So how good is Pedro Martinez?

As a New York Mets fan I can't help but marvel at the acquisition and the performance of Pedro Martinez this season. True, many doubted whether giving Pedro a 4-year deal given his age, loss of velocity, and recent injuries was a wise move by the Metsies, but so far the investment is paying off. It got me thinking--just exactly how good is Pedro? It seems to me that his antics over the years (the midgtet mascot, the Don Zimmer throw down, the threat to peg the Bambino in his *ss, etc.) has to some extent lessened the apprecatiation for just how dominant a pitcher Pedro has been in his era and historically. So following Patrick's lead on the trustworthiness of statistics in baseball (a position I firmly agree with and endorse), I ran the numbers. What they seem to say is that even I underestimated just how good Pedro Martinez is. Arguably, he is the best ever...I tried to take the most relevant stats that are representative of individual performance for a pitcher (e.g. ERA, WHIP (walks+hits/innings pitched), strike outs/9 innings) as well as average number of wins per season and winning percentage (so as to normalize the statistics). As far as active pitchers go (those that pitched in 2004 and have over 1000 innings pitched), Pedro is number 1 in ERA (2.71), number 1 in winning percentage (.705), and tied for second in K's/9 innings (10.4). As if that wasn't enough, I ran some statistics which paired Pedro up against modern pitchers as well as all pitchers going back to 1871 (again, with at least 1000 IP's). His dominance gets even scarier...

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Filed as: Pedro Martinez, Baseball, Pitching, Statistics