Bob Feller
In his 18 seasons with the Cleveland Indians, Bob Feller won 266 games, while losing 162. However, if he hadn’t lost almost four full seasons during the peak of his career due to time spent in the military, he would have won well over 300 games. In the three seasons immediately preceding his enlistment in the service, Feller won 24, 27, and 25 games, respectively, and he was the best pitcher in baseball. In 1946, his first full season back, Feller picked up right where he left off, having perhaps his finest season. That year, he finished 26-15, with an ERA of 2.18, and a league-leading 348 strikeouts, 371 innings pitched, 36 complete games, and 10 shutouts.
During his career, Feller led the league in wins six times, strikeouts seven times, and ERA once. He was a 20-game winner six times, threw three no-hitters, twelve one-hitters, and once struck out 18 batters in a game. He was the best pitcher in baseball from 1939 to 1941, and arguably in both 1946 and 1947 as well. He also played on two pennant-winners and one world championship team in Cleveland.
Bob Gibson/Juan Marichal
Gibson and Marichal were the dominant righthanders of the 1960s and, with the exception of Sandy Koufax, they were the decade’s finest pitchers.
Bob Gibson was probably the most intimidating pitcher of his era, and one of the very, very best. Although he struggled with his control early in his career, as well as with the racial stereotypes that were prevalent at that time about black pitchers—that they were not intelligent and that they had no heart—by 1962, under new St. Louis manager Johnny Keane, Gibson started to turn things around. That year, he won 15 games while losing 13, compiled an ERA of 2.85, and struck out 208 batters—the first of nine times during his career he surpassed the 200-strikeout mark. The next two years he won 18 and 19 games, respectively, and he beat the Yankees twice in the 1964 World Series to begin to build his legacy as one of the greatest big-game pitchers in baseball history. Over the next six seasons, from 1965 to 1970, Gibson won more than 20 games and struck out more than 200 batters five times each, compiled an ERA under 3.00 four times, led the National League in shutouts four times, and in wins, ERA, strikeouts, and complete games once each.
After missing the final two months of the 1967 regular season with a broken leg suffered after being hit by a line drive off the bat of Roberto Clemente, Gibson led the Cardinals to the world championship by defeating the Boston Red Sox three times in the World Series. The following season, he won the first of his two Cy Young Awards and was also voted the National League’s Most Valuable Player—one of two times he finished in the top five of the voting. Gibson was practically unhittable that year, finishing 22-9, with 28 complete games and a league-leading 1.12 ERA, 268 strikeouts, and 13 shutouts. Although Gibson lost the decisive seventh game of the World Series to Mickey Lolich to break his string of seven consecutive Series victories, he struck out a Series record 17 Detroit Tiger batters in winning Game One. Gibson won his second Cy Young Award in 1970 by finishing 23-7 with a 3.12 ERA and 274 strikeouts.
For his career, Gibson finished with a won-lost record of 251-174, an ERA of 2.91, and 3,117 strikeouts. From 1963 to 1972, he was one of the five best pitchers in baseball, being selected to the All-Star Team eight times during that period, and he was the best pitcher in the game in both 1968 and 1970.
Nobody won more games (191) during the 1960s than San Francisco Giants righthander Juan Marichal. From 1963 to 1969, he won more than 20 games six times, and he won at least 18 games eight times during his career. Marichal led the National League in wins, complete games, shutouts, and innings pitched twice each, and in ERA once. He won at least 25 games three times, and he finished with an ERA under 3.00 nine times, compiling a mark below 2.50 on six separate occasions. He also struck out more than 200 batters six times, and threw more than 300 innings three times.
Although Marichal never won the Cy Young Award, he was a consistently great pitcher. It was simply Marichal’s misfortune that he had to compete against the brilliant Sandy Koufax. Nevertheless, he was one of the five best pitchers in baseball from 1962 to 1969, and he was among the top two or three hurlers in the sport in most of those years. In 1963, he finished 25-8 with a 2.41 ERA, 248 strikeouts, and 321 innings pitched. The following year, he finished 21-8 with a 2.48 ERA. In 1965 and 1966, Marichal won 22 and 25 games, respectively, while finishing with ERAs of 2.13 and 2.23. Marichal was also among the two or three best pitchers in the game in both 1968 and 1969, when he won 26 and 21 games, respectively.
A look at the record shows that Marichal won 243 games, while losing only 142 during his career. He also finished with a 2.89 ERA and struck out more than three times as many men as he walked. He was a nine-time All-Star and finished in the top ten in the league MVP voting three times, making it into the top five once. He was one of the finest pitchers of his era, and one of the best ever.
Tom Seaver/Steve Carlton/Jim Palmer
These three men all began their major league careers during the mid-1960s and went on to become the three best pitchers in the game for much of the 1970s.
After coming to the New York Mets in 1967, Tom Seaver almost instantly brought respectability to an organization that previously had very little to be proud of. That year, he was the National League’s Rookie of the Year and he helped lead the team to its first world championship just two years later. In 1969, Seaver finished 25-7 with a 2.21 ERA, 208 strikeouts, and 273 innings pitched, won the first of his three Cy Young Awards, and finished second to Willie McCovey in the league MVP voting. Seaver also won the Cy Young Award in 1973 and 1975. In the first of those seasons, he compiled a record of 19-10 with a league-leading 2.08 ERA and 251 strikeouts, while throwing 290 innings. In 1975, he won 22 games, against only 9 losses, and finished with an ERA of 2.38 and a league-leading 243 strikeouts. Seaver finished in the top five in the Cy Young voting two other times.
During his career, Seaver led the National League in wins and earned run average three times each, and in strikeouts five times. He was a 20-game winner five times and won at least 16 games in 11 of the 13 seasons between 1967 and 1979. He also struck out more than 200 batters ten times and finished with an ERA under 3.00 twelve times, allowing fewer than 2.50 runs per contest on five separate occasions. He finished his career with 311 wins against 205 losses, an ERA of 2.86, and 3,640 strikeouts. Seaver was among the five best pitchers in baseball in virtually every season from 1969 to 1977 and, then again, in 1981. He was arguably the best pitcher in the game in 1969, 1971, 1973, 1975, 1977, and 1981, winning at least 20 games in all but two of those seasons, and finishing with an ERA of no higher than 2.58 in any of them. With the possible exception of Steve Carlton, Seaver was the best pitcher in the National League during the 1970s.
The winner of 329 games and four Cy Young Awards during a 24-year major league career spent primarily with the Philadelphia Phillies and St. Louis Cardinals, Steve Carlton was one of the greatest pitchers of his time, and one of the finest of the last half of the 20th century. Carlton was a 20-game winner six times, and he won at least 16 games four other times. From 1967, when he first joined the Cardinals’ starting rotation, to 1984, his last productive season with the Philadelphia Phillies, Carlton failed to win at least 13 games only once. Over that 18-year stretch, he also finished with an earned run average under three runs a game eight times, struck out more than 200 batters eight times, and failed to throw at least 250 innings only five times.
Carlton led the National League in wins four times, ERA once, strikeouts and innings pitched five times each, and complete games three times. He had his finest season, and one of the most dominant years ever recorded by a pitcher, in 1972. Carlton won a record 45 percent of the last-place Phillies’ 59 wins that year, en route to capturing the Cy Young Award for the first time. He led all N.L. pitchers in wins (27), ERA (1.97), strikeouts (310), innings pitched (346), and complete games (30), and was clearly the best pitcher in baseball. It could also be argued that he was the best pitcher in the game in his three other Cy Young Award years of 1977, 1980, and 1982. In the first of those years, he finished 23-10 with an ERA of 2.64, 198 strikeouts, and 283 innings pitched. In 1980, he helped lead the Phillies to the world championship by compiling a 24-9 record with an ERA of 2.34, and a league-leading 286 strikeouts and 304 innings pitched. Two years later, Carlton won the award for the final time by finishing 23-11 with a 3.10 ERA, and a league-leading 286 strikeouts, 295 innings pitched, six shutouts, and 19 complete games. At his peak, he was so dominant that he finished in the top five in the league MVP voting three times. Carlton is fourth on the all-time strikeout list, and is tenth in career victories.
The best pitcher in the American League, and one of the very best in baseball for most of the 1970s, was the Baltimore Orioles Jim Palmer. In eight of the nine seasons between 1970 and 1978, Palmer won at least 20 games and allowed fewer than 3 earned runs per contest. During that nine-year period, he won three Cy Young Awards, led the league in ERA twice, in innings pitched four times, and in wins three consecutive seasons, beginning in 1975.
After winning 15 games during the 1966 regular season, and another in the World Series, Palmer missed virtually all of the next two seasons with arm trouble. However, he returned in 1969 to finish 16-4 with a 2.34 ERA. Palmer won at least 20 games and finished with an ERA well under 3.00 in each of the next four seasons, establishing himself as one of the game’s finest pitchers. He won his first Cy Young Award in 1973, when he finished 22-9, led the league with a 2.40 ERA, and threw 296 innings. He also won the award in both 1975 and 1976, leading the league in wins both times, with totals of 23 and 22, respectively, and finishing with ERA’s of 2.09 and 2.51.
During his career, Palmer finished with an ERA under 3.00 nine times, under 2.50 five times, and threw more than 300 innings four times. He ended his career with a won-lost record of 268-152 and an outstanding ERA of 2.86.
Carl Hubbell/Dizzy Dean
Hubbell and Dean were the National League’s top two pitchers for much of the 1930s. Between them, they dominated most N.L. pitching categories from 1932 to 1937. With the exception of the American League’s Lefty Grove, they were clearly the best pitchers in the game at that time.
Carl Hubbell’s career won-lost record of 253-154 and earned run average of 2.98 are both outstanding figures. However, neither mark is a true indication of just how dominant he actually was at the peak of his career. During the mid-1930s, not only was Hubbell, along with Dizzy Dean, the National League’s best pitcher, he was its most dominant player. The greatest evidence of this dominance can be seen by the fact that he is one of only three pitchers in baseball history to win his league’s Most Valuable Player Award twice.
From 1929 to 1937, Hubbell was an outstanding pitcher, winning more than 20 games five times, and failing to win at least 17 games only once. From 1933 to 1937, though, he was rivaled only by the St. Louis Cardinals Dizzy Dean as the National League’s best pitcher. During that five-year period, Hubbell won more than 20 games each season, finished with an ERA well under 3.00 three times, threw more than 300 innings four times, and completed more than 20 games four times. He had perhaps his finest season in 1933, when he won the MVP Award for the first time. That year, he won 23 games while losing 12, compiled a superb 1.66 ERA, and also led the league with 308 innings pitched and 10 shutouts. Hubbell was named the league’s Most Valuable Player a second time in 1936, when he finished with a record of 26-6, an ERA of 2.31, 304 innings pitched, and 25 complete games. He was unquestionably the best pitcher in baseball in both those seasons, and one of the two or three best in the game in each season from 1933 to 1937. During his career, Hubbell led the league in wins and ERA three times each, and in complete games, shutouts, and innings pitched once each.
The career of Dizzy Dean was not as long as that of Hubbell, but Dean was just as dominant at his peak. Although he won only 150 games (against just 83 losses) during his 12-year major league career, Dean was outstanding from 1932 to 1937, and was the best pitcher in the game in both 1934 and 1935. From 1932 to 1936, he won at least 20 games four times, notching 18 victories in the other season. He was well on his way to another 20-win season in 1937 when a line-drive off the bat of A.L. outfielder Earl Averill at the All-Star Game broke his toe. The injury prompted Dean to alter his pitching motion and eventually caused him to damage his right arm. As a result, Dean was never the same pitcher again.
However, prior to his injury, Dean was named the National League’s MVP in 1934, when he led the St. Louis Cardinals to the World Championship by becoming the last N.L. pitcher to win 30 games in a season. That year, Dean finished 30-7 with an ERA of 2.66, and led the league with 195 strikeouts and seven shutouts. He also finished runner-up in the MVP voting in each of the next two seasons. In 1935, he won 28 games while losing only 12, and, in 1936, he finished just behind Hubbell in the MVP voting after winning another 24 games during the regular season. In all, Dean led the league in wins twice, strikeouts four times, shutouts twice, complete games three times, and innings pitched three times.
Eddie Plank/Mordecai Brown
Both Plank and Brown were outstanding pitchers who began their careers at the turn of the last century. Neither man was considered to be the best pitcher in the game at any point during his career, but they were both among the five best pitchers in baseball for extended periods of time.