Archive for Roger Clemens

Recording 20 strikeouts is an amazing feat — and a rare one, too: this past Wednesday, Max Scherzer joined Roger Clemens, Kerry Wood, and Randy Johnson as the only players ever to accomplish it in nine innings. What they’ve done is exceptional and, naturally, separates them from other pitchers. And while similar, each performance occurred in the context of different variables which made it distinct: era, opponent, ballpark, etc. No one is required to decide which pitcher faced the most challenging set of circumstances among those five games (Clemens did it twice). Yet, I’ve elected to make an attempt, anyway.

When first trying to understand which game posed the most difficultly, we immediately turn to the opponent. Roger Clemens, for example, achieved both of his 20-strikeout games with the designated hitter in play. Striking out 20 players of major-league caliber — regardless of how low they are on that particular scale — is still incredibly difficult. It’s more difficult to record 20 strikeouts against good hitters. The Detroit Tigers lineup Scherzer faced, meanwhile, is a top-heavy one. But solid overall, even if it didn’t feature a DH.

The table below depicts the lineup the Tigers deployed against Scherzer as well as each respective hitter’s rest-of-season projected numbers for wRC+ and strikeout percentage. (Jordan Zimmermann‘s career numbers were used, and his strikeout percentage and wRC+ were combined proportionally with pinch-hitter Jarrod Saltalamacchia’s. Weighted average accounts for the top of the order getting more plate appearances than the bottom)

Tigers Lineup Against Max Scherzer

Player	wRC+
Ian Kinsler	101
J.D. Martinez	124
Miguel Cabrera	145
Victor Martinez	119
Justin Upton	118
James McCann	71
Anthony Gose	80
Jose Iglesias	84
Jordan Zimmermann	33
AVERAGE	97
Weighted AVG	100

*Zimmerman’s wRC+ averaged proportionally with pinch-hitter Jarrod Saltalamacchia.

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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.

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.