How do you determine who is the best? After 5 seasons of Cobbfather baseball, one of the most commonly asked questions by fans is, who is the best pitcher the league has seen so far? I'm sure the owners of Cobbfather could discuss and argue for days about who the best pitcher of all time is. Let's skip that process and go straight to the numbers for now!
Here at the Koontz Gazette, we broke down some pitching numbers over the last 5 seasons. The categories we concentrated on were wins, earned run average, K's, winning percentage, and the number of quality starts. Here are the numbers!!
WINS
Tony Saunders- 87
Carl Sosa- 83
Barry Carew- 83
Shawn Creek- 81
Calvin Pong- 80
ERA
Carl Sosa- 2.58
Barry Carew- 2.84
Bronson Jefferies- 2.84
Tony Saunders- 3.02
Elvis Leon- 3.28
K'S
Shawn Creek- 1,004
Francis Munoz- 976
Pinky Matheson- 968
Tony Saunders- 921
Ken Evans- 906
WINNING %
Carl Sosa- .769
Bronson Jefferies- .750
Barry Carew- .748
Johnnie Decker- .723
Tony Saunders- .719
QUALITY STARTS
Tony Saunders- 123
Shawn Creek- 113
Francis Munoz- 111
Gordon Oliver- 109
Octavio Solano- 108
We are not saying these numbers prove who the best pitcher in the league is, but it could help clear up the situation. This is an article we will come back to in the future and continue adding to. There are a lot of great pitchers that I expect to make these lists in the next few years.
Now back to the numbers. One interesting thing we noticed right away is that there is only one pitcher who is in the top 5 in every category. That pitcher is Tony Saunders. Saunders is not clearly the best pitcher in the league thus far, but definatley a candidate. Saunders is currently 1st in wins, 4th in ERA, 4th in K's, 5th in winning percentage, and 1st in quality starts.
Another top candidate is Carl Sosa. Sosa ranks tied for 2nd in wins, 1st in ERA, 1st in wining percentage, but is not in the top 5 in K's or quality starts. He has 1 Cy Young Award.
Barry Carew is another candidate. Carew's numbers are right there with Sosa's. Carew is tied with Sosa for 2nd in wins. He is 2nd in ERA and 3rd in winning percentage. Just like Sosa, Carew wasn't in the top 5 for K's or quality starts.
The 4th candidate is Shawn Creek. There is no way that you can leave baseball's strikeout leader off the list. With 1,004 K's, Creek wasn't only the fastest to 1,000 K's, but the only pitcher with 1,000 K's. To go along with his strikeouts, Creek is 4th in wins, and 2nd in quality starts.
Our 5th and final candidate is Francis Munoz. The happy and very rich Munoz ranks 2nd in K's and 3rd in quality starts. With 2 Cy Yound Awards to go with his stats, we feel that Munoz is worthy of being a candidate.
Feel we missed a worthy candidate? TC us at Ekoontz41. Open to suggestions!
P.S. Yes Domi, we already know that you feel Ken Evans should be on the list. lol
