Since we have all these baseball threads...Pedro Martinez vs. Greg Maddux

chuckywang

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Jan 12, 2004
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Maddux....look at his stats from the mid 90s. There was a period of four years where he was dominating.
 

Queasy

Moderator<br>Console Gaming
Aug 24, 2001
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Maddox by far. He's not a power pitcher so he doesn't have the gaudy strikeout numbers but the dude has an amazing number of wins and was a dominating and dependable pitcher in the prime of his career.
 

tfinch2

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Feb 3, 2004
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Maddux averages more wins per season than Martinez. Maddux has a lot more complete games (shows dominance more than any other statistic).
 

SP33Demon

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Jun 22, 2001
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Too tough to call IMO. Maddux is the best finesse pitcher of all time, Pedro probably has the best stuff of all time for a power pitcher (circle change, slider, breaker, fastball). Note that Clemens is probably the best overall power pitcher of all time simply because of longevity, he makes Nolan Ryan pale in comparison when you talk old age and pitching excellence.

Career wise: probably Maddux because he has amazing longevity (much like Clemens) and was never prone to injury like Pedro, who had many seasons cut short because of his labrum. Maddux strung together some incredibly dominating seasons consistently and injury free. However, Pedro has posted the best season of all time in 2000 so that leads me to...

If both were in their prime, Pedro gets the edge because he could spot the ball as well as Maddux but with much more velocity and nastier stuff in his arsenal. Pedro also isn't scared to pitch inside, whereas Maddux wasn't known for that (although he could paint the inside corner with the cutter very effectively). My .02
 

GeneValgene

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Sep 18, 2002
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Originally posted by: SP33Demon
Too tough to call IMO. Maddux is the best finesse pitcher of all time, Pedro probably has the best stuff of all time for a power pitcher (circle change, slider, breaker, fastball). Note that Clemens is probably the best overall power pitcher of all time simply because of longevity, he makes Nolan Ryan pale in comparison when you talk old age and pitching excellence.

Career wise: probably Maddux because he has amazing longevity (much like Clemens) and was never prone to injury like Pedro, who had many seasons cut short because of his labrum. Maddux strung together some incredibly dominating seasons consistently and injury free. However, Pedro has posted the best season of all time in 2000 so that leads me to...

If both were in their prime, Pedro gets the edge because he could spot the ball as well as Maddux but with much more velocity and nastier stuff in his arsenal. Pedro also isn't scared to pitch inside, whereas Maddux wasn't known for that (although he could paint the inside corner with the cutter very effectively). My .02

BFT

i love greg maddux, and have been a fan of him his whole career. the way he works batters is an art...

even though i hate pedro as a person (seems like a jerk), i have to give him the edge if both were in their primes...

phrase it this way...if you had to play one baseball game, and your life depended on the outcome, and you could either have greg or pedro in their prime on the mound, who would you pick?

i don't see how you could not pick pedro

 

chuckywang

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Jan 12, 2004
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Neither has had a no-hitter.

I believe Greg Maddux had a couple of one-hitters before, but the reason he isn't a no-hitter threat is because he is a groundball pitcher. He pitches towards contact, rather than away from it, so he can induce groundball outs. However, any pitcher that does that will get those groundballs that finds holes in the infield and get through for a hit.

Pedro, on the other hand, has been close to perfect games many times. He actually pitched nine perfect innings for the Expos, but the Expos didn't score so it went into extras. I believe the first batter he faced in the 10th doubled off him, but he got left stranded. The Expos went on to win in the bottom of the 10th (Moises Alou RBI, I think?). He also took a no-hitter into the 9th when he was with the Red Sox, losing it on a single. That was the game where leadoff hitter Gerald Williams charged the mound at Pedro after he hit him in the wrist in the 1st inning.
Another piece of baseball minutia: I believe Martinez was part of a combined perfect game during a spring training game.
 

chuckywang

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Jan 12, 2004
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From Wikipedia:

Maddux's best season was likely in 1995 when he finished 19-2 with an incredible 1.63 ERA in a year when the overall National League ERA was 4.23. In the strike-shortened 1994 season, he had an even lower ERA of 1.56, the best single-season ERA among currently-active pitchers, which compared even more favorably to the NL in that year (4.26), but had a 16-6 record. His career ERA is 3.00, second only to Pedro Martínez among all active starting pitchers. From 1993-1998, Maddux led the National League in ERA four times, and was second the other two seasons. Since the introduction of the "lively ball" in 1920, there have only been five pitchers to have full-season ERAs under 1.65: Luis Tiant and Bob Gibson in the anomalous 1968 season, Dwight Gooden in 1985, and Greg Maddux, twice (1994 and 1995).