Greatest of all time

[darwinbulldog]

Judging a pitcher's historical greatness based on his best four-year run was never a thing before Koufax. It's just something that was created to retrofit the data to make a case for putting him at or near the top of the best pitchers list. Ex post facto analyses like that don't stand up to peer review in fields whose experts have studied statistics. Maybe that's condescending, but it's also true.

The best career is Walter Johnson, Cy Young, or Roger Clemens.

The best season is Tim Keefe, Pud Galvin, Hoss Radbourn, Walter Johnson (1913), Bob Gibson, Dwight Gooden, or Pedro Martinez (2000).

The best game is Kerry Wood, but that could be surpassed today if, for example, someone pitches a perfect game without a ball put in play and strikes out 21 batters.

The best 4 (or 7 or 16.3 or π or .123) year run can be calculated, but I don't really see the point. Even if you choose 4 years (completely by accident of course), it's still not at all clear that Koufax should be #1.

I'm not expecting to change anyone's mind, because the people who think Koufax was the greatest pitcher ever (or even in the top 5) didn't get there by caring about the statistics that empirically do a better job of quantifying a player's contributions to his team's chances of winning games, but hopefully they can at least understand the perspective of those they are arguing against.