Steady as she Mows.

….them down!

Watching Joba get beat last night made me think about Mo. And thiking about Mo always leads me to the same internal debate, is Mariano Rivera the best pitcher I’ve ever seen? I think the answer is yes. Pedro was as sickeningly dominant in his prime, and he was a starter, which is almost inarguably a harder row to hoe.

Still, the all time leader in ERA plus is Pedro with and Adjusted ERA+ of 160. Mo’s is 196. The reason Mo is not the all time leader is that he hasn’t pitched enough career innings to qualify. But, that’s gonna change, probably this year. Mo has thrown 966 innings in his career, the cut off for qualifying is 1000 innings and 3000 batters faced, (Mo has faced 3879 batters,) so conceivably, by the end of this season, Mariano Rivera is gonna be the best pitcher of all time as judged by ERA+. What’s crazy is that it’s not like he’s gonna sneak past Pedro by a few points. We’re talking 36 points of ERA+. That is insane.

Still, he’s not a starter. So how can he be the greatest pitcher of all time? Starting pitchers are more valuable to their team, of that there can be no doubt. Also, starters have to navigate their way through the oppositions lineup 3+ times a game if they want to be really effective. Mo has to do it largely 3 or 4 batters at a time.

But still, Mo has been around forever, and he’s been dominant forever check out his ERA+ by season:

If you judge Mo by his own standards, he had a couple of “tough seasons” in the middle of his career, but what’s amazing to me is his consistency:

A dip in the middle, and then a marked resurgence, shows me that Mo made some adjustments along the way.

Just for fun, I did the same graph for Pedro’s career, and you’ll note a difference. Pedro’s chart peaks in the middle as one might expect. His 2000 season was really incredible as his ERA+ that season was 134 points higher than his career median.

What I take away from this, is that both pitchers have been historically excellent, and they’ve been excellent throughout their careers. Every season, and not really a bad one in the bunch by league standards. But Mo seems to me to be a bit steadier. His peaks aren’t that out of line with his career averages he’s just been machine-like for 13 seasons. Maybe it’s a stretch to say “best pitcher ever” but he’s damn close, and I don’t care how badass Joba is, if you expect him to somehow replace Mo, you’re going to be deeply disappointed.