the thread), mostly to no avail.

[bluesky5]

ERA became an official statistic in the early teens (1912 NL, 1913 AL), even before RBI (1920). The Sunday stats and the annual guides listed pitchers in order of ERA (or alphabetically), not Wins. So ERA, while it doesn't predate Wins, has been held as important for more than a century.

I mean it was obvious, even to those Primitives before 1950, that Wins had a significant dependence on your team's strength. Most of the baseball world thought that ERA was a better measure of how well a guy pitched.

Other pitching stats that have long had importance include WL Pct, strikeouts, and shutouts.

Great points Freakshow. The historical importance of wins to writers, fans and most importantly people in the game has been greatly exaggerated and or misrepresented. Typically with the Welch CYA and Jack Morris leading the 80s in wins (as part of his HoF case) as examples.

[Chadwick]

I'm curious. Anyone have Lefty Grove outside their top 10 all-time pitchers?