THIS is why you draft Pete Alexander ........

[PJ Axelsson]

I went back and fixed a typo (revisionist became revisionists). Look at BKs reply, it didn't change in his quote. This is a great example of revisionist history!

Now, I want to go back and make Pesky throw it without pumping, make Rice not break his wrist in '75, uncork Bucky Dent's bat on that fateful '78 day, pull Buckner and put Stapleton in, and make Grady Little take Pedro out.

Can't be that hard, can it?

[ADRIANGABRIEL]

[quote:5c813099ea="EGVRICH"]
P.S. - I'm starting to find myself feeling a lot of Boston #21 love actually. He's been putting up some great seasons for me lately.[/quote:5c813099ea]

Boston #21 threw a no-hitter for me last night.

[dbrisner]

Yeah, I was the victim of Alexander's gooseeggs. As a Fenway '67 team with 89 wins, I really, really needed home field advantage in that series but got outscored badly at home and away even though the semi series still went 5 games. My Moon Pies didn't have Furillo for games 3 through 5 due to injury but i don't think that made any difference in the outcome. Someone once posted here that having Ray Sadecki on a Fenway '67 team would make them nauseaus. For the regular season and playoffs, he went 15-3 with a sub-6.00 ERA (barely) for me. Demaree ended up with a sub-4.00 ERA as a No. 1 starter and Paul Dean was pretty effective as my closer.

[egvrich]

I really do feel your pain. It was a heckuva series and going into it, you had me worried. It was yet another classic matchup of hitting vs. pitching and I've had my share of those in the playoffs. Thank goodness for me pitching won out.

Amazing season outta Sadecki, I gotta tell ya.

[OdysseyTigger]

[quote="bkeat23"][quote:b669d8e825="PJ Axelsson"]Haas scared me, that's for sure, but Pete always finds a way. You always sleep well when you know Pete is throwing for you in the deciding game.


Before this online strat game was launched, how many of you walked the streets preaching the sainthood of Pete? Any barroom debate over the best pitcher ever most likely centered around Walter Johnson, Sandy Koufax, or even some of the new guys like Pedro or Randy Johnson.

We're rewriting history here! Revisionist unite! Should we rename it the Pete Alexander award???

:lol:[/quote:b669d8e825]


Perhaps that could be more attributed more to unfamiliarity or ignorance than to revisionism. After all who here was around to see Pete retire in 1930? Fewer still saw him finish third in the MVP voting as a rookie in 1911. He's third all time in career wins with a better winning percentage than Young and Johnson and second all time in career shutouts. Check out his carreer page, look especially at 1911-1920. Then realize he went off to WWI in 1918. Clearly he was the dominant NL pitcher of that decade.

(Also note that as late as 1927, he had 21 wins (4th in the league), led the league in WHIP, was second in ERA and received league MVP votes)

[MICHAELEVANS]

I always was a big fan of Pete's, but was much more of a Koufax booster. However, I am really disappointed by how some of the greats perform - Cy Young, Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson, among others. These guys were absolutely dominant in their period, and yet here, they are almost always 2nd raters. Spahn, Maglie, Feller, BOB FRIGGING GIBSON, for pete's sack. These guys rocked in real life and yet here, they rarely excel.

[Denorien]

I am also amazed not to see Gibson's name sooner. He was beyond hot in the 60s. Of course, only the WS before 1969. Go back and look at Gibby's stats on www.baseball-reference.com. 9 World Series starts. 8 complete games. 7-2 record. In the world series against the best team in the other league!

But the name I am really disappointed to see missing is John Smoltz. John is/was the bulldog's bulldog in the playoffs and from our era. And if not for a hard luck loss to the Twins when the Braves base coach lost a double off the wall amidst the fan's hankees and mistakenly held a runner at third costing the Braves the game and the series..., he would be held in more regard.

[The Last Druid]

We got Johnson at the tail end of his career. Grove did not have one of his better years and he is often considered the best lefty ever. Wish we had Feller at the top of his game as well as Big Train and Grove.

I REALLY HOPE THAT WHEN ATG III COMES OUT THEY USE DIFFERENT SEASONS, EVEN ADJACENT YEARS FOR ALOT OF THE TEAMS.

But I'll bet they don't. Too much work for Richman et al. So they'll change a handful of teams, toss on a few others add HAL's defective AI and again foist a product much inferior to what is possible on the addicted consumers.

[PJ Axelsson]

Now I'll preface this by stating that I'm not a stat man. As telling and fun as they are, and as much as they are the heart and soul of this game, I still refuse to think that baseball can be fully explained with numbers. That being said, I'll pull this stuff from the book, "[i:74c49a839d][u:74c49a839d]Mind Game[/u:74c49a839d][/i:74c49a839d]" by the [i:74c49a839d]Baseball Prospectus[/i:74c49a839d]:

They have this nifty stat called Runs Allowed Plus (RA+). Basically, it compares how many runs a pitcher allows (earned and unearned) per nine innings to how many a league average pitcher would allow in the same ballpark. An RA+ of 100 is league average, a 120 is 20% better than league average, 200 is twice as good as league average...

Here are the single season best RA+ scores for a pitcher with 150 innings or more since 1890:

[b:74c49a839d]Year-pitcher-RA+[/b:74c49a839d]
2000-Pedro-293
1995-Maddux-278
1913-Johnson-273
1914-Leonard-271
1986-Eichhorn-254
1985-Gooden-245
1994-Maddux-237
1968-Gibson-236
1999-Pedro-225
1997-Clemens-225
1964-Dean Chance-225
1915-Joe Wood-218
1978-Guidry-212
1912-Johnson-208
1997-Maddux-207
1955-Billy Pierce-205
1964-Koufax-204
1971-Seaver-204
1901-Cy Young-204
1996-Kevin Brown-203




Here are the career leaders (listed by rank) for RA+ (1500ip min - not including 2005):

[b:74c49a839d]Name-RA+[/b:74c49a839d]
Pedro-163
Ed Walsh-146
Walter Johnson-145
Lefty Grove-142
Whitey Ford-138
Hoyt Wilhelm-138
Roger Clemens-137
Addie Joss-137
Randy Johnson-137
Sandy Koufax-135
Christy Mathewson-134
Mordecai Brown-134
Carl Hubbell-134
Lefty Gomez-133
Cy Young-133
Pete Alexander-133
Harry Brecheen-133
Greg Maddux-133
Curt Schilling-132
Jim Palmer-132




Another way that they measure a pitcher's effectiveness is to calculate how many more runs a pitcher prevented than the league average pitcher would have in the same ballpark. This is the Runs Prevented stat (RP), calculated by subtracting the pitcher's runs allowed from the park adjusted league runs allowed, multiplyed by innings pitched, and divided by 9.

Single Season leaders:

[b:74c49a839d]year-name-RP[/b:74c49a839d]
1901-Cy Young-116.1
1913-Walter Johnson-96.6
1912-Johnson-65.9
2000-Pedro-84.7
1923-Dolf Luque-84.3
1931-Lefty Grove-82.3
1921-Red Faber-81.8
1997-Clemens-81.1
1904-McGinnity-79.2
1936-Hubbell-79.1
1902-Young-77.8
1940-Feller-77.7
1937-Gomez-77.2
1934-Gomez-76.9
1930-Grove-76.6
1914-George Hendrix-76.4
1903-McGinnity-74.2
1985-Gooden-74.1
1966-Koufax-73
1936-Grove-72.4




[b:74c49a839d]Here are the top 29 career RPs post 1890:[/b:74c49a839d]
Cy Young-1053.2
Walter Johnson-860.6
Kid Nichols-753.6
Lefty Grove-673.2
Roger Clemens-651.5
Pete Alexander-615.7
Warren Spahn-558.5
Christy Mathewson-544.8
Amos Rusie-524.8
Greg Maddux-520.5
Tom Seaver-516.6
Pedro Martinez-484.6
Randy Johnson-477.2
Carl Hubbell-472.5
Bob Feller-462
Jim Palmer-439.5
Eddie Plank-438.4
Whitey Ford-420.9
Ed Walsh-400
Mike Mussina-372.9




Just some food for thought... :D

[PJ Axelsson]

All that work, and not even a single comment? C'mon guys, it's Friday! :P