OT: Greatest Living Four

[rats60]

Originally Posted by bbcard1

It goes back to how you judge them. The value over the career was greater for Marichal than Koufax as he won 100 more games (nearly) and had a better win percentage on teams that were not as successful. He was not popular, both because of his nationality and deportment and the fact that he wrapped a bat around John Roseboro's head. That contributed to his poor showing in popularity contests. If you want to make the argument the Koufax was better over a short period of time and Marichal was better over a long period of time, I have no beef with that.

Marichal may have accumulated more counting stats because Koufax retired at a younger age. I don't equate that with being better over a long period of time. Koufax in his short career led the league in far more catagories and more times than Marichal. Marichal for his whole career only led the league in wins 1 1/2 times, era 1 time, Ks 0 times, FIP 0 times, WHIP 2 times. Only 1 no hitter, 0 Cy Youngs, highest MVP finish 5th, 0 World Championships, 0 World Series MVPs. I don't see the value. I think voters were more swayed by his on field performance than his nationality or the Roseboro incident.

Koufax's teams were more successful because Koufax was so great. Marichal had Mays, McCovey, Cepeda and Perry as teammates, but came up short vs. Koufax and Drysdale. They only overcame the Dodgers in 62 when Koufax injured his hand in July, missed 2 months and was ineffective pitching injured in September.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Marichal's 63-66 is obviously a little short of Koufax's, but by surprisingly little if you look at up. He won 94 games in that stretch compared to 97 for Koufax, and his ERA and WAR while not as good are not that far short either.

[bbcard1]

Originally Posted by rats60

Marichal may have accumulated more counting stats because Koufax retired at a younger age. I don't equate that with being better over a long period of time. Koufax in his short career led the league in far more catagories and more times than Marichal. Marichal for his whole career only led the league in wins 1 1/2 times, era 1 time, Ks 0 times, FIP 0 times, WHIP 2 times. Only 1 no hitter, 0 Cy Youngs, highest MVP finish 5th, 0 World Championships, 0 World Series MVPs. I don't see the value. I think voters were more swayed by his on field performance than his nationality or the Roseboro incident.

Koufax's teams were more successful because Koufax was so great. Marichal had Mays, McCovey, Cepeda and Perry as teammates, but came up short vs. Koufax and Drysdale. They only overcame the Dodgers in 62 when Koufax injured his hand in July, missed 2 months and was ineffective pitching injured in September.

We can agree that Koufax had a short career and that for a decent part of that short career he was at best an adequate pitcher. For a relatively short time (4 years or so) he was as good as anybody ever. Marichal was an upper tier pitcher for a very long time.