Best lefty off all time? My vote is Koufax!

[jgannon]

Originally Posted by Tabe

Where are the quotes about trying to hit Koufax in 1961?


Nah, just trying to offset the overwrought hyperbole about Koufax. Thing is, no one is willing to explain why he was SO MUCH better at Dodger Stadium if he was truly so great?

If Koufax was so completely unhittable, why was he awful at the LA Coliseum? Careful - if you're not allowed to attribute his success to his ballpark, you don't get to blame his failures either.


False. He missed about 1/3 of the season, maybe less, making 28 starts. And he pitched in late September & October.


Yep, 2.31 is really good.


2.93 sounds really good. Except the entire staff combined had a 2.95 all year. So he was staff-average on the road. And, while 2.93 is good, it was hardly great for the time. Wouldn't have made the top 10 in the NL, for example.

So, Koufax defenders, please explain:

1) his high ERA in 6 of 13 ballparks he pitched in?

2) why his consistent success only started when the NL expanded, the strike zone expanded, and Dodger Stadium opened? And, if it was just "well, he started throwing strikes", how do you reconcile that with the expansion of the strike zone?

Regarding your saying that Koufax didn't play only 1/2 a season in 1962: he only appeared in 3 games in September, going 2/3 of an inning on 9/21, 2 innings on 9/23, and 5 innings on 9/27. He lost a game and his E.R.A was 8.22 for the month. Sounds like maybe he wasn't quite himself after having crushed the artery in the palm of his throwing hand. The 8.22 may have had a little to do also with raising his overall season E.R.A. Just like the E.R.A he got for the one appearance he made in October, which was 27.00 for one inning pitched in a game he got tagged for a loss.

So, after July he pitched a grand total of 8.2 innings. So, I'll stick with his pitching a 1/2 season.

You also say that the Dodgers team E.R.A. was 2.95 for the year in 1964. Without Koufax's 1.74 E.R.A added into the mix, the team's E.R.A. would have been somewhat higher, I imagine. If somebody can calculate that that would be good. I don't know just how much higher it would be.

Regarding Koufax's early career, he was of course, a bonus baby, and he didn't get a lot of playing time. He didn't get that all important time to develop in the minors. It also wasn't in Walter Alston's interest to experiment with a rookie when he had an established staff, was fighting for the pennant, and was working under one-year contracts. Jackie Robinson didn't like Alston and thought he was dumb for using Koufax so sporadically, especially after showing occasional flashes of brilliance. But Koufax obviously had some kinks to work out.

The mound had been mandated set to 15 inches in 1950, so that had been in place for some time. Did the expanded strike zone help Koufax? Yeah, I'm sure. But two things: the strike zone between 1963-1968 from the top of the shoulders to the knees, was also the strike zone from 1887-1950. The strike zone was changed from 1950-1963 to be from the armpits to the top of the knees. People here are acting as though 1963-1968 was the exception to the rule. At that time, 1950-1963 was the exception to the rule. After 1968, that strike zone was reinstated, this time with the lowered mound. But Koufax enjoyed the same strike zone as Lefty Grove and Walter Johnson, although pitching mounds during Grove and Johnson's time weren't uniform, in that back then it was stipulated that they could be "no more than" 15 inches.

And did Dodger Stadium help Koufax? I'd say yeah, it had to help. It had generous enough foul territory near the plate, and the hitting background wasn't supposed to be good (at least back then). But I think you are over-attributing his success to a ballpark. No other Dodger pitcher dominated the way Koufax did after he found his groove, although Drysdale of course was a great pitcher. Koufax DID start throwing strikes, with a legendary fastball as attested to by players like Hank Aaron in my previous post, as well as his 12 to 6 curve ball also attested to. Again, maybe the return to the larger strike zone helped Koufax. But every other major league pitcher was working with the same strike zone, and nobody put up Koufax's numbers. Give the man his due.

All the ballparks were and are different. There are short fences and long fences. Parks where the wind and the sun affect the playing field differently. It's one of the great things about baseball, in my opinion. It can lead to interesting discussions like this. But it's ridiculous to trivialize Koufax's achievements as merely being a product of location. Koufax worked under and worked with the rules, the parks, the hitters, and the style of play extant at that time, and excelled. Those are the facts.

Also, in response to the expanded league: Koufax had to face the great black and Latino players of his era, something the players of previous eras didn't have to contend with, sadly and unfortunately.