[BobC]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

On almost any ball hit in fair territory there are doubtless multiple things happening at once that contribute to the outcome, but so what? Are you really trying to argue that Maddux was a great pitcher solely because his walks were low, and everything else was attributable to these other factors? To me, they don't explain at all Maddux' greatness RELATIVE to other pitchers for whom doubtless the same variables were at play on balls hit against them. To me, that greatness is of course due in part to his low walk totals, but based on both personal observation and the SLG stats I've discussed, much of it has to do with his serving up fewer balls that were good to hit.

No, you misinterpret me, I'm actually supporting your point. Just maybe didn't get it to come across well. I added those as additional variables to counter the, "Oh it's just luck!", people out there. The ability of certain pitchers to seem to always be able to get batters to do more poorly against them than other pitchers when they do get the bat on the ball is not just primarily attributable to luck. Just like there are certain pitchers that become known as double play pitchers. They seem to have the uncanny ability to get batters to ground into double plays more often than it would seem by luck alone, and certainly more so than most other pitchers. They may change their pitching and style to induce more ground balls in those types of situations. Does anyone out there keep stats on what types of balls are put in play for pitchers when there's a man on first and less than two outs, whether it is a grounder, pop up, line drive, etc.? If so, that might be able to show at least some ability of certain pitchers to get batters to do what they want. While some pitchers might have a better chance/ability at striking out a batter to get to two outs in an inning, other pitchers may recognize they may not be able to overpower a hitter for that strikeout, so they opt to use finesse, location, and control to induce the batter to hit into a double play instead. In both instances, the pitcher's goal is to get batters out. And both types of pitchers (overpowering strikeout vs. finesse and control) have different ways of achieving those same goals. And it doesn't mean that one pitching type is necessarily better than the other, though some people/statistics seem to always skew towards the more dominant, strikeout pitcher as a better (greater) pitcher. If so, that is merely their opinion, and nothing else.

The bottom line is results. And I still ask, if the ultimate, final result in baseball is to win the games, how do you discount that factor so much in looking at pitchers? Despite all the other variables that go into determining who wins a ball game, the starting Pitcher IMO has a bigger impact on that final outcome than every other player on the field. And that is even more so when pitchers pitch mostly complete or near-complete games, like Grove and Spahn primarily did back in their days. Modern pitchers typically get pulled much earlier in games, resulting in them having less influence on their outcomes than ever before. So in arguing the greatest pitcher, why wouldn't pitchers who completed games, and thus had a greater impact on the outcomes of those games, actually get a leg up on modern pitchers who often have less to do with their team's winning. And if that's the case, then maybe none of of these modern pitchers should ever be considered as great, because none of them have as of yet truly shown they can come anywhere even close to consistently influence the positive outcomes of games, at anywhere near the level and influence, of pitchers like Grove and Spahn. To counter such thinking though, statisticians resort to declaring the players of earlier eras are flat out weaker and nowhere near as good as today's players, so they can then disparage pitcher's like Grove and Spahn, instead of recognizing and giving them credit for things they did that modern pitchers don't. Of course they can't point to any hard, actual statistics to prove it, and just suddenly fall back on their own logic and opinions to explain away whatever gets in the way of their own statistical analysis always being right. The ability of statisticians to seemingly ignore the importance and value of winning just blows my mind, especially when that is the only real reason the games are played.