Again, the 10 options listed are in fact the franchise's Top 10, only the list is not in order, rather alphabetized by last name. Your "winner" is" Tom Henke, by a wide margin --  but look who's #2!!!

Rank    Player              K/BB          IP
1.    Tom Henke        3.88        563.0
2.    Josh Towers        3.13        558.3
3.    Roy Halladay        2.86        1602.7
4.    David Wells        2.67        1148.7
5.    Duane Ward        2.41        650.7
6.    Jimmy Key        2.34        1695.7
7.    Paul Quantrill        2.32        517.7
8.    Doyle Alexander        2.28        750.0
9.    Kelvim Escobar        1.89        849.0
     Juan Guzman        1.89        1215.7

I actually thought about Josh, for a second. After all, when you never walk anyone... But it was just for a second. And then I went - oh come on! Has to be the Terminator!

The interesting thing to me about this group is how the top 10 breaks down into an almost perfect 10-man pitching staff ...

A five-man rotation of Halladay, Key, Alexander, Wells and Guzman (that's even RLRLR, for cryin' out loud) with a bullpen of  Henke set up by Ward and Escobar, Quantrill the middle man and Towers around for long relief. The only thing missing is lefty balance in the bullpen.

Lefty balance?  I'm not worried.  With Henke and Ward at the top of the bullpen, it would be fine.  By the way, Eichhorn just misses the 500 IP cut-off, and would have been fairly close to the top.

I was 99% sure on Henke but part of me wondered if Towers was a trick in there. 

Henke's 1987 was amazing.  25 walks, 128 strikeouts in 94 IP.  34 saves to lead the league (different era) and an 0-6 won-lost record.  I remember late in the season hoping he wouldn't sneak a win just to keep that weird 0 wins league leader in saves thing going. 

His ERA+'s were amazing.  6 times over 180 while his other 2 years here were 127 and 135 (slacker).  Of course Rivera has had 8 years of 200+ but still it is amazing.

I was curious about Halladay, minus his first three years - i.e., the good Halladay. Take out 1998-2000 and Halladay's SO/BB ratio gets all the way up to 3.66. As it is, Halladay's 2.86 gets him to the top 15 current and top 50 all time (1000 IP). The top of the all time leaderboard is fascinatiing. It's populated mostly by guys from the 1800's and the last 2-3 decades - Juan Marichal at 20th is the top pitcher who played in the 60's, I don't see anyone from the 20's to the 50's, and there are a lot of those pitchers from the 1880's who threw 500 innings a year and somehow couldn't last more than 5-6 years (wimps).

Aweb, are you saying that if we take the historical edge the stats have into consideration, Halladay is among a handful of our generation?
I'd be very curious to see this list...

Also, I hear that this one inning closer is a new development... what were closers like in the past? 2, 3 innings? Did teams have a closer-by-committee approach back then?

I voted for Towers - the heart wants what the heart wants...

The big killer for those 1880 pitchers was the switch to overhand throwing and the switch from fastball to baseball.  They threw from 45 feet away then 50 until 1893 when they finally switched it to today's 60 feet 6 inches.  1894 brought in the pitching mound. 

For example, in 1892 the NL leader in IP threw 622 innings, #2 was over 500 with 10 guys over 400 innings pitched.
In 1893 the NL leader was at 482 IP, and just 4 guys cracked 400.
1894 saw a leader at 447 IP with with 5 guys over 400
1895 & 1896 cut down to 2 guys over 400 IP
1897 saw a leader with just 368 IP and no one in the NL would crack 400 again until 1902 (410).

That was a major shift.  Suddenly one guy couldn't take the whole workload of a staff. 
Of the top 10 in ERA+ for 1892 you saw the #2 guy get just 2 more seasons, the #3 guy one season, #5 one season, #6 got 5 years, #7 2 years, #8 had one more winning season in him, #10 was 100+ in ERA+ for his 6 years pre-60'6" and was sub 100 in ERA+ for his remaining 8 years (mostly below 90).
#1 was Cy Young, #4 was a rookie in '92 who had a full career, #9 was Kid Nichols in his 3rd season.

So, 3 of the top 10 had careers after the shift and all were young at the time while 2 more had a few seasons but not much success while the 5 others were 1 or 2 and gone from MLB.

For comparison the 1992 top 10 NL ERA+ pitchers had 4 guys who are still pitching today (Maddux, Schilling, Glavine, Smoltz), plus Bill Swift (6 more seasons, 3 good ones), Bob Tewksbury (6 more years), Mike Morgan (10 more years - and he came up in the 70's!), Jose Rijo (5 more seasons but just 3 right after then a 5 year break and 2 more), and Greg Swindell (10 more seasons).

Yeah, I'd say the mound shift killed a lot of careers.  FYI: not making fun of AWeb here, just pointing out how extreme the late 1800's were for shifts and what they did to guys.

Yeah, I was aware of the shift in pitching style around that time, I just found it interesting that pitchers from that era (1880-1890's), and my era (1980's- present) were so dominant in the list. I assume the SO/BB ratios on a league-wide level were at all time highs in those eras; it's not something I had heard stated that way before though. No AL pitcher in the 1920's, for instance, had a single season of 3:1; in 2007, a 3:1 ratio doesn't even crack the top ten.

I had thought that the increase in strikeouts associated with the "wait for a good one, try and hit a homer" era would be offset by the extra walks to a greater extent. I guess not...the league-wide strikeouts have gone through the roof in recent decades, while walks have only increased a little.

And yes, Halladay is among the elite in this category of his generation. He's also up there in ERA+; among those between, say 28-35, he's in the next tier down from Webb, Santana and Oswalt, and there with Zambrano and Hudson in his age group (which I of course picked arbitrarily).

Damn, I said Towers. Close.

For all fans of Josh Towers, you will be happy to hear this recent quote from the man:

     "I finally found my delivery, how I pitch. I've been searching for it."

Towers has found his delivery, Thomas has found his swing, Quiroz has found some playing time and somewhere out there, Russ Adams' courage is waiting for him.