Cooperstown Candidates: Roger Clemens and Greg Maddux

As is the case with Barry Bonds, the candidacies of Roger Clemens and Greg Maddux require almost no critical thinking. Their Hall of Fame credentials aren't in question: they dominated the mound for two decades despite pitching in the most hitter-friendly period in the sport's history. No matter which yardstick you use to evaluate their careers -- traditional numbers or modern sabermetrics, peak value or longevity -- the ultimate conclusion is the same regardless: they are the two best pitchers of the post-integration era.

First, some key milestones. Most notably, both Maddux and Clemens are top-ten pitchers all-time in terms of career wins and career strikeouts. Both won more than 350 games, joining Warren Spahn as the only pitchers to surpass that win total in the post-World War Two era. And both easily surpassed the 3,000-strikeout benchmark: Clemens had 4,672, the third-most ever, and Maddux had 3,371, the 10th-most ever. The only other pitcher in baseball history who ranks in the top ten in both wins and strikeouts is Walter Johnson, who obviously pitched well before integration.

Their long-term excellence is also reflected by their career Wins Above Replacement totals. According to Baseball Reference, Clemens owns the third-most career WAR among all pitchers, and Maddux owns the eighth-most. The only other post-World War Two pitcher in the top eight is Tom Seaver. Fangraphs.com views the duo even more favorably: there, Clemens ranks first in career WAR, and Maddux is fourth. Either way, Clemens and Maddux appear to be the two best pitchers since integration.

That might seem like a disputable claim at first, mostly because it doesn't appear to be supported by plain old Earned Run Average. The career ERAs of Clemens (3.12) and Maddux (3.16) don't exactly stand out when compared to other dominant pitchers of the last half-century:

Tom Seaver: 2.86
Bob Gibson: 2.91
Warren Spahn: 3.09
Gaylord Perry: 3.11
Clemens: 3.12
Maddux: 3.16
Nolan Ryan: 3.19
Steve Carlton: 3.22

So why were Clemens and Maddux demonstrably better than these guys? Because of the context in which they pitched. The conditions for pitchers during the 1990s and 2000s were more unfavorable than they have been at any other point in baseball history. In 1964, for example, the league-average ERA was 3.58. In 1974, it was 3.63. But in 1984, the year Clemens made his first career start, the average was up to 3.81. In 1994, it was 4.51. And it reached its nadir in 2000, when the average ERA was 4.77. The average ERA! 4.77! That season, Clemens' ERA was 3.70, which doesn't look great by our standards -- but it was the second-best ERA in the league. Context is everything. A combination of different factors -- including steroids, better strength programs, expansion, and some smaller ballparks -- drastically tipped the competitive scales in favor of hitters during that generation. Taking that into account, the excellence sustained by Clemens and Maddux across the so-called Steroid Era is all the more impressive.

This is where ERA+ comes in handy, which adjusts for context and compares pitchers to their contemporaries. Here are the same names listed above, but this time ranked by ERA+ rather than raw ERA:

Clemens: 143
Maddux: 132
Tom Seaver: 127
Bob Gibson: 127
Warren Spahn: 119
Gaylord Perry: 117
Steve Carlton: 115
Nolan Ryan: 112

Clemens and Maddux are clearly superior. In fact, only three Hall of Famers have a better ERA+ than Clemens, and only twelve rank ahead of Maddux. The great majority of those pitchers did not play after World War Two. So yes, when factoring in excellence, longevity, and context, Clemens and Maddux had the two best pitching careers in the post-integration era.

What really proves this point is their peak performances, which were extraordinary. Maddux's peak is easier to pinpoint because his best years were conveniently bunched together. Across the seven seasons between 1992 and 1998, he posted a 2.15 ERA, 190 ERA+, and 0.97 WHIP. He won four consecutive Cy Young awards (a feat equaled only by Randy Johnson) and four ERA titles. About a quarter of his starts were complete games. Contained within this seven-year peak was a two-year uber-peak in 1994 and 1995, in which his ERAs were, astoundingly, 1.56 and 1.63. According to ERA+, those were two of the five best pitching seasons ever.

Clemens' exact peak is more difficult to identify-- probably because he peaked three different times with three different teams, scattering his best seasons throughout his long career. From 1986 to 1992, Clemens had a seven-year stretch of Maddux-like dominance with the Red Sox; he averaged about 260 innings and 240 strikeouts per year with a 2.66 ERA, along with three Cy Young awards and an MVP. A few years later he had a brief, epic run with the Blue Jays, when in 1996 and 1997 he threw a combined 500 innings with a 2.33 ERA, winning the Cy Young in both seasons. And in three years with the Astros at the end of his career, he posted a cumulative ERA of 2.40, set a personal best in regular-season ERA (1.87), and won his final Cy Young -- all of which he did after his 40th birthday. His "worst" stretch as a pitcher was his stint with the Yankees, and he still won a Cy Young and a World Series with them. It all adds up to five strikeout titles, seven ERA titles, and a record seven Cy Young awards. He probably should have won ten.

Roger Clemens and Greg Maddux are the kind of Hall of Famers that make other Hall of Famers look bad. Both should be inducted unanimously. Unfortunately, only Maddux will be elected to Cooperstown this time around. Clemens will be ignored by the sanctimonious voting bloc for the second consecutive year, as some kind of punishment for whatever drugs he probably took. When the voters induct the "clean" guy (Maddux) while exiling the "dirty" one (Clemens), they'll likely frame it as a triumphant "statement" about the Hall of Fame's integrity. But ironically, they'll only be undermining the credibility of their institution. What's the point of a Baseball Hall of Fame that doesn't include Roger Clemens? And why should Greg Maddux value his membership in an organization that refuses to recognize his greatest contemporary?

My Ballot So Far:
1. Barry Bonds
2. Roger Clemens
3. Greg Maddux