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9:57:00 AM EDT
Hearing Top Indie on AOL Radio
Best. Latin. Pitcher. Ever.
The Mets have the league's best record. Two guys wrote a song about it. Wanna hear it? Here it go. It'll be playing in Shea Stadium throughout the season. Frightening. Not to fear Mets fans, Hot Foot says the '86 team had a song as well -- Get Metsmerized, although I don't recall it.
Moving on, Pedro Martinez has started the season off right (3-0, 1.07 WHIP), and ESPN Deportes' Enrique Rojas says, "He could be considered the best Latin American pitcher of all time." I don't think there's any question about that. The guy is 200-84 with a 2.73 ERA during the juiced era. As Rojas notes, his .700 winning percentage is the best of any pitcher with 150+ wins since 1900. That's hot.
The other Latin pitchers Rojas puts into the debate are Dennis Martinez (El Presidente!), Juan Marichal, Luis Tiant and some guy named Adolfo Luque (Ed. note: He was 5'7" and pitched in the '20s). So, basically, Marichal is Pedro's only competition here, and, when you look at the numbers, Pedro dominates him across the board. On top of that, when you consider that the Dominican Dandy's prime was in the golden era of pitching -- when Willie McCovey led the league with just 36 HR -- it really is no contest. Pedro is the the best Latin American pitcher of all-time by far.
But where does Pedro rank among the top starters ever, regardless of origin? Nearly two years ago I made two posts: my top five righties of all-time and my top five southpaws of all-time. At that time my righties were Seaver, Cy Young, Walter Johnson, Clemens and Maddux. Pedro fell in the top 15. Out of the 140 comments made to that post, only two said they would have put Martinez in the top five.
Since then, Pedro has won a World Series in Boston, moved to New York and proved he can pitch into his mid-30s by going 18-8 with a 2.88 since coming to the Mets. I wonder if I made the same post again if more readers would put him in the top five. My guess is they wouldn't, but he's certainly one of the top 10 righthanded starters ever and maybe one of the top 10 starters period. But I'll leave that to the seamheads to figure out.
Related: In Nov. '04 I compared Pedro favorably to Koufax.
Bonus: New AOL Sports baseball column Ballpark Figures contains an interesting item about the Pedro-Guillen beanbrawl wars ...
"Jose Guillen has been hit five times in 44 career plate appearances against Martinez. That means roughly every nine times Guillen has dug in vs. Pedro he’s been drilled. That’s awfully damning when you consider Pedro has averaged one hit batsmen every 86 batters faced over the course of his career."
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Check Dolph Luque's pitching record. While not a Hall O' Famer, he was pretty good, more than just "some guy." Thanks Mike
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Every year I make a wager with myself to see what happens first- Pedro experiencing arm trouble, or my rhododendron blooming. This year- with a remarkably light New England winter- Pedro won for the first time.
I'll bet $100 with anyone that he'll miss a game before my husband catches his first striped bass of the season.
4/21/06 9:36 AM