Red Sox: Sale is among the most accomplished lefties ever under thirty

Red Sox starter Chris Sale has already accomplished a lot by the age of 29. He’s also in some pretty great company among lefties who achieved similar feats before turning thirty.

Chris Sale‘s recent run of dominance has been nothing short of spectacular. Over his last six starts for the Boston Red Sox, Sale has a FIP of 0.78 while striking out 42.9% of batters; good for 14.5 strikeouts per nine. He struck out 7.3 batters per walk and allowed only .73 batters to reach per inning over that stretch.

But of course, this is nothing new for Sale. The 29-year-old lefty has been among the most dominant pitchers in all of baseball every year since his first full season in 2012. Among pitchers who accumulated 500 or more innings during that stretch, Sale has ranked 3rd in K/9, 4th in ERA, and 3rd in fWAR. Oh, and his career 5.17 K/BB ratio is the greatest mark in the history of baseball among pitchers with 1,000 or more innings tossed.

It’s hard to predict the future in baseball and that’s especially true when talking about how starting pitchers will age; one has to take into account the possibility of waning velocity, Steve Blass syndrome, and, above all else, injuries. However, what Sale has accomplished prior to his age-thirty season has been nothing short of amazing. No one can say where he will rank among left-handers when it is all said and done. Or whether he’ll finish his career with the Red Sox. But we can talk about the rare company he is in so far.

So, just for fun, let’s see where Sale’s career to date ranks among the southpaws who accomplished the most before their age-thirty season. Let’s count down the top ten.

You have likely never heard of Noodles Hahn and you may never hear his name again. But that doesn’t diminish his credentials for this list.

Hahn rates very highly in bWAR both per inning and as a whole despite only playing through the age of 27. His strikeout total and rate are deceptively low given that he played amidst the dead ball era. He led the league in punchouts the first three years of his career in fact and was one of the best strikeout pitchers of his day. And if you think his career ERA is driven downwards because of when he played baseball consider that his 132 ERA+, which is adjusted by era and ballpark, is greater than the career mark of Sandy Koufax.

He is held back, however, by his lack of league-leading titles, and championships. Besides his three strikeout titles, Hahn never led the league more than once in any major category and never won a championship. It is hard to call him more accomplished than the pitchers to follow on this list while taking that into account, but Hahn holds his own at the number nine slot.

It was actually a tough call placing C.C. Sabathia over Hahn on this list. Hahn outdoes Sabathia in bWAR, bWAR/IP, and ERA+. I’m sure in some ways this reflects my implicit bias that the quality of baseball just wasn’t as high in 1905 as it was in 2005. Even with ERA+ adjusting to compare players against their competition it’s hard to say a guy who outpitched a bunch of people that tiled roofs in the offseason is as impressive as C.C. dominating baseball games while facing guys like Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez

But that’s not to say Sabathia’s spot on this list is just a product of my own biases. When Sabathia turned thirty he already had quite a long list of accolades to look back on. Between 2001 and 2010 Sabathia led all of baseball in wins. He also made four All-Star appearances, won an AL Cy Young award in Cleveland, and brought a World Series title to New York.

At almost every point in his career, C.C. found himself in the shadow of other pitching giants. In the early 2000’s, Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson, and Roger Clemens dominated the conversation. Then Roy Halladay and Johan Santana broke into the spotlight. Even this year, Sabathia’s fabulous season is losing all the press to Luis Severino‘s All-Star campaign. But his presence on this list should remind us that he’s one of the best lefties of our generation.

Rankings above are with respect to left-handers who threw at least 1,000 innings before their age-thirty season. This will hold true for the rest of this post.

Lefty Gomez is an interesting case. He doesn’t fair too strongly in categories like raw run prevention or strikeouts to walks; however, we must consider that Gomez played in a strong offensive environment. Just look at this chart.

The mid to late 1930’s had more runs scored on average than any era until about 2000. The league average SO/9 in the 1930’s was also in the low to mid threes. His 131 ERA+ and three strikeout titles show that he was just as dominant relative to his competition as almost anyone on this list.

His 40.5 bWAR is absolutely nothing to sneeze at, but the table above doesn’t display his most impressive accomplishments. Gomez made six All-Star appearances, was a member of four World Series-winning teams and won two pitching triple crowns before his 30th birthday.

When talking about the most accomplished southpaws the game has seen, Lefty Gomez must be in the discussion.

Sandy Koufax was a tough name to place. He’s probably the pitcher many people would expect to top this list. I’m surprised with how low I placed him myself.

There are a few reasons that the man known for having the left arm of God finds himself here. For one, he had arguably his best season at age thirty in 1966 which is not considered for this list. Another reason is that he pitched in one of the worst offensive environments ever. But the most important reason is that he didn’t have his first great season until he was 25-years old. He accumulated hundreds of entirely mediocre innings between his age 19 and 24-seasons that hold back many of his rate stats.

In his favor, however, once he broke through he was one of the most dominant pitchers the game has ever seen. Between 1961 and 1965, Koufax won an NL MVP award, two Cy Young Awards (which is especially notable because at this time the award was not broken up by league), and made five All-Star appearances. He also led the league in ERA four times, FIP five times, strikeouts three times, strikeouts to walks three times and, strikeouts per nine four times in a five year period.

Koufax will forever be remembered as one of the greatest pitchers ever for his outstanding run from his age-25 season through his retirement. But for the purposes of this list, discussing accomplished and not dominant, Koufax finds himself in the number six slot.

Chris Sale is only halfway through his age-29-season so it may be fair to expect that bWAR to jump by 3 or 4 wins given the pace he is on this year. Regardless, Sale has absolutely earned his spot as the only Red Sox pitcher in this discussion already.

I mentioned this stats above, but I’ll say it again: that K/BB ratio isn’t just the best of this group; it’s the best for any starting pitcher ever. His SO/9 ratio is also the greatest of any starting pitcher ever.  He’s accumulating bWAR faster than all but one lefty did at this stage in their career and his ERA+ is right up near the tippy-top. He’s the king of rate stats and the only thing holding him back is that innings total.

The rest of the pitchers on this list averaged about 2,106 innings before their age-thirty season. If Sale pitched at the same pace for 2,106 innings his bWAR would eclipse 60, he’d probably move to second on this list, and we could basically start writing up his Hall of Fame plaque.

As it stands, Sale will have to settle for a fifth-place finish. He doesn’t have the hardware or banners to point to like many on this list do, but there’s a case to be made that he’s the most (or, realistically, second most) dominant lefty on this list. And the Red Sox are certainly gunning for some hardware to add to his trophy case.

I can’t speak for everyone reading this, but I personally forgot just how dominant Johan Santana was at the beginning of his career. Almost everyone else who cracked this list pitched roughly 2000+ innings. Santana threw just 1,543 innings and everyone who accumulated more than his 42.8 bWAR completed at least 1,935 frames.

Santana’s peak coincided with an offensive explosion in baseball. Between 2004 and 2006, while teams were putting up runs at historic clips, Santana quietly led the league three years in a row in strikeouts, strikeouts per nine, hits per nine, FIP, WHIP, and ERA+. He won the AL Cy Young award in both 2004 and 2006 and placed in the top five in the voting three more times before turning thirty.

Santana once looked like he was going to be a sure-fire Hall of Famer. Unfortunately, he would only pitch in three seasons on the other side of thirty before injuries did him in.

His ranking is held back only by his lack of innings and championships, but, for straight dominance, Santana is as good a choice as any on this list.

I couldn’t get a photo of Hal Newhouser off Getty Images, so this is the next best thing. If you don’t get it, go watch Malcolm in the Middle.

Hal Newhouser probably doesn’t jump to the top of your mind when thinking about all-time great left-handers. However, there was a stretch of time when Newhouser was unquestionably the best pitcher in baseball.

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Newhouser won back-to-back AL MVP awards in 1944 and 1945; only two other pitchers have ever won multiple MVP awards and no other pitcher has done it in consecutive seasons. Newhouser would follow that up with a second place AL MVP finish in 1946. During that three year run, Newhouser won 80 games, the most of any pitcher during a three year stretch since the start of World War II. During 1945 specifically, Newhouser turned in one of the greatest seasons for a pitcher ever. He won the pitching triple crown with 25 wins, 212 strikeouts, and a 1.81 ERA while accumulating 11.3 bWAR and leading the Tigers to a world championship.

He ranks low in strikeout ratio numbers on this list, but this is another product of his era. Newhouser led the league in SO/9 four times before turning thirty; easily enough to show that he could fool batters with the best of them. His 57.3 bWAR already amounted to a hall of fame career by an age when many others are still finding their feet in the league. Unfortunately, he would only accumulate 3.4 bWAR throughout the rest of his career.

That photo isn’t Rube, but our library is limited and Rube loved wrestling gators so there ya go.

Rube Waddell was a character among characters. He would occasionally leave games to go fishing, play marbles, or chase fire trucks. As I said above, he also wrestled alligators and sometimes was distracted by fans holding up puppies or shiny objects. Yes, this person actually existed and someone needs to make a biopic.

He’s also one of the most dominant lefties ever to grace the mound.

His 7.14 SO/9 doesn’t nearly do him justice. Go back to this list and see that he stuck out batters at nearly twice the league average clip. He also led the league in strikeouts five years in a row during this period (he would make it six in his age-30 season) and won a pitching triple crown in 1905 with an eye-popping 1.48 ERA, 27 wins, and 287 strikeouts.

He ranks at or near the top of this list in ERA, FIP, ERA+, and bWAR. And, taking into account that Waddell led the league in strikeouts by more than 100 K’s in 1904, it’s not hard to argue that Waddell was actually the best strikeout pitcher of everyone on this list. If not for a certain Dodgers’ southpaw coming into prominence in recent years he’d probably hold the top spot in this ranking. But alas, we have to hand it to the lefty who just turned thirty in LA.

Who else could it be?

Clayton Kershaw prevented runs better than anyone else when adjusted for context per ERA+, he accumulated more bWAR and at a better per inning clip than anyone else. He struck out batters at a faster clip than anyone except for Sale and accumulated more K’s than anyone except for Sam McDowell.

He already has an NL MVP award, three NL Cy Young awards, four more top five NL Cy Young finishes, five ERA titles, three strikeout titles, seven All-Star appearances, and a career that would easily land him in the Hall of Fame if his arm fell off tomorrow.

Who else could maintain an ERA of 2.36 as a starting pitcher in this era? Until the injury bug started biting in 2016 there was an outside chance that Kershaw could’ve gone down as the greatest left-handed pitcher in baseball history.

Kershaw could still do it if he regains his health and has a fantastic second act of his career, but for now, it looks like Lefty Grove will maintain the top spot (who is notably absent from this list since his career debut didn’t come until he turned 25).

Next: The Red Sox need to trade for a catcher

Clayton Kershaw is the most dominant pitcher since Pedro and we should all savor his every start. He is undoubtedly at the top of this list as the lefty who has accomplished the most before turning thirty.