Best lefty off all time? My vote is Koufax!

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Ever heard of Bill James? He ranked Spahn 36 and Koufax 51. Out of all players. And Lefty Grove... wait for it... 19.

Bill James is a statistician. Quite a well known one in baseball circles. So much for your challenge.

Here's a challenge for you: get your ego in check.

Yep, I'm very familiar with his work. I reference it often. Bill James was ranking overall career contributions in the list you're referencing. Not the same thing. Nice try. So much for your challenge to my challenge. There's no scenario in hell where Bill James thinks Warren Spahn had better stuff than Sandy Koufax or that he would pick him to start in a game 7 over Koufax either. If you're asking "who was better", I'm answering that as who you'd pick to start in a fictitious game 7. Not who is going to rack up more wins over the course of two decades.

Keep ridiculing me all you want. I know how these threads go. You guys ask questions that can only be answered by someone with a strong background in statistics. Then you all weigh in with a bunch of irrelevant, nonsensical arguments, displaying your complete lack of statistical aptitude (which you mistakenly believe you actually have quite a strong grasp of). Then an actual statistician weighs in and you call them an imbecile and a know-it-all. Then you point to a bunch of shit you don't understand to make your points, the statistician rolls his eyes, does a face palm, and you call him arrogant and stupid.

I don't really care who you think is the best. I'm just telling you what the numbers say. If you want to change the question to "who provided more cumulative value over the course of their career?", then sure, Spahn is in that conversation. But that's a different conversation. What we're talking about here is "who was the best"?

If you go up to any coach and ask them who their best pitcher is, exactly zero of them are going to respond with, "well, Mikey here has thrown 20 no hitters each of the past 5 seasons, so he's pretty good, but I'm going to have to go with uncle Jimmy because he's been above average for the past 20 years and he has more total wins than Mikey."

There's a word for anyone who would pick Warren Spahn over Sandy Koufax to start in a fictitious world series game 7, and that word isn't 'statistician'.