who do you take in this comparison. I usually pick Koufax but I'm starting to think Pedro deserves to rank ahead. i'd like to hear why the people who rank pedro ahead do so.
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Pedro Martinez Vs Sandy Koufax
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I'm still torn between them, but in Martinez's favor is he did what he did in a hitter-friendly park for most of his career, did it in better offensive conditions in general than what Koufax had to deal with, and had to deal with the DH while at his best.Dave Bill Tom George Mark Bob Ernie Soupy Dick Alex Sparky
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I'll take Pedro and I truly feel there are no biases involved, even though I'll admit that Pedro is my favorite baseball player of all-time. Nomar, Mo Vaughn, and Pedro played a huge part in getting me into the Red Sox, but I think I am very objective when it comes to looking at a player. People who saw Koufax or Pedro usually say the two are the best pitchers they've ever seen in their entire life, but Koufax had a lot going in his favor. Koufax was a pretty mediocre pitcher until the Dodgers moved into Dodger Stadium. His splits tell a pretty convincing story.Code:Home Year Park G IP W L PCT. SO BB H R ER ShO ERA 1955 Ebbetts Field 7 24 2 0 1.000 22 10 16 6 6 2 2.25 1956 8 18 0 2 .000 8 11 28 19 15 0 7.50 1957 18 57 3 1 .750 68 23 48 26 24 0 3.79 1958 L.A. Coliseum 17 62.2 2 6 .333 53 49 55 45 39 0 5.60 1959 16 80.1 5 2 .714 98 41 64 29 28 1 3.14 1960 19 70 1 7 .125 71 49 63 45 41 0 5.27 1961 21 132.1 9 8 .529 145 51 119 69 62 0 4.22 1962 Dodger Stadium 13 102.2 7 4 .636 118 25 68 26 20 *2 1.75 1963 17 143.2 11 1 .917 144 23 83 22 22 *6 1.38 1964 15 127.2 12 2 .857 124 18 82 16 12 6 0.85 1965 20 170 14 3 .824 208 31 89 32 26 *6 1.38 1966 21 171.1 13 5 .722 160 45 124 36 29 3 1.52 (55-57) Ebbetts Field 33 99 5 3 .625 98 44 92 51 45 2 4.09 (58-61) L.A. Coliseum 73 345.1 17 23 .425 367 190 301 188 170 1 4.43 (62-66) Dodger Stadium 86 715.1 57 15 .792 754 142 446 132 109 23 1.37 ___________________________________________________________________ TOTAL HOME 192 1159.2 79 41 .658 1219 376 839 371 324 26 2.51 Road Year Park G IP W L PCT. SO BB H R ER ShO ERA 1955 5 17.2 0 2 .000 8 18 17 9 8 0 4.08 1956 8 40.2 2 2 .500 22 18 38 18 17 0 3.76 1957 16 47.1 2 3 .400 54 28 35 23 21 0 3.99 1958 23 96 9 5 .643 78 56 77 44 40 0 3.75 1959 19 73 3 4 .429 75 51 72 45 41 0 5.05 1960 18 105 7 6 .538 126 51 70 38 35 2 3.00 1961 21 123.1 9 5 .643 124 45 93 48 38 2 2.77 1962 15 81.2 7 3 .700 98 32 66 35 32 0 3.53 1963 23 167.1 14 4 .778 162 35 131 46 43 5 2.31 1964 14 95.1 7 3 .700 99 35 72 33 31 *1 2.93 1965 23 165.2 12 5 .706 174 40 127 58 50 2 2.72 1966 20 151.2 14 4 .778 157 32 117 38 33 2 1.96 1955-57 29 105.2 4 7 .364 84 64 90 50 46 0 3.92 1958-61 81 397.1 28 20 .583 403 203 312 175 154 4 3.49 1962-66 95 661.2 54 19 .740 690 174 513 210 189 10 2.57 ___________________________________________________________________ TOTAL ROAD 205 1164.2 86 46 .652 1177 441 915 435 389 14 3.01
Year: Total/Home/Road
1963: 1.88/1.38/2.31
1964: 1.74/0.85/2.93
1965: 2.04/1.38/2.72
1966: 1.73/1.52/1.96
Pedro was always a better pitcher on the road from 1997-2003
Year: Total/Home/Road
1997: 1.90/1.99/1.78
1998: 2.89/2.99/2.80
1999: 2.07/2.22/1.88
2000: 1.74/1.84/1.66
2001: 2.39/2.63/2.18
2002: 2.26/2.71/1.89
2003: 2.22/3.13/1.57
If you put Pedro in Dodger Stadium from 1997-2003, let alone 1963-1966, his ERA would be astronomically lower.
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I would take Pedro Martinez easily. He was significantly better at their respective peaks and he had a longer prime. It's no question that Martinez wins career value...but even peak, Koufax's claim to fame, goes to Martinez.
Looking at their great seasons (ERA+ > 140):
Sandy Koufax: 190, 187, 160, 159, 141
Pedro Martinez: 291, 243, 219, 210, 202, 189, 166, 163, 145
Martinez has as many seasons above 200 ERA+ as Koufax has terrific seasons, total. Martinez's best season is a full 100 points of ERA+ higher than Koufax's best season. Martinez's sixth best season was as high quality as Koufax's best season.
Now, innings does close the peak gap. Koufax did throw more innings, even when era-adjusted. WARP3 (wins above replacement level) is a measure that combines quality and innings pitched (and unlike with position players, no messy fielding to really affect things):
WARP3 seasons above 7.0:
Koufax: 11.9, 10.7, 10.1, 8.2, 7.5
Martinez: 14.3, 13.1, 11.0, 10.6, 9.8, 9.3, 8.1, 7.5
Innings makes it significantly closer, but Martinez is still way ahead, both in peak and in longer, better prime."In the end it all comes down to talent. You can talk all you want about intangibles, I just don't know what that means. Talent makes winners, not intangibles. Can nice guys win? Sure, nice guys can win - if they're nice guys with a lot of talent. Nice guys with a little talent finish fourth and nice guys with no talent finish last." --Sandy Koufax
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I'm glad BoSox and Minstrel did my usual work for me. Good work fellas. Pedro, easily, IMO.Originally posted by DomenicThe Yankees should see if Yogi Berra can still get behind the plate - he has ten World Series rings... he must be worth forty or fifty million a season.
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Originally posted by Captain Cold Nose View PostI'm still torn between them, but in Martinez's favor is he did what he did in a hitter-friendly park for most of his career, did it in better offensive conditions in general than what Koufax had to deal with, and had to deal with the DH while at his best.
Pedro also had state of the art modern surgery which allowed him to continue pitching into his 30's. His career would have been over by now had he pitched in Sandy's day. In fact, his arm would have gone dead long ago with the kind of workload 60's pitchers endured.
His career has hung by a thread a few times now in spite of that fact that he's only 36 and he's been a 210 IP with 3 CG's a year pitcher....
What isn't figured into adjusted metrics is the incredible disparity in workload and cumulative wear and tear between the two.
Koufax pitched more complete games in his final two seasons than Pedro has in his 17 year career. And during those two years, he did so with an elbow that often swelled up to the size of a grapefruit between starts. He went 55-15 those two years.
In the 65' World Series, he had 0.38 ERA in 24 innings- with 2 CG's- against by far the best offensive team in the American League. To cap it all off, he shutout the Twins in a decisive game 7, throwing a 3 hitter and striking out the final two batters.
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While I favor Pedro slightly, (better ERA+ and more career IP) I have come to recognize, and be persuaded by some stat analyses that ERA+ for guys pitching 300+ innings can not be straightforwardly compared to that for a guy with 200 innings primarily because the guy pitching 300 has to face the same batters 3 and 4 times a game far more often, and hitters hit MUCH better the third and fourth time they face the same pitcher.
If you reduce Koufax '63, '65 and '66 to about 220 innings and use the linear adjustment for innings reduction used in some BBPro articles, you find that at least in those 3 years, Koufax' ERA+ would have been about 215, 186 and 184. Better, but still not as good as Pedro.
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Originally posted by brett View PostKoufax' ERA+ would have been about 215, 186 and 184. Better, but still not as good as Pedro.
Bottom line is- and I've researched and debated this for years- Koufax could have been about as good, pitching with Pedro's workload.
Pedro, conversely, has proven quite fragile even in the era of the 210 IP, 3 CG per year starter. He couldn't possibly have won 97 games in his last 4 years pitching from 63' to 66'- even in an era where pitchers have never been babied more, Pedro has been anything but a workhorse.
He could not have done what Koufax did.
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And Koufax didn't do what Martinez did. It goes both ways. Sandy threw even less innings than Pedro in the beginning of their careers, and even towards the end, Koufax had 3 seasons when he threw an obscene amount of innings compared to Pedro. His 162 gm avg. is what, 3 innings more than Pedro's?
Age 21-26, the first 6 years they threw over 100 innings...
Age 21:
Pedro - 107 IP, 119 K, 57 BB, 147 ERA+, 1.243 WHIP
Koufax - 104 IP, 122 K, 51 BB, 107 ERA+, 1.284 WHIP
At age 22:
Pedro - 144 IP, 142 K, 45 BB, 125 ERA+, 1.106 WHIP
Koufax - 158 IP, 131 K, 105 BB, 92 ERA+, 1.494 WHIP
Age 23:
Pedro - 194 IP, 174 K, 66 BB, 123 ERA+, 1.151 WHIP
Koufax - 153 IP, 173 K, 92 BB, 104 ERA+, 1.487 WHIP
Age 24:
Pedro - 216 IP, 222 K, 70 BB, 117 ERA+, 1.195 WHIP
Koufax - 175 IP, 197 K, 100 BB, 101 ERA+, 1.331 WHIP
Age 25:
Pedro - 241 IP, 305 K, 67 BB, 219 ERA+, 0.932 WHIP
Koufax - 255 IP, 269 K, 96 BB, 123 ERA+, 1.205 WHIP
Age 26:
Pedro - 233 IP, 251 K, 61 BB, 163 ERA+, 1.091 WHIP
Koufax - 184 IP, 216 K, 57 BB, 141 ERA+, 1.036Last edited by Westlake; 04-11-2008, 11:00 AM.Originally posted by DomenicThe Yankees should see if Yogi Berra can still get behind the plate - he has ten World Series rings... he must be worth forty or fifty million a season.
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This is ground we've gone over several times, but a discussion I also have strong feelings about. In some ways it's like comparing apples and oranges - two great pitchers working in very different circumstances. Pedro benefited from the 5-man rotation, modern bullpen usage, and modern conditioning and medicine, while Koufax benefited from the raised mound and Dodger Stadium.
If I had to pick one though, I'd probably take Koufax just because he would contribute more to my team. Even taking era into consideration, Pedro was never much of a workhorse, and thus left a lot of innings and potential wins out there in the hands of lesser pitchers. I've said many times before when you're getting into very high ERA+, the difference is really in aesthetics rather than in effecting game outcomes. If you have a 190 ERA+ or a 250 ERA+, either way, the guy is dominating to an extreme level, giving the opposition very little, and giving his team a great chance to win. So of the two, if one can is a workhorse and one isn't, I'll take the workhorse, because if one can give substantially more innings than the other, he has more value in contributing more.
Pedro also suffers from the fact, as csh points out, that I have my doubts how well he would have pitched if he and Koufax were switched. Pedro no doubt would have been amazing with the raised mound, but given that his arm has barely held up with the much lighter workloads of the recent times, and with better conditioning and medicine, I don't think he would have held up even as long as Koufax did. On the flipside, dump Koufax into the 90s with a much lighter workload and modern conditioning and medicine to help his arm, I believe he would have been dominant and had a longer career (as Pedro's been able to have), while also still being more of a workhorse than Pedro (who again, was not much of a workhorse in his own era).
This all being said, I do have Pedro about 5 spots ahead of Koufax in my pitcher rankings. This is because he has had the longer career, the previous paragraph is all just a hypothetical, and aesthetics do count for something in the rankings. That being said again, I believe Koufax to have been more valuable at peak because he was a workhorse in the context of his era, contributing more to winning, whereas Pedro was not much of a workhorse in the context of his era, and that is a pretty significant slight when talking about all time aces, IMO.Last edited by DoubleX; 04-11-2008, 04:26 AM.
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Originally posted by Captain Cold Nose View Postand had to deal with the DH while at his best.)
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Originally posted by Iron Jaw View PostDouble meaning, of course - Sandy had to swing the bat and Pedro didn't through his banner years. When considering the fact that Sandy wasn't much of a hitter, the decision to throw in a pinch hitter was on the mind of Walt Alston. Of course, for Pedro, it wouldn't have mattered either way since he rarely completed games during his peak years in Boston (Koufax was a better hitter than Pedro .097 to .094)
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Originally posted by DoubleX View PostHaving to bat might be a relevant point to this discussion. Pedro often relied on intimidation, particularly when his stuff wasn't great. Would he have been more careful if he knew he might face direct retaliation?Originally posted by DomenicThe Yankees should see if Yogi Berra can still get behind the plate - he has ten World Series rings... he must be worth forty or fifty million a season.
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