There is a book titled How To Lie With Statistics, and the premise is that statistics exist to support any argument. The trick is finding statistics that remove biases, and when it comes to baseball, no matter how the statistics are used, Dodger pitcher Clayton Kershaw looks like the best to ever play the game. A formula for pitchers, in order to be fair and accurate, has to devalue or remove all value for strikeouts. After all, the punchout is nothing more than a pop fly or groundout that a pitcher gets credit for instead of a fielder. It’s just an out.
The best example of this is former Braves and Cubs pitcher Greg Maddux. The four-time Cy Young winner was never one to rack up strikeouts, but he was a master of keeping hitters off balance. This led to groundouts and pop-ups, getting his defense off the field with little to no damage. It’s fair to say that 10 out of 10 baseball experts would take Maddux and his six strikeouts per nine innings over Bert Blyleven, who averaged 6.7.
Wins and losses should also not be taken into consideration, since the team’s offense has as much to do with that as the pitcher’s performance. Everyone is in agreement that Roger Clemens going 13-8 in 32 starts with a 1.87 ERA in 2005 was a tragedy. Stats considered should be based on whether or not the pitcher did his job, not whether or not his team scored runs for him.
If strikeouts are removed from the equation, as they should be, the measurement of a pitcher’s impact comes down to two primary statistics: WHIP (Walks + Hits per inning) and ERA (Earned runs allowed per 9 innings). To simplify the math, ERA will be divided by nine and added to WHIP, giving baseball fans a true pitching metric that’s easy to understand. Walks + Hits + Earned Runs per inning. This would be a measurement of the damage a pitcher allows, regardless of how many batters he fans.
The pool of players measured should be any pitcher with at least 2500 innings pitched (Sandy Koufax will get the lone exception at 2,324), who played their entire career after 1920 (live ball era). No disrespect to the Hippo Vaughns of the baseball world, but pitching great before the turn of the 20th century won’t be counted. I’t a different game altogether when the league leader in home runs hits 8 for the year.
Kershaw’s career WHERIP leads all players, measured at 1.296. He is followed by Pedro Martinez (1.380), Kaufax (1.413), Juan Marichal (1.422), and Max Scherzer (1.431). These are the five best pitchers of all time based solely on this statistic. While it’s a great measurement of a pitcher’s liability, fans and analysts may not rely solely on a stat that places Bret Saberhagen (1.512) ahead of Randy Johnson (1.537) all-time.
Maddux recorded a career WHERIP of 1.494, which is barely better than Saberhagen’s, but looking deeper into the numbers between the two of them, it’s crazy how close it is. The former Kansas City Royal averaged 6.1 strikeouts per nine innings (Maddux 6.0), 3.64 K/BB (Maddux 3.37), allowed opponents to hit .252 against him (Maddux .250), and allowed an OPS of .671 (Maddux .649). In the same way that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and LeBron James have all the career NBA stats because of how long they played, is it possible that the only thing Maddux did better than Saberghagen was play longer?
Bringing strikeouts back into the equation, but looking at them per nine innings, rather than career totals, Kershaw’s 9.7 Ks per nine innings is third all-time for starting pitchers behind the Big Unit (10.6) and Martinez (10.0). His pitching accuracy (K/BB) has them both beat, again, putting him atop a list of all the pitchers in MLB history. Kershaw averages 4.32 strikeouts for every walk he gives up (Martinez is second all-time at 4.15).
There is something to be said about short bursts of dominance sandwiched between learning years and a player’s final years. Bob Gibson is praised for his stretch of dominance between 1968 and 1970. Over that duration, he had an ERA of 2.13, allowed a batting average of .214, and an OPS of .552. Kershaw’s best three-year stretch was probably 2012-2014. He had an ERA of 2.13, an opponents’ batting average of .201, and gave up an OPS of .546. Even at the height of his greatness, Gibson wasn’t as good as Kershaw.
Martinez posted an ERA of 2.25 during his three best seasons (1998-2000), and Johnson had an ERA of 2.48 during his reign from 2000-2002. Both players still fall shy of Kershaw’s best.
An argument can be made that Kaufax was a better pitcher than Kershaw. He is third all-time in WHERIP, and his three-year peak can’t be matched by anyone. From 1963-1965, Kaufax went 70-18 with a 1.90 ERA. He averaged 5.01 strikeouts per walk, and opposing hitters stood no chance against him (.186 batting average and .507 OPS). The problem is how short his career was. He is only on the list because of an exception, falling below the 2,500 innings needed to begin with.
If some players only have stats because they played longer than anyone else, then it only makes sense that Kaufax burned brighter than anyone, but burned out before anyone else, too. With 2,802 innings pitched and over 3,000 strikeouts, it’s tough to say anyone other than Kershaw is the best pitcher ever, without bias.
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