So true, though Ortiz did play in a high offense era which makes his winning a tad bit better than the others. But the dude averaged 16.5 wins from 99 to 04 and had WHIP’s over 1.5 in three of those years. Ugly.

That is fun question. To start, I selected only seasons where a pitcher had above average wins for a season and below average WHIP and ERA scores. This eliminates players that had poor tail ends to the career. Included thise last desolate years would skew career totals to such a great extent that some good pitchers would unfairly show up on the list.

We can break it up into different questions.

Who had the most points in wins despite ERA/WHIP scores below average? Charles Nagy won 58 games as starter in 4 years, but only had an average WHIP of 1.45 and an Average ERA of 4.71.

If four years isn’t enough for you, Mike Moore won 65 games in 5 years despite an Average WHIP of 1.48 and an Average ERA of 4.74.

Who had the biggest difference in ERA/WHIP points vs. Win points? Bobby Witt won 83 games in 7 qualifying years, his average WHIP was 1.58 and his average ERA was 4.91. Livan Hernandez is up there too: 59 wins in 5 years, WHIP of 1.53, ERA of 4.82.

For fun, some others who come out high on these lists: Jason Jennings (lets not hold it against him though, Coors field and all), Darren Oliver, Phil Niekro, Josh Fogg, Bob Walk, and Rick Sutcliffe.

One year wonder award goes to Storm Davis who won 19 games in 1989 despite a 1.51 WHIP and 4.36 ERA (3.70 lg Avg)

It’s funny, the difference between fantasy greatness and baseball greatness. With the recent injuries to Glavine and Smoltz, there has been much discussion regarding whether the two would be first-ballet Hall of Famers if they retired today. The consensus seems to be Smoltz probably and Glavine definitely. When you talk about Glavine, you’re talking about a 300 game winner and two time Cy Young winner. I didn’t think he’d be top 5, but I figured he had to be on the list and am shocked to hear he finished at #18.

Schilling is a guy I forgot about. Perhaps he rounds out the top 5? Pettitte (“Maybe he misremembers.”), Oswalt, and Halladay are others that come to mind, but I can’t imagine any of them make the list. Jack Morris and Mike Scott had some pretty good stretches as well. . . .

At any rate, really cool idea.

In your estimation, who is statistically the greatest FB pitcher due to mainly wins only but is/was notoriously a poor performer. Therefore, making him more lucky than good?

Anth.

Two things:
1) I give you all but Glavine. He was never a strikeout pitcher which hurts in fantasy baseball obviously (never got to 200) and what surprised me are his less than elite WHIP’s (one occurrence below 1.15). Overall, he’s ranked 18th.

2) Mussina, Hershiser, and Ryan. They miss because I had to draw the line somewhere. If I player scores 52 points their in. Hershisher has 51.9, Mussina 51.8, Ryan 51.5. Tight. In truth though, a full point separates the last HOF’er Cone and the next, Hershisher and it seemed like a natural point of separation.

Thanks for reading!