Baseball: Maddux's Start

Wow! Greg Maddux is just lighting it up this year. Last season he had a down year and saw his amazing streak of 15-win seasons die, but after a rigorous offseason, he has come back on fire. He is 4-0 with a 0.99 ERA, 18 K and 4 BB in 27.1 innings. The other day the Dodgers stopped the game twice to ask the ump to check the ball. He had them totally befuddled. On PTI last week they asked who would have more career wins, him or Clemens. Kornheiser said he thinks Clemens will rejoin the Astros come June 1 (or is it July 1?) and get nine wins, thus getting to 350. Wilbon felt that Clemens is done, and that in 2006 and 2007 Maddux will get enough wins to surpass 341. Right now he is at 322.

A great start, but it won't last at that pace. In his 4 starts, he's had a 19% hit rate%, which is extremely lucky. The normal hit rate % is 30%. A 3% deviation will impact era. No pitcher has gone a whole season at 19%. We will look at his hit rate % at seasons end, and go from there. A 3.50 era is possible, but a .099 era is alot of luck at this point.

I think he will have a sub-3.00 ERA by year's end. If Roger Clemens can go under 2.00 at the age of 42, Maddux could conceivably do it as well. Last season Clemens kept his ERA around 1.50 until the last two months, when it went up to 1.87.

Well, Maddux got the win again today; that's #323 in his career. Here are his stats now:

5-0, 33.1 IP, 24 K, 5 BB, 1.35 ERA

On PTI today, Wilbon predicted Maddux will finish the year 18-5.

Through tonight's game, what is Maddux's Adjusted ERA? And ditto for Pedro, who is also 5-0, but I suspect with less impressive #'s?

MY GOD, what an age for all-time great pitchers. Enjoy them while they last, guys, because in another 10 years, it's for sure Pedro, Maddux, Clemens and Big Unit will all be retired. And in 50 years, it's extremely likely all 4 will be remembered by history experts as among the Top 10 pitchers of all time, with Pedro and Clemens vying for the honor of #1 right-hander.

If Big Unit had gotten started 5 years earlier (i.e., if he'd learned to coordinate that titanic body--the same problem Hank Greenberg had as a fielder), he'd be a rational contender of Lefty Grove's for the #1 PITCHER of all time. The other night, Hootie expressed the view that Unit could be fairly considered as the #2 lefty of all time--i.e., ahead of Warren Spahn, and behind only the incomparable Grove.

I took a good look at Spahn's numbers. He has 100 more wins than Big Unit, which speaks for itself, but he has MORE than 100 more losses, and Big Unit has about a 24-point career edge on Spahn in Adjusted ERA, in large part because County Stadium was a pitcher's paradise. 24 points in Adjusted ERA is a TON, and Big Unit isn't all that far behind Grove, the #1 man among retired pitchers, on the All-Time Adjusted ERA list.

So, even though it seems absurd to taken a 263-game winner over the 363-game winner who easily leads all Live Ball pitchers in career wins, and even though you'd love to have a guy who makes a zillion starts in 21 years and wins 363 games for you... it may well be true that the Big Unit--and not Warren Spahn--is the #2 left-handed pitcher of all time.

Unit would have to move heaven and earth to make #1, and at his age, he hasn't got the time. But Pedro does, and Pedro is the career leader in Adjusted ERA by an unbelievable margin. That margin will fall at the end of his career, of course, but whether it falls enough for Grove to go back to #1 remains to be seen.

Two years ago, Grove was in his permanent resting place at 148, meaning he was 48% better (!!!) than the average pitcher of his time, with proper ball park adjustments (he pitched in dreadful parks for a lefty). And also two years ago, Pedro had a career Adjusted ERA of 172--50% again further over 100 than Grove's, and thus half again better.

That was one of the most unbelievable stats I ever saw. Coming into this year, Pedro had "fallen" to 166. That's still a big lead, and it's unreal when you consider what it means. But I suspect he'll pitch quite a few more years. It will be interesting to see.

BHN

::Shakes Head::

If only he were still in Atlanta... he needs to come back home and help us get another title!

And it's WHOSE fault they didn't keep him?

Have you been able to find out Maddux's ADJUSTED E.R.A. so far this year? I don't see it at any of my websites, and my GREAT website is only updated yearly.

BHN

[Edited on 4/29/06 by BaseballHistoryNut]