Redsox.com Showing Pedro's 17K game in 1999

candylandriots

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And my god that 1999 lineup was horrible. I had forgotten just how bad. That team really massively overachieved given the level of talent aside from Pedro and Nomar.
 

Bernie Carbohydrate

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Notice how often Pedro starts off batters with a 79 MPH breaking ball that stays in the zone for a called strike. So the batter is already down 0-1 and then has to adjust his timing for the fastball. Brilliant.

29771

Also: The visiting Red Sox fans took over the Toilet in the later innings. It sounds like Fenway.
 

donutogre

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Admission: I had never seen this game before in full. It was a damn treat to watch. Never felt like he was anything but in total control.
 

InstaFace

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For those of you who don't much care for the Fox broadcast, if you're a SoSH member, the NESN broadcast can be found on the Pedro Server - look for the thread in P&G. Or PM me and I'll steer you.

That article is pretty funny though, I didn't know the backstory about him and Joe Kerrigan having a fight earlier that day.
 

Mueller's Twin Grannies

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For those of you who don't much care for the Fox broadcast, if you're a SoSH member, the NESN broadcast can be found on the Pedro Server - look for the thread in P&G. Or PM me and I'll steer you.

That article is pretty funny though, I didn't know the backstory about him and Joe Kerrigan having a fight earlier that day.
Probably not the last clash they had either. I remember Kerrigan being gone pretty quick after he took over as interim manager once they let Jimy go.
 

PortlandSoxFan

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I was at this game. We had a large group going from CT and I rented a van. Raining hard all day, several people bailed and I had to round up a few last minute replacements. Cleared up on the drive down, and the rest was history. Wish I was smart enough to have saved my stub...
 

PortlandSoxFan

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Notice how often Pedro starts off batters with a 79 MPH breaking ball that stays in the zone for a called strike. So the batter is already down 0-1 and then has to adjust his timing for the fastball. Brilliant.



Also: The visiting Red Sox fans took over the Toilet in the later innings. It sounds like Fenway.
Honestly, I think there were plenty of Yanks fans who recognized what was happening and were actually cheering for strikeouts.
 

Huntington Avenue Grounds

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The MFY broadcast was striking in how underwhelmed they were by what was happening. I know, visitors doing to to your boys and all, but compared to the NESN broadcast there was hardly a connection to what was going on down there. Felt like a spring training game in the later innings for all the energy they were putting into it.
 

grsharky7

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I was there sitting in the right field upper deck. His strike outs of Strawberry and Knoblauch in the 9th inning were epic. They looked like little leaguers against Pedro.

I remember it being a little dicey on the 4 train after the game, lots of smack talk between the fans and there was some pushing and shoving going back downtown.
 

BaseballJones

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The Athletic has an article about the greatest pitching season in the last 50 years, and they boiled it down to 1985 Dwight Gooden and 2000 Pedro Martinez. It's behind a paywall so I can't see what they determine.

1985 Gooden: 276.2 ip, 24-4, 1.53 era, 1.69 fip, 229 era+, 0.97 whip, 8.7 k/9, 12.2 bWAR
2000 Pedro: 217.0 ip, 18-6, 1.74 era, 2.17 fip, 291 era+, 0.74 whip, 11.8 k/9, 11.7 bWAR

Gooden had a better W-L record, raw era, fip, and WAR, which is basically due to his huge lead in innings pitched. Pedro had a better era+, whip, and k/9.

It's not clear to me that either of these seasons is even better than Pedro's 1999:

1999 Pedro: 213.1 ip, 23-4, 2.07 era, 1.39 fip, 243 era+, 0.92 whip, 13.2 k/9, 9.8 bWAR

Obviously, by some metrics, Pedro's 1999 is better than either 1985 Gooden or 2000 Pedro: fip and k/9.

Which year do you guys think was better: Gooden's 1985 or Pedro's 2000?

By the way....average era in the NL in 1985 was 3.59, so Gooden was 2.06 points better than league average. The average era in the AL in 2000 was 4.91, so Pedro was 3.17 points better than league average (hence the huge difference in era+).
 

lexrageorge

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The Athletic has an article about the greatest pitching season in the last 50 years, and they boiled it down to 1985 Dwight Gooden and 2000 Pedro Martinez. It's behind a paywall so I can't see what they determine.

1985 Gooden: 276.2 ip, 24-4, 1.53 era, 1.69 fip, 229 era+, 0.97 whip, 8.7 k/9, 12.2 bWAR
2000 Pedro: 217.0 ip, 18-6, 1.74 era, 2.17 fip, 291 era+, 0.74 whip, 11.8 k/9, 11.7 bWAR

Gooden had a better W-L record, raw era, fip, and WAR, which is basically due to his huge lead in innings pitched. Pedro had a better era+, whip, and k/9.

It's not clear to me that either of these seasons is even better than Pedro's 1999:

1999 Pedro: 213.1 ip, 23-4, 2.07 era, 1.39 fip, 243 era+, 0.92 whip, 13.2 k/9, 9.8 bWAR

Obviously, by some metrics, Pedro's 1999 is better than either 1985 Gooden or 2000 Pedro: fip and k/9.

Which year do you guys think was better: Gooden's 1985 or Pedro's 2000?

By the way....average era in the NL in 1985 was 3.59, so Gooden was 2.06 points better than league average. The average era in the AL in 2000 was 4.91, so Pedro was 3.17 points better than league average (hence the huge difference in era+).
Doc Gooden was an outstanding talent; too bad he wasted it away in the manner he did.

Anyway, relevant to your question: Gooden's 1985 season is indeed one for the record books. Summarizing where Gooden's stats stood in relation to other league leaders:

Wins: #1, 3 more than 2nd place Juaquin Andujar
ERA: #1. John Tudor (!) was 2nd w/ a 1.93.
IP: #1, his 276.2 slightly more than John Tudor's 275),
K's: 52 more than 2nd place Mario Soto
ERA+: 44 more than Tudor.
FIP: Big lead over 2nd place Rick Reuschel (2.58); Tudor was 3rd at 2.71
WHIP: 2nd in WHIP, his 0.97 squeezing in between Tudor (0.94) and Eckersley (0.97). FWIW, this was Eck's final season as a full time starter.
K/9: His 8.7 trailed only teammate Sid Fernandez (9.5)
BB/9: Gooden's 2.2 was good enough for 8.
HR/9: 0.4, which was 4th behind Orel Hershiser, Reuschel, and Bill Gullickson.
K/BB: Eckersley led the league w/ 6.2. Gooden's 3.9 was good enough for 3rd, with Lamar Hoyt slotting in for 2nd.
Hits/9: Gooden's 6.4 trailed only Fernandez's 5.7.
bWAR: Tudor was 2nd at 8.1.

But compared to Pedro in 2000:

Wins: #4, behind Tim Hudson (20), David Wells (20), and Andy Pettite (19)
ERA: His 1.74 was nearly 2 runs better than 2nd place Clemens.
IP: Pedro finished 8th as he missed roughly 5 starts over the course of the year.
K's: His 284 were 72 more than 2nd place Bartolo Colon
ERA+: The next closest were Mike Sirotka and Clemens at 133. Not sure if there's ever been a 160 point gap between the first and 2nd place finishers previously or since.
FIP: Again, not remotely resembling anything close; Wells was 2nd at 3.50.
WHIP: Mike Mussina was 2nd with 1.19.
K/9: 1.8 more than Colon's.
BB/9: Pedro's 1.3 was good for 2nd behind Wells' 1.2
HR/9: 0.7, tied for first w/ Andy Pettitte and Aaron Sele.
K/BB: 8.9. Wells was 2nd place...somewhere....searching...in the 5's.
Hits/9: 5.3. Tim Hudson was 2nd w/ 7.5.
bWAR: Pedro's 11.7 nearly doubled Radke's 6.2.

In terms of dominance relative to the rest of the league's best pitchers, it's Pedro in 2000, and I don't think it's particularly close either. The only contender, IMO, is Pedro's 1999, where he similarly lapped the field, albeit with a smaller margin of victory in the bWAR and ERA+ race.
 

ookami7m

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The author's conclusion is 00 Pedro is better than 85 Doc but it's close. Essentially it seems to come down to the fact that for 1999-2000 Pedro starts were appointment TV and in the stadium it was an electric environment. - The feeling that something special was happening.
 

jon abbey

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Essentially it seems to come down to the fact that for 1999-2000 Pedro starts were appointment TV and in the stadium it was an electric environment. - The feeling that something special was happening.
I didn't read the article yet but I went to some Gooden starts in 85 and 86 and all of the above could certainly be applied to those also.
 

Papelbon's Poutine

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The author's conclusion is 00 Pedro is better than 85 Doc but it's close. Essentially it seems to come down to the fact that for 1999-2000 Pedro starts were appointment TV and in the stadium it was an electric environment. - The feeling that something special was happening.
I'm not sure how you came to the conclusion that he reduced it to that:

The verdict
I’ll be honest: I started this whole debate on Gooden’s side, changed my mind when contextualizing the innings totals, and was nearly swayed by the ineffable marvel that was watching a 20-year-old Dwight Gooden be so damn good. But I think the answer is still Pedro.
The argument is close if we’re debating, at a gross level, who was better. It’s also meaningless. Neither of these pitchers was as valuable as 19th-century dudes who started and completed two-thirds of their teams’ games, and a comparison of the two of them becomes more like a race to the 30th-best season in history when all context is removed from the discussion.
Once that context becomes part of the conversation, Martínez wins at pretty much every level. His ERA was better compared to his peers, he struck out more batters compared to his peers, he walked fewer batters compared to his peers. His WHIP was the best ever, compared to all of history.
That Gooden was younger is a point in his favor but it can’t be the decisive one. Precocity complements; it does not define. And while Gooden’s transcendence at such a young age expanded our imaginations, you can’t have been at a Pedro start at Fenway in ’99 or 2000 and not thought pretty much the same thing — that what you were seeing had never been done quite like this before. It hasn’t since.
 

NortheasternPJ

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Nov 16, 2004
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The author's conclusion is 00 Pedro is better than 85 Doc but it's close. Essentially it seems to come down to the fact that for 1999-2000 Pedro starts were appointment TV and in the stadium it was an electric environment. - The feeling that something special was happening.
I remember during those years Pedro getting a double play was disappointing. I went to 30 or so games a year 99-04 and it was electric.
 

PC Drunken Friar

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The Athletic has an article about the greatest pitching season in the last 50 years, and they boiled it down to 1985 Dwight Gooden and 2000 Pedro Martinez. It's behind a paywall so I can't see what they determine.

1985 Gooden: 276.2 ip, 24-4, 1.53 era, 1.69 fip, 229 era+, 0.97 whip, 8.7 k/9, 12.2 bWAR
2000 Pedro: 217.0 ip, 18-6, 1.74 era, 2.17 fip, 291 era+, 0.74 whip, 11.8 k/9, 11.7 bWAR

Gooden had a better W-L record, raw era, fip, and WAR, which is basically due to his huge lead in innings pitched. Pedro had a better era+, whip, and k/9.

It's not clear to me that either of these seasons is even better than Pedro's 1999:

1999 Pedro: 213.1 ip, 23-4, 2.07 era, 1.39 fip, 243 era+, 0.92 whip, 13.2 k/9, 9.8 bWAR

Obviously, by some metrics, Pedro's 1999 is better than either 1985 Gooden or 2000 Pedro: fip and k/9.

Which year do you guys think was better: Gooden's 1985 or Pedro's 2000?

By the way....average era in the NL in 1985 was 3.59, so Gooden was 2.06 points better than league average. The average era in the AL in 2000 was 4.91, so Pedro was 3.17 points better than league average (hence the huge difference in era+).
Please do yourself (and sports writing in general) and subscribe if your means can afford it.
 

Marceline

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Please do yourself (and sports writing in general) and subscribe if your means can afford it.
Yes, subscribing to The Athletic is well worth it and I'm sure they need the support right now.

I have 5 free 30-day guest passes available if anyone wants to try it out. PM me with your email address if interested.
 

TonyPenaNeverJuiced

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I was at this game as well. As the fan thinned out (and Sox/Pedro fans made their way closer to the field) I got a stub from a guy in a nice suit that led me down to some amazing seats in a luxury field box, and my dad and I got to enjoy the rest of the game down there. That ticket is still on the wall in my childhood home.

The ticket even has a field for the company that owned the box that year: John W. Henry & Co.
 

NJ_Sox_Fan

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Pedro 2000 was so far and away better than anyone else in the league at the time. Gooden had great numbers, but he was not where Pedro was, which was nearly 2 runs better than any other pitcher in his league.