Greg Maddux announced his retirement from baseball yesterday, marking the end of an era for baseball fans. I consider Maddux to be the best pitcher of his era. I know, I know, there will be disagreement on this point, what about Roger Clemens you might ask. Well, he's really Maddux's only competition during this era, but here are my reasons.
For the purposes of this post, I'll assume Clemens is retired since he hasn't pitched since 2007 and is 46 years old.
Both pitchers had successful longevity in their careers. Maddux pitched for 23 seasons and Clemens for 24. However, many of the numbers Maddux put up would suggest he actually pitched longer (innings pitched, total games, games started), which means he spent less time on the disabled list. So, in terms of longevity, I'd give it to Maddux who was injured less often and put up higher numbers in the total years they spent in the league.
Maddux had 355 wins and Clemens had 354. I'd say you can't really judge two great pitchers much on win-loss record, but in regards to wins, it is clearly a wash. However, you could give props to Clemens who had fewer losses (Maddux had 227 and Clemens had 184). That's a difference of 43 games. However, Maddux played 10 seasons with the Cubs which certainly played a role in the total number of losses for him. After all, his 10 years with the Cubs resulted in 112 of his losses overall. That's nearly half the total. For the other 13 years, he totaled 115 losses. I'd say he surely has a higher loss total than Clemens due to his years playing for a perpetually bad team, at least until recently. However, Clemens still wins this one because Maddux wasn't hit badly enough by playing for the Cubs to make up for the 43 game difference entirely.
Another category which separates the two is consistency. I think Maddux clearly wins this one. After all, he pitched 17 seasons in a row with 15 or more wins. Clemens managed 7 in a row. Granted, Clemens had 6 20 win seasons to Maddux's 2, but Maddux put up 5 19 win seasons and 2 18 win seasons while Clemens put up 0 19 win seasons and 4 18 win seasons. So, Maddux get 9 18+ win seasons and Clemens gets 10 18+ win seasons. However, when not winning at least 18 games, the differences are more stark. Maddux has 9 15+ win seasons when not winning 18 or more and only 5 where he didn't win at least 15. Clemens has only 2 years winning 15 or more when he didn't win 18 with 12 seasons where he couldn't manage 15 wins. So, Clemens was great and probably better than Maddux in many seasons, but when it comes to consistency and reliability, Maddux wins.
Next I'll talk about ERA. Maddux has a slightly higher ERA than Clemens. It is almost an insignificant difference in baseball. In addition, Maddux ERA was negatively impacted by the high ERAs he put up in his final three seasons. However, you have to give this one to Clemens because he pitched almost his entire career in the American League during the designated hitter era and so having a similar (virtually identical) ERA to Maddux probably puts him ahead if they'd spent their careers in the same league (this is speculation of course, but a good bet).
Next we'll look at control. Strikeouts is no contest, Clemens wins that hands down. However, Maddux wins strikeouts to walks ratio with a .29 ratio to Clemens' .33. In addition, Maddux pitched almost 100 more innings than Clemens and yet beats him in walks hands down. Maddux had 999 walks to Clemens 1580. That's a clear victory for Maddux in walks. Also, Maddux had fewer hit batsmen with 137 to Clemens' 159. In addition, John Smoltz recently said of Maddux that he always knew what a batter was thinking and that if he didn't think he could get him out, he just wouldn't throw him a strike. That is high praise, not to mention that high praise Maddux received throughout his career from players, coaches and umpires for his ability to place the ball exactly where he wanted it. Finally, homeruns are often hit off of mistake pitches, so how many mistakes did Maddux have versus Clemens? Maddux allowed 353 homeruns in 5008 innings and Clemens allowed 363 homeruns in 4916 innings. Again, Maddux wins that one, especially considering his 10 years in the homerun happy confines of Wrigley Field. Therefore, I give control to Maddux. Sure, Clemens is a great strikeout pitcher, but Maddux never tried to be that and to Clemens credit probably couldn't have been. However, Maddux style and ability gave him better overall control than Clemens could hope to have.
The next category for me is runners on base. Total runners on base per inning for Maddux was 1.17 and for Clemens was 1.205. You'd think that would be similar enough to not matter and perhaps you're right, but Maddux is still the winner on this one.
Now we have complete games and shutouts, which are mostly an indicator of dominance on any given day as opposed to dominance or consistency overall. In addition, both pitchers probably suffered in this area because of the era being so specialized with closers and set-up men, etc. Nonetheless, Clemens wins this category. Maddux had 109 CG and 35 shutouts to Clemens 118 CG and 46 shutouts. Clemens clearly did better overall, especially considering that Maddux pitched more innings, had more starts, played in more games and so on.
One other pitching category to cover. This is somewhat intangible and probably doesn't mean much of anything, but here goes. Maddux had 582 decisions in his career, leaving him with 158 no decisions. That's 21 percent of his starts that resulted in a no decision. Clemens had 538 decisions in his career leaving him with 169 no decisions. That's 24 percent of his starts that resulted in a no-decision. You might could lump this category in with consistency, but I didn't because I think it shows something else. Maddux had about 45 more decisions and managed 11 less no decisions. What does that tell you? It tells me that Maddux was less likely to need help during a game than Clemens, even though Clemens clearly dominated in complete games and shutouts.
Now we move on to some intangible areas. How much did the pitcher help himself. Just looking at the numbers for fielding statistics without looking closer makes you think Clemens is the winner here. After all, his .973 fielding percentage for his career beats Maddux .970. But there is more to this story. Maddux only pitched 100 more innings than Clemens, so you'd expect their total chances to be similar. They are nowhere close. Maddux had 1791 total chances to Clemens 919. What this shows you is that while they were very similar in how many times they succeeded in getting an out when fielding the ball, Maddux clearly helped himself more through his ability to quickly get off the mound and field balls that most pitchers never stood a chance at getting. We are talking almost 800 more chances to field a ball than Clemens in just 100 more innings pitched. So, Maddux is the clear winner even with a slightly lower overall percentage for his career because he clearly helped himself more on the field than Clemens could. In fact, Maddux won the gold glove for pitching every single year except one from 1990-2007. The one year he didn't win was 2003 when Mike Hampton won. Roger Clemens' gold gloves? 0. Maddux is clearly the hands down winner in defense and ability to help himself on the field.
Another intangible that effected how well a pitcher helps themselves is batting. Clemens spent the majority of his career in the American League, so we can't really compare the two pitchers. They have similar career batting averages, but Maddux clearly had more opportunities to bat spending his entire career in the National League. Therefore, he wins in virtually every offensive category. All those years in the AL though didn't seem to keep Clemens from showing that he could bat once he did pitch in the NL, so perhaps he might have given Maddux a run for his money had he had more chances to bat. We'll never really know, but I can't give this category to either one.
So, who is better, Maddux or Clemens. I think I've made a good case for Maddux. They are both great pitchers, no doubt. Of the categories I chose to highlight, Maddux won 6, Clemens 3 and they tied in 2. That's a Maddux win to me. The final straw would have to be the doping allegations. While I don't think it has ever been proven against Clemens, Maddux never even had an accusation made against him. In addition, assume that the batters were juiced and Clemens was juiced, that gave him equality vs. the batters, but if Maddux wasn't, then his dominance is even greater because he was still dominating even the juiced hitters. That's all supposition, so it doesn't really have any bearing on my argument. I think Maddux wins regardless.
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