The Top 5 Pitchers (+5) of the Last Decade?

[RonCo]

Doing some more deep dives into Stats+ because…well… why the hell not? I mean, it’s got some cool stuff to it. This time I got to playing with the statistical filters, and along the way I filtered out all pitching stats aver the past ten seasons (counting 2036 as if it’s a complete season, anyway). It’s a fun sort. And, to be honest, it’s fun to cut the data across lots of different time frames. But I picked this last ten seasons because it seemed the most interesting to write a feature on.

I took that pitcher cut, and sorted it on WAR as a simple measure—which pitchers rang up the most WAR in the last decade. Note that there are some inherent problems with this approach, but it’s as interesting of a cut as any, so let’s go with it.

Who do you think is number 1?

It won’t surprise you, I suppose…but just to give you some space to think about it if you want to, I’ll do the rest of this post on another reply post…no cheating, all right? No going to Stats+ to get the numbers. [grin]


The answer is …

[RonCo]

The answer is …

#1 Enrique Gomez (58.73 WAR). Gomez is currently with Rockville, but pitched in Omaha (MEX) and Madison during this span, too. The ten-season span runs him from age 26-36, a span that’s seen him win three Nebraska awards and miss out on a fourth, fifth, and sixth by one place. That’s not counting the two other times prior to this test period where he also came in second. Gomez also led the league in wins during this period (144-82), and a miraculous 3.08 FIP (though his XFIP is a more … um … just good rather than godly 3.54). With 327 starts in the decade, he’s been the most durable of pitchers during the past ten seasons. Gomez is 36 years old now, and if he’s losing a step, you can’t tell it. He’s a leading candidate for his 4th Nebraska. His 225 wins makes him a strong candidate for the Hall of Fame when he decides to stop winning Nebraskas. Clearly a dominant pitcher, and well deserving of that #1 slot for the decade.

#2 Lawrence Columbus LaLoosh (49.06 WAR). LaLoosh has been nearly as successful and Gomez—in fact it’s possible you could put the two numbers side-by side and you could barely tell them apart. Part of the difference in WAR, however, is that LaLoosh missed a season with injury, and struggled in recover for a half a season when he came back. His 142-76 record is stronger than Gomez, but Gomez’s FIP beats LaLoosh’s 3.44 (though, again, see the rough patch under recovery. LaLoosh has three of his own Nebraska awards during this time, but only one second place finish. Even given his injury season back, it’s hard to imaging LaLoosh making up the entire 9 WAR gap that Gomez has on his, but it would have been close. Given that LaLoosh (at 31) is younger than Gomez, he should have 3-7 years left to come close to matching Gomez’s Hall of Fame case—barring injury, of course. Knock on wood, etc.

#3 Jose Chavez (45.36 WAR). Chavez, too, lost a season and a half to injury, and perhaps more hurtful to his numbers, since the injury he struggled to go deep into games. But his K/9-rate (9.55) is second of all pitchers in the top 20. He’s 34 years old now, and losing the edge on his fastball. His 3.30 ERA beats LaLoosh’s. He won his Nebraska in 2029, before he got hurt. Seeing Chavez at #3 is bittersweet. He deserves his slot, but we’re left with a serious overtone of “what could have been” if he hadn’t had his bout with Tommy John. That said, at 45.36, you'd need to add back his year+ recovery time, and probably another WAR a season to account for his lost stamina if you were to try to get him up to Gomez's level. Possible, we suppose, but that's stretching the upper boundary of responsible dreaming. Of course, we're all Yellow Springs fans here, so there's no reason to be overly responsible in that kind of thing.

#4 Luis Gracia (43.08 WAR). Here’s a name that might not have jumped into your head as a top 5 in the decade, but Gracia joined Californis as a 22 year old in 2028 (only seems like yesterday), and immediately started making a difference. While he’s only had nine seasons to accumulate his WAR, he’s been mostly healthy throughout, and highly consistent, averaging 200 innings+ a year while compiling a 119-87 record (and led the league in 2015 with 19 wins for the defending Landis Champions). His numbers hold a similarity to Chavez’s except that Gracia does his damage by keeping the ball in the park while Chavez relies on overpowering stuff—which is a trait that leads one to think Gracia might have the longer and stronger career in the end. Ultimately, he’s been a guy who flies under the radar (perhaps a result of being on the same team with Ricardo Diaz?). Despite his standing in this cross-decade study, he’s made only one All-Star appearance. One of those steady-eddies rather than a star bursting at a peak. If you wanted to argue Gracia was more valuable than Chavez in this span, you could make a case. Bottom line, a fine, fine pitcher.

#5 Cristobal Hernandez (43.03 WAR). My guess is that this listing isn’t much of a surprise. While his park inflates his numbers, Hernandez has been a force in Calgary since he got to the league, and the fact that his debut was only 8 years ago and he’s on the decade-long top 5 says something. At 29, he’s reaching that point where his reputation is catching up to his quality (he’s only been in the top three of Nebraska voting once in his eight seasons, but is now a 4-time All-Star). If we were looking at raw quality (rather than cumulation of performance over ten seasons, you’d have to consider him either in with Gomez and LaLoosh, or just a half a clock tick below (add 6 WAR per season to his numbers, and you’d be just shy, but WAR is WAR, so fan arguments can be made, so why not make them?). Helluva pitcher you’ve got there.


So, there’s the top five by WAR. Of course, this list changes every time you shift the scope. Look at 2026-2035 and the rankings change. 2025-2034, another list.

Realize, of course, this scope accentuates players who are in their peak during this random 10 season cycle (which makes it great for Gomez, perhaps not as great for someone like the aforementioned Ricardo Diaz.

For giggles, let’s list the next five and you’ll see what I mean.

#6 Alfredo Contreras (42.69 WAR)
#7 Mauro Flores (41.69 WAR)
#8 Dan Cannon (37.41 WAR)
#9 Mario Gonzalez (37.20 WAR)
#10 Ricardo Diaz (37.14 WAR)

See? You’ve got old guys coming down off their peaks (Diaz and Gonzalez) and young guys coming up (Cannon and Flores), and Alfredo Contreras, who at 30 is in the middle, and has been another under-appreciated pitcher around the BBA.

You can go deeper, too. At 12 and 13 (in this view) are San Antonio’s duo of Ramirez and Ornelas, for example. That’s the fun of Stats+ I guess, change the question, change the answer.

Regardless, though, it’s fun to have been around the league long enough that these guys mean something visceral to me. Unlike the Hall of Fame stuff, which is still entertaining, I can remember all these guys. These names have influenced things in the span I’ve been around. So, yeah, I don’t have a problem with Gomez at #1 and LaLoosh at #2. I can see Diaz in there when I shift the view a few years…I can long so heavily for a world in which Dogface didn’t get hurt (and use his example to hope that Bobby Lynch keeps it together now that he’s back).

Blah, blah, blah…can’t wait to see what happens as this season rushes to its end. In the meantime, I guess I’ll just keep playing with Stats+.

[udlb58]

Huh. Gonzalez is interesting because I bet if you shift that 10 year span back 5 years, Diaz is much higher but I wouldn't be surprised if Gonzalez isn't in the top 10. He's pitched very well in his 30s. Not quite as well as in his 20s, but he's been healthier and pitched far more innings.

[recte44]

I was going to say, Gonzalez is a surprise!

[RonCo]

Huh. Gonzalez is interesting because I bet if you shift that 10 year span back 5 years, Diaz is much higher but I wouldn't be surprised if Gonzalez isn't in the top 10. He's pitched very well in his 30s. Not quite as well as in his 20s, but he's been healthier and pitched far more innings.

I enjoyed playing with the tool and stepping it back year over year to see how the names changed. It gives me this weird feeling of history as players move up and down through the data. Mario Gonzalez was an under-rated guy. Wish we'd have kept him in YS when we had the chance.

[usnspecialist]

i would have guessed Hernandez would be higher, but didnt realize he only had 8 years.