There should be a hotline for former star athletes to call. They would use it just for emergencies, just for those moments when they have this interesting thought but are not sure if they should make that thought public.

In what even vaguely plausible situation would Goose Gossage call a hotline that he is supposed to call when he is unsure if he should make one of his thoughts public?

Gossage is obviously a cranky old crank if there ever was one. Nonetheless, I don't think he's wrong at all about the difficulty in comparing relief aces across eras, since they just obviously pitch in different roles. I think the current usage is something closer to optimal, and Gossage stated that he agrees. I really just don't see any great way to be able to compare Gossage to Mo to Hoyt Wilhelm. I know I'd like any of them in their prime pretty damned well, but I don't know which one is actually the best. I'm a bit of a Rivera fanboy and place a lot of emphasis on his postseason, which makes me lean towards him, but I don't think Gossage is wrong to answer honestly when asked whether he thinks Rivera's the best.

And as far as the ease of pitching one inning—Gossage has called it easy in the past—the Goose pitched exactly one inning 249 times in his career. His ERA in those outings: 3.75…

We'll there is probably a large part of selection bias going on here. A number of those starts were probably limited to 1 inning, because Gossage was stinking up the joint, and the manager thinking he needed to get somebody else in there.

I'll let somebody else do the grunt work on that. After coming dangerously close to defending Gossage here, I need to go take a 2 hour shower.

We'll there is probably a large part of selection bias going on here. A number of those starts were probably limited to 1 inning, because Gossage was stinking up the joint, and the manager thinking he needed to get somebody else in there.

And/or they were very late in his very long career, when he was hanging on and hanging on as just another guy, long after he had ceased to be the Goose Gossage that's relevant to any such analysis.

I really think some people voted Goose in hopes that he would finally shut up. Nope, just moved on to other topics.

In what even vaguely plausible situation would Goose Gossage call a hotline that he is supposed to call when he is unsure if he should make one of his thoughts public?

You could tell the players that a reporter was on the other end of the line.

Yes but could Goose do it with just one type of pitch? Mariano's Cutter will retire along with him. Has there ever been an out pitch more dominant? Maddux' Circle Change?

Has there ever been an out pitch more dominant?

Maybe Wilhelm's knuckleball? I sure wasn't around to see it, but it must have been excellent.

The best strikeout pitch I've ever personally watched is Johnson's slider, but I'm not sure I'd say it was a better out pitch.

Maybe Wilhelm's knuckleball? I sure wasn't around to see it, but it must have been excellent.

I heard Rico Petrocelli talking about Wilhelm on XM radio this weekend, he called it a hard (fast) knuckler. When asked about comparing it to Dickey, he said Dickey throws it much harder, but emphasized that Wilhelm was much faster than Wakefield or Wilbur Wood.

For Rivera to match Gossage in the basic numbers, he would have had to pitch 278 more innings—all those multiple innings that Gossage pitched—and he would have to allow 201 more (a tidy 6.51 ERA). He would have had to walk 350 or so batters in those innings, while allowing 42 home runs. And he would have had to do all that in a much lower scoring run environment. I’m guessing here, of course, but I think he could have managed it.

Not the most apt comparison by Posnanski. Shouldn't it be some number of 2 and 3 inning appearances Rivera would have not pitch, not just total innings?

Mariano's Cutter will retire along with him. Has there ever been an out pitch more dominant? Maddux' Circle Change?

I've been trying to search for a batters survey I saw circa 2000 or 2001 but I can't seem to find it now. The intriguing thing is I still remember the highlights of the results:

MLB batters were asked what was the single nastiest pitch to hit - the one that really made you look stupid - like I said, this was around 2000 or 2001 - can't remember if it was ESPN or SI or whomever that ran the survey, but here were the leaders:

1)Single nastiest pitch #1 (2 tied for the most votes from batters) - Mariano Rivera's cutter
1A) Single nastiest pitch #1 also went to Trevor Hoffman's changeup

Interesting that it was two closers who tied for the single nastiest pitch to hit

The pitcher who actually received the most votes overall didn't win for single nastiest pitch - speaking of nasty, Randy Johnson's "Mr. Nasty" (as he referred to his slider) received a lot of votes, as did his fastball. Neither pitch was the individual leader but he just missed leading with both pitches and therefore received the most total votes of any pitcher.

But the really eye-opening number was "3" - as in Pedro Martinez had 3 different pitches receive some votes, although he didn't receive the most total votes overall. Pedro's fastball, slider and changeup all received some votes. When you're a batter and a pitcher has 3 different pitches that can totally befuddle you, you just have no chance at all, which pretty much describes how dominant Pedro was at the time.

If anyone can find a link to this survey it would be appreciated, or if there has been a survey done more recently I would be curious to see the results.

Yes, I was going to put Pedro's fastball as an example but immediately thought of his devastating change. Maddux sure did get a lot of outs with his, though.

If anyone can find a link to this survey it would be appreciated, or if there has been a survey done more recently I would be curious to see the results.

Here you go, Moeball.

Randy Johnson's "Mr. Nasty" (as he referred to his slider)

I always thought it was called "Mr. Snappy" </nitpick>

Yeah this is classic stat abuse by Poznanski. Something he's been quite willing to do in the past. On the other hand I agree that Gossage is a jackass. So we all win!

Has there ever been an out pitch more dominant

steve carlton slider
bruce sutter's pitch
mario soto's changeup
camilo pascual's curveball

"this is classic stat abuse by Posnanski."

so true, with several examples here.

Posnanski seems to be following the Eddie Mathews/Ernie Banks route of sportswriting. Great early in his career and then...

Has there ever been an out pitch more dominant?

Judging by the results? No.

steve carlton slider
bruce sutter's pitch
mario soto's changeup
camilo pascual's curveballss

All of those pitches were just as devastating as Rivera's cutter, on the days and the years that those pitchers could control them. And to those you can add plenty of other pitches by plenty of other pitchers. The problem is that none of those pitchers were even close to being as consistent as Mo was over the course of their careers. Probably the best example of an impossible pitch in a long career would be Nolan Ryan's heater, but since his control over that pitch came and went with practically each and every game, on many days batters had the option of simply waiting for a walk. They could almost never do that with Mo.

You can rightly say there are many good reasons for Rivera's dominance, mainly the fact that he usually only had to go through the lineup once, but that's another story. And anyway, it's not as if most batters didn't know exactly what they were going to be getting the next time they faced him.

Posnanski seems to be following the Eddie Mathews/Ernie Banks route of sportswriting. Great early in his career and then...

So, you're saying he was good at first...?

Yeah this is classic stat abuse by Poznanski.

Posnanski's basic point is, "Gossage seems to say the difference between him and Mo is largely on IP, but the difference in quality is probably a greater issue than that of quantity. Sure, quantity affects quality, but for Mo to equalize with Goose he's need to perform about as bad as the Yankees' worst reliever for all those additional innings. IOW it seems easy for Mo to do what Goose did, not the other way around." That seems like a fine back-of-the-envelope use of stats to me.

Meh, for many reasons. Gossage pitched past one inning many times, and second time thru the lineup would seem more problematic - especially for Rivera, I'd speculate. And Rivera not only rarely pitches more than 1 IP, if he does he's likely to sit out the next day whereas Gossage might have pitched again right away. Rivera was deliberately used to maximize his stat dominance - arguably even to the detriment of his team at times, though that's not a slam-dunk case.

Blown saves also is a weak comparison because Rivera NEVER comes into games with the tying run on base. Well, he did in a very memorable postseason game and got charged with a technical 'blown save' that is very misleading in the closer stat-protective modern era, as his supporters rightly point out. Well, 1970s managers weren't as obsessed with protecting SV pcts as they were, um, winning games. Torre grasped this well in that postseason game, but bubble-wrapped Mariano in regular seasons (not necessarily bad, but it hurts comparisons to other eras).

I seem to remember seeing a survey in which Pedro's "slider" received votes for most difficult pitch to hit . . . except that Pedro didn't throw one of those.

Has there ever been an out pitch more dominant

steve carlton slider
bruce sutter's pitch
mario soto's changeup
camilo pascual's curveball

I'd still have Rivera's cutter over all those. It was just flat out unhittable for a long period of time.

But other good ones would be Glavine's cutter, Mike Scott's splitter, Blyleven's curve, and Randy Johnson's slider.

i guess folks are tying dominance to duration.

i was thinking only in terms of a pitch that everyone in the ballpark knew was coming and the batter still did not do anything positive

and yet somehow i think that steve carlton's 5000 odd innings hold up pretty well against rivera's innings

given the varying interpretations this could be argued into the ground with no real answer

but peak for peak i put sutter's pitch right there with rivera

career vs career i think carlton has a claim. his slider was 'the' out pitch used in highlights for almost a decade. only guidry came close as for a contemporary

my weirdo candidate is sid fernandez' fastball. he didn't throw a hard fastball. he just had an odd motion all the way around coupled with the distraction of seeing what looked to be a trained water buffalo throw a baseball. fernandez may not have led the world in swing and miss third strikes but boy it seemed like it

i thought about listing whitey's (alteration of choice) ball but didn't want to send andy into a frenzy

What's always impressed me about Mo's cutter is that batters know it's coming and even know the general area of the plate it's directed at (middle in) and still can't do anything with it.

I have a somewhat contrarian impression of Rivera, based entirely on my totally Texas-centric view of baseball. Over his career the Rangers have hit .252/.304/.333, which is obviously not very good, but compared to his hilarious career line of .210/.262/.290, not all that bad, relatively speaking. Only the Angels, at .267/.303/.375, have done better – and as a vast generalization, I'd characterize both the Rangers and the Angels of the past 15-20 years as being contact hitters rather than take-and-rakers (numerous individual exceptions apply). It has often seemed to me that one can hit Rivera at a somewhat human level by going with the pitch and not caring much about how hard you'll hit it; the Diamondbacks worked that best on a famous single occasion in '01.

Not to knock Rivera in the slightest; as I say, he's been excellent even against the teams that have hit him best. But I've seen a somewhat toned-down version of him. And that's regular-season only, needless to say. In the postseason, the Rangers have never scored on Rivera, in 14 innings. In that respect he reminds me of Andy Pettitte, who has been completely mortal against Texas in the regular season but has kicked their butts in October. even including his loss in '10.

######### or not, what an awesome freakin reliever Gossage was.

From 77-85, as a reliever he had a batting line against of .201/.271/.289 .559 OPS, and a sOPS+ of 59

I heard Rico Petrocelli talking about Wilhelm on XM radio this weekend, he called it a hard (fast) knuckler. When asked about comparing it to Dickey, he said Dickey throws it much harder, but emphasized that Wilhelm was much faster than Wakefield or Wilbur Wood.

Wake threw it about 65-68. Dickey averages 77, but sometimes throws it as hard as 80-82. I guess that puts Wilhelm around 71-74.

i thought about listing whitey's (alteration of choice) ball but didn't want to send andy into a frenzy

Why HW, are you casting aspersions upon the Baseball Honor of Hall of Famer Whitey Ford?

(Seriously though, didn't know he was reputed to doctor the ball. Is this a 'known' thing or is it just you pulling Andy's chain?)

that batters know it's coming and even know the general area of the plate it's directed at (middle in) and still can't do anything with it.

that is the precise definition of carlton and to a lesser extent guidry's slider.

eso:

it is a known thing. whitey discusses it openly or at least used to. he became a heavy practitioner in either 60 or 62

that is the precise definition of carlton and to a lesser extent guidry's slider.

Both those guys threw other pitches and changed location. Mo throws the same pitch, to the same basic spot, over and over again.

i thought about listing whitey's (alteration of choice) ball but didn't want to send andy into a frenzy

Are you kidding? I'd have been in much more of a frenzy if Whitey hadn't come up with that scuffer.

Now that dirty cheating Lew Burdette---that's another story!

andy

do i have the timeframe about right?

But other good ones would be Glavine's cutter 6 inches off the outside corner for a called strike,

FFY

(Seriously though, didn't know he was reputed to doctor the ball. Is this a 'known' thing or is it just you pulling Andy's chain?)

Among other things, he used a sharpened wedding ring, or had Elston Howard cut it on his shin pads.

Of course what steams me about that dirty cheating Lew Burdette is that he was in the Yanks' farm system and they let him get away.

andy

do i have the timeframe about right?

I believe that 1960-62 is right on the money wedding ring.

my weirdo candidate is sid fernandez' fastball. he didn't throw a hard fastball. he just had an odd motion all the way around coupled with the distraction of seeing what looked to be a trained water buffalo throw a baseball. fernandez may not have led the world in swing and miss third strikes but boy it seemed like it

When he was young his fastball was lively enough, but his motion made it look like the ball was coming out of his shirt. In his home uniform, it was a small white ball coming at you around ~90 MPH out of a vast field of white. It must have been a nightmare trying to pick it up visually.

Carlton's slider was incredible. I have a distinct memory of Willie McGee - who was a pretty decent hitter - swinging at three straight sliders and missing them all by about a foot. It's hard to make a direct comparison with Rivera's cutter, but I suspect that if all Carlton had been asked to do was come in and throw ten of those sliders in the ninth inning every couple of days, he'd have done all right.

Jeff Nelson's slider always looked unhittable to me, too, but I guess he couldn't always keep it in the strike zone.

good

yup. but i vividly recall sid's average fastball being around 87/88 mph. and everyone being amazed that batters couldn't "catch up"

my weirdo candidate is sid fernandez' fastball. he didn't throw a hard fastball. he just had an odd motion all the way around coupled with the distraction of seeing what looked to be a trained water buffalo throw a baseball. fernandez may not have led the world in swing and miss third strikes but boy it seemed like it



When he was young his fastball was lively enough, but his motion made it look like the ball was coming out of his shirt. In his home uniform, it was a small white ball coming at you around ~90 MPH out of a vast field of white. It must have been a nightmare trying to pick it up visually.

he's 3rd all-time in fewest hits per 9 innings

Has there ever been an out pitch more dominant

Derick Jeter's gift basket?

my weirdo candidate is sid fernandez' fastball. he just had an odd motion all the way around coupled with the distraction of seeing what looked to be a trained water buffalo throw a baseball.

This made me laugh, thanks! As a Mets fan since the 70's and even today (I am unsure why) Sid was unique...trained water buffalo, LOL!!

And I kept drafting him on my Rotis team and he'd never help me in wins but those H&BB; per 9 were quite nice!

As a kid I thought Tom Gordon's curveball was unhittable. Adam Wainwright had a pretty unhittable curve in 2006.

Jeff Nelson's slider always looked unhittable to me, too, but I guess he couldn't always keep it in the strike zone.

Agree with this. Another reliever like that - Mike MacDougal. He made some hitters look ridiculous his rookie year. Just couldn't throw strikes with any regularity.

#13 Thanks, village, knew it was out there somewhere.

#14 ajn - U R absolutely correct - that was my senile mind misremembering what Johnson's slider was nicknamed.

#22 and here I've done it also, "remembering" Pedro's slider as getting votes when, in reality, it was his curve.

I've heard Mike Schmidt say the most difficult pitch for him to hit was Nolan Ryan's fastball.
#2 on Schmidt's list was Nolan Ryan's curve. Therein lies the problem - on the days Nolan struggled with his control (often, sadly), he was only decent. On the days he could hit the corners with the hook, however, he was just otherworldly and mesmerizing to watch. I think back in the Abstract days Bill James basically described it as follows - if Ryan issues 5 or more walks, you can get to him and beat him. If, on the other hand, he gives up only 3 walks or fewer in a game, you have no chance.

Back when Barry Zito was good, his curve would buckle my knees while I sat on the couch. Even then, he didn't consistently have it, but when he did it was the nastiest pitch I've seen.

I never got to see Blyleven in his prime, but from what I read it was similar.

In his home uniform, it was a small white ball coming at you around ~90 MPH out of a vast field of white.

Fernandez did have a huge home/road split in his career: 67-40 with a 2.73 ERA at home, 47-56 with a 4.05 ERA on the road. A lot of that is Shea Stadium, but he also pitched for other teams, and was always better at home than on the road.