Baseball's Top 5 Pitchers
Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Sandy Koufax,Tom Seaver & Greg Maddux
Here are the statistics and biographical sketches of the final five of the Top 10 MLB pitchers since 1950. These are some of the truly great MLB pitchers of all time.
Here they are: MLB's Top 5 Pitchers since 1950.
5. Greg Maddux: Atlanta Braves, Chicago Cubs, Los Angeles Dodgers
The man has 333 wins at age 40 and appears to have a lot left in the tank. Maddux has also won four Cy Young Awards, has eight All-Star Game appearances and a World Series Ring. If Maddux can stay healthy for a few more years and pitch as well as he did in 2006, when he won 15 games, he could make a run at Warren Spahn’s 363 wins.
4. Tom Seaver: New York Mets and Cincinnati Reds
Tom Terrific was the savior of the New York Mets. The Mets were the worst team in baseball until Seaver arrived and won the Rookie of the Year Award in 1967. The next year Tom won 16 games and the Mets went 73-89, a 12-game improvement over the prior season.
Then, in 1969, the impossible happened. The Mets won 100 games and took the World Series from the Baltimore Orioles in five games. Seaver went 25-7 with a 2.21 ERA and 208 strikeouts. Seaver won the Cy Young Award and was the leader of the storied team that was known as the “Miracle Mets.”
Seaver won two more Cy Young Awards and had nine straight 200-strikeout seasons on his way to 314 Wins and a Baseball Hall of Fame induction in 1992.
3. Sandy Koufax: Brooklyn Dodgers
Sandy Koufax played with the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1955 until his early retirement at age 30 after the 1966 season. Koufax threw a hard fastball that reached the high nineties in speed. He also threw what many claim was the greatest curveball in history. Koufax once struck out Mickey Mantle in the World Series on a wicked curveball that was called a third strike. Reportedly, Mickey turned around, laughing at his own futility, and said to the umpire: “Jesus Christ, now how in the hell am I supposed to hit that shit?”
Koufax had the greatest run of any pitcher in modern history from 1962-1966. He won 25 or more games three times, posted a combined ERA of 1.93 and struck out an average of 289 batters a season. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972
2. Randy Johnson: Seattle Mariners, Arizona Diamondbacks and New York Yankees
Randy Johnson is ranked second for so many reasons. There are the five seasons with 300 or more strikeouts. There are those five Cy Young Awards resting on his mantle. There are also those 280 wins and counting.
But most of all, what elevates Johnson to this spot is what he did in the 2001 World Series. Johnson started the 2nd and 6th games against the New York Yankees. He picked up wins in both of them and surrendered only two runs in sixteen innings. Then, in Game 7, with the Diamondbacks trailing 2-1 in the top of the eighth inning, Johnson came into the game. Just 24 hours after he had thrown seven innings, Johnson took the mound and held back the Yankees for 1 1/3 innings. The D-Backs won the game and the Series in the bottom of the ninth inning. They never would have gotten that far but for the Big Unit.
1. Roger Clemens: Boston Red Sox, Toronto Blue Jays, New York Yankees, Houston Astros
Clemens is perhaps the best pitcher in history with 348 Wins, over 4,600 strikeouts and seven Cy Young Awards. He is pushing 45 and still going strong; he had a 2.37 ERA in 2006. If he wants, he could approach 374 wins, which would give him the third most wins in history. Clemens is also a great World Series Pitcher. In eight appearances over nineteen years, Clemens is 3-0 with a 2.73 ERA and has logged more than one strikeout per inning.
Those are the Top 5 of all time. Read about Pitchers 6 though 10 here.
