Top 20 pitcher seasons in 50 years

— -- In an era of dominant pitching, Clayton Kershaw has clearly established himself as the game's most dominant pitcher. With only a few starts remaining, the Dodgers' ace has become the leading candidate for the National League MVP award, an honor no NL pitcher has won since Bob Gibson in 1968.

But how great is Kershaw's season? One way to find out is to rank the top 20 pitcher seasons of the past 50 years.

Ranking the best seasons isn't as easy as looking at Wins Above Replacement. Although WAR adjusts for era and ballpark, which WAR do you use? For example, Baseball-Reference.com, which focuses more on runs allowed, ranks Dwight Gooden's 1985 season tied for first overall since 1965 at 12.1 WAR, but FanGraphs, which emphasizes strikeouts, walks and home runs, ranks it 33rd at 8.7 WAR.

Instead of picking one over the other, I used the average WAR between Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs. Also helpful was a series of articles Bill James wrote earlier this year; he devised a way to evaluate pitchers on a start-by-start basis, factoring in things like park, opponent and era, and graded each start on a scale of 1 to 10.

While durability was important in my evaluation, dominance was a necessity. I also studied the peripherals and tried to balance the different eras of the past 50 years. Finally, postseason performance was also considered; after all, a season doesn't end after game No. 162.

For each pitcher, a quote from that season is included (unless otherwise cited), along with my own commentary.

Note: K% = K/9 rate compared to the league average; ERA+ = ERA adjusted for home park and league context.

What makes him all the more treacherous is that Martinez offers no clue as to what's coming. Every pitch is thrown with his hand in the same release slot and with the same arm speed. What you think is a 97 mph heater leaving his fingertips may be an 83 mph curveball that can turn the bravest hitter's knees into gelatin, or it may be a 77 mph changeup that breaks like a hyperactive screwball. Those, too, have their own DNA, and you'd better be quick to decode their spin. The changeup is particularly perplexing. Martinez varies the speed and break of the pitch -- he can make it wiggle six to eight inches, generally saving the biggest break for two-strike situations -- by adjusting the pressure on the ball from his fingers. -- Tom Verducci, Sports Illustrated

I'm pretty confident that no pitcher has reached the heights of 1999-2000 Pedro Martinez, when he dominated during the peak of the steroid era. In 1999, the average AL team scored 5.18 runs per game, nearly a run more per game than in 2014. Pedro allowed 2.36 runs per nine innings. Under the Bill James method, Pedro had one bad game in 1999 (he allowed nine runs in one start). He allowed three runs or fewer in 27 of his other 29 starts and fanned 14 or more eight times. His strikeout rate of 13.2 per nine innings was 113 percent higher than the league average of 6.2 and he allowed just nine home runs.

Then, in the playoffs, he delivered one of the most memorable outings in postseason history. After starting and leaving Game 1 of the Division Series against Cleveland with a back injury, Martinez miraculously returned in relief in Game 5 -- he would say later he put his career on the line -- with the score tied 8-8 and pitched six hitless innings. He then beat Roger Clemens in Game 3 of the ALCS with seven scoreless innings (although the Yankees won the series).

You can nitpick his durability, but that's how great he was: Even pitching just 213 innings, it's the best season of the past 50 years.

He is by fact, the great pitcher of our day ... and he's a gift or reward of some sort for old fans who sometimes turn their gaze away long before the latest home run has begun to bend in its arc and, duh, come back down again. -- Roger Angell, The New Yorker

It's actually difficult to pick between the two seasons. Pedro's batting average allowed (.167) and adjusted ERA (291) from 2000 are both the best since 1965. If you average the WAR from Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs, both seasons come out at 10.8.

National League batting champion Tony Gwynn of the San Diego Padres, told that Gooden was working on a changeup to go with his fastball and curve, said if he ever got one, Gooden would pitch a game someday where "nobody touches the ball." This is preposterous, but Gooden inspires the outrageous. -- Thomas Boswell, The Washington Post

Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog had a quote early in September: "There's only one MVP in the National League, and that's Dwight Gooden." Somehow, Gooden finished just fourth in the voting. He allowed four runs on Opening Day and did that just once more the rest of the season (a five-run outing in August). He tossed 16 complete games and eight shutouts. He was Dr. K and I remember we got cable TV that year and stayed up late all summer to watch "SportsCenter," just to see the highlights of Gooden pitching.

"I still have a bad temper, but it's something I try to control. Every year for the last four or five years, ever since I started to win, I could always think back to five or six ball games that I didn't win because I got mad out there and lost control of myself. But every year this has happened less and less. Used to be I'd be out of a ball game before I was in it. I'd get in trouble in the first two innings and I'd lose my head and try to throw harder." -- Sandy Koufax, in Sports Illustrated

To some extent, Koufax benefited a great deal from time and place -- the pitcher's era, the especially high mound at Dodger Stadium (he had a 1.38 ERA at home in 1965, 2.72 on the road and, in a nearly equal number of innings, gave up 18 of his 26 home runs on the road), the banjo-hitting middle infielders he faced. Under the Bill James method, Koufax had 18 "Level 10" performances in 1965, tied with Pedro Martinez in 2000 and Bob Gibson in 1968 for most in the past 50 years. To top his season off, he pitched a three-hit shutout in Game 7 of the World Series on two days' rest, and that deserves some amount of extra credit.

Roger was so good he even managed to turn the crowd around. When he bounded out of the dugout at precisely 4:48 p.m. to start his trek to the visiting bullpen to warm up, the reaction was a hearty mixture of cheers and boos, and I would say that the boos predominated. But by the time Roger had finished embarrassing Nomar Garciaparra, John Valentin, and Mo Vaughn with the aforementioned 10-pitch dispatch in the eighth, Fenway Park was once again playing host to a regional meeting of the Roger Clemens Fan Club. They were chanting 'Rock-Et!' and they were standing as they were doing it. -- Bob Ryan, Boston Globe

This was the season after Clemens acrimoniously departed the Red Sox, general manager Dan Duquette believing him to be finished or washed up or something like that (although he had led the AL in strikeouts in 1996). Instead, Clemens won the pitching Triple Crown (wins, ERA and strikeouts) and his average Baseball-Referece/FanGraphs WAR of 11.35 is second highest of all the seasons on this top 20 list.

When Johnson first reached the majors 12 years ago, he was known mostly for being the tallest pitcher in baseball history. Now he is known as being one of the best in history, with seasons comparable to the great Sandy Koufax's. In fact, given that he is pitching in an era of small stadiums, juiced balls and 73-home run seasons, Johnson probably has been better than Koufax. -- Jim Caple, ESPN.com

In his 34 regular-season starts, James credits Johnson with 31 good games and just one bad game (a nine-run effort in his second start). His consistency was remarkable, as he pitched at least seven innings in 26 of his starts. He had a 20-strikeout game, three 16-strikeout games and four 14-K games. Then came the postseason. Before 2001, Johnson had earned the reputation as a guy who couldn't win the big game. After losing his first start in the Division Series, he had lost seven straight postseason games. Then he won twice in the NLCS. Then he beat the Yankees in Games 2 and 6 of the World Series. Then he came on in relief in Game 7 with zero days of rest, with the home fans going nuts. He got four outs and then watched his teammates rally in the bottom of the ninth.

Afterward, in the clubhouse, the Tigers sounded like survivors of the Mount Pelée disaster. "I was awed," said [Denny] McLain. "I was awed." [Dick] McAuliffe, asked to compare Gibson with some pitcher in his league said, "There is no comparison. He doesn't remind me of anybody. He's all by himself." -- Roger Angell, The New Yorker

Gibson, of course, has the lowest ERA of this period. The ERA is helped a little by 11 unearned runs, and we have to keep in mind the NL ERA that year was 2.99. Still, Gibson's adjusted ERA ranks fourth in our time frame, and he had this remarkable 10-start stretch from June 6 to July 25: 10-0, 90 innings pitched, two runs allowed. That's not a typo: a 0.20 ERA over 90 innings. After 300-plus innings and 14 shutouts (including a World Series-record 17 K's in Game 1) he finally ran out of gas in Game 7. With two outs in the seventh, he had allowed just one hit, in a 0-0 battle against Mickey Lolich. But then two singles later, Curt Flood misplayed a fly ball into a two-run triple, followed by an RBI double, and even the great Gibson proved beatable.

Before every pitch, he would clench his neck and, from the dugout, you could see the cords running his collar to his jawbone. It looked like he was twitching and sucking air through his nose. This was in 1972, when he won 27 games for a last-place Phillies that won only 59 games overall. It was a piece de resistance nonpareil in the annals of the sport. -- Larry Dierker, "My Team" (2006)

Joe Posnanski had a good piece on Carlton's 1972 season here. The Phillies had acquired him before the season for Rick Wise, in a trade that obviously haunted the Cardinals. Both had had similar seasons in 1971, were one year apart in age and wanted salary increases. Apparently, it was easier to make a trade than to give either guy a few thousand bucks more. Anyway, the Phillies were amazingly awful in 1972, except when Carlton pitched. Remarkably, Carlton didn't get off to a great start: Through June 3, he was 5-6 with a 3.12 ERA. But over the rest of the season, he went 22-4 in 29 starts with a 1.54 ERA and 23 complete games. Yes, some of his value is tied to his phenomenal workload -- 41 starts, 346 innings -- but Baseball-Reference has him tied with Gooden for No. 1 in WAR and FanGraphs has him at the top spot, both at 12.1.

Maddux could always tail his fastball into righties, jamming them. But left-handed hitters drove him crazy. He could not attack the inside corner because he couldn't throw hard enough. He needed a pitch that would bear in to lefties, breaking their bat handles. The pitch is called a cutter, and when Maddux developed one four years ago, it transformed him. "The biggest jump was when I learned to throw the cut fastball," he says. Since then, nobody else has won the National League Cy Young Award. -- Thomas Boswell, Playboy (1996)

Maddux had another telling quote from this year in Sports Illustrated, about how he learned to trust his own abilities. Relaying a story of how, years before, he had lost a game in the 11th inning when Luis Alicea hit a fastball for a bases-loaded single, he said, "I pitched 10 scoreless innings and lost because I was afraid to throw a changeup."

At 5' 11", 161 pounds, the 27-year-old Guidry does not look like a stud and, with his soft Louisiana patois, he does not sound like one. But appearances and accents are not very important when a pitcher throws a 95-mph fastball and a sharp-breaking slider -- both of which usually end up going exactly where Guidry wants them to. That usually means one corner of the plate or another, but in his 18-strikeout performance Guidry worked ahead of the hitters with his fastball and then, on a number of occasions, struck them out with sliders that dipped out of the strike zone. -- Larry Keith, Sports Illustrated

I still think Guidry should have won the MVP award over Jim Rice. Guidry's winning percentage of .893 remains the highest ever for a pitcher who won at least 20 games. His 25th win was against Boston in the AL East tiebreaker game, and then he won both his postseason starts, allowing two runs in 17 innings, as the Yankees won the World Series.

"Trying to hit him was like trying to drink coffee with a fork." -- Willie Stargell (year unknown)

You can make the case that Koufax was better in '66 than '65 -- he allowed 74 runs in 41 starts compared to 90 runs in the same 41 starts the year before. His road ERA was also below 2.00 in 1966. His strikeout and walk rates were both better in 1965, however. I ranked 1965 higher due to the overpowering K rate and that magical Game 7 performance.

Lefty isn't like other pitchers who fall apart in their 30s because they lose their fastball and have nothing else to depend on. Even a good fastball needs a breaking pitch to complement it. Well, Lefty has so much confidence in his favorite pitch, a hard slider, that he establishes it early in a game and throws it with a 2-0 or 3-1 count. With his powerful grip, he throws what we call a "tight" slider because it spins tightly, like a gyroscope. -- Tim McCarver in Sports Illustrated

It's a great season that doesn't get talked about much, probably because the win-loss record didn't quite match his 1972 mark. This was the last season a pitcher threw 300 innings, and Carlton had just one bad start under the James method -- six runs in 7 1/3 innings on June 2. That was his only start where he allowed more than four runs, and he went at least six innings in every outing. To top it off, he won twice in the World Series, including the clinching Game 6.

His speed and curve and control came slowly, and only after much grunting and cursing in the darkness. He threw with a tightly constricted motion that seemed small compared to the loose, spread-out deliveries of pitchers like Gibson and Koufax. Constricted, yet thoroughly planned, for Seaver has worked diligently to cut away "all the excess crap my motion does not need." He has excised no vital parts; his motion is a perfect compromise between flamboyance and deficiency. ... Still, it is mechanically perfect, and it is perfection, not grace, that Seaver seeks, since he long ago decided only this was within his grasp. -- Pat Jordan, Sports Illustrated

That article portrays Seaver as sort of a self-made pitcher. In his senior year of high school, he was 5-foot-9 and weighed 160 pounds and was the third-hardest thrower on his team. After serving in the Marine Corps for a year, he enrolled at Fresno City College and then USC. He had grown bigger and stronger, was throwing harder, and at USC he also started lifting weights. Seaver had many great years, but this was his greatest and he allowed two runs or fewer in 27 of his 35 starts. Seaver was also the first great pitcher who benefited from pitching his entire career primarily in a five-man rotation. He started 58 times in his career on three days' rest, for example, compared to 198 for Carlton.

"Yes, changing my mechanics was a key," Johnson says of his turnaround. "But that's just a small part of it. My heart got bigger. Determination can take you a long way. After my dad died I was convinced I could get through anything. I don't use the word pressure anymore. That's for what he went through. Life or death. I use the word challenge. And I'll never again say, 'I can't handle it.' I just dig down deeper." -- Tom Verducci, Sports Illustrated

I could have gone with 1997 (20-4, 2.28 ERA, no bad games under the James method) or 2002 (24-5, 2.32 ERA), but Johnson literally helped save baseball in Seattle in '95 as the Mariners' first playoff appearance helped secure a new ballpark. Battling for the division title in September, Johnson went 5-0 with a 1.74 ERA -- including a complete-game win in the AL West tiebreaker against the Angels. In the memorable Division Series against the Yankees, he won Game 3 and then Game 5 in relief. Johnson's K rate of 12.3 per nine innings was 102 percent higher than the league average. Even just 20 years ago, the average K rate was 6.1 per nine innings compared to 7.6 in 2014. Imagine the Big Unit in his prime pitching with today's larger strike zone.

In the three years I have been humbled to catch Kersh, I've learned to keep my mouth shut and not offer up information that goes against his typical arsenal of pitches. Even though the stats may lead me in a different direction, we are both keenly aware that his strengths are what separate him from the rest. Except for when we forget. -- Dodgers catcher A.J. Ellis, ESPN.com (Aug. 14)

Even though he missed April with a strained muscle in his back, Kershaw has elevated his performance from great to legendary. In 2013, he averaged 4.46 strikeouts for every walk; in 2014, that figure is 7.82 strikeouts for each walk. He threw a no-hitter with 15 strikeouts, perfection marred only by a fielding error. Perhaps most impressively, he's made 25 starts and had just one bad outing, a seven-run effort back in May against the Diamondbacks when he got knocked out in the second inning. Otherwise, he hasn't allowed more than three runs in a game and he's allowed no runs or one run in 18 of those 25 starts. In his past 21 starts he's reached heights matched only by the very greatest stretches in baseball history: 17-2, 1.33 ERA, a .173 average allowed, 191 strikeouts and just 25 walks in 163 innings.

Kershaw will have at least two more starts, but his missing month makes it tough for him to get into the top 10. His final workload will resemble Maddux's 1994 season, with one exception: Kershaw will get the chance to make his mark in the postseason.

Clemens says he has six different exercise machines in the Framingham house. He has a freezer filled with bags of ice. He fills bowls with uncooked rice in which he exercises his fingers, makes them stronger. Pound guys. He has three separate notebooks filled with weaknesses. One details hitters' weaknesses. Another details umpires' weaknesses. Which umpire squeezes? Which gives the high strike? The third notebook details Clemens's weaknesses. What was his weight for this game or that? What were the exercises that seemed to work before a good game? What were the exercises that didn't seem to work? He has a shirt he has altered for sleeping, one long sleeve off and the other remaining to cover his right arm against the air conditioning. He has a routine for sleep, the emphasis on a good sleep two nights before the game. He has a diet. He has exercises he will describe to no one. Why should he? They are his exercises, his secret. -- Leigh Montville, Sports Illustrated

This was the season that ended with Clemens bizarrely getting ejected from the final game of the ALCS loss to the A's. Clemens won seven Cy Young Awards, but not this year, as Bob Welch won it thanks to his 27 wins (although Clemens finished higher in the MVP voting; go figure).

Vida Blue, I discovered, is a pitcher in a hurry. Each inning, he ran to the pitcher's mound to begin his work and ran back to the dugout when it was done. ... In the field, he worked with immense dispatch, barely pausing to get his catcher's sign before firing; this habit, which he shares with Bob Gibson and a few others, adds a pleasing momentum to the game. ... His pitches, mostly fastballs and always in or very close to the strike zone, did not look especially dangerous, but the quick, late cuts that most of the Red Sox batters were offering suggested what they were up against. -- Roger Angell, The New Yorker

Blue wasn't a rookie in 1971, but he was pitching in his first full season. His first half was one for the ages: 17-3, 1.42 ERA, 17 complete games in 22 starts. He didn't turn 22 until July. Like Dwight Gooden a generation later, Blue had a long and successful career, but the lightning that struck at such a young age didn't reappear, and as with Gooden, you wonder if the arm just wasn't quite the same after a season in which he pitched 300 innings.

"Nature's perfect pitcher." -- Bill James, "The Bill James Player Ratings Book"

The "steroid era" was already well under way in 1994. The average runs per game in the NL in 1994 was 4.62 (it would peak at 5.02 in 2000), making Maddux's 1.56 ERA pretty amazing. In terms of adjusted ERA, this season ranks second to Pedro Martinez's 2000, but Maddux did allow nine unearned runs, had better strikeout and walk rates in 1995 and made just 25 starts, the fewest on our list, thanks to the strike-shortened season.

His dazzling performances have brought loud complaints from the bewildered Mets, who have claimed that Scott has been doctoring the ball -- possibly with sandpaper -- before delivering it.

"I think he could make a cue ball dance, but if he is defacing the ball, I'd like to see him stopped," Mets manager Davey Johnson said. -- Associated Press

The National League absolved Scott during the 1986 playoffs after the Mets retrieved dozens of balls they claimed Scott had scuffed, but you can see why Mets were whining: They couldn't hit him. Here are some highlights from that NLCS. Until Felix Hernandez broke the mark this year, Scott had the most consecutive starts of seven-plus innings and two runs or fewer, at 12. In two starts against the Mets, he allowed one run and eight hits in 18 innings. Alas, he didn't get a third start as the Mets won the series in six games.

"Aw, what you tryin' to do? Askin' me if I'm cheatin' at baseball. Is 'at what you askin'? I never said I cheated. I just said I was thowin' some-thin' everyone else was. When I was thowin' it, it was part of the game. A big percentage of pitchers was thowin' it. Now they decided they don't want it to be part of the game anymore, so I had to cut it out. ... Any-thin' you can get away with is part of the game. In my book I never said I was doin' somethin' illegal, I just said I was doin' somethin' other people was." -- Gaylord Perry in Sports Illustrated (1974)

Another good Perry story. A reporter is visiting Perry at his home in North Carolina. The reporter asks his 5-year-old daughter what kind of pitch daddy throws. "It's a hard slider," she quickly replies. The 1972 season was a pitcher's year so part of Perry's value is tied up in the 342 innings as much as his 1.92 ERA. From May 6 to Aug. 6, he completed 19 of 22 starts with a 1.55 ERA -- averaging over nine innings per start. I guess that hard slider was working pretty well.