If Pedro gets passed this injury and has several more seasons like the ones he was having before this season, he will go down as one of the top 5 pitchers of all time. His ERA has been insanely low for the past 3 or 4 seasons, especially in the juiced ball era of baseball that he plays in. His career 2.65 ERA is lower than Maddux's(2.83) or Clemen's(3.09), and is the lowest among active pitchers, closers or starters with a minimum of 1000 innings pitched. He just has to keep up this tremendous pace, and he will be mentioned with the greats. If Randy Johnson had learned to control his fastball and developed his devastating slider around 6 to 8 years earlier, he would have a serious chance to break Nolan Ryan's strikeout record. Randy started becoming dominant during 1992/1993 at age 29 , and he is still in the top 10 of most career strikeouts. I think his strikeout rate per nine innings is better than Nolan Ryan's. Randy may be the best strikeout pitcher of all time. Top 5 players of all time: 1. Babe Ruth 2. Willie Mays 3. Ty Cobb 4. Walter Johnson 5. Joe Dimaggio Honorable Mentions: Hank Aaron, Lou Gehrig, Roger Hornsby, Stan Musial, and Christy Mathewson Top 5 players of our generation(last 10 years) 1. Barry Bonds 2. Greg Maddux 3. Roger Clemens 4. Pedro Martinez 5. Ken Griffey Jr. Honorable Mentions: Alex Rodriguez, Jeff Bagwell, Roberto Alomar, Ivan Rodriguez, and Randy Johnson
Jeff Bagwell's 1994 MVP season could have gone down as one of the top 5 or 10 seasons offensively in the history of baseball if it wasn't shortened by the strike. He had a .368 average, 39 homers, 116 RBI's, a .750 slugging %, a .451 OBP, 104 runs, 147 hits, 300 total bases, and 32 doubles in only 110 games!!! If only he had gotten to play a full season, he may have gotten on a roll and put up even better numbers than he has had over his career.
