Warren Spahn or Walter Johnson

[W Spahn 21]

whos better?
-----------------------------------------------------------
Walter Johnson, Senators' P, 1916----------------1914---BB Reference--- Walter Johnson Thread/Photos--- Walter Johnson on video:
Image4.jpg

------Walter Johnson, Senators P, 1912-15------------------------------------------------------1911
Image6.jpg

Walter Johnson, Senators P, 1912-15, Road----------------------------------------------April 12, 1916
Image8.jpg

-----------------------------------April 12, 1916
Image1.jpg

-----------------------------------April 12, 1916
April 12, 1916.jpg

[RuthMayBond]

whos better?

You're serious?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Warren Spahn, Braves' P, 1948-------------------------------1946-52---BB Reference---Warren Spahn/Walter Johnson Thread


October 5, 1958, Bronx, NY- Warren throws a 2-hitter, in game 4
of the WS against the Yankees at Yankee Stadium.


Athletes of the Decade Posing Together; November 27, 1962
Eleven of the 12 sports figures honored November 26th as "Athletes of the Decade" pose at the Americana Hotel, New York.

Top Row: L-R: Maurice Richard (hockey); Warren Spahn (baseball); Rocky Marciano (boxing).

Middle Row: L-R: Jim Brown (football); Arnold Palmer (golf); Bob Cousy (basketball); Chuck Bednarik (football).

Bottom Row: L-R: Willie Mays (baseball); Roger Ward (auto racing); Eddie Arcaro (horse racing); Del Miller (harness racing).--------Don Carter (bowling) was absent.

[Windy City Fan]

Is this a joke? I could name ten pitchers better than Spahn.
Image4.jpg

[The Dude]

Here's an argeument/question:

Name all the LHP's better then spahn?
-Randy Johnson
-Lefty Grove
-Sandy Koufax


Name all the RHP's better then spahn?
-Walter Johnson
-Mordecai Brown
-Addie Joss
-Christy Mathewson
-Greg Maddux
-Juan Marichal

[BoSox Rule]

Name all the RHP's better then spahn?
-Walter Johnson
-Mordecai Brown
-Addie Joss
-Christy Mathewson
-Greg Maddux
-Juan Marichal

Roger Clemens and Pedro Martinez

[Bothrops Atrox]

I thinks some of you might be selling Spahn a tad bit short. I have him ranked #10 all-time. That being said, there is no comparison between Spahn and Johnson.

[therealnod]

I could easily make a case for Spahn over the Big Train, but I don't have the time right now.

The Big Unit and Lefty Grove both have strong (ok, extremely strong, ok, even stronger than that) cases over Spahn.

[Bothrops Atrox]

If Randy did not get off to a slow start, I would agree that he had a better career than Spahn, but he did get to a slow start. Spahn was very, very good, for a very, very long period of time. I would take that over Johnson's slow start and 12 years of dominace any day. I would agree that Grove is better than Spahn.

[Chadwick]

This thread was moved here from the Hall of Fame forum.

Chancellor

[RuthMayBond]

I could easily make a case for Spahn over the Big Train, but I don't have the time right now.

The Big Unit and Lefty Grove both have strong (ok, extremely strong, ok, even stronger than that) cases over Spahn.

There's not enough time in the world to invent a case of Spahn over WJohnson. But Spahn may not have been as good as Nichols, Grove ,Clemens ,Maddux, Alexander, Matty, RJohnson, Clarkson, Seaver, Walsh, 3Finger, Waddell, Hubbell . . . and Paige and Smokey Joe Williams.

[The Commissioner]

Spahn was a great pitcher and has to be mentioned in almost any conversation concerning the "all-time greatest". However, this just isn't a fair comparison for Spahn. Johnson was just too dominating. I would, however, love to hear any arguments in favor of Spahn on this one.

[Bill Burgess]

My Top Guys:

1. Walter Johnson
2. Christy Mathewson
3. Pete Alexander
4. Cy Young
5. Lefty Grove
6. Warren Spahn
7. Satchel Paige, NL
8. Smokey Joe Williams, NL

LOTS of LOVE for my Spahnie boy, but Walter is my Top Guy.

Bill Burgess

[Indiana COBB]

Have to say Walter Johnson is the best pitcher ever in the history of the game in my opinion.

[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.

[Metal Ed]

My Top Guys:

1. Walter Johnson
2. Christy Mathewson
3. Pete Alexander
4. Cy Young
5. Lefty Grove
6. Warren Spahn
7. Satchel Paige, NL
8. Smokey Joe Williams, NL

LOTS of LOVE for my Spahnie boy, but Walter is my Top Guy.

Bill Burgess

What is this, Bill, your list of the top started-before-1950 guys only? You mean to tell me that the last 50 years of baseball, having had a larger population pool from which to select talent, a better means of identifying and consolidating talent, and better training methods didn't manage to produce one single guy who could crack your top ten? Have human population genetics somehow inexplicably changed overnight?