Cy Young Is Not the Greatest Pitcher of All Time!

Whenever someone mentions the all-time best pitchers in major-league history, Cy Young is always mentioned. It's true that he holds the record for all-time wins by a pitcher (511), but he also holds the record for most losses all time by a pitcher with 316.

Cy Young holds the record for games started with 815 games, 749 complete games, and 7,354-1/3 innings. He averaged about 3.5 strikeouts a game in his career, a strikeout every three innings.

What people may not realize is that the game of baseball has changed dramatically since 1890. I would be willing to stake that I could name five pitchers that I believe are 100 times better than Cy Young.

I'm not saying he was a terrible pitcher; I think he is definitely one of the best of all time, but I don't think he is THE Best of all time. Let's use Greg Maddux as an example.

Maddux is a 350-game winner and has 3,000+ strikeouts in his career. Roger Clemens, who has 354 wins and 4,672 strikeouts in his career, is a seven-time Cy Young Award winner.

This one is just a prediction, but I believe that Rich Harden will one day be in the top-10 all time in both wins and strikeouts.

Back in the day, pitchers played in a lot more games than pitchers do nowadays, so there where more opportunities for wins and completions, as compared to now when pitchers get about 30 games a year.

If anyone wants to challenge my point, or present other great pitchers, please do.