Sandy Koufax: What Could Have Been

By Asher B. Chancey, BaseballEvolution.com

 

 

Let’s play a game. I give you a certain Hall of Fame pitcher’s numbers over the course of a four season period early in his career, and you tell me who he is. Ready? Good.

 

Wins

Losses

IP

BB

SO

ERA

ERA+

11

11

158.7

105

131

4.48

92

8

6

153.3

92

173

4.05

104

8

13

175

100

197

3.91

102

18

13

255.7

96

269

3.52

124

14

7

184.3

57

216

2.54

143

Hmmm. That’s a tough one, no? Starts mediocrely, moves on to be rather solid. Need a hint? Okay, here is the mystery player’s next four seasons:

 

Wins

Losses

IP

BB

SO

ERA

ERA+

25

5

311

58

306

1.88

161

19

5

223

53

223

1.72

187

26

8

335.7

71

382

2.04

160

27

9

323

77

317

1.73

190

 

Ahhh. Now you get it! Those numbers belong to Sandy Koufax. Of course.

 

And Sandy’s next four seasons?

 

He had none.

 

Sandy retired at the age of 30 after that last fabulous year.

 

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am the king of “what could have been.” Look where I have Hank Greenberg ranked. Look at Addie Joss. I personally would have loved to have seen Sandy pitch in 1968, the greatest pitcher season of the modern era, which came in his second year out of baseball. I can imagine that his career ERA would have fallen significantly in just that one year.

 

However, he did not pitch that season. He did not pitch any more seasons. In short, Sandy had exactly four dominant seasons, and was frankly not a great pitcher in the seasons leading up to those four dominant ones. Consider:

 

-          despite his dominance from 1962 through 1966, Sandy’s career relative ERA is 131, which puts him right between Whitey Ford and Carl Hubbell, two pitchers who pitched significantly longer than Sandy, and ties him with Curt Schilling, a player who is not currently being considered for Top 100 status.

-          Sandy pitched 2324 innings in his career, which puts him 28 innings ahead of Pedro Martinez. Pedro’s relative ERA is 46 points better, his BB/K ratio is better, and his winning percentage is better.

 

In truth, the comparison to Joss is the most apt, because Joss and Koufax both pitched in eras, unlike Pedro’s, in which pitchers accumulated very high inning totals. Further, both pitcher’s careers ended at the age of 30, though Joss actually died while Koufax voluntarily left the game. Let’s have a look at their career totals:

Pitchers

Wins

Losses

Win%

IP

BB

SO

K/BB

ERA

ERA+

Addie Joss

160

97

.623

2327

364

920

2.527

1.89

142

Sandy Koufax

165

87

.655

2324.3

817

2396

2.93

2.76

131

 

Koufax has the obvious advantage in K/BB and WIN%, while Joss has the advantage in ERA and ERA+, but the two pitchers have remarkably similar careers. On my Top 100, I have Joss ranked about 20 points ahead of Koufax, which is not very drastic (I only have four pitchers ranked between them). I explain the gap between them in two ways. First, in Addie Joss’ worst year, his rookie year, he went 17-13 with a 2.77 ERA (124 ERA+) and 75/106 BB/K. In Koufax’s worst year, he 8-13 with a 3.91 ERA (102 ERA+) and 100/197 BB/K. In short, I value consistent greatness over 9 seasons over 4 dominant seasons and 4 mediocre seasons. Second, and this is a more subjective element, but Addie Joss died, while Koufax chose to retire. The subtext here is that Joss died of tubercular meningitus, a freak sort of thing that, in my opinion, would probably not occur today, or at least is preventable. There are actually several players whose careers were shortened because of routine injuries or illnesses which would have been treatable or preventable in the last 20 years (see George Sisler, Mickey Mantle, and any player to need ligament replacement surgery). Koufax, on the other hand, retired because he had grown tired of the daily routine through which he had to go in order to preserve an abused arm. Sure, the same argument could be made (that surgery would have fixed Koufax’s problem), but Koufax none the less chose to retire at his peak. Had he played on and suffered through a decline like most major leaguers, we would probably comapre him more to Ed “who’s Ed Walsh” Walsh. There is something to be said for chosing to retire versus being forced to retire. But again, this is a subjective element which could be argued forever.

 

Another point with respect to Koufax is one which Keith Olbermann made in his book with Dan Patrick The Big Show. His theory goes like this: what if Greg Maddux had retired after the 1995 season? If you recall, in 1995, Greg Maddux won his fourth straight Cy Young and was on a torrid run:

 

Wins

Losses

IP

BB

SO

ERA

ERA+

20

11

268

70

199

2.18

166

20

10

267

52

197

2.36

171

16

6

202

31

156

1.56

273

19

2

209.7

23

181

1.63

259

 

The idea is that it would not be a stretch to consider Greg Maddux the greatest pitcher of all time because of “what could have been.” Now, as it turned out, Maddux stayed pretty solid, winning 19 games in 3 of the next five seasons, and keeping his ERA in the twos for the next three years. Maddux as it turned out was in the middle of a pretty torrid seven year run. No one is arguing that Maddux is the greatest of all time, but he is one of the all time greats, which kinds of pokes a hole or two in Olbermann’s theory.

 

But the theory is still a relevant one which may be better demonstrated by the following player’s stats:

 

Wins

Losses

IP

BB

SO

ERA

ERA+

11

12

176.3

46

120

3.88

106

15

7

219.3

50

127

3.08

111

14

12

244.3

69

123

2.80

120

22

6

232.3

56

131

2.76

131

 

Give up? Those are the numbers of the 1990 Cy Young Award winner Doug Drabek, who after winning the award with a 22-6 record at the age of 27 would go on to win exactly 15 games in a season twice, and end up with a career mark of 155-134, with an ERA+ of 101. But if he had retired after his 22-6 season, we would be arguing forever about what could have been for years. Not that Drabek was Koufax, but you get the point. Here’s another:

 

Wins

Losses

IP

BB

SO

ERA

ERA+

13

12

199.3

78

200

3.43

102

14

13

247.3

54

191

3.53

112

20

8

268.3

71

162

2.99

138

17

10

246.7

59

150

2.99

148

 

Again, not Koufaxian, but the numbers do paint a picture of a pitcher who, at the tender age of 24, was figuring out how to pitch and was on his way to a brilliant career. After all, this pitcher was off to a fabulous start, winning 77 games by the age of 24, which would seem to have him on pace to annihilate 300 by the end of his career. If this guy would have retired after his 17-10 season, arguments would still rage today about how many wins he would have amassed. As it was, Dennis Eckersley would go on to win just 74 more games over the next 7 seasons, going 4 games under .500, before the A’s converted him into the dominant reliever of our generation.

 

Here’s the best example:

 

Wins

Losses

IP

BB

SO

ERA

ERA+

23

11

323

80

193

2.09

169

22

13

315

84

159

2.51

130

20

11

319

99

193

2.91

130

21

12

296

97

137

2.46

143

 

At the age of 32, this pitcher had 215 wins, needing just 85 more wins to reach the 300 mark. He was coming off of a stretch in which he had won 20 games in eight of the last nine seasons, with the middle season being plagued by injury. Just two years older than Koufax was when Koufax threw in the towel, this player had already had 9 really good seasons, compared to Koufax 5 or 6. If he had retired at age 32, there would be nary a soul who would not at least consider Jim Palmer to be the greatest pitcher of all time. But, as you can see from the BaseballEvolution.com Composite Top 100 list, Bill James did not feel it necessary to put Palmer in his Top 100, (nor did I for that matter, though I hate being compared with Bill James), while the other five lists place him in a range from 57 to 97. This is hardly a ringing endorsement. And with good reason: everyone got to see Palmer’s decline, as he would win 53 more games over his last six seasons, playing his last full season in 1982 at the age of 36.

 

None of this is to say that Koufax was not something special. He was. And none of this is to say that “what could have been” should never be considered when ranking players. Otherwise Roy Campanella and Addie Joss would not be on my list. In fact, Koufax himself would not be on the list if not for “what could have been.” Remember, Koufax had four dominant seasons, and a fifth really good one. If four dominant seasons were enough to place a player on the Top 100 list, without some element of “what could have been,” a couple of guys named Suzuki and Pujols would already be on the list.

 

Over the next few seasons, we will probably get to see the decline of Greg Maddux and, more dramatically, Pedro Martinez. It is the nature of sports to think about “what could have been” with respect to players who make early departures from their games. But as Pedro will no doubt show over the next four or five years, "what could have been" is not necessarily always “all that” and Sandy Koufax’s ranking amongst the all time great pitchers should really be based more on what he actually was, and less on what he might have been. More importantly, when we consider what he might have been, we must always keep in mind that it would not necessarily have been "more of the same." The fact is, had Koufax been able to play out his career for 6, 7, or 8 more years, he would have, like all pitchers, experienced the decline phase of his career, and that would have affected his overall ranking.