ESPN Top 100

[molenick]

I am hesitant to post another long, rambling post, but when the Paige question came up earlier, I did some research on Baseball Reference for other Negro League pitchers.

Three of them (Ray Brown, Bill Foster, and Bullet Rogan) are close to Paige in innings pitched, seem to have more impressive numbers in many of the traditional stats, and top him in WAR7 and WAR/162. In particular, Bill Foster and Bullet Rogan* are ranked as the second and third best pitchers in WAR/162 (behind another Negro Leaguer Dave Brown, but he only pitched half as many innings as the other players mentioned). Ray Brown is 21st in WAR/162 and Paige 38th. Rogan is 39th in WAR7, Foster 141st, Brown 224th, Paige 294th. There are other Negro Leaguers that rank highly in these categories, but they do not have as many innings or, if they do, the rest of their stats were not as impressive as these four.

One caveat is that I can't figure out Paige's WAR/162 just for the Negro Leagues. But that wouldn’t change his WAR7, since his seven best years were in the Negro Leagues. Plus, now that they are all considered major leagues, I am not sure if a differentiation is needed.

Two arguments for Paige are strikeouts and that he pitched well when he was older. And it's true, his strikeouts totals and ratios are better than the other three pitchers. But we know from Nolan Ryan that strikeouts and longevity don’t necessarily make you the greatest pitcher (although Paige had much better control than Ryan).

Here is a mix of traditional and analytic stats:
Bill Foster 110-56 2.63 1.172 47.1 WAR in 1499.67 IP (31.8 IP per WAR)
Bullet Rogan 120-52 2.65 1.157 61.5 WAR* in 1500 IP (24.4 IP per WAR; but 39.7 using just his pitching WAR of 37.8)
Ray Brown 122-45 3.02 1.205 39.5 WAR in 1477 IP (37.4)
Satchel Paige 118-80 2.70 1.092 46.3 WAR in 1695 IP (36.6)

Looking at this, it may be that Paige was the best, but it's not a no-brainer. If we start with the assumption that "of course he was the best because that's what I've always heard" then there is a tendency to find arguments that support that and ignore contradictory evidence. But if we started from scratch and were not aware of the legend of Satchel Paige, and used statistics now available to us that weren't before, we might come up with a different answer. I'm not saying he was a bum…just that maybe, possibly, who knows, he was perhaps the second or third best Negro League pitcher based on the numbers available now (which may change as more research is done). And to be honest, I feel weird saying that because for the last 50 years I just assumed he was the best.

Anyway, at least I learned something about players that I was not familiar with (other than their names). I also recognize Smokey Joe Williams as a candidate for best Negro League pitcher but his best years came before Baseball Reference has stats. Other names I see mentioned in these discussions, such as Leon Day, Martin Dihigo, and Hilton Smith also do not have enough data in BR for a statistical comparison.

And I nominate Bullet Rogan as candidate for best two-way player: 120-52 .698 2.65 pitching; .338/.413./.521/.934 batting (mostly as an outfielder in the same years he was pitching).

* Rogan's WAR rankings are skewed because they include his batting. But he was still a helluva pitcher.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by molenick

I am hesitant to post another long, rambling post, but when the Paige question came up earlier, I did some research on Baseball Reference for other Negro League pitchers.

Three of them (Ray Brown, Bill Foster, and Bullet Rogan) are close to Paige in innings pitched, seem to have more impressive numbers in many of the traditional stats, and top him in WAR7 and WAR/162. In particular, Bill Foster and Bullet Rogan* are ranked as the second and third best pitchers in WAR/162 (behind another Negro Leaguer Dave Brown, but he only pitched half as many innings as the other players mentioned). Ray Brown is 21st in WAR/162 and Paige 38th. Rogan is 39th in WAR7, Foster 141st, Brown 224th, Paige 294th. There are other Negro Leaguers that rank highly in these categories, but they do not have as many innings or, if they do, the rest of their stats were not as impressive as these four.

One caveat is that I can't figure out Paige's WAR/162 just for the Negro Leagues. But that wouldn’t change his WAR7, since his seven best years were in the Negro Leagues. Plus, now that they are all considered major leagues, I am not sure if a differentiation is needed.

Two arguments for Paige are strikeouts and that he pitched well when he was older. And it's true, his strikeouts totals and ratios are better than the other three pitchers. But we know from Nolan Ryan that strikeouts and longevity don’t necessarily make you the greatest pitcher (although Paige had much better control than Ryan).

Here is a mix of traditional and analytic stats:
Bill Foster 110-56 2.63 1.172 47.1 WAR in 1499.67 IP (31.8 IP per WAR)
Bullet Rogan 120-52 2.65 1.157 61.5 WAR* in 1500 IP (24.4 IP per WAR; but 39.7 using just his pitching WAR of 37.8)
Ray Brown 122-45 3.02 1.205 39.5 WAR in 1477 IP (37.4)
Satchel Paige 118-80 2.70 1.092 46.3 WAR in 1695 IP (36.6)

Looking at this, it may be that Paige was the best, but it's not a no-brainer. If we start with the assumption that "of course he was the best because that's what I've always heard" then there is a tendency to find arguments that support that and ignore contradictory evidence. But if we started from scratch and were not aware of the legend of Satchel Paige, and used statistics now available to us that weren't before, we might come up with a different answer. I'm not saying he was a bum…just that maybe, possibly, who knows, he was perhaps the second or third best Negro League pitcher based on the numbers available now (which may change as more research is done). And to be honest, I feel weird saying that because for the last 50 years I just assumed he was the best.

Anyway, at least I learned something about players that I was not familiar with (other than their names). I also recognize Smokey Joe Williams as a candidate for best Negro League pitcher but his best years came before Baseball Reference has stats. Other names I see mentioned in these discussions, such as Leon Day, Martin Dihigo, and Hilton Smith also do not have enough data in BR for a statistical comparison.

And I nominate Bullet Rogan as candidate for best two-way player: 120-52 .698 2.65 pitching; .338/.413./.521/.934 batting (mostly as an outfielder in the same years he was pitching).

* Rogan's WAR rankings are skewed because they include his batting. But he was still a helluva pitcher.

Quite honestly, I understand the possible reasoning behind adding the Negro League stats as major league stats, but disagree that they are necessarily the true equivalent of MLB stats and belong side by side with them. It has long been an argument of some that pre-integration MLB star player stats are possibly somewhat inflated due to the fact that those MLB players did not get/have to play against Negro League players, and therefore were able to pad their numbers playing against lesser talented white players. But that argument goes both ways!

If you look at the sheer number of MLB players historically, and the number of Negro League players whose stats have now been added onto the major league's records, something quite clearly does not add up. Given the overall population of whites and blacks in the US, and the historical percentages of black MLB players since integration finally took place, and those percentages today, from a statistical standpoint it would readily seem that it is the Negro Leagues that were probably filled with a significantly higher percentage of non-MLB talent than the white, segregated major leagues ever were. And because of that, it is the star Negro League players whose stats are likely much more inflated and embellished from having played against overall far lesser talent than their white counterparts in MLB pre-integration.

Everyone keeps spewing out all kinds of advanced numbers and statistics in their comparisons of where players should be on this ESPN list. I wonder if the Negro Leagues are not more akin to upper-level minor leagues, which is what they pretty much became after integration in 1948. And as such, maybe Negro League stats shouldn't be taken at face value as equivalent to other's stats. If you are going to insist on including them as full MLB stats, then explain and give me valid, factual, and logical reasons why we shouldn't also recognize say the PCL as a major league. Or what about some Cuban or other Latin-American leagues, why haven't any of them been granted full MLB status? Aren't there much greater numbers of Latin players in MLB today than African-American players? And you can even include the Japanese-Asian leagues in this argument. Josh Gibson gets even more consideration, recognition, and acceptance of his talent and ability now that his records are actual MLb stats, so why not someone like Sadaharu Oh? If you're going to go out of your way to recognize one ethnic group of formerly disenfranchised players, you either do it for ALL of them, or none of them!!!

[Shoeless Moe]

Yah I think you need to go 10 deep for Pitchers.

So my revised list would be:

1-Randy Johnson
2-Pedro Martinez
3-Roger Clemens
4-Bob Feller
5-Walter Johnson
6-Satchel Paige
7-Nolan Ryan
8-Sandy Koufax
9-Bob Gibson
10-Lefty Grove

So who just misses the cut, for me: Kershaw, Maddux, Seaver, Alexander, Spahn, Young, Mathewson & Steve Carlton

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Shoeless Moe

Yah I think you need to go 10 deep for Pitchers.

So my revised list would be:

1-Randy Johnson
2-Pedro Martinez
3-Roger Clemens
4-Bob Feller
5-Walter Johnson
6-Satchel Paige
7-Nolan Ryan
8-Sandy Koufax
9-Bob Gibson
10-Lefty Grove

So who just misses the cut, for me: Kershaw, Maddux, Seaver, Alexander, Spahn, Young, Mathewson & Steve Carlton

IMO you have Pedro too high, Feller too high, Ryan should not be anywhere near the list, Grove too low. My list would include Seaver Young Alexander and Mathewson and probably (not going to rekindle this) Spahn. So I'll go 15 deep.

W Johnson
Young
Clemens
Grove
Seaver
Randy
Paige
Alexander
Mathewson
Spahn
Pedro
Feller
Gibson
Maddux
Carlton

[molenick]

I get Bob's point, but just to be clear, I was trying to compare pitchers within the context of the Negro Leagues with the data available. I have no idea how I would incorporate those players (including Paige) into an all-time list with non-Negro Leaguers aside from a gut feeling. Other than that, I think Peter's list is reasonable. But I will say that the traditional stats for the players I mentioned look pretty good as well.

[Touch'EmAll]

I would go with these all time top 5 pitchers (career value, not peak), not necessarily in order best to worst:

Walter Johnson
Lefty Grove
Bob Feller
Seaver
Maddux
Pedro

Next Tier:
Mathewson
Koufax
Nolan Ryan - most sheer dominant, most fun to watch
Paige - really don't know, just gut feeling
Randy Johnson

[Shoeless Moe]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

IMO you have Pedro too high, Feller too high, Ryan should not be anywhere near the list, Grove too low. My list would include Seaver Young Alexander and Mathewson and probably (not going to rekindle this) Spahn. So I'll go 15 deep.

W Johnson
Young
Clemens
Grove
Seaver
Randy
Paige
Alexander
Mathewson
Spahn
Pedro
Feller
Gibson
Maddux
Carlton

It's very hard to exclude a guy with 7 No Hitters and 12 1-Hitters. When he was on, he was on. No one on the list comes close to that.

[darwinbulldog]

Originally Posted by Shoeless Moe

It's very hard to exclude a guy with 7 No Hitters and 12 1-Hitters. When he was on, he was on. No one on the list comes close to that.

Less so if that pitcher walked 2,795 batters. He did finish 2nd in the Cy Young voting that one time though.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Shoeless Moe

It's very hard to exclude a guy with 7 No Hitters and 12 1-Hitters. When he was on, he was on. No one on the list comes close to that.

Yes, but he was often off. His control was not that good. His bb/9 was awful, almost 5. Read Bill James' discussion of him, it's IMO pretty enlightening. 29th ranked pitcher by JAWS. I think Bill James in 2003 ranked him around 20th or maybe even lower.

[Touch'EmAll]

I googled "Bill James top 100 All Time", up came the list and the highest ranked player that is a pitcher is Walter Johnson at #8. The second highest ranked pitcher is Satchell Paige at #17.

I honestly have never seen any meaningful accurate season by season/career stats for Paige. I figured they simply don't exist. Maybe I haven't scoured the internet deep enough to see what I am looking for.

So how does Bill James arrive at #17 for Paige (2nd best pitcher of all time)? From where is he getting his stats?

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Touch'EmAll

I googled "Bill James top 100 All Time", up came the list and the highest ranked player that is a pitcher is Walter Johnson at #8. The second highest ranked pitcher is Satchell Paige at #17.

I honestly have never seen any meaningful accurate season by season/career stats for Paige. I figured they simply don't exist. Maybe I haven't scoured the internet deep enough to see what I am looking for.

So how does Bill James arrive at #17 for Paige (2nd best pitcher of all time)? From where is he getting his stats?

Not saying he's wrong, but it's interesting that a statistician like James put so many Negro League players in his top 100 and relied mostly on anecdotal evidence.