Stan the Man and Mad Dog

I was thinking about Stan Musial the other day and how little he’s talked about when people discuss the game’s great hitters. This is a shame and probably because Musial never led the NL in homers. That’s the only reason I can see for it.

Musial led the NL in batting 7 times, was second twice and third on five occasions. He led in runs 5 times and was second four times. He was tops in doubles 8 times and second 3. And here’s the stat that always amazes me – he led in triples 5 times and was second once. Although he never led in HR, 12 times he was in the top 10. He led in RBI twice and is fifth all time. Seven times he was best in OPS.

He was the MVP three times and was second in the voting four times. His overall ranks among the four Hall of Fame rating systems used on Baseball Reference are: 2nd, 3rd, 3rd, and 5th. (I’m not really sure how those rankings work, but that looks impressive.)

Next, a discussion started about Greg Maddux. I believe Maddux will be the pitching equivalent of Musial. This is because Maddux isn’t a power pitcher like Clemens or Johnson. Strikeouts are like homers.

But consider this: Maddux’s career 162-game average is 17-9 with a 2.95 ERA (vs. a league ERA of 4.14). Clemens is 17-8 with a 3.18 ERA (vs. league average of 4.47) and Johnson is 17-8 with a 3.07 ERA.

Baseball Musings offers a neat little stat generator that allows you to compare players. During Maddux’s prime, from 1989 through 1998, Maddux was 175-91 with a 2.49 ERA, tops among all starters in the game. Next best on the list (with a minimum of 1,200 IP) was Jose Rijo with a 2.75 ERA. That means Maddux’s ERA was 0.26 better than the next best in the game during that stretch.

Clemens was 155-90 with a 2.90 ERA (3rd best) during that time frame. Johnson was 140-79 with a 3.37 ERA.

No one won more games than Maddux during that time and he was third in win percentage behind Mike Mussina and Tom Glavine.

Even if you go from 1989 to the present day, Maddux’s 2.83 ERA is second to only Pedro’s 2.72. And Pedro has thrown about 1,500 fewer innings.

And Maddux did all this when the game favored hitters and homers were being hit in ridiculous numbers.