Over the past 50 years who has been the greatest pitcher in Major League Baseball?

Question

Please give a few reasons why you're picking your guy over some of the other qualified candidates. Thanks!

Answer 1

Anyone who doesn't say Roger Clemens is wrong. Nobody over the past 50 years has combined excellence with durability over such an extended period of time.

Clemens has 7 Cy Young awards, and a career ERA that is over 1.3 runs less than that of the league. Only Pedro is better in that category, and Clemens trumps him everywhere else.

Anyone who picks Nolan Ryan because of the K's and no-hitters is either ignorant or willfully blind. Yes, he pitched plenty of no-hitters, but what does that really mean? Do you want a guy who has a dominant game mixed with many average ones, or a guy who is consistently excellent? And while the K's are nice, what about the 2,795 career walks, outdistancing the competition by over 50%? Or the career ERA barely above that of the league average? Or the zero Cy Young Awards? Ryan wasn't even the best of his generation, as Carlton, Seaver, and Fergie Jenkins are but 3 I can think of right away who have better claim to that title.

Clemens is the best, although I can see arguments for Koufax, Carlton, and Warren Spahn. But for anyone to pick Nolan Ryan just makes no sense - fun to watch, yes, but by no means the best of the past half-century.

Answer 2

I my mind the most dominating Pitcher of the last 50 years is Roger Clemens.

The second best strikeout pitcher for a career has won 7 Cy Young awards, 11 time all-star won the Pitching AL Triple Crown twice. Nobody has been as good for as long as Roger Clemens has. The way he pitches today, he could pitch until he’s 50. he is 40 years old and had an ERA under 2, which in this day an age is incredible. My hats off to the greatest pitcher I ever saw, and I saw Carlton, Ryan, Seaver, and other Pitch in Philadelphia in the 70, 80, 90 and present and Clemens is the best.

Answer 3

I think the best season ever pitched was the1999 season by Pedro Martinez.First of all, Nolan Ryan doesnt deserve it in any way. He didnt have a great ERA, and he also had the most walks. In 99, Pedro had 23 wins and only four losses for the Red Sox. He also had a 2.07 ERA. Thats amazing. Pedro was a strikeout machine that year too. He recorded 313 strikeouts and dont forget, he started the All-Star game and struckout the first 5 out of 6 batters. He is truly an amazing pitcher.

Answer 4

That's a very good question as there have been a lot of dominating pitcher's. The greatest pitcher I ever saw during that time was Sandy Koufax. Though he had a short career, the years from 1962-1966 were amazing. He won 97 losing only 27 with 1444 strikeouts in 1376 innings and earned run averages of 2.54. 1.88, 1.74, 2.04, and 1.73 not to mention 4 no hitters and 1 of them a perfect game! I would put Sandy against any of them for my money!

Answer 5

Roger Clemens. He has a better ERA relative to the average during his career than anyone recently besides Pedro. He has an advantage over Pedro in that he's been more durable.

As for Bob Gibson, I can name twenty pitchers in the last 50 years that have been better. Koufax had low ERA's, but runs scored were down during that period, making his low ERA less valuable. Carlton was a great pitcher, but not near the level of Seaver, Maddux, Clemens, Randy Johnson, Koufax, or Pedro. Finally, Ryan was a very good pitcher, but all those walks led to too many runs. In this group, he fall short.

Answer 6

I'm going to go with a guy some of you have never heard of b/c he was very underrated and played for a crap team his name was steve carlton started witht he cardinals in 1965 and went to the phills in 1972 and he played the rest of his career with them up untill 1987. He was a 6 time 20 game winner including a 27 win season in his first year with the phills and the most remarkable thing about those 27 wins they acounted for exactly half of the phillies total wins that year 54. He had 329 carrer wins/4136 k's/254 Cg and 55 of them were shutouts/ and a 3.22 lifetime era greatest pitcher of the last 50 years and third best all-time behind cy young #1 and Ruth #2

Answer 7

It's hard to argue against Clemens, but I think Pedro Martinez gets this nod.

Pedro has a career 70.1% winning percentage, third all-time.
an ERA of 2.71, has averaged 252 K's per year, and was the most dominating pitcher in baseball (by far) for several years.

One last thing, he did this during the "Steroid Era".


Side Note: I am a huge Nolan Ryan fan but he doesn't belong in this discussion, he was a power pitcher who withstood the test of time, but only has a career winning percentage of 52.6% and allowed 2795 walks (the second most allowed in a career was 1833).

Answer 8

Nolan Ryan. Look at all the strikeouts he compiled - more than anyone in history. No one has ever pitched 7 no-hitters like he did. He won over 300 games. And he did all this pitching for very mediocore teams for the most part. If he had pitched for winning teams, he probably would have won over 500 games and they would have to rename the Cy Young Award the Nolan Ryan Award.

Answer 9

Sorry, all you detractors, but the answer is Nolan Ryan. 7 no-hitters, 12 one-hitters, 5714 strikeouts. Won-loss record doesn't always tell the tale, as Ryan pitched for some bad teams. And a lifetime ERA of 3.19, especially when pitching a number of years in the American League ain't that bad.

Answer 10

No Roger Clemens answers yet..
-more wins than anyone in past 50 (9th over all)
-2nd most strike outs all time
-top 10 era since they lowered the mound
-7 cy youngs

-12 post season wins
-3-0 in World Series