OK, DL is right. I can't extrapolate Newcombe to 4600 IP. I wasn't clear. With reasonable credit, Newcombe's prime is in Robin Roberts territory. I define prime as all those not necessarily consecutive seasons in which a pitcher is ? 100 OPS+ and ERA eligible.

For Newcombe that means adding 1947 and 1948, plus 1952 and 1953 and 1954. Half of 1954, he was still in the military. And I also posit that he would not have thrown a 90 ERA+ in 1954 had he been active continuously. Plus Chris gave him 126 IP in 1946, not enough to call it a prime year but 126 IP.

Add it all up and I get about 3170 IP, not 2900. And I get 12 prime seasons to Roberts' 11 prime seasons. It's also true that Roberts averaged 281 IP in those 11 seasons, Newk averaged 233 for his 12 prime seasons.

I don't think I was being hyperbolic, but I wasn't clear. Newcombe's prime with reasonable credit is just as long as Robin Roberts'.

Billy Pierce is of course a better comp. Pierce had 14 prime seasons with an average of 221 IP and a total of 3360 IP. His career OPS+ is 119 (Roberts 113, Newcombe 114 though it comes up a point or two if you posit that he would have been better than a 90 OP+ pitcher but for the 2.5 year military lay-off).

Warren Spahn is of course not a comp with any of these guys. Except if you look at his overlap with them--which is to say, if his ERA+ 98 in 1960 had indicated a final decline, if he hadn't preternaturally bounced back for 3 more prime seasons, 2 of them with 20+ wins. Then you'd have 13 prime seasons (Roberts 11-Newk 12-Spahn 13-Pierce 14) with an average of 282 IP.

Then there's Whitey Ford who actually is a comp with the Roberts-Newk-Pierce group, though a bit younger. Ford had 12 prime seasons with an average of 234 IP. He was of course more effective at 133 OPS+. But his career total of 3170 IP is pretty much identical to Newcombe's adjusted total.

So anyway, when you look at the great pitchers of the 1950s, Newcombe's record is hardly out of place at all.

Spahn 412 WS
Roberts 339
Wynn 309
Newcombe 264
Ford 261
Pierce 248
Lemon 232

The next best career total WS among pitchers with 100 WS in the 1950s are Wilhelm with 256 and Curt Simmons at 210. So I don't think I'm skipping anybody.

Newcombe's IP is > Lemon and = Ford and 200 IP short of Pierce. His ERA+ is > Roberts and Wynn, and within 5 points of Pierce, Spahn and Lemon.

Newcombe is arguably the weakest of the 5, but he is more like this group than he is like the next best group of pitchers from the 1950s, which is Simmons, Garcia, Ned Garver, Murry Dickson, Maglie, Burdette, Haddix, the guys who also earned more than 100 WS in the decade.

The question of course is whether he was better than pitchers from other decades--Dean, Walters, Saberhagen, etc. I think he's got them all beat on career length, oddly enough. Walters ends up with 3100 IP (at 115 OPS+) but just 7 prime seasons. As a peak voter, of course, I like them all. But I think Newk is there and Walters, in a very superficial sense (career totals, as opposed to career shape), is another pretty close comp.

bump

Without the war and without racism, Newcombe would have a peak run, I think, of 1948 to 1956

From Roger Kahn's _A Season in the Sun_ quoting Don Newcombe's Senate testimony pp105-106
"Mr. Chairman, my drinking started when I was eight. When I joined the Dodgers, my consumption increased tremendously...."
"After my biggest season with the Dodgers - in 1956 I won twenty-seven games - I went to Japan with the team. i was so constantly drunk I couldn't pitch a game. The following year I went into a prolonged slump. I dropped back into the minor leagues."