IS CLAYTON KERSHAW AN ALL TIME GREAT?

As the Dodgers clinch their 3rd straight division title and send Clayton Kershaw to the mound this Friday to begin the playoffs against the New York Mets....... and as we hold onto hope (once again) that the Dodgers can do something that they haven’t done since Ronald Reagan was President...it seems like the time to let it be known that by a very credible metric, Clayton Kershaw could be considered the greatest pitcher of all time.....

It may sound a little wacky but hear me out....

When comparing starting pitchers whose careers began after the end of WWII I found some incredible revelations.

If you exclude Kershaw, the starting pitcher (minimum of 1,000 innings) with the lowest career ERA (during the regular season) in the Major Leagues since the end of WWII is Whitey Ford of the Yankees with an ERA of 2.74.

The next in line are as follows:

Sandy Koufax (Dodgers)...2.76

Jim Palmer (Orioles)........2.86

Andy Messersmith (Angels, Dodgers, Braves, Yankees)....2.86

Tom Seaver (Mets, Reds, White Sox)....2.86

Juan Marichal (Giants).... 2.89

Bob Gibson (Cardinals)....2.91

Pedro Martinez (Dodgers, Mets, Red Sox)...2.93

Don Drysdale (Dodgers)...2.95

If you throw Clayton Kershaw into this ranking he comes up #1 at a career ERA of an incredible...2.43

Only (1) other active major league pitcher is below 3.00 and that is Adam Wainwright at 2.98.

The gap between Kershaw and Whitey Ford is huge .31 runs per game between Kershaw and the #2 guy...whereas the gap between #2 through #10 is only .21. That is dominance....couple that with Kershaw’s (3) Cy Young Awards and you have a strong case..

The biggest problem, though, is not how Kershaw pitches during the regular season....it is Kershaw’s substandard performances in the post season...a career post season ERA of 5.12.

Let’s hope that this post season is different...for Kershaw..and the Dodgers

Another interesting factoid...the pitching ERA’s of Koufax, Drysdale, Marichal, and Gibson, are partially tainted because these pitchers pitched for much of their careers when the pitching mound was a full 5 inches higher than it is now (1963 - 1968)....this gave the pitchers a tremendous advantage over batters....and the ERA’s from that era bore that out...most notably the 1968 season when Bob Gibson lead the league in ERA with an astounding and microscopic 1.12 number and 7 other major leaguers had ERA’s less than 2.00. Denny McClain had 31 wins with an ERA of 1.86.

Food (hot dogs and peanuts) for Thought.....