They were the 4 elite pitchers of our era.
There are many debates about who had the best career, who had the best peak, who had the best stuff, who was the most dominant over the greatest amount of years, and who you would want to pitch the most important game for you.
The purpose of this post is not to answer those questions, but to see how they did in the playoffs.
So let’s cut through the myths and MEDIA driven legends, and see the actual post season stats of these 4 aces. Let’s face it folks, the post season is what separates the boys from the men. It’s the most tense, clutch, and pressure situation in baseball. Is it unfair to judge a player based on 5 games? Yeah, but that’s life.
Thankfully, these 4 great pitchers have appeared in many post-season games, so we have a better sample than just a handful of games.
Randy Johnson:
The Big Unit has appeared in 8 post seasons, and 11 series. He started 16 games, and made 3 relief appearance. He has 11/16 (69%) Quality Starts.
His record is 7-9, with an ERA of 3.50. His teams have won 4/11 series. He has pitched 121 innings, with 132K, 106 hits, and 32 walks. He has 3 complete games. He has one World Series ring, and was co-winner of the World Series MVP.
Pedro Martinez:
Pedro has appeared in 4 post seasons, and 8 series. He started 11 games, and made 2 relief appearance. He has 7/11 (64%) Quality Starts.
His record is 6-2, with an ERA of 3.40. His teams have won 5/8 series. He has pitched 79.1 innings, with 80K, 63 hits, and 26 walks. He has 0 complete games. He has one World Series ring, and no post-season awards.
Greg Maddux:
Mad Dog has appeared in 12 post seasons, and 21 series. He started 30 games, and made 2 relief appearances. He has 21/30 (70%) Quality Starts.
His record is 11-14, with an ERA of 3.34. His teams have won 10/21 series. He has pitched 194 innings, with 122K, 191 hits, and 50 walks. He has 2 complete games. He has one World Series ring, and no post-season awards.
Roger Clemens:
The Rocket has appeared in 12 post seasons, and 24 series. He started 34 games, and made 1 relief appearance. He has 18/34 (53%) Quality Starts.
His record is 12-8, with an ERA of 3.75. His teams have won 14/24 series. He has pitched 199 innings, with 179K, 173 hits, and 70 walks. He has 1 complete game. He has two World Series rings, and no post-season awards.
Conclusion:
All 4 pitchers have excellent post-season numbers. Clemens and Maddux each have actually pitched a season’s worth of post-season games against the best teams in baseball.
- The irony is that Greg Maddux, who is not known for his post-season accolades, actually was the most consistent and had the lowest ERA. His record is 11-14 because of some some unlucky teams playing behind him.
- Meanwhile, Roger Clemens, regarded by himself as the greatest pitcher of all time, was only good half the time he pitched. Of course, he does has 2 rings, his teams did win most of the time.
- If it wasn’t for the Yankees causing him so much trouble, Pedro Martinez would be regarded in the same light as Sandy Koufax in terms of post-season clutch.
- Speaking of the Yankees, Randy Johnson’s 2 seasons with the Yanks ruined his post-season quality starts % and ERA. But guess what? It counted. And the Yanks needed him. That being said, when Randy was “on”, he was generally an unstoppable (but not perfect) machine- extremely dominant with his strikeouts and innings pitched.
So…who’s the best of the 4 aces when it comes to post season play? It’s tough to say. I’d have to pass on Roger, though.
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you the dead hooker and your johnson
i never seen these deleted scenes in the season5
Of course the world would end before the cubs could get a world series ring… #badtiming
A Pressure Situation: It’s a good thing you aren’t measuring my blood pressure because I’m sure it’s through the…
The 1970 Caracas crosstable is identical to crosstables published in Chess Life & Review, September 1970, p. 483, in Chess Informant 10, page 257 or in the 1976 Batsford book “The Complete Games of World Champion Anatoly Karpov,” page 121.
Former Van Halen frontman Sammy Hagar says he had never performed the National Anthem at a sporting event before kicking off Saturday’s World Series ring ceremony for the San Francisco Giants. That was a little hard to believe, though not after seeing the video of Hagar’s rambling rendition with the guitarist who played that one song, Joe Satriani.-–source Yahoo Sports
Perfect setting, 4 aces, 3 false calls, 3 challenges and a happy SAFIN(A)-Duo!
obviously you don’t know how to play baseball. Maybe you’re stupid though.
glavine was more elite then pedro and randy first off to get that out of the way second off clemens used hgh which puts makes what would be a huge toss up between him and maddux a no brainer maddux was the best of the era and possibly top 3 of all-time
It is interesting that these 4 best pitchers haven’t really dominated as much as I thought they would.
Although Randy has some great series, and was the only one to win a WS MVP, he stunk up the place for others.
Pedro doesn’t have the post-season innings to really be considered like the other 3, but he looked great against all teams- besides the Yankees, who owned him.
Rocket has had some really great games, and some real bad ones. I think he turns it up a notch in some World Series games. Of course, what if he finished Game 7 in 1986 against the Mets instead of coming out early?
Maddux…that’s pretty interesting. I always thought he sucked in the post-season because the Braves only won once.
But..if I had to pick ONE to start Game 7 if they were all in their primes?
Randy Johnson.
i cannot believe i am going to type this but Madduz looks like the
post season winner. i would have said Clemens in a heart beat but i
feel he cheated. for my own record i am and always will be partial to being a yankee fan!