Because I'm bored...my top 50 strikeout pitchers of all time

[cjedmonton]

With another long Canadian winter looming, I thought I'd tackle another mindless project. This time, I'm attempting to rank the most efficient strikeout pitchers of all time. While plenty has already been written about this subject, I thought I'd actually crunch some numbers to see how everyone stacks up.

CRITERIA

A pitcher must have at least one season where he struck out at least 20% of the batters he faced (750 minimum)

That's it!

CATEGORIES

Overall Career (10,000 min)
Top 10 seasons (7,500 min)
Top 5 (3,750 min)
Top 3 (2,250 min)
Single Best (750 min)

FORMULA

((Batters Faced/Minimum Batters Faced) x (K% / 20%)) x K% x the number of seasons the pitcher went over 20% in that category

This is done for each of the 5 categories, with the sum total being that pitcher's overall score.

Anyway, here are the top 50 of all-time:

Here are the active leaders outside of the top 50, some old-time "fireballers" who didn't fare quite as well as we might expect, and some young fireballers who should make a big jump in the near future:

If you're a stat junkie and have some time to kill, here are the detailed reports for each player:

http://cjedmonton.webs.com/Strikeouts.xls


Thanks for looking!

 

[blitzerlover]

((Batters Faced/Minimum Batters Faced) x (K% / 20%)) x K% x the number of seasons the pitcher went over 20% in that category

Could you explain this formula at little more? I'm just confused about the bolded part.

 

[schillingfan]

Wow. Glad to see my guy at #6! :mrgreen:

 

[cjedmonton]

((Batters Faced/Minimum Batters Faced) x (K% / 20%)) x K% x the number of seasons the pitcher went over 20% in that category

Could you explain this formula at little more? I'm just confused about the bolded part.

Sure! Basically, I used a 20% strikeout rate season as the qualifier for this project. The part you bolded just identifies the degree by which a player's overall strikeout rate for that given category (career, 10 best years, 5 best, etc...) was above or below that benchmark.

Perhaps an actual example might explain things better. We'll go with Sandy Koufax's overall career:

((9,497 BF / 10,000 MIN) x (25.229% / 20%)) x 25.229% x 6 seasons with a strikeout rate of 20% or higher

So, his career score would be:

(.9497 x 1.26145) x 25.229 x 6 = 181.346

Repeat for the other 4 categories and add them all together!

Clear as mud? :lol: It's far from perfect, but I think it appropriately rewards outstanding individual seasons (25%+) as well as long and consistently effective careers of striking batters out.

By the way, this formula really hurt Matt Cain. While he only has one 20% season to his credit, he has five 19% + seasons. If I were to count those seasons as well, he'd have a score of 319.009...good enough for 38th all-time. However, I had to draw the line in the sand somewhere, and 20% was it. As a result, his score is only 51.680.

Anyway, just a fun little project I've been tinkering around with. Hope you enjoy!

 

[blitzerlover]

Gottya. Yeah, that explains it a lot better. For some reason, I didn't know what you were trying to do before.

 

[gt2590]

Where's J.R. Richard? or wasn't his career long enough?

His K % was great for sure.

 

[blitzerlover]

Where's J.R. Richard? or wasn't his career long enough?

His K % was great for sure.

4th guy on the second list.

 

[Pine Tar]

Nice list. I think you should put together a set of everyone on said list. So get buying a auto of each one
maybe from the team the made said accomplishment with or the team they started there Major league career with.

 

[gt2590]

Where's J.R. Richard? or wasn't his career long enough?

His K % was great for sure.

4th guy on the second list.

My bad. Thanks!

 

[Ryan The Orange]

Kind of surprised Sudden Sam McDowell is so high on the list, but...

 

[jarcar]

I love your little projects!!

Thanks for posting this.