So, last month, I’m reading
The 30 by Jonah Keri, just as I do every Monday afternoon during baseball season. As he got toward the end of this installment, Keri started wondering aloud whether Felix Hernandez was the best pitcher in baseball, given how phenomenal he was through two months of the 2014 season. It got me thinking whether Hernandez has ever been the best pitcher in baseball and how long Clayton Kershaw has been the best pitcher in baseball, and that got me thinking about Justin Verlander and Cliff Lee and CC Sabathia before him.
Then I remembered I had come up with this goofy idea for a
running back championship belt before applying the same idea to
quarterbacks last year. After spending so much time over the next two days on Baseball-Reference.com that it sent me a restraining order, I had gone all the way back to 1900 and identified the Best Pitcher Alive throughout each of the past 114 seasons of professional baseball. I sent the list around to a small committee (including Mr. Keri) to get brighter minds on the case, changed a few of my choices, and finished up with the list I present to you now.
