Today I make the argument that Pedro Martinez at his peak was the best pitcher in the history of the major leagues.

Stay tuned, I'm gathering the evidence.

Meanwhile : Talk Mets at the New York Mets Baseball Forum.

Hello. Thanks for waiting so patiently while I put together my case.

The only reason why I'm using the phrase "peak level" instead of just saying Pedro is the best pitcher in history is due to Martinez's injury problems. I think due to his fragility and the many games he's missed it's not fair to say he's the greatest pitcher in MLB history but I do think that his peak betters any other pitcher's peak.

Here's the evidence:

1. Pedro's career ERA+ is 160. This is the best of all time and it's not even that close. #2 is Lefty Grove at 148. Other active pitchers of note: Roger Clemens at #6 with 144, Randy Johnson at #8 with 139, and Greg Maddux at #12 with 136. I think you can make a pretty good argument that ERA+ is the single most important statistic for evaluating pitcher performance so this is a pretty impressive thing to rank #1 all time for.

2. Pedro's career opponent batting average is .209 (tied for 3rd all time) and his career opponent OBP is .270 (leads all modern era pitchers.) He's also 3rd all time in fewest hits allowed per 9 innings at 6.85 (behind Nolan Ryan & Sandy Koufax.)

3. Pedro's career ERA of 2.81 makes him the only active starting pitcher in the major leagues with a career ERA under 3.00

4. Pedro is MLB's all time leader in winning percentage at .691 (Tim Hudson at .665, Roger Clemens at .662, and Randy Johnson at .656 come in next among active pitchers.) While I personally don't think that Wins or winning percentage is a very good way of evaluating a pitcher's performance (due to the obvious lack of control a pitcher has over how good his offense is) I'll throw this one in there for the old timers.

5. Pedro is #2 all time in career strike outs per 9 innings at 10.2 (behind only Randy Johnson.)

6. Best single season ERA+ in MLB history with 288 in 2000. This is a pretty incredible stat. It means Pedro was almost 3 times better than the average starting pitcher in 2000.

7. Pedro has 5 of the top 35 best single season ERA+ years in history: 1997, 1999, 2000, 2002, & 2003.

8. Lowest single season opponent batting average ever. Batters hit .167 against Pedro in 2000. Let me write that again in case you didn't get it: .167! When you consider the explosive offensive era it's that much more amazing. (Fun Historical Baseball Facts Coming) Certainly far more impressive than Louis Tiant's second place .168 in 1968, during a year when pitching dominated the American League. Carl Yastrzemski lead the AL with a .301 batting average. Yaz was the only American leaguer with over a .300 batting average or a .400 on base percentage.

9. Best two single season years for "Pitcher Wins" (the pitching equivalent to the stat that places Barry Bonds as the all time most valuable position player.) since 1913 with his 8.4 in 2000 and 8.1 in 1999.

10. Best single season WHIP ever with his 0.74 in 2000. He also has the lowest career WHIP (1.02) for any pitcher who started his career after 1904.

Labels: Pedro Martinez