Quote:
Originally Posted by Carter08
Not sure if you’re serious or just doing that thing where someone just tries to be contrarian. Spahn and Randy Johnson have basically an identical WAR and Spahn did it pitching one fewer season than Randy because of the 3 seasons he lost in WWII. Spahn’s stats are below. They are rather nice.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/p...pahnwa01.shtml |
WAR is a great statistic for some things, but it's not very useful if you're trying to compare pitchers from different eras. It's normalized by season. Replacement level talent from back when Lefty Grove was pitching probably wasn't much better than the guy in your church softball league who works at the steel plant and who was the 2nd best pitcher in his high school of 400 students. The overwhelming majority of pitchers from that era, possibly even all of them, would not make a major league roster today. They definitely improved by the time Spahn was throwing, but still, even then, replacement level players were far worse than they are today. And they make up the denominator in the WAR calculations. Being 10 wins better than some guy you just grabbed from the coal mines in 1927 is not the same thing as being 10 wins better than some kid who destroyed hitters in Cuba and who throws 99 mph heat but occasionally struggles with control in 2021, so he bounces back and forth between triple A ball and pros. Teleport that Cuban kid back to 1927 and nobody hits him. NOBODY. Not even Ruth. That kid would have a WAR of +25 back then. Just imagine some kid showing up next season throwing the ball 112 mph. Not even Mike Trout could hit him. Could you imagine Randy Johnson in his prime pitching to the hitters in the 1920s? He would probably throw 10 no hitters per year lol. The difference is night and day.