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| Tuesday, April 16 Maddux, Glavine rank high among best duos By Rob Neyer ESPN.com |
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If you can't remember a pair of pitcher teammates that performed together at a high level as long as Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine, don't worry; your memory's not going (unless you were born before 1950, in which case it might indeed be going). Because it's been a long, long time since we've seen a pair like Maddux and Glavine. Maddux and Glavine are now in their 10th season together, and through the end of last season they'd won 313 games as teammates. When looking for comparable pairs, I searched for pitchers who were teammates for at least nine consecutive seasons, and combined for at least 300 wins over that span. In addition to each pair's wins total, I also found their Win Shares (from Bill James's new book of the same name). And to arrive at a mix of results (wins) and performance (Win Shares), I came up with an X combining wins and Win Shares, figured as wins plus Win Shares, divided by two. Purely in terms of the raw numbers -- and thus ignoring contextual differences -- at this moment Maddux and Glavine might be said to rank sixth on the all-time list of pitching duos: Pitchers Yr Wins WS X Plank/Bender 12 440 473 456 Spahn/Burdette 12 421 439 430 Ruffing/Gomez 13 408 436 422 Newhouser/Trout 13 352 463 407 Drysdale/Koufax 11 340 412 376 Maddux/Glavine 9+ 313 386 349 Leever/Phillippe 11 336 364 350 Wynn/Lemon 9 335 360 347 Marichal/Perry 10 336 383 359 Now, some context ...
1. Eddie Plank & Chief Bender, Philadelphia A's Plank (247 wins, 264 Win Shares) and Bender (193/209) are both in the Hall of Fame, and from 1903 through 1907 they were joined by Rube Waddell (107/132), another Hall of Famer. If we wanted to write about great pitching trios, those Philadelphia Athletics would certainly be a part of the discussion (along with Maddux/Glavine/Smoltz, of course), but that's another article.
2. Warren Spahn & Lou Burdette, Boston/Milwaukee Braves They were together for 12 years, and in only one of those years did Burdette (179/161) pitch better than Spahn (242/278). Well, maybe. In 1960, Burdette posted the lower ERA (3.36 to 3.50), but Spahn won more games (21 to 19). Spahn was the lead actor and Burdette was the understudy, though Burdette did take center stage in the 1957 World Series, when he beat the Yankees three times.
3. Red Ruffing & Lefty Gomez, New York Yankees If there was a Q Rating for old-time baseball players, Lefty Gomez (189/185) would have it all over Red Ruffing (219/251). But Ruffing's in the Hall of Fame, too. And in the 13 seasons both pitched for the Yankees, Ruffing won 219 games to Gomez's 189. Gomez did post a slightly lower ERA over that span, but Ruffing compensated nicely with one of the great pitcher sticks of all time (and it should be noted that Ruffing's Wins Shares do include his work as a hitter).
4. Hal Newhouser & Dizzy Trout, Detroit Tigers Newhouser (200/256) and Trout (152/207) were lucky, and so were the Detroit Tigers. With the great majority of baseball's stars drafted into the Army or Navy during World War II, the Tigers got to keep both of their outstanding hurlers for the duration of the hostilities. Newhouser had a slight heart problem and Trout's eyesight was poor, so both were deferred from military service. As a duo, Newhouser and Trout were both better and worse than their records might suggest. While it's true they benefited from wartime competition, it's also true that after the war, they pitched somewhat better than you'd think, just looking at wins and losses (Newhouser, for example, was 26-9 in 1946 and 21-12 in 1948).
5. Greg Maddux & Tom Glavine, Atlanta Braves And still going strong, of course. Maddux (162/216) and Glavine (151/170) might be said to suffer a disadvantage relative to their predecessors, because they start fewer games and pitch fewer innings than the old-timers. On the other hand, Maddux and Glavine have been exceptionally healthy over the years, and it's possible that they've been exceptionally healthy because they haven't been asked to work as hard as the old-timers. What distinguishes Maddux and Glavine over the last nine seasons isn't big numbers; they've got only three 20-win seasons among them (as teammates), which is very low by the standards of this group. But what does distinguish Maddux and Glavine is consistency. Both pitchers have won at least 13 games in each of those nine seasons, and only Spahn and Burdette, with a 10-year streak, can say the same.
6. Don Drysdale & Sandy Koufax, Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers This might still be the most famous pair of pitchers ever. Yes, they were great, but the Dodgers in the 1960s also got as much national attention as any team ever has. And while Drysdale (177/221) and Koufax (163/191) -- or Koufax and Drysdale, as people now remember them, for good reason -- were outstanding, as a pair they rank just sixth because they were outstanding together for only six seasons. Drysdale won 17 games in 1957, but Koufax didn't win more than 11 games in a season until 1961. So their time as a productive duo lasted only six years, as Koufax retired after the 1966 season.
7. Bob Lemon & Early Wynn, Cleveland Indians Together only nine seasons, or else Lemon (172/187) and Wynn (163/173) would certainly rank higher on the list. They were joined by Mike Garcia (138/158) for all nine seasons, giving the Indians what may well rank as the greatest long-term top three in major-league history (have to write that article sometime).
8. Sam Leever & Deacon Phillippe, Pittsburgh Pirates Neither Leever (172/181) nor Phillippe (164/183) are in the Hall of Fame, but they anchored a Pirates staff that challenged the Giants and Cubs for National League hegemony in the first decade of the 20th century.
9. Juan Marichal & Gaylord Perry, San Francisco Giants Numbers-wise, Marichal (202/229) and Perry (134/154) could perhaps rank one or two spots higher. However, their 10-year run was really only eight years, at most, because Perry won only three games in 1962 and one in 1963.
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