Pedro vs. Unit

Firstly I want to give credit to Howie for coming up with this idea. When I wrote about Johnson signing with the Giants he commented it would be fun to compare Pedro and Unit in their primes. What a great idea. I defined their prime as the best consecutive 8 years. 8 seasons is a arbitrary number. But since RJ won Cy Youngs 8 years apart it worked nicely. Also during those 8 seasons both had 1 season that they were injured. I believe when baseball historians look back at the 1990s 4 pitchers will stand head and shoulders above all overs. Greg Maddux, Roger Clemens and our two Pedro and Unit. Unit the huge nasty dominating lefty and Pedro the righty who might be 180 lbs soaking wet. In many ways they are so completely different. But as you will see from the numbers in alot of ways eerily similar. For the record Pedros prime was between 1997-2004. 97 was his last year with Montreal and his 7 seasons with Boston. And Units prime was between 1995-2002. 1995-1998(half season) with Seattle, 3 months at the end of 1998 with Houston and then 1999-2002 with Arizona. Also I used similar stats that I used when I compared Johan and CC. So here goes

Stat Randy Johnson Pedro Martinez

W-L 143-44 76% 147-45 77%

IP 1762 1633.7

H 1344 1585

K/BB 2416/543 4.49/1 1988/376 5.29/1

WHIP 1.07 .97

ERA 2.61 2.34

Quality Stats % 79% 79%

All Stars 6 6

Cy Youngs 4 (second once more) 3(second twice more)

Win Shares 176 172

World Series Win 1 1

Before I discuss those numbers a few things jumped out at me when I was working on this. One amazing thing is both pitchers prime occurred right smack in the middle of the now infamous steroids era. And to my knowledge unlike Clemens neither Johnson or Pedro was ever rumored to have juiced. If you look at the league ERAs during their peaks. The league ERA for Pedro was 4.58 which made his ERA a little more than half of the league. As for RJ the league ERA was 4.66 and his was 2.61 which is 44% better than the league. Now thats domination!!!! Also both pitchers spent their primes in good hitters parks. Chase Field in Arizona the best hitters park. Imagine if these guys spent their peaks in good pitchers parks. My favorite stat I found was about Pedro. During the 1999 and 2000 season he was 27/29 for Quality Starts for both seasons. Thats an ungodly 93%. Remember a Quality Start is defined as a pitcher who goes 6 and gives up 3 runs or less. So Pedro only had 4 games like that in 2 seasons. That just doesn't seem possible. Now compare that to Johan Santana who I think everyone agrees has been the best pitcher in baseball the past 3 seasons his QS% is 72% and CC is 66%. For the 8 seasons both pitchers in our comparison are an identical 79%. As for Randy Johnson if you throw out 1996 when he only pitched 61 innings he averaged 333 strikeouts per season. Thats 12.33 Ks per 9 innings. Another interesting thing about Johnson is he started his peak at age 31. His career arc is very similar to another lefty that took awhile to figure it out than was totally unhittable, Sandy Koufax. I also heard Koufax was the most dominating pitcher during the second half of the 20th century. But he had a few things going for him 1.He pitched in a great pitchers park in Dodger stadium where is is rumored the mound is higher than anywhere else 2.the 1960s were a time when run scoring was at its lowest point since the deadball era. Koufax's 1962-66 seasons are legend. And the stats are mind numbing but Unit and Pedro are not that far behind at all. Pedro's 2000 season when his ERA was 1.74 when the league was 5.07 is unbelievable. Also he accomplished this facing the Yankees and pitching in Fenway park. That season has to be one of the best in modern baseball history!!!! So who is better???? Pedro or Unit. Unlike the comparison between Johan and CC there is no clear winner. Looking at the stats I choose to use they almost mirror each other. It amazing just how close they really are. Since their peak both have been hurt often. There is a good chance RJ will be the last 300 game winner. For a career Unit is better for their prime maybe the slightest of edges to Pedro. You can't get in wrong either way!!!!!!!