The following excerpts were taken from an article was posted to the Red Sox mailing list on January 6th, 1997. For information on subscribe to the list, please consult the list's web page which can be found at: http://www.best.com/~kwoolner/redsox/list Q: Is Roger Clemens one of the greatest pitchers of all time? A: Quite definitely, yes! The amazing thing about Clemens is not just how good he's been, but how *long* he's been that good. I think we truly underestimate him, especially given that he plays in an offense-friendly park during an offense friendly era. Consider the following: Clemens finished the 1996 season with a ERA+ of 141 (ERA+ is a park and league normalized ERA, essentially ERA+ = LgERA/ERA*ParkFactor. An ERA+ of 100 is average, and higher numbers are better). This makes the 8th season that Clemens has had an ERA+ of 140 or better, which puts him in some elite company. Pitchers with ERA+ >=140 (min 150 IP) NAME SEASONS --------------- ---------- Grove,Lefty 11 Young,Cy 11 Johnson,Walter 10 Clemens,Roger 8 *** active Mathewson,Chris 8 Only Grove, Young, and Johnson have had more seasons above the level Clemens has established (tied with Mathewson). Just to clear up any doubts as to whether I've picked the threshold that best suits Clemens, let me show the rankings for some other ERA+ thresholds (min 150 IP): ERA+ Pitchers (# seasons) ---- -------------------- 200: Johnson (4), Mathewson (2), Greg Maddux (2), Clemens (1 -- tied with 20 others) 175: Johnson (6), Grove (5), Clemens (3 -- tied with Cy Young and Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown) 150: Grove (11), Johnson (8), Mathewson (7), Clemens (6 -- tied with Cy Young and Pete Alexander) 140: Grove (11), Young (11), Johnson (10), Clemens (8 -- tied with Mathewson) 130: Young (14), Grove (13), Johnson (12), Mathewson (11), Kid Nichols (10), Clemens (9 -- tied with Seaver) (For those who are wondering, Greg Maddux entries are 2, 2, 5, 5, & 5 respectively.) Clemens also posted 41 Adjusted Pitching Runs in 1996, his 7th season with 40 or more APR. (APR are runs prevented beyond what a league average pitcher would do in the same number of innings, essentially computed as (LgERA - ERA)*IP/9, with some park factors). Again, this puts Clemens into elite company, despite the fact that he throws far fewer innings that pitchers threw a generation or two ago: NAME COUNT(*) --------------- ---------- Grove,Lefty 10 Young,Cy 10 Johnson,Walter 9 Nichols,Kid 9 Clemens,Roger 7 *** active Mathewson,Chris 6 And again, to avoid claims of preferential threshold setting: APR Pitcher (# seasons) --- ------------------- 50 Young (8), Nichols (7), Johnson (6), Grove (6), John Clarkson (4), Amos Rusie (4), Tony Mullane (3), Dazzy Vance (3), Silver King (3), Carl Hubbell (3), Clemens (2 -- tied with 17 others) 45 Young (9), Johnson (8), Grove (8), Nichols (8), Clemens (5 -- tied with Greg Maddux) 40 Grove (10), Young (10), Johnson (9), Nichols (9), Clemens (7) 35 Young (11), Johnson (10), Grove (10), Nichols (9), Clemens (8 -- tied with Mathewson) 30 Grove (13), Young (13), Johnson (11), Nichols (10), Mathewson (9), Clemens (8 -- tied with Tim Keefe) 25 Young (15), Grove (13), Johnson (12), Nichols (11), Ted Lyons (10), Mathewson (10), Clemens (9 -- tied with Pete Alexander, Tim Keefe, and Bob Gibson) You'll notice some very prominent names that don't appear on any of the lists: Jim Palmer, Steve Carlton, Warren Spahn, Gaylord Perry, Nolan Ryan, Whitey Ford, Juan Marichal, Fergie Jenkins, even Sandy Koufax. In fact, if you take out those pitchers who pitched mostly in the 19th century and the "dead ball" era (where pitchers often racked up huge numbers of innings with miniscule ERA's), only Lefty Grove, Walter Johnson, and Ted Lyons exceed Clemens performance in *any* of the listed categories (and only the Grove and Johnson do so consistently -- Lyons sneaks in on the final list, but Clemens is likely to be able to muster at least one more 25 APR season). Incidentally, the above lists should help make Grove's case for possibly being the best pitcher ever -- Walter Johnson and Cy Young being his primary competition. Clemens has a legitimate claim on being one of the top 5 pitchers of all-time based on the length of his peak production, though Maddux may bump him out before he's through. Conclusion: Roger Clemens has maintained a level of performance over a length of time that rivals some of the most widely-acknowledged greatest pitchers in history. He is quite definitely one of the most impressive pitchers of the past 50 years, and should enter the Hall of Fame on the first ballot. He's been *that* good. (I just wish he wasn't pitching for Toronto, now...) --- Keith Woolner keith@woolner.com http://www.best.com/~kwoolner