100 Greatest Pitchers of All-Time

ALL-TIME TOP 100 LISTS

Baseball's All-Time Greatest Pitchers Ranked From 1 to 100

CAREER = career war

Long Peak = WAR in Best 7 Seasons

SHORT PEAK = WAR in Best 3 Seasons

PRIME = WAR in 5 Best Consecutive Seasons

RANK	NAME	FROM	TO	CAREER	LONG PEAK	SHORT PEAK	PRIME
1	Walter Johnson	1907	1927	164.9	83.1	40.0	61.3
2	Greg Maddux	1986	2008	106.7	55.5	27.4	43.8
3	Randy Johnson	1988	2009	101.1	63.3	30.1	43.8
4	Tom Seaver	1967	1986	110.1	56.7	28.8	40.9
5	Lefty Grove	1925	1941	106.1	66.5	30.8	46.0
6	Pedro Martinez	1992	2009	84.0	59.1	30.4	42.8
7	Bob Gibson	1959	1975	89.4	55.9	30.5	42.5
8	Phil Niekro	1964	1987	96.2	53.6	26.7	40.1
9	Bob Feller	1936	1956	63.9	51.4	29.1	39.3
10	Pete Alexander	1911	1930	120.2	67.2	33.6	46.2
11	Warren Spahn	1942	1965	99.9	49.7	26.2	34.0
12	Bert Blyleven	1970	1992	95.0	50.7	25.0	35.0
13	Steve Carlton	1965	1988	90.5	51.6	29.2	31.8
14	Roger Clemens	1984	2007	139.6	65.7	31.9	41.4
15	Gaylord Perry	1962	1983	90.4	53.2	27.5	37.0
16	Cy Young	1890	1911	168.0	79.7	38.9	56.6
17	Robin Roberts	1948	1966	86.0	53.0	27.1	42.6
18	Christy Mathewson	1900	1916	104.0	63.4	30.2	45.2
19	Curt Schilling	1988	2007	79.6	49.8	25.4	36.3
20	Fergie Jenkins	1965	1983	84.4	50.1	25.3	36.5
21	Justin Verlander	2005	2022	77.7	50.6	24.1	31.0
22	Clayton Kershaw	2008	2022	75.9	47.7	23.1	36.3
23	Mike Mussina	1991	2008	83.0	44.5	21.9	28.2
24	Max Scherzer	2008	2022	71.7	46.2	22.0	34.9
25	Zack Greinke	2004	2022	76.4	45.2	25.2	26.8
26	Roy Halladay	1998	2013	64.3	51.3	25.3	34.0
27	Satchel Paige	1927	1965	46.3	27.0	14.6	35.0
28	Nolan Ryan	1966	1993	81.8	43.4	21.8	27.5
29	Juan Marichal	1960	1975	63.0	49.8	27.2	37.1
30	Jim Palmer	1965	1984	68.9	47.0	22.6	30.7
31	David Cone	1986	2003	62.4	43.7	21.0	30.7
32	Tom Glavine	1987	2008	80.8	36.6	18.6	25.2
33	Carl Hubbell	1928	1943	68.4	45.6	25.6	37.3
34	Sandy Koufax	1955	1966	49.0	48.7	29.1	40.8
35	Hal Newhouser	1939	1955	63.3	50.5	28.7	40.9
36	Bret Saberhagen	1984	2001	59.0	43.1	25.0	30.5
37	Dave Stieb	1979	1998	56.7	44.7	22.6	35.9
38	Johan Santana	2000	2012	51.6	44.2	23.3	35.6
39	Luis Tiant	1964	1982	66.5	44.7	22.8	28.2
40	Don Drysdale	1956	1969	67.2	42.1	21.0	29.9
41	CC Sabathia	2001	2019	62.5	38.8	19.5	30.4
42	Jim Bunning	1955	1971	59.6	47.9	24.8	31.7
43	Ed Walsh	1904	1917	66.0	59.9	32.4	48.1
44	John Smoltz	1988	2009	69.1	37.3	18.6	24.0
45	Joe Williams	1905	1932	6.6	6.6	6.6	46.0
46	Dennis Eckersley	1975	1998	62.4	38.3	19.9	27.7
47	Ted Lyons	1923	1946	71.5	38.6	18.6	23.8
48	Wilbur Wood	1961	1978	50.3	47.2	29.9	39.1
49	Eddie Plank	1901	1917	91.5	48.2	22.8	33.3
50	Frank Tanana	1973	1993	57.6	38.4	23.2	30.7
51	Stan Coveleski	1916	1928	60.3	52.9	26.5	40.3
52	Wes Ferrell	1927	1941	61.2	46.2	23.3	30.2
53	Kevin Appier	1989	2004	54.7	43.3	23.3	32.3
54	Don Sutton	1966	1988	67.0	34.5	18.3	22.6
55	Dwight Gooden	1984	2000	53.0	36.1	22.1	29.2
56	Rick Reuschel	1972	1991	69.7	43.0	21.4	31.1
57	Orel Hershiser	1983	2000	56.3	37.3	20.6	28.7
58	Mark Buehrle	2000	2015	59.3	35.7	17.3	23.5
59	Willie Foster	1923	1937	47.1	35.0	21.0	35.2
60	Felix Hernandez	2005	2019	50.2	38.6	19.5	27.6
61	Dizzy Dean	1930	1947	45.6	40.7	22.1	34.6
62	Tim Hudson	1999	2015	58.2	37.5	20.1	27.1
63	Ron Guidry	1975	1988	48.1	38.0	21.4	28.7
64	Frank Viola	1982	1996	47.2	41.3	22.2	28.9
65	Mickey Lolich	1963	1979	48.3	38.6	21.6	30.3
66	Chuck Finley	1986	2002	58.1	39.7	22.0	25.9
67	Cliff Lee	2002	2014	43.5	40.0	22.8	30.1
68	Cole Hamels	2006	2020	59.3	36.6	18.5	27.7
69	Dazzy Vance	1915	1935	60.1	51.2	28.3	36.6
70	Jacob deGrom	2014	2022	43.8	38.1	22.1	29.1
71	Early Wynn	1939	1963	61.1	35.0	19.3	23.9
72	Roy Oswalt	2001	2013	50.1	38.0	19.6	25.5
73	Bullet Rogan	1918	1938	61.5	35.7	18.7	30.7
74	Vida Blue	1969	1986	45.4	38.7	22.5	21.0
75	Rube Waddell	1897	1910	58.3	51.2	29.4	43.6
76	Tommy John	1963	1989	62.0	34.4	16.6	20.9
77	Mark Langston	1984	1999	50.3	41.7	22.4	26.9
78	Martín Dihigo	1923	1945	22.7	22.7	14.0	26.5
79	Whitey Ford	1950	1967	56.9	33.3	17.1	23.7
80	Dick Redding	1911	1932	2.9	2.9	2.9	36.0
81	Billy Pierce	1945	1964	53.2	38.6	20.3	26.4
82	Brad Radke	1995	2006	45.4	36.4	18.7	27.0
83	Adam Wainwright	2005	2022	46.8	33.8	18.8	25.6
84	Kenny Rogers	1989	2008	50.7	35.2	18.3	19.7
85	Mordecai Brown	1903	1916	58.3	40.8	24.0	35.7
86	Sam McDowell	1961	1975	41.9	42.0	23.0	26.7
87	Joe McGinnity	1899	1908	57.9	51.9	30.0	43.6
88	Jimmy Key	1984	1998	49.1	36.9	18.7	22.0
89	Jerry Koosman	1967	1985	53.9	37.9	19.4	18.4
90	Curt Davis	1934	1946	38.6	30.7	18.7	30.2
91	Kevin Brown	1986	2005	68.0	46.3	23.8	36.7
92	Mariano Rivera	1995	2013	56.2	28.7	13.5	18.4
93	Red Ruffing	1924	1947	68.7	33.8	18.2	23.5
94	Bucky Walters	1934	1950	53.3	37.5	21.2	25.5
95	Red Faber	1914	1933	65.0	41.5	26.7	32.4
96	Larry Jackson	1955	1968	52.1	35.1	18.5	24.1
97	David Wells	1987	2007	53.6	30.8	14.1	19.8
98	Don Newcombe	1949	1960	38.6	28.4	14.9	21.2
99	Vic Willis	1898	1910	63.7	51.5	27.7	34.7
100	Fernando Valenzuela	1980	1997	42.1	33.2	16.5	24.0

EXPLANATION OF TABLE DATA

CAREER = Career Wins Above Replacement (WAR).

We use bWAR.

LONG PEAK = WAR in best seven seasons.

SHORT PEAK = WAR in best three seasons.

PRIME = WAR in best five consecutive seasons.

How Do We Rank The Players?

That's a Great Question. In short, it isn't Simple.

We have gone to great lengths to make our All-Time Baseball Player Rankings as thorough as possible. We believe our rankings are the most comprehensive, fair, and accurate.

Players are evaluated on five criteria as the foundation of our rankings:

Career Value
Long Peak
Short Peak
Career Prime Value
Contribution to Championship Teams

We use Wins Above Replacement (WAR) as a basis for these calculations. However, we also adjust for era, integration and level of competition, and missed playing time due to factors beyond the control of the player.

Generally, a player’s Career Value is worth about 50-60% of the ranking score we assign him. That leaves half or just under half from his long peak (seven best seasons), short peak (three best seasons), and prime (five best consecutive seasons). The contribution to championship teams (player performance in seasons where his team wins the pennant) is a small factor in most cases.

Because we adjust for timeline and era, our rankings have fewer players from before 1941 than many other baseball player lists.

We feel it’s important to acknowledge that baseball is harder to play today than it was 25 years ago, and 50 years ago, and so on. It doesn’t make sense, in our opinion, for most of the great baseball players to have played prior to World War II, when MLB was segregated.

100 Greatest Pitchers of All-Time

ALL-TIME TOP 100 LISTS

CATCHER

FIRST BASE

SECOND BASE

SHORTSTOP

THIRD BASE

LEFT FIELD

CENTER FIELD

RIGHT FIELD

PITCHER