Best Pitchers By Half-Decade: 1950-1974

As a historian, I like to have a record of which players and teams excelled in a given time period. I'm making this available in case other people care about those records, too. Focusing on half-decades, I looked up the top five pitchers in FanGraphs' fWAR and RA9-WAR. For those of you who prefer bWAR, it's usually pretty close to RA9. I'll add some minimal commentary, but this isn't a deep dive where I went back and, like, broke down film of Early Wynn.

Tables are ranked by fWAR. Here are links for part one, 1900-24, and part two, 1925-49.

In this era, we finally get integration, so that many (though not all) of the most talented African American and Afro-Latino pitchers had an opportunity to play in MLB.

1950-1954

Top 5 fWAR:

1. Robin Roberts, 34.5
2. Warren Spahn, 27.5
3. Mike Garcia, 24.2
4. Bob Rush, 22.1
5. Billy Pierce, 21.7

Cleveland's Mike Garcia is a surprise, coming in ahead of his Hall of Fame teammates Bob Lemon and Early Wynn. In 1954, when Cleveland won 111 games, Lemon and Wynn both had 23 wins, while Garcia was a comparably modest 19-8 (plus 5 saves). However, Garcia that season led the club in ERA (2.64), FIP (2.55), and WHIP (1.12), and he pitched five shutouts, as many as Lemon (2) and Wynn (3) combined. Garcia tied for 19th in 1954 AL MVP voting, far behind Lemon (5th) and Wynn (6th).

The Cubs' Bob Rush is a surprise, too. He retired with a 127-152 record and a 3.65 ERA, but he induced a lot of ground ballls, didn't give up many home runs, and was an All-Star in '50 and '52.

Top 5 RA9-WAR:

1. Robin Roberts, 45.9
2. Warren Spahn, 35.1
3. Mike Garcia, 27.9
4. Early Wynn, 26.7
5. Billy Pierce, 26.6

Roberts and Spahn are inner-circle Hall of Famers, and it's no surprise to find them on top, but the double-digit gap between them caught me off guard. Spahn received NL MVP votes in all five seasons, and led the league at various times during this period in wins, ERA, FIP, WHIP, complete games, shutouts, and strikeouts.

Leaders

Innings: Robin Roberts, 1,632 2/3
Wins: Robin Roberts, 115-64
Strikeouts: Warren Spahn, 822

Best RHP: Robin Roberts
Best LHP: Warren Spahn
Best Non-HOF: Mike Garcia

In this time period, Garcia had more wins, fewer losses, and a lower ERA than Billy Pierce.

Roberts and Spahn were clearly the dominant pitchers of the era. They were the top two in fWAR, RA9-WAR, bWAR, innings, complete games, ERA, and strikeouts. Bob Lemon (17.2 fWAR, 25.9 RA9-WAR) had a 106-58 record, but a 3.18 ERA — 30 points higher than Roberts and Spahn — and he issued the most walks of any pitcher in the early '50s. Lemon's 577 BB easily eclipsed his teammate Wynn (530), and dramatically outdistanced Spahn (449) and Roberts (303). Cleveland at this time had great position players like HOFer Larry Doby and 1953 MVP Al Rosen, so excellent fielding and run support helped Lemon and Wynn boost their records beyond what their other stats might suggest.

1955-1959

Top 5 fWAR:

1. Frank Sullivan, 23.3
2. Bob Friend, 22.5
3. Frank Lary, 21.1
4. Billy Pierce, 21.8
5. Robin Roberts, 19.3

Frank Sullivan tied for the AL lead in wins in 1955, and he pitched even better in 1957 (14-11, 2.73 ERA, MLB-best 1.055 WHIP).

Top 5 RA9-WAR:

1. Warren Spahn, 30.9
2. Billy Pierce, 30.6
3. Whitey Ford, 28.4
4. Frank Sullivan, 25.5
5. Frank Lary, 24.6

There's an unusual divergence between fWAR and RA9-WAR in the late '50s, with Billy Pierce and the Franks the only pitchers in the top six of both stats. Early Wynn is 6th in fWAR (19.1), and the Giants' Johnny Antonelli in RA9-WAR (24.3).

Leaders

Innings: Warren Spahn, 1,380
Wins: Warren Spahn, 101-62
Strikeouts: Sam Jones, 962

Best RHP: Billy Pierce
Best LHP: Warren Spahn
Best Non-HOF: Billy Pierce

There are two Sam Joneses in MLB history, the other being Sad Sam Jones, who was active between 1915-34. This Sam Jones, nicknamed "Toothpick Sam," couldn't have played in the majors at that time, because of the color line. He began his career in the Negro Leagues and Latin America, and got picked up by the Cleveland Indians, the most racially progressive team in the American League, for 1951-52. He played mostly in the Pacific Coast League, but also pitched 44 2/3 innings for Cleveland, going 2-4 with 1 save and a 6.25 ERA. Injuries kept him in the minors in 1953 and '54, then he was traded to the Cubs. Jones was 29 years old.

In his first year with Chicago, Jones led the majors in losses, walks, and hit batsmen. He also led the NL in strikeouts, pitched a no-hitter, and made the All-Star Game. The following year, he repeated as NL strikeout champion, then got traded to the St. Louis Cardinals. Injuries limited him in 1957, but he led the National League in K/9 for the third consecutive year. In 1958, with the Cardinals, Jones went a modest 14-13, but with a 2.88 ERA (2nd in the NL) and 225 strikeouts, most in the major leagues. He led all NL pitchers in bWAR (6.3), fWAR (6.4), and RA9-WAR (6.4).

Jones was traded again in 1959, this time to the San Francisco Giants. He led the NL in wins, ERA, and shutouts, and by going 21-15 became just the second of the "Black Aces," African-American 20-game winners. He made his second All-Star Game, led all NL pitchers in Cy Young voting (this was when there was only one Cy winner each year, and Cleveland's Early Wynn won), and placed 5th in the NL MVP vote. He went 18-14 the following season, aged 35, then just 12-12 over the next four seasons. He was diagnosed with cancer in 1962, while he was still pitching, and died in 1971, just 45 years old.

His career record in MLB was 102-101, with 1,393 strikeouts and 7.5 K/9, including four years leading the National League. He had a good fastball and a terrific curve. According to Rob Neyer and Bill James, Stan Musial called it the best curveball he ever saw. Longtime NL catcher Hobie Landrith told Dick Schaap, "You’ve never seen a curveball until you’ve seen Sam Jones’ curveball." 1960 NL MVP Dick Groat told The Sporting News, "He's got a dozen curves. He has fast curves and slow curves, about six different speeds. And they all break quick."

From 1955-59, Jones struck out 962 batters, 17% more than second-place Early Wynn (822). Billy Pierce (778) was the only other pitcher within 200 of Jones' total.

Rory Costello's SABR biography of Jones was helpful in writing this, as was the chapter on Jones in The Black Aces, by Jim "Mudcat" Grant with Tom Sabellico and Pat O'Brien. And, as always, Baseball Reference and FanGraphs.

1960-1964

Top 5 fWAR:

1. Sandy Koufax, 30.0
2. Don Drysdale, 28.9
3. Bob Friend, 27.4
4. Larry Jackson, 26.6
5. Jim Bunning, 26.2

Jim Bunning barely played in 1955 or '56 (combined 104.1 innings), so even though he was a two-time All-Star in the late '50s, he makes his 5-year leaderboard debut here.

The Dodgers had a pretty good top of the rotation in the early '60s.

Top 5 RA9-WAR:

1. Don Drysdale, 33.1
2. Sandy Koufax, 32.1
3. Whitey Ford, 31.0
t4. Jim Bunning, 26.5
t4. Bob Friend, 26.5

In both the late'50s and the early '60s, Whitey Ford was top-three in RA9-WAR but outside the top five in fWAR. This suggests very good fielding by the Yankees, which I think most fans would agree is accurate.

Leaders

Innings: Don Drysdale, 1,464
Wins: Whitey Ford, 95-34
Strikeouts: Sandy Koufax, 1,211

Best RHP: Don Drysdale
Best LHP: Sandy Koufax
Best Non-HOF: Bob Friend

Whitey Ford was a contemporary of both Warren Spahn and Sandy Koufax, so even though he's a deserving Hall of Famer, I don't think he was ever the best southpaw in the major leagues.

The most conspicuous missing name here is Juan Marichal, who in this period ranked 11th in fWAR and 8th in RA9-WAR. Marichal went 83-39 from 1960-64 — the best winning percentage other than Ford — with a 2.91 ERA, trailing only Koufax, Drysdale, and Ford.

Marichal was a rookie in 1960, going 6-2 with a 2.66 ERA in 81.1 innings. He came back to reality in 1961, going 13-10 with a 3.89 ERA. Then he reeled off eight straight All-Star seasons, including his 25-8 season in 1963, when he didn't receive a single Cy Young vote because of Koufax (who won both the Cy and the NL MVP).

1965-1969

Top 5 fWAR:

1. Bob Gibson, 32.9
2. Sam McDowell, 32.1
3. Juan Marichal, 30.4
4. Gaylord Perry, 26.6
5. Jim Bunning, 25.3

We're on the front end of a golden age of pitchers now, and four of these five (all except McDowell) are Hall of Famers. Don Drysdale, Catfish Hunter, Fergie Jenkins, and Jim Kaat also pitched over 1,000 innings in the late '60s, though Drysdale peaked earlier and the others would hit their primes in the '70s.

Top 5 RA9-WAR:

1. Bob Gibson, 43.4
2. Juan Marichal, 38.4
3. Denny McLain, 28.7
4. Jim Bunning, 28.0
5. Sam McDowell, 25.8

Most baseball fans know that Denny McLain won 31 games in 1968. He won the AL Cy Young that year, of course, and he was named MVP. However, many fans do not know that the next season, McLain tied Baltimore lefty Mike Cuellar to repeat as Cy Young winner. McLain went 24-9 that year, leading the American League in wins, shutouts, and innings pitched. McLain's bWAR was actually higher in '69 than '68, though his fWAR and RA9-WAR are both higher in '68.

The 1969 AL Cy Young is the only split award in history.

Leaders

Innings: Juan Marichal, 1,430 2/3
Wins: Juan Marichal (108-49) and Denny McLain (108-51)
Strikeouts: Sam McDowell, 1,348

Best RHP: Bob Gibson
Best LHP: Sandy Koufax
Best Non-HOF: Sam McDowell

From 1965-69, Sudden Sam McDowell averaged 9.65 K/9. He and Sandy Koufax were the only regular starters of that era to average more than one strikeout per inning. Pirates lefty Bob Veale has slightly more WAR than Koufax in this time frame, but Veale pitched almost twice as many innings (1208 1/3) as Koufax (658 2/3), who retired following the 1966 season.

In 1965, Koufax won the Triple Crown, leading the majors in wins, ERA, and strikeouts, as well as innings, complete games, WHIP, and K/BB ratio. He set several records, pitched a perfect game, and won his second World Series MVP Award.

Koufax won the Triple Crown again in '66, going 27-9 with a 1.73 ERA and 317 strikeouts. He led the majors in all three stats, plus complete games, shutouts, and innings. He won his third Cy Young Award and was MVP runner-up for the second consecutive season.

Veale was a fine pitcher, but I'll stick with Koufax.

1970-1974

Top 5 fWAR:

1. Bert Blyleven, 35.8
2. Ferguson Jenkins, 35.5
3. Tom Seaver, 35.1
4. Gaylord Perry, 30.7
5. Mickey Lolich, 29.1

Fielding Independent Pitching, the basis for fWAR, is part of the reason that Blyleven was finally elected to the Hall of Fame. He had a modest .534 winning percentage, went 20-17 the only year he won 20 games, and never led his league in ERA. He was only a two-time All-Star and he never won a Cy Young Award. But he had a legendary curve, his 3,701 strikeouts are 5th all-time, and he led the AL at various times in complete games, shutouts, innings pitched, strikeouts, FIP, WHIP, K/BB, and ERA+.

Blyleven was a rookie in 1970, 10-9 with a 3.18 ERA and 7.4 K/9. Over the next four seasons, he barely topped .500, going 70-66 and losing at least 15 games every year, but he pitched a lot of innings and struck out over 200 batters every year, with a 3.53 K/BB ratio (3rd-best in MLB, trailing only Jenkins and Seaver). Jenkins' 4.28 K/BB ratio was by far the best in the majors.

Top 5 RA9-WAR:

1. Tom Seaver, 40.1
2. Gaylord Perry, 39.2
3. Jim Palmer, 34.3
4. Ferguson Jenkins, 33.6
5. Bert Blyleven, 32.3

Jim Palmer played with terrific defenses in Baltimore, and he played smart, keeping the ball down in the strike zone and trusting his defense. Palmer was probably the greatest pitcher ever out of the stretch. He actually pitched better with men on base than with the bases empty. Palmer also consistently and dramatically outperformed his peripherals, with the best RA9-WAR/fWAR differential in history. Palmer maintained his success over a long career, so it clearly wasn't a fluke, and he should not be evaluated by FIP or fWAR, or you'll badly underrate him.

Leaders

Innings: Gaylord Perry, 1,617 2/3
Wins: Catfish Hunter, 106-49
Strikeouts: Nolan Ryan, 1,341

Best RHP: Tom Seaver
Best LHP: Steve Carlton
Best Non-HOF: Mickey Lolich

Catfish Hunter was the ace for the Oakland Athletics when they won three straight World Series. He went 106-49 in the early '70s, easily the best record in baseball, and his 2.89 ERA was very good, not top five, but top ten. He played in a pitcher's park, with good fielders behind him and good run support, so he wasn't quite as outstanding as a glance at his numbers might suggest, but he was a very successful pitcher. In 1974, he went 25-12 with a 2.49 ERA, leading the AL in both stats, and won the Cy Young. Catfish ranked 9th in RA9-WAR during this period, but just 25th in fWAR.

Steve Carlton is a close call over Wilbur Wood as the best left-handed pitcher of this era. Wood pitched more innings (1,512) and won more games (he was 99-82, to Carlton's 86-71), and his ERA was 35 points lower than Carlton's. But Carlton had 300 more strikeouts, and won a Cy Young Award. His '72 season is probably the best by any pitcher in this time period.

1950-74

Who were the greatest pitchers over the third quarter of the 20th century?

Top 10 fWAR:

1. Bob Gibson, 82.4
2. Robin Roberts, 69.2
3. Jim Bunning, 66.9
4. Juan Marichal, 61.4
5. Gaylord Perry, 61.2
6. Bob Friend, 61.1
7. Don Drysdale, 59.3
8. Jim Kaat, 58.9
9. Warren Spahn, 58.3
10. Mickey Lolich, 56.5

Top 10 RA9-WAR:

1. Bob Gibson, 93.6
2. Warren Spahn, 87.9
3. Robin Roberts, 82.1
4. Whitey Ford, 78.2
5. Juan Marichal, 71.9
6. Jim Bunning, 70.8
7. Gaylord Perry, 69.2
8. Don Drysdale, 68.2
9. Billy Pierce, 67.5
10. Tom Seaver, 62.4

Leaders

Innings: Robin Roberts, 4,315 1/3
Wins: Warren Spahn, 298-204
Strikeouts: Bob Gibson, 3,057

Greatest RHP: Bob Gibson
Greatest LHP: Warren Spahn
Greatest Non-HOF: Billy Pierce

Selecting Bob Gibson as the greatest right-handed pitcher of this era is not terribly controversial, though I suppose there's a case to be made for Robin Roberts.

Selecting anyone who is not Sandy Koufax as the greatest left-handed pitcher is decidedly controversial. Maybe we can at least agree that the contenders are Ford, Koufax, and Spahn? Hell, let's throw Jim Kaat in there, too.

Okay, maybe we don't need Kaat. He has the highest fWAR, by a smidge over Spahn, and he won 16 Gold Gloves. But the others all won Cy Young Awards during this period, and Kaat didn't get a single Cy Young vote until 1975, which is outside this time frame.

Kaat was a great pitcher, but this time period excludes some of his best seasons, and even if it didn't ... you'd be hard-pressed to find many people — be they dedicated historians or casual fans — who would rank Kaat ahead of Sandy Koufax and Warren Spahn. RA9-WAR and bWAR, which tend to be better career metrics than fWAR, confirm this perspective.

Some people care about pitchers' win-loss records more than others. For whatever it's worth, Spahn has by far the most wins, but the lowest winning percentage. Using Bill James' Fibonacci Win Points, Ford has 300, Koufax 186, and Spahn during this time frame has 271. Koufax lags by this measure, because his career was so short, and Ford has a superior winning percentage.

Overall, I think these stats favor Spahn, because he had such a long career as an effective pitcher. He pitched almost twice as many innings as Koufax, and he had more complete games than Koufax and Ford combined. Koufax, remarkably, leads in strikeouts.

Since Koufax has so many fewer innings, wins, etc., it is not great that his ERA and ERA- are basically identical to Ford's. Koufax has postseason heroics that don't show up in the regular-season stats, and that's a huge part of his legend and legacy, but — you might know this — so does Whitey Ford, who won six world championships with the Yankees.

Where does Warren Spahn fit into this? Well, his rate stats are clearly not as good as those of Ford and (especially) Koufax. But Spahn pitched until he was 44 years old, 34% more innings (just in this time frame) than Ford and 83% more than Koufax. Just from 1950 until the end of his career, Spahn led the NL in wins seven times, complete games eight times, shutouts three times, innings twice, ERA twice, WHIP three times, and strikeouts three times. He pitched in 15 All-Star Games in 12 different seasons, and he got MVP votes in 11 seasons. That's excluding the '40s.

There's a case to be made for any of the three. I think Ford's is probably the least persuasive, since so many of his strengths are tied up with the Yankees dynasty, but it's close enough for reasonable people to arrive at different conclusions. The argument for Spahn is the most straightforward, since he leads in all calculations of WAR. I wrote about Spahn's career in more depth in 2013.

Billy Pierce was also a southpaw. He made seven All-Star teams, but that actually undersells his career. Pierce also got MVP votes in 1952, when he wasn't an All-Star, and he finished third in Cy Young voting in 1962 — when there was only one Cy Young for both leagues — he wasn't an All-Star that season, either. In '53 Pierce led the American League in strikeouts and K/9. In '55 he led the majors in ERA, FIP, and WHIP. The next three years he led the AL in complete games. Pierce went 211-169 with a 3.27 ERA and 1,999 strikeouts. He's something like the fifth-best left-handed starting pitcher of his generation, and I don't think he has a strong Hall of Fame case, but I also think it's pretty clear that he's one of the better pitchers who isn't in Cooperstown.

Luis Tiant is also one of the greatest pitchers not in the Hall of Fame, and he doesn't show up on any of the WAR leaderboards in this post. His best seasons were too spread out to qualify in any half-decade, and he had a couple of very good years in the late '70s, which doesn't count towards this time period. Vida Blue has a similar problem.

This series will continue next week with 1975-99.

This article is available free to all visitors, but Sports History relies on reader support. You can leave me a tip if you enjoyed this post, or — better yet — subscribe to the newsletter and keep this work going. Thank you.