Comparing Sandy Koufax and Johan Santana

The Coffee Shop
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For Tibbs & other baseball fans …

Perhaps there i no other pitcher in baseball history whose career receives as much accolade for such a short period of absolute dominance. In order to appreciate what we are seeing right in front of us, here is a comparison of the two. Koufax’s legend is built on his performance over 4 years (63-66), as compared to Santana’s (04-07)

**Sandy Koufax – **4-time All-Star **Johan Santana – **3-time All-Star

Cy Young Voting
Koufax – 63(1), 64(3), 65(1), 66(1)
Santana – 04(1), 05(2), 06(1), 07(3*)

  • Likely 3rd this season. Stay tuned, 2nd half stats have been much better than first half stats over his career.

    ERA
    Koufax – 63(1), 64(1), 65(1), 66(1)
    Santana – 04(1), 05(2), 06(1), 07(3)

**Wins **(More of a team stat than representative of pitcher quality … but it’s traditional)
Koufax – 63(1), 64(4), 65(1), 66(1)
Santana – 04(2), 05(5), 06(1), 07(4)

WHIP (Walks + Hits per Innings Pitched

Koufax – 63(1), 64(1), 65(1), 66(1)
Santana – 04(1), 05(1), 06(1), 07(1)

*** I would have predicted #1 rankings for both of them for these years. WHIP is highly precitable for success. 4 consecutive years as #1 in WHIP is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!

K/9IP (Strikeouts per 9 innings pitched)

Koufax – 63(2), 64(1), 65(1), 66(1)
Santana – 04(1), 05(1), 06(1), 07(2)

There are only a few things that pitchers greatly influence on the mound, walk rate, strikeout rate, allowing/not-allowing home runs, and groundball-flyball ratio.

Not surprisingly Koufax and Santana dominate WHIP and K/9IP. Stats are not readily available for historical comparison of HR allowed and GB/FB Rat.

My point to all of this is to highlight Koufax’s dominance (more dominant than – even --Santana) and to illustrate just how great Santana is. He loses a lot in terms of money, fame, attention, etc for playing in Minne-so-duh. But, he is statistically having one of the greatest runs of consecutive seasons we have ever seen … and yet receives so little attention.

A tip of the cap to both pitchers (lefties … of course). Incidently, Sanatana was signed as an amatuer by Houston, Drafted by marlins via the rule 5, and then the Twins traded for him, giving up Jared Camp. Hilarious.

After the 66 season, Koufax’s arm “fell off” and his career was over. After the 2007 season, Santana will likely be auditioning for a 20M/yr multi-year contract.

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How many No No’s does Santana have?

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I don’t have the stats, but I bet if you put Pedro Martinez’s first four years with the Red Sox they are comparable.

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I don’t think he’s ever thrown a no-hitter.

I compared their league rankings because they play in COMPLETELY different eras. The 60s were ALL pitching (as evident by Gibsons 68 season of a 1.12 era and something like 28 complete games). The 21 century has been marked by steroids and TONS of offense. However, how they fared versus their leagues is comparable, and I thought that was interesting … very interesting actually, as I find Koufax to be awesome, albeit for a brief career (as copared to other HoF’s).

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http://www.baseball-reference.com/m/martipe02.shtml

Year Ag Tm Lg W L G GS CG SHO GF SV IP H R ER HR BB SO HBP WP BFP IBB BK ERA *lgERA *ERA+ WHIP
1997 25 MON NL 17 8 31 31 13 4 0 0 241.3 158 65 51 16 67 305 9 3 947 5 1 1.90 4.21 221 0.932 MVP-16,CYA-1,AS
1998 26 BOS AL 19 7 33 33 3 2 0 0 233.7 188 82 75 26 67 251 8 9 951 3 0 2.89 4.61 160 1.091 MVP-21,CYA-2,AS
1999 27 BOS AL 23 4 31 29 5 1 1 0 213.3 160 56 49 9 37 313 9 6 835 1 0 2.07 5.07 245 0.923 MVP-2,CYA-1,AS
2000 28 BOS AL 18 6 29 29 7 4 0 0 217.0 128 44 42 17 32 284 14 1 817 0 0 1.74 4.97 285 0.737 MVP-5,CYA-1,AS

Last year with the Expos/Nationals, and first three with Boston (2001 was not a good year). Go to the bottom for all the rankings by year.

ERA
1997 NL-1.90-1
1998 AL-2.89-2
1999 AL-2.07-1
2000 AL-1.74-1
2002 AL-2.26-1
2003 AL-2.22-1
2004 AL-3.90-9
2005 NL-2.82-4

Wins
1994 NL-11-10
1995 NL-14-5
1997 NL-17-5
1998 AL-19-4
1999 AL-23-1
2000 AL-18-4
2002 AL-20-3
2004 AL-16-6
2005 NL-15-9

BB + H per IP (WHIP)
1994 NL-1.106-4
1995 NL-1.151-5
1996 NL-1.195-10
1997 NL-.932-1
1998 AL-1.091-2
1999 AL-.923-1
2000 AL-.737-1
2002 AL-.923-1
2003 AL-1.039-1
2004 AL-1.171-4
2005 NL-.949-1

Strikeouts/9IP
1994 NL-8.83-4
1995 NL-8.04-4
1996 NL-9.22-3
1997 NL-11.37-1
1998 AL-9.67-2
1999 AL-13.20-1
2000 AL-11.78-1
2002 AL-10.79-1
2003 AL-9.93-1
2004 AL-9.41-2
2005 NL-8.63-5

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I don’t think he’s ever thrown a no-hitter.

Well, that’s the stuff legends are made of, aren’t they? Rankings schmankings.

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Well, let’s see …

Note, Pedro didn’t pitch in 01 and 02. So, for punishment will look at S-I-X (sort of) consecutive years. We’ll start in his first dominant season 97 with the 'Spos.

With Koufax/Santana we looked at 4 consecutive years, let’s look at 6 consecutive years for Pedro (get ready to have your Red Sox knocked off).

Cy Young Placing – 97(1), 87(2), 99(1), 00(1), 02(2), 03(3)

ERA – 97(1), 87(2), 99(1), 00(1), 02(1), 03(1)

WHIP – 97(1), 87(2), 99(1), 00(1), 02(1), 03(1) – Amazing.

Lets go out on a limb here and say that he’s among the top 3 in K/9Inn each of those years.

K/9inn – 97(1), 87(2), 99(1), 00(1), 02(1), 03(1)

Gee, exactly like his WHIP ratings.

I hope everyone is seeing a trend here. Pitchers that don’t walk guys and strike out a lot of hitters (i.e., don’t let them put the ball in play), tend to have low ERA, a lot of wins, and dominate. Non-HR batted balls tend to have the same % go for hits, regardless who is pitching (according to compiled results). The pitchers that don’t have many runners on base and erase a lot of hitters themselves (K’s) shut teams down.

Those (WHIP, k/9inn) are good predictors and measuring standards for pitchers because unlike ERA and WINS, they don’t consider the quality of team defense and/or how much run support they get (and Bob Welch’s 27-win season will tell you wins are all about your team’s offense, just like Ryan’s 8-16 season when he led the league in ERA).

So please, don’t be like the media and look at Santana’s 6-6 record in the first half and say “What’s wrong with him?” … look at WHIP and K/9in for how well a pitcher is pitching. ERA and wins are more about the team than the pitcher.

Pedro’s run was/is unbelievable. I compared Koufax and Santana b/c they’re both lefties and Koufax is a legend in my father’s generation, while Santana seems under-appreciated even with the awards he wins and the accolades he receives.

Interesting.

www.baseball-reference.com … now, you have the stats. grin

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I remember watching Tom Browning throw a perfect game. If he’s not a legend than I don’t know who is. grin

I also watched Wilson Alvarez throw a no-no on his ML debut, as well as Bud Smith’s no-hitter, etc.

Here’s a chrnological list of no-hitters. Not surprisingly (or perhaps it is surprisingly), there’s a mixture of hallof famers, very good pitchers, average pitchers, sub par pitchers, etc.

http://www.retrosheet.org/nohit_chrono.htm

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Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Looking around to see if there’s enough room in the LR for TWO stat geeks Heh Heh

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I promise I’m just limited to copy/paste.

Buster Olney had some short commentary today regarding comparisons of players from different eras: http://insider.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=2965812&type=blogEntry

He says you just can’t do it, and presents some valid reasons.

I think his view points to why your use of rankings relative to peers is a good measure.

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Essentially when fans say “So-n-S0 is better than So-n-So”, they are really saying “Player 1 was more dominant in his era than player 2 was in his.” If we’re going to compare Ty Cobb’s 4191 hits versus Musials 3600 or Gwynn’s 3000+, then I agree.

One can always compare how far above the average hitter a player was in different eras.

FWIW, I can’t read the article, I’m not a member. I did see Olney’s narrative of Bonds career.

I think his view points to why your use of rankings relative to peers is a good measure.

All credit go to a guy named BILL JAMES. Everyone else is just a cheap imitation of him and his creation of “sabermatics”.

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allowing/not-allowing home runs, and groundball-flyball ratio

I’ve actually read that studies indicate that pitchers have very little control over what happens after the ball is put in play, and I think the super nerd baseball statisticians like to break down how often a pitcher “misses a bat” for that reason…

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It’s true. A batted ball off Pedro Martinez has as decent of a chance as being a hit, or an error, etc as a batted ball off the bat of Wade Miller.

However, there are 2 areas that pitchers can influence (i.e., there is significant statistical differences), and that is GB/FB ratio and home runs allowed. Some guys like Curt Shilling are always going to give up more homers b/c they pitch up in the zone, and they throw hard fastballs, challenging the hitters. Schilling is a rare exception in that he can lead the league in home runs given up, and still have a good REA and success because he doesn’t walk guys and doesn’t allow many hits. Solo home runs hurt less than a hit, a walk, and a double (in succession). Good pitchers don’t allow successive hits/walks. That’s the key.

Pitchers, namely due to the forkball/split-finger and slider can give a disporportionate amount of grounders. The sink on the ball causes batters to hit the top half of the ball, driving it down. More movement generally realtes into more ground balls. Some guys got it, some don’t.

Now depending on your team defense, ballpark dimensions, etc your GB/FB ratio may be a good/bad thing. THat’s been the bad thing about Coors field, the air is think which allows for less movement (i.e., less ground balls, even for sinkerballers like Billy Swift), and there’s Soooo much outfield space that fly ball pitchers don’t have success … and then there’s that whole “the ball travels 15% further at Coors” as oppossed to everywhere else. So when you can get movement to induce ground balls, so much outfield space that a lot of balls in the air fall for hits, and long fly balls carry over the field … you get pitchers Hell.

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But I LOVE that the Tribe is beating up on Mr. Santana this year !! :slight_smile:

Of course “beating up on” is incredibly relative and I will concede that JS is simply the most dominating pitcher of our era. Watch out for Mr Fausto Carmona :slight_smile:

Big question: Will JS (or anyone else for that matter) win 300 ever again?

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Of course “beating up on” is incredibly relative and I will concede that JS is simply the most dominating pitcher of our era. Watch out for Mr Fausto Carmona :slight_smile:

I remember in April of this year, when Carmona was the closer and gave up walk off bombs on back-to-back dates and then another one later that week (one to ARod, that we’ve seen over and over again on TV). Then, as a starter, he’s been lights out.

Big question: Will JS (or anyone else for that matter) win 300 ever again?

I think Mussina is around 245, Randy Johnson perhaps.

17 games will likely be the “new 20 games” for pitching season standards., so 250 wins might be the career mark.

I really wish teams would go back to 4-man rotations and stop giving "middle relievers;’ 30 starts a year. It’s not the 5th start that wears down starters, it’s starts that go over ~120 pitches (classiofied as class 4 or 5 starts), that’s where injury risk jumps way up, and performance in the next 3-4 following starts decreases rapidly. Many of these starters could be good reliever that throw every day. Frequency isn’t the problem, it’s the “pitches past fatigue” that wear guys down (numbers bear this out), and the idea that with a 5-man rotation guys will “get more rest” so we can pitch them longer is backasswards.

I’m not a big “career milestone” guy. 3,000 hit careers are not all equal. I would much rather prefer a HoF be a guy that was dominant for a decade versus a guy that was really good for 17-20 years. With the way salaries are, we may see guys play shorter careers, or we may see them combing back, year after year for a 15M paycheck. be interesting to see how that plays out.

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I’d give Randy a better chance than Mussina, and Randy’s not looking so probably with his back. I would wager though, that he’ll do whataver he has to (shots, shots and more shots) to get the extra 16 he needs (284 wins).

I have no confidence Mussina can pull it off. He is “only” 54 off (246 wins), but his stuff is diminishing year by year. I can’t imagine him averaging more than 15 wins a year.

Let’s assume he will hold 15 wins a year, and assume he gets 8 more this year to match that. That means he’ll have 254 at the end of the year, and would need 3 more years of 15 wins to make it there. He’ll be 40 (holy crap!) December of next year.

I dunno, maybe he can do it, but he’s maxing out at 88 this year and typically is 86/87.

The one thing for a pitcher’s arm I’ve never understood is why they don’t pitch an outing, then go throw lightly underneath the stadium to get some extra “distance” in there. Being someone with a not so hot throwing arm (impingement), I can understand fears of overuse, but you have to choose either rusting or wearing out. I don’t think most pitchers max out their potential for longevity.

I also think some guys are stupid in throw as hard as they can on every fastball. If you can throw 92, you should average 90 and gas it up on select pitches (in essence having a “fastball” and a “Fastball!”) and use off speed pitches to make the 90 (and 92) look even faster.

I also don’t understand how so few pitchers “know” how to pitch, given that almost every single pitch is called for them. What do they need to know? Catcher calls the pitch mixes, they throw them. Doesn’t seem that hard.

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A few things …

  1. Mussina plays for the Yankess. IOW, he can lileky rack up a decent amount of wins based solely on average performances and run support.

  2. The NYY can also afford his salary w/o sweating it.

  3. On the Yankess he can just be a highly paid 4th or 5th starter, and even now, he’s better than most 4/5 starters.

  4. He has playoff experience, and many teams over-pay for that, and keep guys around when younger pitches might be more successful.

  5. Another team, like say baltimore, might sign Mussina just to have an attraction as he goes for the milestone (Mussina previously played for Baltimore) … and it take a starter away from a divisional rival.

I agree that it doesn’t look promising for Mussina, but you don’t exactly have to be above-average to pick up 15 wins/yr pitching for the Yankees. If both he and the team desire so, he could hang around and likely get the mark of 300. He’s still an off-speed pitchers, his curve (kucklecurve) is goofy. Not Orlando Hernandez 66mph curveball goofy (i.e., breaks a lot), but still very goofy.