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.