Era’s best righty starters
Clemens may be controversial, yet he takes the crown in this category
Roger Clemens remains outside the Hall of Fame, and we all know why.
Yet no one can deny that Clemens was one of the preeminent right-handed starting pitchers in baseball history. His 354 wins, 4,672 strikeouts, and seven — seven! — Cy Young Awards testify to the greatness of his 24-year career.
Clemens was never officially linked to performance-enhancing drugs — his record was not stained by any suspensions or convictions — but a majority of the Hall of Fame’s voters believed him to be a steroid abuser. He has repeatedly fallen short of the necessary votes for induction, the same fate that has befallen slugger Barry Bonds.
Former Commissioner Fay Vincent, who was decidedly old school on many issues, was surprisingly liberal on this matter. He insisted that both superstars should be welcomed to Cooperstown. “Bonds and Clemens may not have been saints, but they were great players,” he said. “Pretending anything else is hypocrisy.”
The statistics certainly agree. Bonds took first place in my recent analysis of the best left fielders of the Modern Era, the period that dates back to 1961. And Clemens holds the same rank in today’s breakdown of the era’s top right-handed starting pitchers.
My new ratings encompass all 386 righties who made at least 162 starts during the 1961-2022 span. They were assessed in 10 statistical categories, with the focus on excellence and longevity. (Click here for a closer look at the formula.) Each pitcher’s complete stats were analyzed, including any that were amassed during relief appearances. But all numbers accumulated prior to 1961 were eliminated, given that the rankings are limited to the Modern Era.
My formula ranks all players from top to bottom, then assigns scores of 1,000 points to the man at the top for each position (Clemens in this case) and 0 points to the tailender. The scores for everybody else are determined by relative performances between top and bottom.
Clemens pitched for five clubs between 1984 and 2007, primarily the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees. The runner-up on the list of righty starters, fireballer Nolan Ryan, worked for the Houston Astros, California Angels, New York Mets, and Texas Rangers.
Rounding out the top five are Tom Seaver, Pedro Martinez, and Greg Maddux. Seaver starred for the Mets, Cincinnati Reds, and two other clubs. Martinez pitched for five teams, notably the Red Sox, Mets, and Montreal Expos. And Maddux established his reputation with the Atlanta Braves and Chicago Cubs before wrapping up his career with the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres.
This is the 11th stop in my position-by-position rundown of the Modern Era’s greatest players. Follow these links to my previous rankings of catchers, first basemen, second basemen, shortstops, third basemen, left fielders, center fielders, right fielders, designated hitters, and left-handed starting pitchers.
Summaries of the era’s top five right-handed starting pitchers can be found below, followed by a list of the subsequent 15.
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1. Roger Clemens (1984-2007)
Score: 1,000 points
WAR: 138.7 total, 5.6 per 200 IP
Averages: 3.12 ERA, .229 BA, .341 SLG, .582 BPO
Strikeouts: 4,672 total, 8.6 per 9 IP
Totals: 707 GS, 354 W
Notes: Clemens won his first Cy Young trophy at age 24 with the Red Sox. He went 24-4 for Boston’s American League champions in 1986. His final Cy came almost two decades later in 2004, capping an 18-4 season for the Houston Astros. Perhaps his best year was 1997, when he went 21-7 with a 2.05 ERA and 292 strikeouts for the Toronto Blue Jays.
2. Nolan Ryan (1966-1993)
Score: 984 points
WAR: 83.6 total, 3.1 per 200 IP
Averages: 3.19 ERA, .204 BA, .298 SLG, .603 BPO
Strikeouts: 5,714 total, 9.5 per 9 IP
Totals: 773 GS, 324 W
Notes: Ryan is associated in the public mind with a pair of nouns — speed and durability. His blazing fastball brought him 5,714 strikeouts, which remains the all-time standard for pitchers. Nobody else has come within 800 K’s of his total. Ryan pitched 27 seasons in the majors, wrapping up his career just short of his 47th birthday.
3. Tom Seaver (1967-1986)
Score: 870 points
WAR: 106.1 total, 4.4 per 200 IP
Averages: 2.86 ERA, .226 BA, .342 SLG, .569 BPO
Strikeouts: 3,640 total, 6.8 per 9 IP
Totals: 647 GS, 311 W
Notes: Seaver will always be remembered for his amazing 1969 season, when he went 25-7 with a 2.21 ERA and dragged the New York Mets to a World Series title. He won the first of his three Cy Young Awards that year. Seaver led the National League in strikeouts on five occasions, and he was the ERA leader three times.
4. Pedro Martinez (1992-2009)
Score: 848 points
WAR: 86.1 total, 6.1 per 200 IP
Averages: 2.93 ERA, .214 BA, .337 SLG, .558 BPO
Strikeouts: 3,154 total, 10.0 per 9 IP
Totals: 409 GS, 219 W
Notes: Martinez earned three Cy Youngs between 1997 and 2000, finishing second in the only year that he fell short. He posted the league’s lowest ERA in five different seasons, bottoming out at 1.74 in 2000. Only nine pitchers in baseball history have exceeded Martinez’s career ratio of 10.04 strikeouts per nine innings.
5. Greg Maddux (1986-2008)
Score: 815 points
WAR: 104.8 total, 4.2 per 200 IP
Averages: 3.16 ERA, .250 BA, .358 SLG, .584 BPO
Strikeouts: 3,371 total, 6.1 per 9 IP
Totals: 740 GS, 355 W
Notes: Maddux won the National League’s Cy Young Award in 1992, then took home the next three for good measure. His record during that dominant streak from ’92 through ’95 was 75-29 in 124 starts with an amazing ERA of 1.98. He led the NL seven times in games started and five times in innings pitched.
Next 15
6. Gaylord Perry (1962-1983)
7. Bob Gibson (1961-1975)
8. Justin Verlander (2005-2022)
9. Max Scherzer (2008-2022)
10. Bert Blyleven (1970-1992)
11. Don Sutton (1966-1988)
12. Phil Niekro (1964-1987)
13. Jacob deGrom (2014-2022)
14. Fergie Jenkins (1965-1983)
15. Curt Schilling (1988-2007)
16. Jim Palmer (1965-1984)
17. John Smoltz (1988-2009)
18. Zack Greinke (2004-2022)
19. Juan Marichal (1961-1975)
20. Mike Mussina (1991-2008)