For a single season, IMO no pitcher in baseball has ever been better than Steve "Lefty" Carlton in 1972. In pure stats, there are better, but 27-10 with a 1.98 ERA and 310 K's for a 1972 Phillies Team that went 62-94? Nothing touches that, in my mind.

For career... Spahn has longevity and consistency within that, and Grove had his 2 runs of it to a lesser degree.

But to me "best career" is also defined by the pitcher's brilliance. Koufax is that pitcher. His golden years were short, but within that period, I'm not sure there's ever been anything quite like him - even among lefty Hall of Famers.

Johnson's career has the general consistency with some ups and downs like Grove (arguably better in a number of ways), with spots of brilliance (but nothing like Koufax). His big-game playoff relief appearances, while he was still starting, add something to that career in my books.

After Koufax, I think there's a reasonable debate about Spahn or The Big Unit.

I surely think RJ ranks first amongst left-handers. He combined a peak every bit as good as Koufax's with impressive longevity to surpass Spahn's unreal career value which featured a significantly lower peak; Spahn's best season probably ranks only with Johnson's ninth or tenth-best year. I'd rank Grove second, in fact, ahead of Spahn in third.

Maddux the best of the era? Do rumoured bloody syringes in the possession of some snivelling snitch rule out Clemens? I may be misremembering, but I'd say Clemens is better than Maddux. Maddux does have that "video game" walk-rate but even still...

I find it awkward comparing a pitcher I've seen a lot of (RJ) with pitchers I've never seen (those in the OP)... but RJ was definitely the best LHP, I've ever seen. Koufax was almost certainly better at his peak if half the stories are true and his arm problems are a quarter as bad as the legend has them.

I'll always remember how Pat Gillick was the honest guy who kept his verbal agreement to trade for Rickey Henderson when Seattle called back saying they'd trade Randy Johnson in 1993 to the Jays for Steve Karsay after all. IIRC Gillick has confirmed this did occur. I guess with the 1993 title and all we can live with it but just imagine Johnson being here for 1993 and beyond.

1993 was his first year with 15+ wins (19) plus an ERA+ of 136. It was his first of 10 straight 130+ ERA+ seasons. Sigh. Such is life.

So I'd guess he'll be a Mariner in the HOF (8 years in Arizona, 10 in Seattle) although 4 of his 5 Cy Youngs were in Arizona. Seattle: 130-74 128 ERA+ vs Arizona: 118-62 164 ERA+ Hrm. I always will think of him as a Mariner though and wonder what if he stayed in Montreal or had come here in 1993.

Well, it's obviously Grove or Johnson. I'm inclined to think it's still Grove, by a hair. He did his work in an even tougher time for pitchers than Randy. On the other hand, the AL wasn't integrated in the 1930s....

But certainly no one else can even be taken seriously. Grove and Johnson can both match (if not surpass) Koufax's peak performance. And they were both extremely effective (at a higher level, in fact) for as long as Spahn or Glavine. Carlton matches the longevity, but not the sustained peak performance.

I have question I wonder to myself... I've thought about mentioning it here before but don't particularly enjoy thinking about a world where people are denied rights based on skin pigment. It invariably comes up when talking about the early HoFers. Here's the question:

Which is/would be the bigger game changer in baseball.

A) Integration
B) Aluminum Bats

Clearly they are not ethically equivalent or equivalent historically as one has happened and the other probably never will but I think most baseball fans would say a change to B would mark a different era in baseball, rendering the game incomparable to how it was previously, as is typically done with the dead-ball era. That's how I see integration as a shift at least as large as metal bats, lively balls and the invention of the curve-ball. I don't trust the greatness of Johnson, Cobb, Wagner and Ruth because the greatness of Gibson and Paige went unrecognized.

Just a thought, maybe I'm wrong in thinking most baseball fans lump integration with the recent uptick in Asian players or expansion. I can't help but let it diminish many of the games' greats.

I'd consider RJ, Pedro and Clemens before I considered Maddux for best pitcher of my lifetime.  I guess I'd give Carlton consideration too, since I can remember watching him pitch.

Did anybody intimidate hitters like RJ in the last fourty years?

Let's put it this way.  If you adjust for era (integration and so on), Albert Pujols is clearly the best first basemen ever.    If you don't, he may fall a little short of Gehrig.  If you adjust for era (integration and so on), Randy Johnson may be neck and neck with Grove, although I still suspect he would make him considerably short of Grove (once you account for the Baltimore years).  If you don't, he is noticeably short of Grove (without even accounting for Grove's years in Baltimore).

Actually, the more interesting comparison is between Johnson and Spahn.  Rally's WAR has Spahn ahead of Johnson marginally for his career (and with an equivalent peak).  Spahn got a late start because of the war, while Johnson got a late start because he had to find the plate.  Spahn did his best work in a partially integrated league, while Johnson's best work was done in a fully integrated one.

Koufax did have the highest peak of them all, and the difference is noticeable, but the very thing that made him great (being able to pitch so many innings at such a high level in one year) contributed undoubtedly to the early end to his career.

Anyways, I make them Grove, Johnson, Spahn, Koufax, with the gap between Grove and Johnson larger than the gap between Johnson and Spahn.

Do any lefty relievers deserve mention, even in the least? There are three lefties in the all-time top-10 in career saves, John Franco, Randy Myers and Billy Wagner; next after that, I think, are Dave Righetti and Sparky Lyle. The only other lefty with at least 45 in a season is Brian Fuentes ... so I am thinking "no," no lefty relievers deserve even the briefest mention. Anyone else?

B.J. Ryan!

When considering all-time greats, I always liked Bill James' approach of looking at 2 different lists, based on Career Value and Peak Value.  In his Historical Abstract (great book!), he had it Grove, Koufax, Hubbell for Peak Value and Grove, Spahn, Carlton for Career Value for left handed starting pitchers.  Would be interesting know how he would slide RJ in there.  He did say that he thought Grove was the best pitcher of all time, period, so I would imagine RJ would be behind him in both categories.

Here's the question, then ... is Randy the greatest Johnson to ever play MLB? There aren't actually all that many viable candidates ... two benchmark all-time-great pitchers, one righty and one lefty -- wouldn't Walter and Randy be the greatest one-two rotation punch  like, ever? And a HOF Negro Leaguer who never played MLB in Judy ... then a pretty steep cliff (And I don't mean Cliff Johnson!)

... Big Train or Big Unit?

I don't know if he is the best left handed pitcher ever, but he was my favorite pitcher that I've ever seen pitch.   I saw a lot more of him then Maddux, but the fact that hitters were genuinely afraid to face him was something.  John Olerud "resting" against him was something.  The dead bird just made him scarier.  The relief appearances out of the pen against the yankees both times were special, especially coming back on 0 days rest at age 37. throwing still in the low 90s on fumes. 

On a side now I'm starting to feel a little sad that there are so few active players left from when I started following baseball.  I can't think of anything else that makes me feel this old.

I got to see Johnson pitch in Colorado in 2003, when he was struggling through the beginning of his "non-peak" years. It was cold and rainy, and the two homers were off the classic "Coors Field" variety - both appeared to be essentially lazy fly balls to right that carried into the stands by a few feet, or so my memory says. Johnson was pissed after the second one - they barely hit the ball all day (10 Ks in 6 innings), and Jay Payton hit a jam shot out to tie it. Johnson also managed two hits that day, so it turns out I saw a future hall of famer get the most hits in a game he ever did that day. Easily better than Carlton, Spahn (durable, but only occasionally great) and Koufax (sorry, his peak isn't actually the greatest of all time), Johnson is there with Lefty Grove as the top 2 LH pitchers of all time to me.

Do rumoured bloody syringes in the possession of some snivelling snitch rule out Clemens?

I'm sorry, I know this thread is about great lefty pitchers, but because I am somehow seeing an attack on Greg Maddux and a defense of Roger Clemens all in the same sentence, I have to bite (unless I'm missing sarcasm somewhere).  It is up to people to decide for themselves what they think about players who used steroids, but to suggest that Clemens was clean is a bit ... crazy, in my opinion.  His numbers and the changes to his personal appearance alone paint a pretty clear picture, neverminding McNamee.

What about greatest Blue Jays lefties?  Here are the starting five, I think:

Jimmy Key
David Wells
Tom Underwood
Mike Flanagan
John Cerutti

Three of whom took a regular turn in the 1990 rotation.

owen, the only problem I have with that list as a "Blue Jay List" is that Cerutti is the only one who was primarily known as a Jay. Flanagan was all Baltimore, both before and after his time in TO, and the other three guys all had their best individual seasons wearing Yankee pinstripes! Cerutti was okay -- I mean, RIP and allathat, but nothing remotely Cooperstowny. Three of the five guys took brief turns at "he should maybe start the All-Star Game" levels, but overall, that's pretty weak!

Now, what team could run out the best five lefties? Mags, over to you ...

I can’t keep quiet while reading some of the lack of appreciation here for Spahn:  all the man did for start after start, year after year, for many years, was win.  While pitching long into his games.  I suppose few if any bauxites ever saw him,  or even followed him in the papers.  But Spahn was one of the very best lefties, ever.   If you beat him, it was an achievement.  Grove is ahead of him, O.K.;  but I think he’s right there with Johnson.

And Mick, calling Jimmy Key a Yankee because he had his best season with them is, at best,  specious.  (Lots of pitchers, I expect, had their best season after becoming a Yankee.)  Anyway,  Key is a Jay.  So buzz off eh?

In 1992 pitching for the 96 win Blue Jays, Jack Morris went 21-6 with a 4.04era, and Jimmy Key went 13-3 with a 3.53era. Morris allowed 4 or more runs in 15 of his 34 starts, while Key allowed 4 or more in 10 of his 33 starts. Go figure.

That of course should read 13-13, as 13-3 would have made a little more sense.

Less sarcasm than a bad attempt at black humour. However, my approach to steroid rumours is to tune it out. I don't think a pitcher being not clean in the steroid era rules him out of the discussion of the best pitcher. My feeling on this are entrenched because of daft ruling that an invasive and demonstrably performance enhancing procedure (TJ) is OK while steroids seem to be considered magic baseball juice (the science says they're not).

Having seen both Maddux and Clemens pitch at or close to their peaks, I think Clemens was the better pitcher. I suspect this comes down to what one thinks about steroids and how much one is impressed by Ks.

Key's 1987 season beats anything he did with the Yankees, and his 85 and 91 are at least as good as his Yankee years. Besides, he spent 9 years with the Jays and only four with the Yankees; if you want to make it about Big Time Glory, I think you've got to take his 92 World Series performance over 96.

On a side now I'm starting to feel a little sad that there are so few active players left from when I started following baseball.  I can't think of anything else that makes me feel this old.

I realized a couple of years ago that  the last player that was active when I started following sports had retired. Obviously, CFL/NFL was long over. I don't really remember exactly who it was, or if I was 100% correct. IIRC, it was Messier, who was a rookie in 1979 or 1980 for the NHL retiring a few years ago. Baseball hung on a bit longer, I think. Julio Franco, maybe?
(I started in '80-81 watching NHL, and then the 1981 Jays, IIRC). I still remember watching my first Leafs game at my grandma's house. Leafs tied Penguins 4-4. Don't remember my first baseball game, but I do remember a lot of them listening late at night on my single-ear headphone after I was supposed to be asleep :-)

People do forget just how good Key was when he was here and how obvious it was that he was leaving in 1992 (geez was that a dumb move, letting Key go and signing Dave Stewart but a WS win makes you forgive everything).

Key as a Blue Jay: 116-81 3.42 ERA in 1695 2/3 IP.  121 ERA+
Key as a Yankee: 48-23 3.68 ERA in 604 1/3 IP 124 ERA+
Key as an Oriole: 22-13 3.64 ERA in 291 2/3 IP 121 ERA+
Key in playoffs: 5-3 3.15 ERA in 68 2/3 IP, 3-1 with a 2.66 ERA in his 4 WS appearances (the loss was as a Yankee so it is OK).

Looks like Key was hurt in July of his final season, came back and pitched out of the pen fairly effectively but must have felt it was time to end it.  A shame as he was still effective.  Would've loved to see him get 200 wins (14 away).

Spahn was the one who is reported to have said “Hitting is timing.  Pitching is upsetting timing.”  An awful lot of batters went back to the dugout muttering about what Spahn had just done to their timing.

By the way, Mick, my “Buzz off, eh?” was a late-night, pretty clumsy, attempt at jocularity--meant to suggest that it’s bad enough you unabashedly support the Evil Empire on this site, but that now you were even attempting to take Jimmy Key away from us.  Enough is enough.  Something like that.  I should have used one of those smiley-faced thingies.  But anyone named Mick Doherty must be of Irish ancestry, as I am me own self, so I know you enjoy words (and  names), and probably have a somewhat twisty sense of humour.  Cheers.

If people don't know Jimmy Key as a Jay... well then I think that's a reflection on them.   He won two and a half times more games in Toronto then New York.  Hell, I interviewed Jimmy Key in spring training of 1994 for a radio show I hosted at the time and even I remember him as a Blue Jay. 

As an aside I also had Chris Hoiles on my show that spring.  Good lord did he have a good 1993.  How did a catcher hit 310/416/585 and finish 16th in the MVP vote?  He finished behind Mike Stanley, Jeff Montgomery and.... Jimmy Key?????