BASEBALL: Who is the best recent pitcher???
 

God, this is a tough one.
We got Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, all in the same era?
How lucky are we?

While other pitchers have been giving up meatballs that fly out over left field at record speeds, these guys dominate.
Yeah, Roger and Maddux are a little off, but they are amazing.

My personal opinion. Pedro Martinez has been the most amazing pitcher to watch. The guy only has one twenty win season, on a pretty good but never great team, and he always seems to get injured slightly. However, his ERA is unholy, he pitches in a total hitters park, and he'd have an era around 1 if he'd pitched in SF or a decent pitching park.

That said, I guess I'm going Maddux. He won the damned cy young every year Randy didn't, has the best strikeout to walk ratio ever, walks half as many dudes as nolan ryan per year, and doesn't give up the long ball.

But Pedro could end up the most dominant since Koufax.

Another rant. I love the strikeout, but an out is an out. Common people. For all those K's nolan got, he is 23rd all time in Home Runs allowed.

The stats *I* really like to look at.
ERA
Opposing AVG
Walks + Hits / 9
Innings Pitched / G

Cheese

I may be a bit biased (being a braves fan) but I'ma go with Greg Maddux. What do you notice when you see the other 3 pitchers? 93+ mph fastballs on all of them, and 95 mph + on two of them. Maddux never touched 90. His extraordinary ability to get out the best hitters in the entire world simply by location, location, and more location. His circle change up ranks up there as one of the most dominating pitches in the history of the game, along with Nolan Ryan's fastball, Randy Johnson's slider etc. In 1995, he had an unheard of 19-2 season with a 1.63 E.R.A. and the year before that he had an even better 1.56 E.R.A! He has 15 straight 15+ wins seasons and is on his way to another. Greg Maddux truly defines what a "Pitcher" is.

my vote goes for randy johnson

Greg Maddux all the way.. I'm definately biased however, being a huge Braves fan..

I have a copy of every Maddux rookie card ever made =)
/brag off

Gotta go with Johnson, since I'm a D'Backs fan. Even though he hasn't been the same this year since coming back from his knee surgery. No Curt Schilling option? :)

I'm a Yankee fan, and have always followed "The Rocket", but I have to nod to Maddux. This guy has been unhittable many time over, except for late. Pedro ranks second just based on performance.

And yes, being a baseball fan in the last 15 years has been a true delight to watch all of these guys pitch.

Pedro by a huge margin

Pedro Pedro Pedro

Has great control, has great speed, has great control over all of his pitches, and doesn't mind throwing a little chin music.

How could anyone of you not give the nod to Roger. It's so obvious, just look at the numbers

Clemens:

Games: 598
Complete Games: 117
Innings Pitched: 4223.2
Strikeouts: 4063
Wins: 304
Career ERA: 3.17

The only other pitcher I would even consider would be Greg Maddux. Clemens has been one of the most consistent pitchers to ever play the game. While Pedro and Randy have put together several dominant years...neither have been as consistent and reliable as Clemens.

Pedro all the way.

The Rocket... 'nuff said

Jaime Moyer

Are we talking about just this season, or for the past few seasons. If it's the past few seasons I would then say Clemens. But if it's just this year, I would say Jason Schmidt

This is the poll question: Who is the best overall pitcher of this era?

pedro when he is healthy otherwise clemens

Maddox - (excluding last night....) 15 stright years of at least 15 wins. Cy Young is the only other - not sure how you get more consistent than that - he still has a good shot at 15 wins (11 right now) this year which will make it 16 years.

if only pedro had the run support

only reason clemons wins now is because he plays for the best hitting team. Because he is washed up, it made me so happy when he didn't win his 300 right away. the other 3 are about even.

The Yankees are not the best hitting team in baseball. Both Boston and Atlanta are better.

This I understand... most teams will adjust their rotation in order to have their best pitcher facing Pedro. So any time Pedro pitches the opposing team throws their #1....and yet for whatever reason the ChokeSox, #1 offense in baseball, can't buy a run. I suppose they'd rather leave the buying of runs to the Yankees.

I've gotta go with RJ. He's just simply dominant. Roger has had his bad seasons, RJ not really.

As an A's fan, I had a great time watching Tim Hudson, who I think SHOULD win this year's AL cy young (he would, if he had run support--and continues to outpitch loiza) outpitch Pedro the other day... Damn, this poll is close. Kinda depends how you look at dominance, doesn't it. Clemens has been consistent, but with pretty solid teams. Maddux likewise. Christ, its really tough.

Remember though guys... strikeouts are still overrated, even though they're cool (kinda like KO's in boxing).

Wow... on a sidenote, the Yank's are getting killed by the royals in the 5th right now...
Cheese