Who is your favorite pitcher of all time? Mine is Roger Clemens!?

Question

I hope he goes to my Yankees if he decides to keep pitching!

Answer 1

JUAN MARICHAL

Answer 2

You can never go wrong with Roger Clemens. He along with Whitey Ford and Ron Guidry are my favorite Yankee pitchers of all time. Some of my favorite non Yankee pitchers are: Nolan Ryan and Steve Carlton. For the Yankees, I like David Cone too. David would pitch some big games for us, and he seems like a good person too. I would also like to see Clemens return to put on our pinstripes. It could happen too, his agent said that the odds are better than 50% that he would come back next year. The Yankees trade of Randy Johnson and the acquisition of Andy Pettite also makes a Clemens return even more of a possibility. So, as far as making Clemens your favorite pitcher, you can't go wrong. I am a fan of pitching so I would say Clemens along with the others that I mentioned. But, Clemens is a fine choice and not only would I want to see Clemens return, but I would like the writers to allow Clemens to go to the Hall as a Yankee which is what Clemens wants too. To add, if he does return to the Yankees, Robinson Cano will have to give up #22 to the Rocket. So, the Yankees should bring him back. Let him end his career as a Yankee.

Answer 3

As a completely biased twins fan, I have to say Johan Santana. I have just never witnessed a guy for my home town team kick so much butt... we are lucky to have him.
Scott Erickson was dominant in1991 (12 straight wins), and Brad Radke had that great stretch in 1997 (also 12 straight I think), but no one I have seen does it on a more consistent basis than this guy.

if I was from Texas or Ny, or Boston (or maybe even Toronto), I would probably agree w/ Clemens though, he's one of a kind!

Answer 4

My favorite is Roger Clemens too. I grew up in Manhaten and my dad was great friends with one of the co owners. I got to go to so many games and sit unbelievable seats and I even got to meet the team a few times. It was great.

Answer 5

Nolan Ryan....no one will ever come close to his strike out record.He also has more no timers and more 1 hitters than anyone else ever will. If a pitcher comes into the league and throws 200 strike outs every year of his career and plays 20 years he wont have as many as Ryan did! check the stats!

Answer 6

Kent Tekulve . He was a relief pitcher for the Pirates back in the 70's and threw a sidearm pitch that was very hard to hit. In fact he could throw curves, sliders, or fastballs with that sidearm. he looked weird pitching that way but he saved a lot of games (including some of snubbed Bert Blylevens)

Answer 7

Sandy Koufax

Can you imagine what he could have done with the medical advances and training we have available today?

Clemens is a 1st class pick too. Bob Gibson has to be up there with the other "True Grit" pitchers.

Answer 8

You made a great choice in Clemens!

Mine is Tom Seaver.

Growing up as a Mets fan in the late 60s and during the 70s, he was THE man. I got to see him pitch a number of times, and believe me, when you had tickets to a game Seaver was pitching, you were officially the king of the neighborhood!

The reason Seaver will always be my favorite pitcher was because of what he did for the Mets.

During their first five years as a team (1962-66), the Mets were terrible... and both the players and the fans expected them to take the field every day and lose. When they won a game, it was like a miracle.

Tom Seaver was the first Met in their history who EXPECTED to win every time he took the field. You could say that he was really their first "professional" pitcher. That attitude rubbed off on some other Mets pitchers (and players as well) who came up right after Seaver, like Jerry Koosman, who was a fine pitcher himself.

Nineteen sixty nine was a magical year for the Mets of course, and Seaver went 25-7 that year (STILL a Mets record for most wins in a season).

Seaver won 3 Cy Young awards, and could have won 6 or 7. He was competing against other Hall of Fame pitchers like Bob Gibson, Ferguson Jenkins, and Steve Carlton. He probably got robbed twice in the Cy Young voting (1971 and 1981) but to this day, he still holds all of the (positive) Mets career pitching records (Dwight Gooden might have broken them all, but messed up a potential HOF career with drugs).

Watching baseball was great fun back then, because managers were not afraid to pitch their aces against each other. Seaver would often oppose Bob Gibson, Steve Carlton and Fergie Jenkins. Today, managers hate to "waste" their aces against other aces, on the fear that it be a waste of a start because they might lose. I say, let the two best pitchers go at it.

Seaver is STILL the best player in Mets history, and the only one (so far) who made the Hall of Fame based primarily on what he did as a Met.


Among more "modern" (LOL) pitchers, I have 3 favorites...
Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux and Randy Johnson.

Clemens is very much like Seaver, a power pitcher who has been great for a long, long time. Because Clemens was able to avoid injury for the most part, he has been able to put up better career numbers than Seaver did (that and the fact that Clemens played for much better teams from day one).

But I love watching Clemens pitch for the same reason I loved Seaver. Their competitive spirit, and their abilty to reach back late in the game and get that huge strikeout when they needed it. Clemens is the closest thing to Seaver that I've seen... Clemens ultimately has to rate as a 'greater' pitcher because of his career wins and strikeouts, but Seaver will always be my favorite because of what he did for the then-sorry Mets franchise.

Clemens never had to turn a franchise around the way Seaver did (but this is not to say that Clemens COULDN'T have do so if he were thrust into that situation... I think he could have as well, as he had the same competitive spirt that Seaver did).

Greg Maddux is my second favorite "modern" pitcher. (I guess I'll define "modern" as the ESPN era).

Maddux has always amazed me with what he's been able to do without having an overpowering fastball. His control might be the best of any post-world war II pitcher. I don't think I've ever seen a pitcher like Maddux who is able to deliver pitches with such consistent pin-point accuracy. Plus, the fact that the strike zone has shrunk 20-30% over what it was in the 70s (at least in practice, i.e. the way the umpires call it) makes it even more amazing to me that Maddux has been able to do what he's done. I've seen very few pitchers who are able to make so many hitters look bad at the plate. Hitters just seem to get a piece of the ball and hit weak grounders. Just amazing. I don't know how he did it.

Randy Johnson was a guy I loved watching because he left nothing back. He pitched all out, game after game, inning after inning, pitch after pitch. He never eased up. He left everything he had on the field.


Others:

Nolan Ryan - just incredible what he was able to do, even when he got into his mid-40s... just awesome. Saw him pitch a quite few times over the years, even when he was a Met.

Pedro Martinez - incredible pitcher, I don't know how he does what he does at his size. Hopefully, he's got a few good years left.

Answer 9

I've never had more fun watching a pitcher than when Pedro Martinez was consistently throwing unhittable stuff in the late nineties.

He was incredible. I don't think it's coincidence that he speaks better English than some native speakers, either. A brilliant athlete and mind alike. What a combination!

Answer 10

Nolan Ryan

Answer 11

Clemens is one of my favorite too but Nolan Ryan is my all time #1!