A Big Unit, Yes...But The Best Unit Ever?

With Hall of Fame voting on lots of baseball fans' minds right now and with Randy Johnson's retirement still semi-fresh as well, here's a question to ponder.  Is the Big Unit the best pitcher in the history of the game?

Clearly 5 Cy Youngs, 4,875 strikeouts, 303 wins, 10 All-Star appearances, two no-hitters (one of which was a perfect game) and a World Series co-MVP help to put him on the short list.  But that "short list" must also include names like Nolan Ryan, Cy Young, Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson, Bob Gibson, Steve Carlton, Tom Seaver, Greg Maddux, and depending on your opinion of him, Roger Clemens.  So let's dig deeper.   

Of the players I just named, only Nolan Ryan has more career strikeouts than Johnson and he has nearly a thousand more.  But at the same time, Ryan also issued 2,795 walks giving him a career K:BB ratio of 2.04.  Johnson's is a much more impressive 3.26.  Also to the Big Unit's credit is his career mark of 10.6 strikeouts per 9 innings- the best in baseball history.  So the notion that Nolan Ryan was a "better" strikeout pitcher than Randy Johnson is somewhat misguided.  The Express just managed to throw 1200 more innings.  Other statistics of note when comparing the two: Ryan was the least hittable pitcher in big league history (6.6 H/9 compared to a still-respectable 7.3 for Johnson) but given his penchant for the free pass, Ryan's career WHIP is higher (1.25 versus 1.17).  In other words, Ryan managed to be "effectively wild" for almost 54-hundred innings.

They didn't start giving out the Cy Young until 1956 and there wasn't an AL and NL winner until 1967, so you can't penalize...er...Cy Young, Christy Mathewson or Walter Johnson for their lack of hardware.  We can at least try to compare their other numbers though, and I'll start with Young.  He and Johnson both played for 22 years but during those 22 years, Young made 813 starts to Johnson's 603, meaning Young averaged 9.5 more starts a season.  Based on that, it's no wonder he has Randy by more than 200 wins and everybody else not named Walter Johnson by at least 100. It was a different game in the late 19th and early 20th century, though.  I can pretty much guarantee you'll never see a pitcher repeat Young's 1892 season with Cleveland: 36 wins, 1.93 ERA, 453 IP.  But if we look at their entire careers and break it down to "average box score per appearance" here's what we get:

Young: 8.1 IP, 2.4 ER, 7.8 H, 1.3 BB, 3.1 K
Johnson: 6.7 IP, 2.5 ER, 5.4 H, 2.4 BB, 7.9 K

Young got about 4 more outs per appearance, but he also allowed more baserunners and did not feature the strikeout as a weapon nearly as much as Johnson did.  So in today's game, you could argue that the strikeout pitcher might fare better than the pitch-deep-into-games-contact guy.  And let's not forget that Johnson spent his career facing the likes of Bonds, Pujols, Sosa, Canseco, McGwire, Frank Thomas, Belle, Bagwell, Helton, Piazza, Manny, Papi and others, whereas during Cy Young's monster 1892 season, Bug Holliday led baseball with 13 homeruns and Dan Brothers was batting champ at .335.  In 1908, when Young posted a career-best 1.26 ERA over 299 IP, Tim Jordan led baseball with 12 homeruns and Honus Wagner was probably one of the game's biggest offensive threats.  That year, H-Wag (they probably called him that back then) went .354/10/109 with 53 steals.

My argument isn't a whole lot different when it comes to Mathewson and Walter Johnson.  For comparison, here are their average pitching lines next to Randy's.

Mathewson: 7.5 IP, 1.8 ER, 6.6 H, 1.3 BB, 3.9 K
Big Train: 7.4 IP, 1.8 ER, 6.1 H, 1.7 BB, 4.4 K
Big Unit: 6.7 IP, 2.5 ER, 5.4 H, 2.4 BB, 7.9 K 

Matthewson won 30 a total of four times and had five seasons of at least 25 wins and an ERA under 2.00 (as low as 1.14 in 1909).  But in 1909, Ty Cobb won the Triple Crown with a .377/9/107 season and 76 steals.  I don't know this for a fact, but I bet there were a lot of 2-1 and 3-2 games that year.

Walter Johnson, a two-time MVP and career shutouts leader (110) had his best year in 1913.  It was one of his two MVP campaigns and in earning the award, he went 36-7 with a 1.14 ERA, 11 shutouts and 243 strikeouts.  In 1913, no player topped 20 homeruns and just two topped 100 RBI.  By 1924, the game had started to change.  The Babe had arrived and smacked 46 homeruns (19 more than the next closest guy) and Rogers Hornsby hit .424.  Johnson went 23-7 with a 2.72 ERA, 6 shutouts and 158 strikeouts- not overly eye-popping, but good enough to win the MVP.

My point in all this is if you were to put some of these old-time, dead-ball-era pitchers on the mound against the 2009 Yankee lineup, I doubt they would pitch into the 8th inning.  And by head-to-head average box score, durability is their only clear advantage.

Gibson was probably the best pitcher in the 1960's while Carlton and Seaver shared that honor in the 1970's.  And because I think it works, let's showcase their average box scores next to Johnson's.

Gibson: 7.4 IP, 2.4 ER, 6.2 H, 2.5 BB, 5.9 K
Carlton: 7.0 IP, 2.5 ER, 6.3 H, 2.5 BB, 5.6 K
Seaver: 7.3 IP, 2.3 ER, 6.0 H, 2.1 BB, 5.6 K
Johnson: 6.7 IP, 2.5 ER, 5.4 H, 2.4 BB, 7.9 K

Gibson won 20 five times, won an MVP and a Cy Young in 1968 (the year he went an astounding 22-9 with a 1.12 ERA, 13 shutouts, and 268 K's...sidenote: how did he lose 9 times?!) and another Cy Young in 1970.  But again, in 1968 one guy, Frank Howard, hit more than 40 homeruns.  Three guys drove in more than 100, and just six guys hit above .300.  Whereas that same year, 8 pitchers finished with an ERA below 2.00, 12 guys threw at least six shutouts, and seven guys won 20 or more.  All-time, Gibson currently ranks 14th (and could fall to 15th if John Smoltz notches 34 K's in 2010) on the strikeout list, and won just 251 games- 46th best all time, fewer than Jack Morris, Jamie Moyer, Mike Mussina, Jim Katt, and Bert Blyleven.

Carlton won 26 more games than Johnson but he also had the advantage of 123 more career appearances.  He also added four Cy Young awards, six 20-win seasons, and he led the league in strikeouts five times.  His best season was 1972, where he notched 30 complete games, went 27-10 with a 1.97 ERA and 310 K's.  But at the risk of sounding like a broken record, 1972 was another good year to be a pitcher.  Ten of them won 20 or more, 16 of them finished with ERAs of 2.50 or less, and only seven guys hit 30 homeruns.

With Tom Seaver, it's almost a tale of two careers.  There are his New York Met days where, between 1967 and 1977, he led the league in wins twice, ERA three times, strikeouts five times, WHIP three times, and strikeouts per 9 six times.  But in his nine seasons after 1977, he never won more than 16 games, had a sub-3.00 ERA twice, was an All-Star twice, and struck out more than 150 just once.  All told, he managed to win 311 games, Rookie of the Year, and three Cy Youngs.  Despite eclipsing 250 IP a total of 11 times, he never racked up 300 K's in a season but he did finish with a sub-2.50 ERA five times (again, all between 1968 and 1975).  So in many ways, Seaver was the anti-Johnson.  He was great at the beginning of his career, but just okay in the middle and end.  Had he been able to enjoy similar success (and health) with the Reds, I think Seaver's career numbers would compare more favorably with Johnson's, but that's simply not the case. 

And while Tom Terrific dominated during some of Johnny Bench, Willie Stargell, and Hank Aaron's best years, the head-to-head average box scores tell the true story.  When comparing all four, Carlton averaged one more out recorded, and Seaver and Gibson averaged two more than Johnson.  Earned runs and walks are very similar and while Johnson has a slight edge in hits, he has a sizeable advantage in K's, and in my opinion, an overall advantage against these three.

That leaves Johnson's contemporaries- Greg Maddux and Roger Clemens.  Both are ahead of Randy in the 300-win club (Maddux has 355, Clemens 354), and both boast an equally impressive number of awards.  Maddux won four Cy Youngs and 18 Gold Gloves while Clemens won seven Cy Youngs and an MVP. 

Unassuming but lethal, Maddux was unhittable in the 90's, leading the league in wins three times, ERA four times, complete games three times, innings pitched five straight times, WHIP four times (including in 1995 where he had allowed a sickening 0.88 baserunners per inning), and strikeout to walk ratio three times.  A true control artist, Maddux issued fewer than 50 walks in each of the final 15 years of his career and just 20 in 232 2/3 IP in 1997.

Clemens on the other hand, threw hard, was big and bad and had an up and down career with bouts of dominance in three decades.  He enjoyed baseball's lowest ERA in '86, '90-'92, '97-'98, and then again in '05.  He ranks just one slot and 203 strikeouts behind Randy Johnson on the all-time list and had six 20-win seasons.  But it's his inclusion in baseball's fact-finding steroids document known as the Mitchell Report that has some questioning the legitimacy of those numbers.  Clemens denies using PEDs but the proverbial "cloud of suspicion" coupled with former trainer Brian McNamee's allegations to the contrary will likely stick with him for years to come.  We'll see what HOF voters think in 2013.

That said, here's a look at their side-by-side average box scores, which are significant in that they played during the same era and pitched to a lot of the same guys:

Maddux: 6.7 IP, 2.4 ER, 6.4 H, 1.3 BB, 4.5 K
Clemens: 6.9 IP, 2.4 ER, 5.9 H, 2.2 BB, 6.6 K
Johnson: 6.7 IP, 2.5 ER, 5.4 H, 2.4 BB, 7.9 K

All three went about as deep into games, allowed about as many earned runs and baserunners, but despite the Rocket's proximity to Johnson on the all-time list, his per-appearance K totals are far behind.  Plus, unlike Clemens, Johnson's numbers are assumed to be clean.

A few final points about Randy Johnson, and why I consider him to be the greatest ever.  He achieved what he did and was at his best during, what most believe to be a drug-influenced era.  In the late 90's and early 00's, we saw hitters put up some of the greatest offensive numbers the game has ever seen and we also saw Johnson go from good to silly-good. 

In 1998, 13 players topped 40 homeruns, four topped 50, two topped 60, and one hit 70.  That same season, Johnson won 19 games and struck out 329 hitters.  In 1999, another 13 hitters topped 40 homeruns and the same two hit 60-plus.  Pitching in the same league as those two, Johnson led baseball with a 2.48 ERA, 12 CGs, and 364 strikeouts.  In 2000, 16 players hit 40 homeruns.  That same year, Johnson led baseball in winning percentage, starts, complete games, shutouts, and strikeouts.  In 2001 a total of 12 players hit 40+ and one man hit 73.  Another man had the best ERA, strikeout total (a career-best 372) and WHIP.  And in 2002 just as power numbers were beginning to come back to Earth (only eight topped 40 homeruns, and two topped 50) Johnson turned in perhaps his greatest season- a career-best 24 wins and 2.32 ERA, a fourth consecutive 325+ strikeout season, a fourth consecutive time leading baseball in K/9 and a fourth consecutive Cy Young.

He held future HOF'er Rickey Henderson (whom he faced more times than any other hitter) to a career .119 batting average and struck him out 30 times in 85 plate appearances.  In 62 career meetings he allowed 3 homeruns to Barry Bonds and none in 13 times up during his record-setting 2001.  Sammy Sosa's career OBP against Johnson is .274 over 62 PAs.  HOF'er Cal Ripken had a career OPS of .651 against the Big Unit in 61 times up.  Frank Thomas and Albert Belle both hit .233 against him, Mark McGwite .225, Gary Sheffield .209.  Todd Helton drove in two runs off Johnson in 50 meetings.  HOF'ers Paul Molitor and Dave Winfield hit .200 and .211 off him.  He struck out Jose Canseco 17 times in 25 meetings.  David Ortiz had a .494 OPS against Johnson over 28 plate appearances.  HOF'er Wade Boggs managed two singles and a walk in 18 times up.  Newly-voted-in Andre Dawson hit .133 in 15 at-bats.  And poor, poor Rafael Palmeiro.  In 21 plate appearances he reached base one time.  It was a single.

Johnson is a lock for first-ballot induction into the Hall and if ever there was going to be a unanimous selection, it should be him.  Given his career numbers, the time during which he pitched, and the juiced-up hitters he had to face, nobody was better.