Kershaw is great, but enough with the GOAT

Let me get this straight from the start--I really like Kershaw.  I admire him.  He's a great pitcher.  One of the best of today's game.

Now, I'll blast the talking heads.  HE ISN'T THE GREATEST EVER.

Here's the thing--historically we've always considered innings eating as one of the essentials of a "best ever" type of pitcher.  Clayton pitched 7 innings last night.  That's fairly normal for pitchers today, but the Greatest Ever has to go to pitchers who aren't "fairly normal."  

Quick look.  Bob Gibson in World Series games.

Year	Age	Tm	Lg	Series	Rslt	Opp	W	L	W-L%	ERA	G	GS	GF	CG	SHO	SV	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	IBB	SO	HBP	BK	WP	BF	WHIP	H9	HR9	BB9	SO9	SO/W
1964 MVP	28	STL	NL	WS	W	NYY	2	1	.667	3.00	3	3	0	2	0	0	27.0	23	11	9	4	8	2	31	2	0	1	113	1.148	7.7	1.3	2.7	10.3	3.88
1967 MVP	31	STL	NL	WS	W	BOS	3	0	1.000	1.00	3	3	0	3	1	0	27.0	14	3	3	1	5	0	26	0	0	1	98	0.704	4.7	0.3	1.7	8.7	5.20
1968	32	STL	NL	WS	L	DET	2	1	.667	1.67	3	3	0	3	1	0	27.0	18	5	5	1	4	1	35	0	0	0	101	0.815	6.0	0.3	1.3	11.7	8.75
3 Yrs (3 Series)							7	2	.778	1.89	9	9	0	8	2	0	81.0	55	19	17	6	17	3	92	2	0	2	312	0.889	6.1	0.7	1.9	10.2	5.41
3 WS							7	2	.778	1.89	9	9	0	8	2	0	81.0	55	19	17	6	17	3	92	2	0	2	312	0.889	6.1	0.7	1.9	10.2	5.41

Note: Bob Gibson, one of the historic monsters of Stare Down pitching, pitched 8 complete games out of 9 starts.  All in all, he pitched 9 innings per game.  

Bob Gibson is ahead of Clayton Kershaw on the "Best Ever" lists in my opinion.  

Tom Seaver averaged more than 7 innings per post season game.  Overall ERA for those series was 2.77, 3 W's, 3 L's, 8 starts.

Greg Maddux.  11 W's, 14 L's, 3.27 ERA, 30 post season starts.

Nolan Ryan.  2 W's, 2 L's, 3.07 ERA, 63 K's in 58.2 IP.

Steve Carlton.  6 W's, 6 L's, 3.26 ERA, 14 post season starts.

Randy Johnson.  7 W's, 9 L's, 3.50 ERA, 16 post season starts.  132 K's in 121 IP.

These are all historic great pitchers.  All with mediocre post season records.

Now let's look at Curt Schilling, the one cast out by ESPN because they are a purely liberal political organization.

Curt.  11 W's, 2 L's, 19 starts, 19 games pitches, 4 complete games (not a lot compared to the old timers), 2.23 ERA.  

Nice!

Now, one to whom Clayton is often compared.

Sandy Koufax.  4 W's, 3 L's.  That's fairly normal.  0.95 ERA.  I'm going to write that again, to help you see that it wasn't a typo.  0.95 ERA.  0.95 ERA.  8 games started, 4 complete games.

Now, Clayton.

7 W's, 7 L's, 4.21 ERA.  What?  

18 starts, 22 games overall.  113.1 innings pitched.  So... that's an average of just over 5 innings per game pitched.  

Not a best ever.

However, Clayton does have the distinction of being the only player in the history of MLB to win the MVP award after having been in only 1/6th of his team's games.

There ya go.