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Wed Sep 24, 2014 1:03 pm
Through age 25 Pedro was wrapping up his first cy young. Clayton his second to go with a second place finish in between.
True what Pedro did during his prime in Boston was pretty special and right there with what Clayton has done prior to his prime seasons.
The claim that umpires had a smaller strike zone for Pedro than for Clayton because of cameras is simply a misrepresentation of the truth. Pedro was an established pitcher by the time he got to Boston and umpires were famous in those days for giving benefit of the doubt on close pitches to established pitchers who had shown control in the past. Guys like Pedro could live 6 inches or more out of the strike zone and hitters pretty much had to swing. Ben, Ben, Ben, you might get by with this type misleading analysis with the millenial generation but as someone old enough to have witnessed the full career of Pedro not going to fly. Cameras and the little strike zone squares during broadcasts make for nice talk but it has not expanded the strike zone.
Yes, Pedro had to face the Yankees but he also got to face a Toronto team that was allowed to slide badly, a Baltimore team that was poorly run, and that was before Tampa started regularly turning out quality young players.
Our accomplishments are even more memorable because we excelled for high-profile teams like the Red Sox and Dodgers. In my case, it was the American League East of the mid-dynasty Yankees
You face two problems here. First as I mentioned earlier some of us are old enough to have been there. Second, you can look up the truth on the internet. In 2000, perhaps Pedros best year a quick visit to MLB.com and a few mouse clicks reveal Boston was 23-26 against the AL east. They were 32-24 against the AL central. Easy math adding that up is 49 games against the beasts in the east and 56 against the central. And those mighty yankees that year were 87-74 which was the 5th best record in the AL. They made the playoffs only because the east was was not all that good.
True, Kershaw gets to pitch to pitchers, but so did Pedro when he was Kershaws age. Apparently Ben is too young to remember Pedro started his career for these same Dodgers before going to Montreal for 4 years.
My advice to Ben. Quit trying to make yourself look smart by putting down a pitcher who has to this point in his career been better than Pedro was at the same age. And has accomplished more than Pedro had at the same age. And by the way not only am I old enough to have watched Pedro from a skinny rookie I am old enough to have bought and read the first Baseball Prospectus and the ones since. I have to say it went downhill during your time as editor in chief. The 2014 edition was maybe the worst one ever. The attempt to pretend you were inventing new stats by relabeling WAR as WARP along with trying to make up new names for other stats and pretend you invented them was amusing.
Through their age 26 years Pedro had an EAR of 2.98 with all but one year spent in the NL. Clayton so far is at 2.48.
Clayton has won 15 more games than Pedro had, struck out over 200 more batters, hit 24 fewer batters, posted a whip 0.04 lower, allowed 16 fewer HRs, won 1 more cy youngs (will be 2 more once the voting is done this year), appeared in 1 more allstar game, finished higher in MVP award voting.
I will give it to Ben, he is good at sarcasm, but his baseball knowledge accuracy falls a bit short and a professional writer should not intentionally distort the facts as he does in this article. Facts are too easy to verify these days.