So Carlton pitched for free over those last 1800 innings?   I don't think he did.

That's like saying a $25 buffet has better quality food than a $25 steak dinner because you can eat more and for longer.

Quality and quantity are NOT the same thing. I figured a stat geek like you of all people would get that. I was sorely mistaken.

You're confused. It's ok. It doesn't matter how much they actually made. The price to us in this super fun argument is zero. You have the choice of either career. Carlton's doesn't cost more.

Posted by jrd_x on 2/24/2012 4:15:00 PM (view original):
No but if you are going to be charged the same price for the full steak and the half steak, you choose the full steak. And that's assuming the steaks are equal quality. Carlton was better over the same amount if innings and then kept pitching.

Hunter's career (1965 - 1979) through age 33:  224-166 W/L, 3449 IP, 3.26 ERA, 1.134 WHIP.
Carlton's career (1965 - 1979) through age 34: 225-160 W/L. 3485 IP, 3.08 ERA, 1.225 WHIP

Carlton was the same for the same amount of innings and then kept pitching.  Why do you keep insisting that he is better?  Are you even looking at the numbers?

I've addressed the career argument and you just keep spinning it back to distract from the fallacy of your argument.

Answer this question: Game 7 of the WS, everything on the line, one game, who do you want starting? I'm gonna say 80% of people (at least) would take Hunter.

Posted by Jtpsops on 2/24/2012 4:20:00 PM (view original):
That's like saying a $25 buffet has better quality food than a $25 steak dinner because you can eat more and for longer.

Quality and quantity are NOT the same thing. I figured a stat geek like you of all people would get that. I was sorely mistaken.

You're a g*d*mn retard.

You already said Carlton was "marginally better" over the same amount of innings.

Then add the additional 1800 and it isn't even close.

Posted by jrd_x on 2/24/2012 4:22:00 PM (view original):
You're confused. It's ok. It doesn't matter how much they actually made. The price to us in this super fun argument is zero. You have the choice of either career. Carlton's doesn't cost more.

You're the one who's confused.  Quantity is not the same as quality.  You seem to be unable to understand that.

Posted by jrd_x on 2/24/2012 4:24:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Jtpsops on 2/24/2012 4:20:00 PM (view original):
That's like saying a $25 buffet has better quality food than a $25 steak dinner because you can eat more and for longer.

Quality and quantity are NOT the same thing. I figured a stat geek like you of all people would get that. I was sorely mistaken.

You're a g*d*mn retard.

You already said Carlton was "marginally better" over the same amount of innings.

Then add the additional 1800 and it isn't even close.

I'm retarded and you can't solve the quantity vs quality conundrum. Go read a dictionary.

Let's try something more simple for you. If I have 10 $20 bills and you have 20 $20 bills - how much is each bill worth? Your stack is WORTH more, but the value of each bill is exactly the same. Carlton's career is better because he pitched longer - I've said that 30 times (and this is the last time I'll be saying it). As a pitcher, in terms of ability, they were equivalent until injuries took a toll on Hunter.

Career edge: Carlton

Pitching edge: push

Posted by tecwrg on 2/24/2012 4:23:00 PM (view original):

Posted by jrd_x on 2/24/2012 4:15:00 PM (view original):
No but if you are going to be charged the same price for the full steak and the half steak, you choose the full steak. And that's assuming the steaks are equal quality. Carlton was better over the same amount if innings and then kept pitching.

Hunter's career (1965 - 1979) through age 33:  224-166 W/L, 3449 IP, 3.26 ERA, 1.134 WHIP.
Carlton's career (1965 - 1979) through age 34: 225-160 W/L. 3485 IP, 3.08 ERA, 1.225 WHIP

Carlton was the same for the same amount of innings and then kept pitching.  Why do you keep insisting that he is better?  Are you even looking at the numbers?

Carlton had a better ERA, ERA+, K rate, HR Rate, & FIP for the first 3400.
Hunter had a better WHIP and BB rate.

Then Carlton pitched another 1800 innings and still didn't fall behind Hunter in ERA, ERA+, K rate, HR rate, or FIP.

Posted by Jtpsops on 2/24/2012 4:28:00 PM (view original):

Posted by jrd_x on 2/24/2012 4:24:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Jtpsops on 2/24/2012 4:20:00 PM (view original):
That's like saying a $25 buffet has better quality food than a $25 steak dinner because you can eat more and for longer.

Quality and quantity are NOT the same thing. I figured a stat geek like you of all people would get that. I was sorely mistaken.

You're a g*d*mn retard.

You already said Carlton was "marginally better" over the same amount of innings.

Then add the additional 1800 and it isn't even close.

I'm retarded and you can't solve the quantity vs quality conundrum. Go read a dictionary.

Let's try something more simple for you. If I have 10 $20 bills and you have 20 $20 bills - how much is each bill worth? Your stack is WORTH more, but the value of each bill is exactly the same. Carlton's career is better because he pitched longer - I've said that 30 times (and this is the last time I'll be saying it). As a pitcher, in terms of ability, they were equivalent until injuries took a toll on Hunter.

Career edge: Carlton

Pitching edge: push

But we aren't evaluating individual seasons.  You'd rather have $200 instead of $400, you're a g*dd*mn retard. 

As I said before, I can play this game any way I want.

I take Hunter from 65-79.   If I can have Carlton's 80-83 without taking his 84-88, then I have a decision to make.   If not, I think I can find someone else from 80-88 that I'd rather have.

Posted by jrd_x on 2/24/2012 4:30:00 PM (view original):

Posted by tecwrg on 2/24/2012 4:23:00 PM (view original):

Posted by jrd_x on 2/24/2012 4:15:00 PM (view original):
No but if you are going to be charged the same price for the full steak and the half steak, you choose the full steak. And that's assuming the steaks are equal quality. Carlton was better over the same amount if innings and then kept pitching.

Hunter's career (1965 - 1979) through age 33:  224-166 W/L, 3449 IP, 3.26 ERA, 1.134 WHIP.
Carlton's career (1965 - 1979) through age 34: 225-160 W/L. 3485 IP, 3.08 ERA, 1.225 WHIP

Carlton was the same for the same amount of innings and then kept pitching.  Why do you keep insisting that he is better?  Are you even looking at the numbers?

Carlton had a better ERA, ERA+, K rate, HR Rate, & FIP for the first 3400.
Hunter had a better WHIP and BB rate.

Then Carlton pitched another 1800 innings and still didn't fall behind Hunter in ERA, ERA+, K rate, HR rate, or FIP.

FIP.  Haven't we disregarded that as irrelevant?

K rate is irrelevant if the pitcher can still induce outs another way.  Hunter was clearly able to do that.

ERA is a bad way to judge pitchers because there are too many other factors (ballpark, defense, quality of league, etc).  ERA+ is just a normaization of an already flawed stat.  It's better than straight ERA, but not an end-all magic bullet to quantify a pitcher.

Carlton's additional 1800 IPs are irrelevant when discussing the quality of each pitcher.  Because, as been stated around 100 or more times in this thread, quantity is not the same as quality.

FIP is much more relevant than ERA or WHIP.

You haven't shown a shred of evidence that Hunter was as good as Carlton. 

Posted by jrd_x on 2/24/2012 4:54:00 PM (view original):
FIP is much more relevant than ERA or WHIP.

You haven't shown a shred of evidence that Hunter was as good as Carlton. 

Hunter's career (1965 - 1979) through age 33:  224-166 W/L, 3449 IP, 3.26 ERA, 1.134 WHIP.
Carlton's career (1965 - 1979) through age 34: 225-160 W/L. 3485 IP, 3.08 ERA, 1.225 WHIP

Posted by tecwrg on 2/24/2012 3:59:00 PM (view original):

Posted by eschwartz67 on 2/24/2012 3:17:00 PM (view original):
Posted by tecwrg on 2/24/2012 10:25:00 AM (view original):
Hunter's career (1965 - 1979) through age 33:  224-166 W/L, 3449 IP, 3.26 ERA, 1.134 WHIP.

Carlton's career (1965 - 1979) through age 34: 225-160 W/L. 3485 IP, 3.08 ERA, 1.225 WHIP

They were the same pitcher.  Then, Carlton pitched another 1732 IPs. 



Tec...   Being that I wanted to believe that Hunter was the equal of Carlton (which was my opinion until this morning when I looked up the real stats for them), your post is the most rational argument for Hunter being close to the equal (if not very equal) to Steve Carlton.  My question for you, is where in your thoughts on this do the fact that during Hunter's career, he played on many more high quality teams than did Carlton.  And it was not through the fault of Carlton.  He pitched amazingly well.  But the Cardinals of the 60s won 1 championship and the Phillies of the 70s won zero.  Hunter played on many champions with the A's and Yankees.  How does that factor in knowing that Carlton had a slightly better W/L record playing on vastly inferior teams? 

Excellent question.  Glad you made me look this up because I didn't realize what I was about to find.

It's actually a misperception that Calrton played on vastly inferior teams.  Hunter started with Kansas City in 1965, and they were pretty horrendous in the mid to late 60's.  Carlton started with the Cardinals who were pretty good back then.  Carlton only really played on two "bad" teams - the '72 and '73 Phillies, while Hunter played on three bad teams - the '65, '66 and '67 Kansas City A's.

When you add up the W/L records of the teams they played on during the '65 through '79 seasons, they're actually very close:

Carlton (Cardinals '65 through '71, Phillies '72 through '79): 1286-1136 (.531 winning percentage) - 5 post-season teams
Hunter (Athletics '65 through '74, Yankees '75 through '79): 1301-1112 (.539 winning percentage) - 7 post-season teams

So they had very similar records and stats during the '65 through '79 periods, playing on compositely similarly successful teams.

Thank you for looking it up.  And thank you for the answer.

I still think that after digesting all the stats, also using my watching of both pitchers through the 70s and 80s (for Carlton) and looking back at the comments made on both sides......  though I still hate Steve Carlton.....

Steve Carlton was the better pitcher.  It's close.  Hunter had 5 STRAIGHT seasons (71-75) that were HOF worthy.  Carlton never put together a stretch like that.  His 5 best seasons are strewn across a decade of work.  Hunter won more championships and pitched better in postseason than did Carlton.  HOWEVER....  subtracting 1971-1975 from Hunter leaves him with a career record of 113-117.  Thats just poor. And though Tec showed that the teams Hunter & Carlton pitched for were close to equal (Hunter's being slightly better), using 1965 & 1966 for both Carlton & Hunter is a sham.  Hunter pitched a total of 309 innings for those teams (half of his output during his years in his prime.  And Carlton had a total of 70 innings for the 65 & 66 Cardinals combined.  So using only 1967-1979 would show a MARKED difference between the caliber of teams Hunter had and Carlton had.

I hate the ******....  but Carlton was the better pitcher.  And he had 4 more very high level seasons (1980-1983) after Hunter retired.  I can put up with 1984-1988 being ****.  He should have retired in 1984.  He hung around, but his overall numbers were not affected that much, and I dont remember him as a washed up member of the 1987 Twins, but rather a Met killer for the 1980 Phillies.