Greatest Living Pitcher

You can't compare the greatest starters all time to the greatest relievers all time. Yes, Rivera is the best closer ever, but to call him the best postseason pitcher of all time is ridiculous too.

There's no denying he's been great but you can't compare someone going out there knowing he only has to get a couple outs and a guy starting the game.

 

Rivera was on the mound when the Yankees lost a Game 7.

He's the best reliever in postseason history for sure.

I just wouldn't list him over a great starter, however.

Gibson and Koufax would probably be the best choices.

Edit: I was thinking about another starter, but I just looked up the stats and he wasn't as good as I thought.

 

Just remember that in 96, the first of the dynasty years, Wetteland was the closer and Rivera was the setup man.
4 Saves in 96 to win the WS MVP.

 

Rivera is the best closer ever, but your memories of the '96 Series are a bit incomplete. Rivera pitched in game 2 (1 scoreless inning), but the Yanks were losing 4-0 at the time (Wetteland pitched a scoreless inning in the game 1 blowout loss). Rivera pitched poorly in game 3, coming into a 2-0 game in the 7th and pitching 1 1/3 innings, giving up 2 hits, 1 walk, and 1 earned run. Lloyd came in to bail him out, and Wetteland pitched the 9th 1-2-3 with 2 Ks. Rivera danced through raindrops in game 4, coming into a 6-6 game in the 8th and pitching 1 1/3 innings, giving up 2 hits and a walk; Wetteland pitched the last 2/3 of an inning and also gave up a hit, so neither was that great. Rivera didn't even pitch in game 5, a 1-0 Pettitte/Smoltz classic that Wetteland saved with 2/3 of an inning in the 9th. It was only in game 6 that the "Hammer of God" Rivera came out to play, coming into the game with a 3-1 lead in the 7th and pitching two scoreless innings (1 walk). Wetteland came into the game in the 9th and got the save, but he gave up three hits and a run. Before game 6 Rivera's WHIP was an awful 1.64 (Wetteland's was 0.60), and even including that game Rivera's was an undistinguished 1.24 (Wetteland's was 1.15). The postseason legend of Rivera started in game 6 of the 1996 Series, not before then.

 

I eagerly await juncs response to the above post, he is at his most entertaining when someone has him dead to rights and he tries to backtrack or change the subject.

I just don't think it's fair to compare a reliever and a starter. I mean if you took Pedro in his prime and told him to go out every other day or so and get 3-4 outs it's not hard to imagine him being even more dominant then Rivera.

If a guy is a great pitcher you want him starting games for you, not being the closer. Rivera obviously could not handle being a SP so that's why he gets ranked below the great starters.

 

I won't comment on your first paragraph for obvious reasons.

I certainly agree that it's pretty much impossible to compare starters and relievers. I find it hard to decide which are most important, but that's because of they way managers use pitchers nowadays. It's obviously possible to have a great rotation without a starter who pitches more than 6 innings with great relievers, but the way the game is played today, you just can't win without a closer. There was no question even 10 years ago that the best pitchers (regular season, postseason, anything) had to be starters, but it's a little harder now.

 

Wow. Nolan Ryan not in the top 10? Clemens,Ryan and Koufax were the names that came to mind when i saw the title of the thread. Also did Mariano.

 

I guess my point is that you really don't see many pitchers come up through the minors as relievers. Most start out at starters and either fail and are given a shot in the pen, or someone figures they might do much better out of the pen. Smoltz after his injury is about the only example I can think of a very successful SP being converted into a closer, and that was only due to health concerns. Of course they have since put him back in the rotation.

 

My only question is whether that has changed. Was Rivera ever a starter? Wagner? I would think that nowadays players with two (but only two) great pitches would get groomed as relievers rather than starters, since the way the game is played, closers and setup men are important in ways they never were before.

 

Rivera pitched in 19 games for the Yankees in 1995 and 10 of them were starts.
In the minors from 1990-95 Rivera pitched in 102 games and started 67 of them. He was a full-time starter from 1992-95 in the minors.

 

Rivera was a starter throughout his minor league career(68 starts out of 103 appearances) and posted an impressive 2.35 ERA. He started 10 games in 95 for the Yanks with poor results and next year they moved him into the bullpen.

Wagner was exclusively a starter coming up through the minors and posted a 3.16 ERA through 73 starts. He never started for the Astros though, he always came out of the pen.

Doing a quick spot check of closers off the top of my head almost all of them have extensive minor league experience as a SP. Benitez is one exception I found, he never started at all, neither did BJ Ryan.

 

To get a more complete picture I'll go through all the current closers and see which ones started out in the minors as SP

Starters(22)-Chris Ray, Chris Reitsma, Jon Papelbon, Bobby Jenks, Ryan Dempster, David Weathers, Bob Wickman, Brian Fuentes, Todd Jones, Brad Lidge, Ambiorix Burgos, Francisco Rodriguez, Danys Baez, Derrick Turnbow, Joe Nathan, Marino Rivera, Billy Wagner, Tom Gordon, Mike Gonzalez, Tim Worrell, Eddie Guardado, Jason Isringhausen,

Relievers(10)-Jose Valverde, Joe Borowski, Huston Street, Trevor Hoffman, Dan Miceli, Francisco Cordero, BJ Ryan, Chad Cordero

Borowski and Francisco Cordero did start out as SP's but since the overwhelming majority of their minor league careers were spent as relievers I put them in that category.

 

Thanks, Cakes and 3rd, for answering my question (searching the deep recesses of my mind [a scary place, to be sure], I did recall Rivera starting out as a starter, but obviously that thought was no where to be found when I posted).

Which leads me to the first point, again - isn't kind of strange that someone like Wagner, who seems ideally suited to be a reliever, comes up as a starter? On the one hand, major league managers can't live without setup men and closers; on the other, they leave the job to people who were trained as starters for year. It's interesting to me.

 

Roger clemens... Greatest living pitcher.

Now for the best pitcher to pitch in one great season, i would have to go with ron guidry (louisiana lightning)

25-3, 248 strikeouts, and in one game had 18 strikeouts. Im sure junc will read this and add to it.

And obvioulsy help the yanks win the world series.

 

I grew up a huge Met fan in the Mid 60's. Tom Seaver was and is my favorite player of all time. That said Seaver couldn't hold a candle to Sandy Koufax who was the greatest pitcher and had the consistently best stuff and was the single most dominating pitcher I ever saw.

I rate Gibson behind Koufax and Seaver next. The two best and most dominating years by NY pitchers that I witnessed were by Guidry and Gooden. Guidry was somewhat over shadowed by Gooden because Gooden came on the scene out of nowhere and was a legend almost imediatly before his problems got the best of him. Ron Guidry is a very overlooked pitcher but he was tremendous and one of the class atheletes in NYC history. Hats off to Roger for pointing that out.

Clemens will always be suspect in my mind because of Steriods but if you over look that he has to rate as one of the greatest of all time however unlike Koufax and Gibson Clemens late in his career really wasn't asked to be a complete game pitcher and neither is Pedro and many other greats of the 90's and beyond.

At the end of the day if it was the 7th game of the WS and I could put any pitcher on the mound in their prime, I would want Koufax on the mound followed by Gibson and I don't care who you put up against them I like my odds. They were both better than Clemens and Pedro in their primes.

 

Guidry already had his legend before Gooden came along especially with '78 but are right that once Gooden came along it was all about him.
Darling and Sid were both very good pitchers but Gooden far overshadowed then. (I know, hard to overshadow Sid)
Gator gets knocked down on pitcher lists because of his injuries and the distance between 20 win seasons.

 

list looks good but i would place pedro above randy johnson. I hate Roger Clemens but he is definately the #1