Pedro = Greatest of all Time.

Let's talk about Pedro Martinez who is nearing the end of a Hall of Fame career. That being said, I decided one could make a case that he is the most dominant pitcher ever. Pedro's career numbers look like this: 3,117K's, 2.88 ERA, ERA+ 154!!!!, (yes the extra exclamation points really are necessary) and WHIP 1.051. He also has the best winning pct. and yet people knock him because he only has won 213 games, which shouldn't matter as wins do not matter half as much as traditional sports media would lead you to believe. I hate when people say someone is better because he won more games. Pedro is going to end his career with around a 100 fewer wins then Phil Niekro, Gaylord Perry and Don Sutton. Those guys pitched forever and hung around just to get over the 300 win mark, they're solid pitchers but they are nowhere near Pedro dominance.

Lets see where his above numbers rank all time:
His WHIP is 4th lowest of all time while the top 3 are Mariano Rivera (who is a reliever), Ed Walsh (who pitched in the dead ball era), and Addie Joss (who also pitched in the early 1900's). You cannot compare Joss and Walsh to Pedro when you consider Pedro put up these numbers in a hitters era. For example, the league ERA for Joss's career was 2.68 while for Pedro's career it is 4.50 which shows how different the game is now. All that being said, one should look at Pedro's WHIP as the best ever.

Pedro's adjusted ERA is 154 which is second all time to Rivera (who again is a closer, so one really can't compare the two). This makes Pedro number 1 all time among starters, which is no surprise.

He is 7th all time in hits allowed per 9 innings, which is amazing considering he spent 7 years of his prime in a hitter's ballpark like Fenway.
He is 3rd all time in K/9 ahead of all time strikeout king Nolan Ryan.
He is also 3rd all time in K/BB.

Think about all of those numbers and also that he did it all in the best hitter's era ever. He has also won 3 Cy Youngs when he should have won more. In 2002 he came in second to Barry Zito when he should have easily won but the baseball writers think wins are the only relevant stat necessary to evaluate a pitcher. Zito won 23 games and Pedro won 20. That's the only stat Zito beats Pedro in. If you look beyond wins:
ERA- Zito 2.75, Pedro 2.26.
WHIP- Zito 1.13, Pedro 0.92
Strikeouts- Zito 182, Pedro 239 in 30 fewer innings.
ERA+ Zito- 158, Pedro 202 (But clearly there is a big difference between pitching in Mcafee Coliseum as opposed to Fenway).

In 2003 Pedro came in 3rd in voting behind Esteban Loaiza and Roy Halladay because (surprise surprise) Pedro only won 14 games while Halladay and Loaiza both won over 20. Pedro had a lower ERA then both of them, in fact Pedro's ERA was a full run lower then the Cy Young winner Halladay. Pedro had a lower WHIP then both of them and more strikeouts while throwing fewer innings then them. Pedro's ERA+ was 210, Loaiza's was 159 and Halladay's 145. If you're following me here, Pedro's Cy Young total should have been closer to 5 than 3.

Not bad for a kid who "used to sit under the mango trees."