Saturday, September 8, 2012

Pedro Martinez: Hall of Famer

Let me start off by saying I'm incredibly bias about this subject. As a Red Sox and National/Expos fan watching Pedro pitch was the most amazing thing ever. But does that make him a Hall of Famer...yes. Not only was Pedro fun to watch, he was the best at his craft. By the numbers he had some of the best seasons as a starter and the best season in the Modern Era. 2000 was that year. He had an ERA of 1.74, 284 strikeouts (Lead the American League), a WHIP of 0.737, a strikeout rate of 11.8 per nine innings and a strikeouts to walk ratio of 8.88. His ERA was 3.18 points lower than league average and 1.96 points lower than the second place ERA. You add in the fact that he had an ERA+ of 291, which was the best of the Modern Era. Only one person had a better ERA+ and he only pitch 100 innings in 1884. But one season isn't enough to make the Hall of Fame so let's go over the other achievements. He lead the Majors in ERA five times. Lead the American League in Strikeouts three times. Has three Cy Young awards. He should have had two more, but the writers looked at who had the most wins, not the best overall numbers. But when you watched Pedro he made batters, good batters, look awkward. He wasn't junk pitcher like Greg Maddux or a power pitcher like Randy Johnson, he was his own. He had the electric fastball, the nasty curve, an brutal 2-Seamer and the Bugs Bunny change up. Pedro showed he was the best in 1999 at the All-Star Game when he struck out Barry Larkin, Larry Walker, Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire, then struck out Jeff Bagwell two batters later. On multiple occasion he almost threw perfect games, sadly there was always one mistake when he did. But for his overall career he has a below 3 ERA, over 3000 strikeouts, over 200 wins, the highest career starter ERA+ and a strikeout rate of 10.0 per nine innings. Pedro Martinez is a lock for Hall of Fame in my opinion.

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