The baseball world was shocked this week by the death of Roy Halladay. The former Blue Jays’ and Phillies’ pitcher, 40, perished in a private plane crash on November 7.
The reports invariably mention the highlights of Halladay’s career: a Cy Young Award in each league, a perfect game on May 29, 2010, and a divisional series no-hitter on October 6 of that same year. Nice résumé items, people agree, but they are not so unanimous when it comes to the Hall of Fame. Many seem to think Doc is a borderline candidate at best; after all, he won “just” 203 games with a modest 3.38 career ERA.
Borderline? With the possible exception of Clayton Kershaw, Roy Halladay is the most-accomplished pitcher of the 21st century.
In an era where less and less is expected of starting pitchers, Halladay was a horse. He topped his league in innings pitched four times, and in complete games seven times. And with the quantity came quality. According to WAR, for what it’s worth, Halladay was the best pitcher in his league four times. Besides the two Cy Youngs, he finished second twice, and third and fifth once each. He amassed 3.50 Cy Young Award shares, ranking him in the top ten all-time:
MOST CY YOUNG AWARD SHARES, 1956-2016
7.65 Roger Clemens
6.49 Randy Johnson
4.91 Greg Maddux
4.29 Steve Carlton
4.26 Pedro Martinez
3.96 Clayton Kershaw
3.84 Tom Seaver
3.57 Jim Palmer
3.50 Roy Halladay
3.15 Tom Glavine
Doc was a surgeon. He led the NL in fewest walks per nine innings three straight times, and had his league’s best strikeout-to-walk ration five times. His career mark also ranks in the top ten all-time:
PITCHERS WITH BEST STRIKEOUT:WALK RATIOS, 1876-2017 (Min. 2000 SO)
Pitcher SO BB RATIO
Curt Schilling 3116 711 4.38
Clayton Kershaw 2120 507 4.18
Pedro Martinez 3154 760 4.15
Dan Haren 2013 500 4.03
Max Scherzer 2149 534 4.02
Zack Greinke 2236 594 3.76
Mike Mussina 2813 785 3.58
Roy Halladay 2117 592 3.58
Cole Hamels 2227 645 3.45
Greg Maddux 3371 999 3.37
Most impressive of all was Halladay’s ability to win games. Over three decades ago I developed a statistic I call Normalized Win Percentage. It compares pitchers’ win percentages to their teams’ and scales it to .500, putting all pitchers, past and present on an even plane. Among all 200-game winners since 1900 – including the likes of Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson, Lefty Grove, and Tom Seaver – Roy Halladay ranks second. You read that right: number two in modern history. Here are the 14 who managed a .600+ NWP:
HIGHEST CAREER NWP, 1900-2017 (Min. 200 Wins)
Pitcher W L NWP
Pedro Martinez 219 100 .663
Roy Halladay 203 105 .661
Randy Johnson 303 166 .650
Lefty Grove 300 141 .643
Roger Clemens 354 184 .642
Grover Alexander 373 208 .640
Whitey Ford 236 106 .630
Walter Johnson 417 279 .629
Cy Young 511 316 .621
Christy Mathewson 373 188 .616
Tom Seaver 311 205 .614
Curt Schilling 216 146 .603
Mike Mussina 270 153 .602
Juan Marichal 243 142 .601
Rest in peace, Roy Halladay. You were one of the very best pitchers of your generation. If that’s not a Hall of Famer, I don’t know what is.
FWIW, Chris Sale and Masahiro Tanaka both are tied at a 5.1 K/BB ratio, which ranks them tied for # 1 all-time, and Corey Kluber is at 4.94, which ranks him # 3 all-time. (Tommy Bond is * 2)
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Impressive, but none make my 2000-K threshold yet. Bond didn’t, either, and pitched in an era where it took nine balls for a walk.
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