Boston Red Sox Debate: Pedro Martinez’s best season

Debating between Pedro Martinez’s dominant 1999 and 2000 seasons with the Boston Red Sox to determine which was the best of his career.

Pedro Martinez is arguably the best pitcher in Boston Red Sox history. Not based on longevity since he spent only seven seasons in Boston during his 18-year career, but his peak was unmatched.

Martinez is a three-time Cy Young Award winner, the first of which he collected in his final season with the Montreal Expos in 1997. As brilliant as he was that year, leading the National League with a 1.90 ERA, 0.93 WHIP, and 11.4 K/9, Pedro’s best would be saved for Boston.

From 1999 to 2000, Martinez delivered the most dominant back-to-back seasons by a starting pitcher in the modern era. He captured the Cy Young in both seasons while finishing top-five on the MVP ballot.

There are some staggering numbers from the early 20th century when pitchers were allowed to throw until their arms fell off and offense was muted during the dead ball era. Pedro accomplished his legendary performances at the height of the steroid era against loaded lineups in a hitter-friendly ballpark. Combine those factors with strikeout numbers that pitchers from a century ago could never dream of and the peak of Martinez’s career if viewed even more favorably.

It’s hard to imagine any pitcher in today’s game surpassing what Martinez did in consecutive seasons but which one was Pedro’s best?

2000

18-6, 1.74 ERA, 0.74 WHIP, 11.8 K/9

What would Pedro do for an encore? Oh, just another historically great season.

His 1.74 ERA was the best of his career and is tied for the 15th-best single-season ERA since the dead ball era. He tossed seven complete games, including a major league-leading four shutouts, tying his career-high.

Martinez produced a 0.74 WHIP that stands as MLB’s best in the modern era (since 1900).

While he saw a dip in his strikeout rate, his 284 K’s were still enough to lead the league. The decline in strikeouts was offset by a reduction in walks. His 1.3 BB/9 was the best of his career, leading to a career-best 8.88 K/BB ratio that ranks fifth in major league history for a single season.

ERA+ is a metric that Baseball-Reference uses to scale ERA against the league average to account for the era the pitcher played in and adjusts for ballpark factors. Pedro’s 291 ERA+ in 2000 is the best single-season performance of the modern ERA.

Martinez secured his second consecutive Cy Young and finished fifth in MVP voting.

Which season was better?

WAR is often used as an all-encompassing metric to evaluate value. It’s not perfect but it’s arguably the best option we have. Unfortunately, it doesn’t do us much good in this case since the two main sources of WAR are in a disagreement when it comes to which season was Pedro’s best.

FanGraphs rates Martinez as the best-single season performance by a starting pitcher in major league history with 11.4 WAR in 1999. In 2000, his 9.4 WAR is 20th on the all-time list for starting pitchers.

Over at Baseball-Reference they see it differently. They valued Pedro at a career-high 11.7 WAR in 2000 and 9.8 WAR in 1999.

Which season was his best boils down to your opinion on which metric’s matter most. Do you believe in the FanGraphs method of evaluating WAR or Baseball-Reference? Are you more impressed by strikeouts or strike-to-walk ratio? ERA or FIP?

Asking someone if they’d rather have the 1999 version of Martinez or the one from 2000 is akin to asking if they want cake or ice cream – the answer is yes. You can’t go wrong with either and they pair together nicely.

Personally, I lean more toward 1999. The strikeouts made him slightly more dominant that year and even though his ERA was a bit higher, FIP is typically a better indicator of performance since it isn’t reliant on the defense of the pitcher’s teammates behind him.

That ’99 season was also the more memorable of the two. His 17-strikeout game was one of the best pitching performances in franchise history. It was the year he won the All-Star Game MVP at Fenway Park. He capped the year with a brilliant postseason that included his infamous six shutout innings of relief in Game 5 of the ALDS against the Cleveland Indians followed by seven shutout innings in Game 3 of the ALCS against the New York Yankees.

All good things must come to an end

Martinez was limited to 18 games in an injury shortened 2001 season, preventing his stretch of dominance from extending to a third consecutive year. His sore shoulder was later revealed to be a partial tear to his rotator cuff and GM Dan Duquette’s insistence that Pedro was healthy enough to pitch created a riff between the team and their ace.

He bounced back with consecutive ERA titles in 2002 and 2003 but couldn’t quite reach his pre-injury peak. Martinez finished second and third respectively on the Cy Young ballot those seasons but was barely on the MVP radar. He was still among the greatest pitchers in the game but his past workload was starting to take a toll and he fell short of 200 innings in each of those seasons.

Further signs of his skill eroding were evident in 2004 but Martinez was still a vital part of the team that reversed an 86 year curse by winning the World Series. He left the Red Sox as a free agent after that championship season but wasn’t the same dominant pitcher after leaving Boston.

Martinez had an outstanding Hall of Fame career and his best seasons were with the Red Sox. His ’99 campaign is the best that I’ve ever seen by a pitcher and his performance the following season is certainly in the conversation.