Archive for Greg Maddux

On December 16, 1985, I entered this world. Less than a year later, on September 3rd, 1986, a rather scrawny right-handed pitcher named Greg Maddux made his major league debut with the Chicago Cubs. Though I did not realistically become a baseball fan until the age of seven, Greg Maddux has been in the major leagues for just about my entire life. He also happens to be my baseball idol, the pitcher I modeled myself after and tried to emulate throughout high school, and the only non-Phillies player whom I routinely watched. In fact, when the MLB.com computer broadcasts began, as well as the MLB package on digital cable, it became possible to literally watch all of his starts, a possibility of which I took full advantage.

Today, just a few hours after this article posts, Maddux will officially announce his retirement. An era is about to come to an end, and I don’t know exactly how I feel.

In many ways, I knew this day was coming for much of the 2008 season. Maddux hinted at retiring several times throughout the year, so when the story broke, the news was not exactly shocking. Still, it is a very weird feeling to know that he will not don a uniform at the start of next season. Or, for that matter, ever again. On one hand, I am glad that he made this decision, as his final season still resulted in an above-average 4.22 ERA, 4.09 FIP, and 3.27 K/BB ratio. On the other hand, however, it feels as if a chapter in my life is inching closer to its end, which is always odd to process.

Clemens is gone, as are Bonds, McGwire, and Sosa. Mussina already announced his retirement plans. Smoltz has become extremely injury-prone and does not likely have much left in the tank. Glavine is but a shell of his former self. Pedro, Unit, and Griffey have, at best two more years in them. And now Maddux is hanging up his cleats. With regards to sports, I’ve always said that you know you will feel old when players you grew up watching start becoming coaches. While this has only realistically happened with Joe Girardi and Ozzie Guillen, so far, it feels as if I am going to reach this point in no more than a few years.

My love for watching Maddux pitch dealt primarily with his crafty, technician-like approach on the mound. In every aspect of my life, I have been attracted to the technicians. Be it Maddux, Bret “The Hitman” Hart, John Stockton, Andre Miller, or any number of other players in different sports. Don’t get me wrong, I still like to watch the flashy players, but the technicians just seemed to have this aura about them that kept me hooked. Maddux kept a poker face on the mound, only breaking character during incredulous moments. He had the fielding skills that made you shout “how on Earth did he catch that?” And he had the smooth pitching windup that you just had to try and emulate.

As a Phillies fan, I was particularly spoiled this year with a World Series Championship. In Game Five of the NLCS, however, even though the Phillies clinched, arguably my favorite moment involved Maddux retiring Ruiz-Hamels-Rollins in the fourth inning. The Maddux of old has not been seen in almost five or six years, but he has still had moments during which he looked like his vintage self. This was one of them. He retired Ruiz quickly, on two pitches. Hamels then stepped in, and on a 2-2 count, threw the 2-seam fastball that is commonly referred to as “the Maddux fastball” for strike three looking. Jimmy Rollins came up next, and on a 2-2 count, was caught looking on the same Maddux fastball.

Hearing the stunned reactions from other bar patrons that night just made me grin. It wasn’t that I was glad that the Phillies were retired or anything of the sort, but this really felt like his final performance, and I took such pride in watching a glimmer of the pitcher who dominated baseball for most of my childhood and teenage years. The Winter Meetings begin tomorrow, and we will be covering moves throughout the day. The one move that will likely affect me moreso than all others, though, will be Maddux being traded away from baseball, to a life that will include watching son Chase in his baseball endeavors. Regardless, it is going to be very weird not having Maddux around next season. Goodbye, Greg, and from at least this devoted fan, thanks for the tremendous career.

Upon looking back at the best pitchers of the 1990s, whose careers continued into the Y2K era, a general concensus seems to exist involving which ones sit atop the totem pole. The order of these pitchers may differ from list to list but, based on several articles written by some smart and reliable writers, that list tends to include: Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson, Tom Glavine, Curt Schilling, John Smoltz, Kevin Brown, and Mike Mussina.

Some feel all nine of these pitchers are Hall of Fame-worthy. Others draw the line after Smoltz. Some more say all but Brown are deserving. Regardless, it does seem that these nine pitchers had the most impact on the game from a starting pitching standpoint, especially in the statistical department. With that in mind, I went to each of their profile pages and isolated, using WPA/LI, their best seasons. Below they are ranked by these context-neutral wins:

Pedro Martinez (00): 8.09 WPA/LI, 1.74 ERA/2.16 FIP, 0.74 WHIP, 32 BB/284 K
Greg Maddux (95): 6.86 WPA/LI, 1.63 ERA/2.25 FIP, 0.81 WHIP, 23 BB/181 K
Roger Clemens (97): 6.23 WPA/LI, 2.05 ERA/2.25 FIP, 1.03 WHIP, 68 BB/292 K
Randy Johnson (95): 6.15 WPA/LI, 2.48 ERA/2.08 FIP, 1.05 WHIP, 65 BB/294 K
Curt Schilling (02): 6.07 WPA/LI, 3.23 ERA/2.40 FIP, 0.97 WHIP, 33 BB/316 K
John Smoltz (96): 5.23 WPA/LI, 2.94 ERA/2.64 FIP, 1.00 WHIP, 55 BB/276 K
Kevin Brown (98): 5.08 WPA/LI, 2.38 ERA/2.23 FIP, 1.07 WHIP, 49 BB/257 K
Mike Mussina (01): 4.28 WPA/LI, 3.15 ERA/2.91 FIP, 1.07 WHIP, 42 BB/214 K
Tom Glavine (91): 4.13 WPA/LI, 2.55 ERA/3.05 FIP, 1.09 WHIP, 69 BB/192 K

First, some commonalities. Nobody here had a WHIP 1.10+ in their best season; the highest ERA, 3.23, belongs to Schilling, who actually had the biggest E-F discrepancy at -0.83. Nobody had an FIP higher than 3 except Glavine, who also had the highest WHIP, most walks, and second lowest amount of strikeouts. Okay, so it seems that Glavine had the worst best-year of this group and Pedro’s 2000 (as well as his 1999 campaign) just might be the best pitched season in the history of the sport, but I’m curious to know your thoughts on the rankings of these best seasons and how you would rank their careers overall.

Would you stick with the WPA/LI in ranking their top seasons? Does this order represent the order for their overall careers?

While I have a feeling the top four will remain the same it should be very interesting to see some takes on how the bottom five are ranked with some reasoning behind it. With enough of a vote we’ll be able to see if any real concensus exists with regards to their order of effectiveness.

In the third inning of the Padres-Braves game yesterday, while trailing 1-0 to his former employer, Greg Maddux tried to make something happen. With one out, he singled off of Charlie Morton, and proceeded to steal second base following the next retired batter. The inning would ultimately fail to produce a run for the Friars but the stolen base added yet another accomplishment to Greg’s long hall of fame resume. At 42 years and 89 days old, Maddux became the oldest pitcher to steal a base, a mark previously held by Jim Kaat.

According to Greg they weren’t holding him on and it wasn’t a big deal because, even if he was thrown out, the lineup had already been turned over. Plus, the Padres were struggling to score runs and, pitcher or no pitcher, he was a baserunner.

Greg has stolen eleven bases in his career while thrice being caught. He has not, however, failed in an attempt since the 2000 season, going a perfect 7-7 since. Stealing one base in each of the 2002, 2004, 2005, 2007, and 2008 seasons, Maddux actually stole two in the 2006 season; one while on the Cubs and one while in Dodger blue. Here are the pitcher/catcher batteries unsuccessful in preventing the speedy professor:

2002: Tomo Ohka/Michael Barrett
2004: Jason Marquis/Mike Matheny
2005: Jae Seo/Ramon Castro
2006: Matt Cain/Eliezer Alfonzo AND Chris Young/Mike Piazza
2007: Jeff Francis/Yorvit Torrealba
2008: Charlie Morton/Brian McCann

He has pitched fairly well this year—3.90 ERA/3.92 FIP—and his in-season Marcel projects him to get even better over his next 12-15 starts. Still, this may be his final season and I would not be surprised in the least if he finds himself in a new uniform prior to the trading deadline. A contending team likely would not need to part with a top-tier prospect for his services and teams could do far worse than plug him in as a #3 or #4 starter. The Padres have been a severe disappointment this year after coming within one game of the playoffs in 2007; it would do them well to work towards assembling an offense capable enough of preventing pitchers from feeling that if they do not steal bases, they will not be batted in.

When the Braves won their nine-hundred consecutive division titles they did so in large part with the help of their stellar pitching rotation. The Big Three, they were called, referring to Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and John Smoltz; three aces that could easily headline every other rotation in the league but served as 60% of the same one. Glavine left Atlanta after 2002 and Maddux left after 2003. Smoltz stayed.

Five or six years later, these three are in the twilight of their careers, albeit at different stages of said twilight. Smoltz will undergo season-ending surgery and, despite proclaiming he would make a comeback attempt, recovering from surgery provides ample time to do nothing but think and consider options. Glavine rejoined the Braves but has not been particularly effective and seems to be a shell of his old self. Maddux is still pitching quite well, regardless of his home park, but has hinted that the time has come to watch his son play baseball, rather than vice-versa.

Before Smoltz got hurt, he was continuing his dominance as a starter, posting these numbers:

5 GS, 28 IP, 25 H, 8 BB, 36 K
2.57 ERA, 2.21 FIP, 1.18 FIP, 82.8% LOB

Smoltz, whose career LD% is around 20.2%, was limiting hitters to just 13.9% this year; despite that, his BABIP clocked in at .349. Odd.

Glavine has not been as unlucky as Smoltz and, as his ERA-FIP suggests, it has actually been the other way around:

11 GS, 56.1 IP, 59 H, 29 BB, 34 K
4.47 ERA, 5.24 FIP, 1.47 WHIP, 75.6% LOB

His K/BB has plummeted to just 1.17 and his HR/FB of 15.1 is the highest it has ever been. He lets a lot of guys reach base but strands 3/4 of them. Interestingly enough, his BABIP of .269 is down from the .292-.305 range of the last three years.

Maddux plays in a notorious pitcher’s park in San Diego, but still, his FIP has steadily improved since leaving Atlanta:

13 GS, 77.2 IP, 80 H, 12 BB, 42 K
3.48 ERA, 3.39 FIP, 1.18 WHIP, 67.0% LOB

Essentially the opposite of Glavine, Maddux doesn’t let many runners reach base but more of them come around to score. With regards to BABIP, Maddux once mentioned (when discussing DIPS) that it was definitely true that a pitcher’s hits allowed would fluctuate; still, Maddux’s BABIPs of the last six years have been: .290, .290, .296, .295, .313, .295. Not too much fluctuation there! Maddux also has a 0.68 WPA, ranking behind just Jake Peavy as the most from a Padres SP.

I always wanted to see these three retire together so they could all go into the Hall of Fame at the same time. With Smoltz’s impending surgery and the time in which he will be forced to consider his future, this very well may happen. All three are no-doubters, in my eyes, when it comes to the HOF, due to their dominance, individual and team success on the field, and the legendary ambassadorship they have garnered over the years.

We’ll have to wait and see what happens but I am definitely not looking forward to a baseball season in which none of these three will be active.

After five innings of shutout work against the Dodgers on April 13th, Greg Maddux had won 349 games in his illustrious career. Since then, winning his 350th has proved to be quite difficult, as his last four starts have resulted in three losses and a no-decision. Even though one was a tough loss and his no-decision consisted of seven shutout innings, Maddux still sits on 349 wins. Seeing my idol fail to secure this milestone brought to mind what other pitchers struggled in recording wins milestones of their own.

The last pitcher to 350 was Roger Clemens, who did so with his third win last season. Prior to that 8 IP-2 H performance against the Twins, Clemens had failed in three consecutive starts to get to 350.

Nolan Ryan won 324 games in his career but #320 did not come easily. He won his 319th game in July of 1992 but then failed in TEN consecutive starts closing out the season (6 losses, 4 no-decision) to get his milestone. As fate would have it, he would get #320 in his first start of the 1993 season.

In an odd turn of events, Don Sutton lost his next start after winning his 319th game, but picked up #320 after going 4.1 IP in relief soonafter.

Phil Niekro won his 299th game in 1985 but missed out on #300 in four subsequent starts. He would win his 300th in the final start of that 1985 season.

It took Early Wynn six tries to get his 300th win and, unfortunately for him, these attempts spanned two years. After missing out in his final three 1962 starts, he could not win in his first three 1963 starts. I guess you could say his 300th win came…early…in the 1963 season. (Note – I apologize to pun-haters). He finally won his 300th in his fourth start in 1963, however it came with the ugly-in-1963 line of 5 IP, 6 H, 3 ER.

Maddux has struggled to win his 350th but, have no fear, he will reach this milestone even if it takes him a Nolan Ryan-esque ten attempts.