Grove v. Koufax

[nightal]

It is a shame it won't contain Bonds big year, but what the heck.
By the way anyone want to offer any Grove vs. Koufax opinions?

[NetShrine]

Originally posted by nightal
It is a shame it won't contain Bonds big year, but what the heck.
By the way anyone want to offer any Grove vs. Koufax opinions?

I will - in a new thread.

[NetShrine]

Koufax is to Grove as Pedro is to Clemens.

[timconnelly]

Comparing Koufax versus Grove is very difficult. Grove is pitching for a great team with Jimmy Foxx, Al Simmons, and Mickey Cochrane in a hitter's era while Koufax is pitching for a team nicknamed the hitless wonders during a pitcher's era. So for winning percentage, things are going to be skewed in Grove's favor and for ERA things are going to be skewed in Koufax's favor.

There is no doubt that Grove had a longer, more successful career so the question is, "who was better during their peak?"

In 1962, there was a major change in the strike zone and Koufax had a drop in ERA from 3.52 to 2.54. But there was a league-wide drop of .72 points (from 4.35 to 3.63) that made the actual difference in value pretty small. Koufax then pitched the rest of his career in an era of light hitting and he was incredibly dominating. But I think 2 things sort of exaggerate that dominance: the low ERA's and the high strike outs.

We now know how statistical illusions can create an appearance of something that's not really happening on the field. That happens often enough. But I think it is far more common where something is happening but the statistical illusions exaggerate the extent to which it is happening. Koufax was dominating but not nearly as dominating as his stats appear. In 1963, the league-wide ERA was 3.02 and his ERA was 1.88. So he led the league by a margin of .23. In 1936, Grove had an ERA of 2.81with a record of 17 and 12. But Grove did that in a league with a 5.34 ERA and led the league by .63 points.

Until you begin looking at that kind of thing, Koufax is either very close or even marginally ahead. But I feel that when things are looked at under this kind of a microscope, it's not even close.

There is a tendency to think, "Grove won 31 games in 1931, well it was a lot easier to do that then." But he won 9 games more than any other pitcher in the major leagues that season! He led the league in ERA by margins of .77 and .61 runs per game in 1930 and 1931.

Sandy was great but Lefty was greater!

[nyy26wc]

There was also a huge difference between Koufax, when he was pitching in the great pitching environment of Dodgers Stadium, and the rest of the time.

Koufax had a 1.37 ERA in Dodgers Stadium, 3.15 everywhere else.

When we throw out the early years of his career, and just look at his final 5 years, which were the 5 where Dodgers Stadium was his home park, we get 1.37 home, 2.57 road.

Dodgers Stadium was to Koufax what Coors Field is to Helton. Koufax was very good, for those few years, but not what the raw numbers say.

If you throw out Dodgers Stadium influence and the influence of pitching in the best pitching era since the dead ball, Koufax becomes just another pretty good pitcher who didn't sustain his performance over a long enough time for him to avoid being forgotten about.