You're right it was Jim Kaat. I knew it was someone from the 70's but I wasn't sure if it was Kaat or Sutton. I think James' point was a excellent point and just a fascinating point on how we perceive things.

I've never really understood the Don Sutton bashing on sports talk radio or by mainstream baseball writers. I think it goes back to the end of his career the way he bounced around. But a big thing is the 20 win season and the over importance of round number milestones. Blyleven was bashed the same way for only having one 20 win season.

Yet the same main-stream people will include Whitey Ford and Nolan Ryan as two of the all time greats even though they never won 20 games more than twice in their careers.

If you switch 4 wins around Don Sutton's career he had 4 twenty win seasons. Switch 4 wins around Jerry Koosman's career and he had 4 twenty win seasons. Switch 2 wins around Luis Tiant's career and he had 5 twenty win seaons. Factor in the strike of '94-95 and Cone has 4 twenty win seasons.

I'm not sure if Bill James did that for Koosman, but he certainly did for Jim Kaat. The case was that you could turn Kaat into a HoFer by rearranging his wins. Sutton is already in the Hall and therefore needs no additional help.

@30 - being the worst 300-game winner is still pretty high praise. Carlton did not have a continuous period of dominance like Maddux or Pedro but he did post one of the 5 or 10 greatest seasons of all time in 1972. His career ranks somewhere around the 15-25th best of all time.

Excellent point, I think the Dodgers started with the first 5 rotation around 1972, so that cost Sutton something like 3-4 extra starts each season. Also it's not like he missed 20 win seasons by much. He had one 20 win season, two 19 win seasons, one 18 win season and three 17 win seasons. He only missed Four 20 seasons by 4 wins so it's not like it's really a big deal. I think sports people get too hung up on round number milestones.

I think Bill James did something like this by taking away four wins from other seasons in Sutton's career and then adding them to the two 19 win seasons and the one to the 18 win season. It didn't really change anything but suddenly visually he looked like a much better pitcher.

I think he did the same thing with Jerry Koosman. Koosman had two 20 win seasons and a 19 and a 17 win season. He moved around 4 games and suddenly Koosman was a 4 time 20 game winner. Although nothing had really changed in his value he suddenly looked like a much better pitcher.

And like you said Carlton was a workhorse so he was able to spike his win total by 2-3 wins which was just enough for him to win the Cy Young in '77 & 82 or to have a 20 win season in '76.

Jim, I think you're being a little limited in focusing only on the times Carlton led the league. Even when he didn't lead the league, he was often right among the leaders. I don't know how you can call his strikeouts unimpressive when he ranked in the top 5 of K/9 eleven times (only four pitchers have ever topped that). He actually had four seasons of a 3:1 K/BB ratio, and only five pitchers had more from 1965-1985, a time when 2:1 was considered good. As for his ERA+, the median HOF starter since 1920 pitched about 3900 IP with a 119 ERA+. Carlton had a 121 over 4700 IP from 1967 through '84. That's an entire career right there. He just had a few more seasons at each end of it.

Interesting to see that Sutton never pitched 300 IP in a season during an era when so many did. Of course, the Dodgers were (I think) the first team to move to a 5-man rotation, and Sutton never missed a start in his career.

Steve Carlton didn't really become "STEVE CARLTON" until the 1980 season and then basically from 1980-1983.

I think Carlton was better than Sutton but that really isn't as wide as people believe it to be.

To me Carlton had basically a Tommy John type career with two (1972, 1980) Sandy Koufax seasons right in the middle.

I think overall you're a bit too hard on Carlton. Yes he did have a 115 era+ but some of that came from a poor decision on his part to continue pitching from 1984-1988 especially 1986-1988. He also had about 8 seasons in his career from 1967-1984 when he was a pretty average pitcher with WAR scores ranging from 2.1-2.9.

On the flip side when he was good he was dominate. His top 7 seasons of era+ are impressive: 182, 164, 162, 156, 153, 151, and 126. His top 7 seasons of WAR are equally impressive: 12.2, 9.4, 7.2, 5.8, 5.7, 5.5, and 5.4. It should be noted that the 5.4 season came during the strike of '81.

He was a dominate K pitcher as well. He had 8 seasons in the Top 3 in K/9, 11 seasons in the top 5 in K/9, and 16 seasons in the top 10 in K/9.

Like Twisto said before it's an odd career for a elite pitcher.

During the mid 70's Carlton was never viewed as one of the great pitchers in the sport. He was seen as kind of a flakey pitcher who was good/very good and that he had an unbelievable flukey 1972 season.

The big/popular pitchers of the mid 70's were: Seaver, Hunter, Palmer Ryan, Sutton, Messersmith, Blue, Perry, Tiant, P. Niekro, R. Jones, Koosman, and Matlack.

Sutton was a very big pitcher of the time period and frankly I don't really understand why he's derided as some sort of mediocre pitcher that stubbled into the HOF. He won over 320 games and had 3500 k's. He led the N.L. in Whip 4 times, finished in the top 10 in K/BB 16 times, top 10 in k's 13 times, top 10 in k/9 12 times, and top 10 in BB/9 13 times.

Maybe it had something to do with the end of his career and that he bounced around 6 different teams in 9 seasons (1980-1988) Dodgers, Astros, Brewers, A's, Angels, and Dodgers again.

Maybe it something to do with his post-season career from '78-86. Maybe it something to do with only winning 20 games once? I never really understand the whole 20 win season/HOF thing when Whitey Ford only won 20 games twice and he's often regarding by the same people as one of the all time greats.

well, i've only recently (past 4 years) became a serious baseball fan, and as a rockies fan, i hate the phillies with a passion, which may have something to do with it, i'll admit. so, lets see, what do i not like about carlton: my favorite statistic for pitcher valuation is K/BB, it's where i look first for anyone, and carlton only has 3 seasons with a mark over 3, and i find that extremely unimpressive for someone with as much love as he gets in many circles. i know K/BB wasn't a thing that pitchers really excelled in until more recently than carlton pitched, given the historical journey the strikeout rate has taken. even so, he only had 2 seasons in which he led the league, and neither was tops in MLB. similarly, he only has 2 ERA+ titles, which perhaps not coincidentally, occurred in his K/BB title years of 72 and 80. but he didn't win the ERA title in 80, which is odd, because he led the league in ERA+, K/BB, K, W, IP, and starts, but lost to don sutton (grr) and his 2.20 mark.
carlton was never a postseason hero, with 16 starts, a 6-6 record, and only 1 complete game, in which he gave up 4 runs; you'd think a guy with his pedigree would be able to kick it up a notch in the postseason, but nope.
his career 115 ERA+ is frankly a joke for someone in the hall of fame, as it's tied for 195th all time. an 87 career ERA- and 86 career FIP- are similarly unimpressive.
outside the years he spent leading the league in Ks, 72 74 80 82 83, his K numbers are very unimpressive given how many innings he threw.
he's 9th all time in HR allowed, with 414. ew.
never once did he lead the league in WHIP, only once with a total below 1.000
only once did he lead the league in shutouts, and that was only with 6.

there's other things too. I just add it all up and it screams unimpressive. he's a lot like nolan ryan: yeah, i guess he should be in the hall of fame, but there's lots of other pitchers i'd take in an 'any given start' situation.

Please get the Orwellian terminology right. Newstats.

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i've never thought much of steve carlton, i dont know who was a worse 300-game winner, him or don sutton

Wow, I've never heard Carlton described like that. When I was a blooming young fan in about 1983, I remember being aware of Four Big Pitchers: Carlton, Palmer, Ryan, and Seaver. Not that they were equivalent or necessarily the 4 best of that era, but as a youth who was just learning about the game, somehow those names got into my head. From my current perspective, albeit as one who didn't see those guys in their prime, I can say Seaver seems clearly the best. Ryan was probably the worst, but perhaps the most fascinating. Palmer was a great one but it's hard to say how much the super Orioles defenses affected his performance. And then Carlton, as mentioned, was a bit up and down, but had the amazing '72 season, the 4 CYAs, jockeyed for the all-time K record with Ryan. Sutton didn't win any CYAs and never came close. He's the guy I hear considered a "compiler" whose career was eventually just too much to overlook for the HOF. I've never thought of Carlton as similar. Can you expand on that at all?

has anyone looked in to the defenses carlton had behind him? his BABIP and LOB% fluctuate wildly through the years. mike schmidt manned 3B behind him for many, many years, but who else was there?

WAR (a very rough estimate) says his defenses were about average over his career. Terrible with the early '70s Cards, good through most of the '70s with the Phillies. Those Phillies also had Maddox, who was superb, Bowa was solid, Boone behind the plate was good. Luzinski was terrible. It looks like generally an above-average bunch, and that's how Total Zone rates them.

BABIP does tend to fluctuate for all pitchers, which is why it was once thought they had no impact on it, though they do have some.

has anyone looked in to the defenses carlton had behind him? his BABIP and LOB% fluctuate wildly through the years. mike schmidt manned 3B behind him for many, many years, but who else was there?