Roger Clemens vs. Greg Maddux

Roger Clemens vs. Greg Maddux

Probably without question, the two greatest pitchers of the last generation were Roger Clemens and Greg Maddux. Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson probably have their supporters, but both Clemens and Maddux have the combined peaks, primes, and career length that put them into the conversation as the greatest pitcher in major-league history.

Roger Clemens won 354 games in his 24-year career. He led the league in wins 4 times, in ERA 7 times, strikeouts 5 times, and won a record 7 Cy Young Awards. Baseball-Reference credits Clemens with 140.3 wins above replacement (WAR).

Greg Maddux won 355 games, led his league in ERA 4 times, in innings pitched 5 times, won a record (at any position) 18 Gold Gloves, and 4 (consecutive) Cy Young Awards. Baseball-Reference doesn't think quite as highly of Maddux as of Clemens, but his 106.8 career WAR is still 7th all-time among pitchers.^*
^*Lefty Grove is credited with more pitching WAR than Maddux, but fewer overall WAR, including other aspects of their games (batting, baserunning).

For a time in the early 2000s, debating whether Clemens or Maddux was better made for a good baseball debate. The debate sort of fizzled, as Clemens had a late-career renaissance that seemed to push him definitively ahead of Maddux. Of course, then Clemens was named by Brian McNamee in the Mitchell Report. Nowadays, the debate between Clemens and Maddux seems to rest largely on your opinion of performance-enhancing drugs. If you penalize for them, you probably put Maddux ahead of Clemens. If you don't adjust for them, you probably put Clemens ahead of Maddux.

My Player won-lost records (which take no account at all of performance-enhancing drugs, of course) actually show Maddux and Clemens as having been much closer to each other in value over the course of their careers than Baseball-Reference and others (e.g., Fangraphs) seem to view them.

My player won-lost records for Roger Clemens and Greg Maddux are shown in the table below.

Season	Games	pWins	pLosses	Win Pct.	pWOPA	pWORL	Games	pWins	pLosses	Win Pct.	pWOPA	pWORL
	Roger Clemens						Greg Maddux
1984	21	7.3	5.8	0.558	0.7	1.3
1985	15	5.9	4.6	0.561	0.6	1.2
1986	33	17.3	9.9	0.637	3.7	5.0	6	1.6	2.3	0.418	-0.2	-0.1
1987	36	18.2	11.7	0.609	3.3	4.8	34	9.9	13.5	0.423	-1.5	-0.4
1988	35	18.0	11.9	0.603	3.1	4.5	37	17.4	12.5	0.581	3.0	4.3
1989	35	14.8	12.7	0.537	1.0	2.3	35	16.1	14.1	0.533	1.5	2.8
1990	31	16.7	8.7	0.657	4.0	5.2	35	15.6	14.8	0.514	1.0	2.3
1991	35	16.8	11.1	0.602	2.8	4.3	39	15.8	13.7	0.535	1.6	2.9
1992	32	15.4	10.2	0.603	2.6	4.0	35	17.7	12.4	0.587	3.3	4.7
1993	29	12.7	12.6	0.502	0.1	1.3	36	18.1	13.5	0.572	2.8	4.2
1994	24	10.6	8.0	0.570	1.3	2.4	25	14.4	8.1	0.640	3.6	4.7
1995	23	8.8	6.7	0.569	1.1	1.9	28	16.5	7.5	0.689	5.0	6.2
1996	34	13.4	11.0	0.549	1.2	2.6	35	16.2	11.7	0.581	2.8	4.2
1997	34	18.6	9.8	0.656	4.4	6.1	33	14.2	9.2	0.608	3.0	4.2
1998	33	15.7	9.3	0.629	3.2	4.6	34	17.1	12.0	0.588	3.1	4.5
1999	30	13.2	12.3	0.516	0.4	1.8	33	15.9	12.9	0.552	2.0	3.4
2000	32	14.0	12.0	0.538	1.0	2.4	35	17.1	12.2	0.583	3.0	4.4
2001	33	13.9	8.8	0.611	2.5	3.8	35	16.1	11.7	0.580	2.7	4.1
2002	29	11.5	9.1	0.559	1.2	2.3	35	13.1	10.2	0.562	1.9	3.0
2003	33	13.4	11.0	0.548	1.2	2.6	37	13.5	13.9	0.493	0.3	1.7
2004	33	14.8	10.8	0.578	2.5	3.8	34	14.7	13.1	0.529	1.4	2.8
2005	32	14.1	9.8	0.590	2.6	3.7	35	12.5	14.7	0.458	-0.6	0.6
2006	19	7.2	4.8	0.598	1.4	2.0	34	13.3	12.4	0.518	1.0	2.2
2007	18	5.9	5.5	0.519	0.2	0.9	35	11.6	11.3	0.507	0.6	1.7
2008							34	10.1	13.8	0.423	-1.5	-0.3
------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------
CAREER RECORDS (Regular Season)	709	318.1	228.1	0.582	46.3	74.6	759	328.5	271.3	0.548	39.9	68.5
------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------
Postseason	35	12.4	11.2	0.525	0.7	1.9	37	12.5	12.5	0.500	0.5	1.7
------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------
CAREER RECORDS	744	330.5	239.3	0.580	47.0	76.5	796	340.9	283.8	0.546	40.4	70.2

In terms of bottom-line career wins over replacement level (pWORL), Clemens beats Maddux, 76.5 - 70.2, but they're close enough that the little things are liable to matter, and it's worth taking a closer look.

I'll begin by looking at a few relatively minor factors: pitcher hitting, postseason performance, and fielding. I then look at how contextual factors affected Clemens's and Maddux's career value. From there, I move to the core of both players' value: their pitching. I end with a minor factor that actually has a fairly big impact on our assessment of whether Clemens or Maddux had the better career: the impact of the 1994-95 strike on their value.

Pitcher Offense

Greg Maddux pitched his entire career in the National League. Hence, outside of interleague games in American League parks, Maddux had to bat in the vast majority of his 740 games started. Overall, for his career, Maddux had 1,812 plate appearances, over which he hit like a fairly typical pitcher - .171/.191/.205. He did manage to hit 5 career home runs and even stole 11 bases (and was caught stealing only 3 times!).

Roger Clemens, on the other hand, pitched almost all of his career in the American League. Because of the DH rule, he had a mere 213 plate appearances in his career. His career rate stats were actually slightly better than Maddux's: .173/.236/.207 (OPS+ of 16 v. an OPS+ of 5 for Maddux), although Clemens had no career home runs or stolen bases.

Their context-neutral offensive won-lost records are compared below. The column headed WOPA (wins over positional average) compares their records to the average offensive performance for pitchers.

Wins	Losses	Win Pct.	WOPA	Wins	Losses	Win Pct.	WOPA
Roger Clemens				Greg Maddux
2.1	4.1	0.340	0.2	19.2	38.0	0.336	1.1

Both Clemens and Maddux actually had slightly better offensive performances than an average pitcher - which, considering both of them had offensive winning percentages under 0.350, tells you just how bad a hitter an average pitcher is. Clemens had a (slightly) higher winning percentage, but Maddux had nearly 10 times as many decisions, and hence had (slightly) more wins above average. Overall, Maddux picks up about 1 win on Clemens relative to average (and perhaps a bit more than that relative to replacement level).

Postseason Performance

Roger Clemens pitched in 35 postseason games in his career, while Greg Maddux pitched in 37 postseason games. Neither Clemens nor Maddux really had much of a reputation as a particularly good postseason pitcher. Maddux actually had a losing (traditional) record in the postseason over his career, 11-14, although his ERA was fairly respectable (3.27 in 198 IP). Clemens had a winning (traditional) record (12-8), but with a somewhat higher ERA than Maddux (3.75) in almost the exact same number of innings (199).

In terms of Player won-lost records, both pitchers had lower winning percentages in the postseason than in the regular season, although both pitchers did have winning percentages over 0.500. Their overall postseason records are summarized below.

Wins	Losses	Win Pct.	WORL	Wins	Losses	Win Pct.	WORL
Roger Clemens				Greg Maddux
12.4	11.2	0.525	1.9	12.5	12.5	0.500	1.7

Clemens had a somewhat higher winning percentage (0.525 - 0.500), but this is a bit misleading. Clemens pitched most of his postseason games in the AL, with the DH rule, while Maddux pitched most of his postseason games in the NL, with pitchers batting. Maddux's winning percentage here is dragged down, therefore, by his own hitting, which, like his regular-season batting, was bad in an absolute sense, but not especially terrible for a pitcher (although, honestly, it was pretty bad even for a pitcher: .073/.105/.109 over 64 PAs). Overall, taking pitcher hitting into account, Roger Clemens and Greg Maddux amassed virtually identical postseason value (as measured by pWORL) - 1.9 vs. 1.7.

Fielding

As I noted earlier, Greg Maddux won a record 18 Gold Gloves. Not only is that a record for a pitcher, but it is, in fact, a record at any position. In contrast, Roger Clemens never won a Gold Glove over his 24-year career.

Generally speaking, any pitcher valuation system that starts by considering the runs allowed by a pitcher will already implicitly incorporate pitcher fielding into that value. My system doesn't explicitly begin with runs allowed but rather measures value play by play. I am able, therefore, to distinguish between a pitcher's pitching value and a pitcher's fielding value.

Career fielding value for Roger Clemens and Greg Maddux are shown in the next table.

Wins	Losses	Win Pct.	Wins over 0.500	Wins	Losses	Win Pct.	Wins over 0.500
Roger Clemens				Greg Maddux
4.8	4.7	0.503	0.0	10.9	9.6	0.531	0.6

Not surprisingly, given their reputations, Maddux earned about 0.6 more wins over 0.500 as a fielder than Clemens. Not only did Maddux have the better winning percentage (0.531 - 0.503), but he also amassed 6.1 more raw fielding wins than Clemens (although he also amassed 4.9 more raw fielding losses).

Context

So far, the small things generally work (slightly) in Maddux's favor in the comparison with Clemens (note that these were already reflected in the comparison of pWins shown earlier). There is, however, one such factor which works in Clemens's favor: context.

The numbers shown in the first table in this article use pWins and pLosses. These are constructed to tie player wins to team wins. As such, they are calculated reflecting the context in which the events being valued took place.

I also calculate a set of context-neutral Player won-lost records, eWins and eLosses. A comparison of Roger Clemens and Greg Maddux, as measured by eWins and eLosses is shown next.

Season	Games	eWins	eLosses	Win Pct.	eWOPA	eWORL	Games	eWins	eLosses	Win Pct.	eWOPA	eWORL
	Roger Clemens						Greg Maddux
1984	21	7.2	5.8	0.551	0.7	1.2
1985	15	6.0	4.4	0.575	0.8	1.3
1986	33	16.4	10.8	0.604	2.8	4.1	6	1.7	2.2	0.444	-0.1	0.0
1987	36	18.0	12.0	0.599	3.0	4.5	34	10.2	13.3	0.435	-1.2	-0.1
1988	35	18.3	11.5	0.614	3.4	4.8	37	15.8	14.0	0.530	1.5	2.8
1989	35	15.3	12.2	0.557	1.6	2.9	35	15.8	14.4	0.523	1.2	2.5
1990	31	16.0	9.4	0.631	3.3	4.5	35	16.3	14.1	0.537	1.7	3.0
1991	35	16.7	11.1	0.600	2.8	4.2	39	15.3	14.1	0.521	1.2	2.5
1992	32	15.5	10.2	0.604	2.7	4.0	35	17.6	12.5	0.584	3.2	4.6
1993	29	13.8	11.5	0.546	1.2	2.4	36	17.9	13.6	0.568	2.7	4.1
1994	24	10.8	7.8	0.581	1.5	2.6	25	14.6	8.0	0.646	3.7	4.9
1995	23	7.9	7.5	0.512	0.2	1.0	28	16.0	8.0	0.667	4.5	5.7
1996	34	14.2	10.2	0.582	2.0	3.4	35	17.2	10.7	0.618	3.8	5.2
1997	34	19.1	9.2	0.674	5.0	6.6	33	14.4	9.0	0.614	3.1	4.4
1998	33	15.0	10.0	0.600	2.5	3.9	34	17.6	11.5	0.606	3.6	5.0
1999	30	13.2	12.3	0.518	0.5	1.8	33	15.7	13.2	0.543	1.8	3.2
2000	32	13.7	12.3	0.528	0.7	2.1	35	16.6	12.7	0.568	2.6	4.0
2001	33	12.3	10.4	0.543	1.0	2.2	35	15.9	12.0	0.570	2.5	3.8
2002	29	11.1	9.5	0.538	0.8	1.9	35	12.7	10.6	0.544	1.5	2.6
2003	33	13.0	11.4	0.534	0.8	2.2	37	14.0	13.3	0.514	0.9	2.3
2004	33	14.2	11.4	0.554	1.9	3.2	34	14.6	13.2	0.525	1.3	2.7
2005	32	14.7	9.2	0.614	3.2	4.3	35	13.4	13.8	0.493	0.3	1.6
2006	19	7.0	5.0	0.585	1.2	1.8	34	13.4	12.3	0.522	1.1	2.3
2007	18	5.9	5.5	0.518	0.2	0.9	35	11.5	11.5	0.500	0.4	1.6
2008							34	11.1	12.9	0.464	-0.5	0.7
------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------
CAREER RECORDS (Regular Season)	709	315.4	230.7	0.578	43.6	71.9	759	329.3	270.5	0.549	40.8	69.3
------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------
Postseason	35	13.0	10.6	0.550	1.3	2.5	37	13.7	11.3	0.548	1.7	2.9
------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------
CAREER RECORDS	744	328.4	241.4	0.576	44.9	74.4	796	343.0	281.8	0.549	42.5	72.2

Neutralizing the context in which Clemens and Maddux performed pulls their records even closer than they already were based on pWins and pLosses. The difference between their regular-season career values of eWORL (expected wins over replacement level) is a mere 2.6 wins. And adding in postseason decisions, Maddux moves within one win (over replacement level) of Clemens in total eWORL 74.4 - 72.2.

Adjusting for context has relatively little impact on Greg Maddux's career. Context gains him -0.8 regular-season wins over replacement level. He gives that back, and slightly more, however, in the postseason, when his strong context-neutral performance(s) didn't translate into postseason victories like one might have expected (see, for example, his (traditional) career postseason record of 11-14).

Roger Clemens, however, gains a combined 2.1 regular- and post-season wins over replacement level.

Pitching

Having disposed of (almost) all of the little stuff, then, we're left with the meat of the comparison of Roger Clemens and Greg Maddux: their pitching. Context-neutral pitching records for Roger Clemens and Greg Maddux are shown in the next table.

Season	Games	Wins	Losses	Win Pct.	WOPA	Games	Wins	Losses	Win Pct.	WOPA
	Roger Clemens					Greg Maddux
1984	21	7.5	6.3	0.544	0.5
1985	15	5.2	4.1	0.561	0.6
1986	33	14.3	10.1	0.586	2.1	6	1.6	1.9	0.450	-0.2
1987	36	15.8	11.7	0.576	2.0	34	8.1	9.4	0.461	-0.7
1988	35	14.7	10.3	0.588	2.2	37	13.1	11.2	0.539	0.9
1989	35	13.8	11.5	0.546	1.1	35	12.1	10.7	0.531	0.7
1990	31	12.8	8.3	0.608	2.1	35	12.6	10.3	0.550	1.0
1991	35	14.3	10.3	0.582	2.0	39	13.6	12.3	0.524	0.7
1992	32	13.9	9.9	0.584	1.9	35	14.1	10.0	0.584	2.2
1993	29	10.8	9.4	0.534	0.7	36	14.0	10.1	0.580	2.1
1994	24	9.4	7.2	0.567	1.1	25	11.0	5.7	0.657	2.7
1995	23	7.7	7.5	0.507	0.1	28	11.5	5.8	0.667	2.9
1996	34	14.2	10.9	0.566	1.6	35	13.7	8.3	0.623	2.7
1997	34	15.2	8.9	0.632	3.2	33	12.6	7.6	0.625	2.5
1998	33	13.5	9.5	0.589	2.0	34	12.9	8.2	0.612	2.4
1999	30	10.5	9.9	0.515	0.2	33	11.9	9.8	0.548	1.1
2000	32	11.4	10.4	0.523	0.6	35	12.9	9.5	0.575	1.8
2001	33	11.9	10.5	0.532	0.7	35	12.9	9.7	0.571	1.8
2002	29	10.1	9.0	0.529	0.5	35	10.3	8.3	0.553	1.1
2003	33	11.4	10.1	0.529	0.5	37	10.9	9.7	0.528	0.6
2004	33	11.7	8.9	0.567	1.4	34	12.1	10.5	0.535	0.7
2005	32	11.8	7.7	0.604	2.1	35	11.7	11.4	0.508	0.2
2006	19	6.2	4.2	0.598	1.1	34	10.5	9.2	0.533	0.6
2007	18	5.1	4.8	0.512	0.1	35	10.1	9.2	0.521	0.4
2008						34	9.5	10.4	0.477	-0.4
------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------
CAREER RECORDS (Regular Season)	709	273.3	211.2	0.564	30.2	759	263.6	209.4	0.557	27.6

Roger Clemens amassed a slightly higher winning percentage over slightly more decisions than Greg Maddux. The two pitchers are, nevertheless, extremely close. If we remove the first two seasons of Maddux's career, when he was a below-average pitcher, he almost catches up to Clemens in winning percentage (0.562 - 0.564) and wins over positional average (28.5 - 30.2). Of course, those two seasons really happened for Maddux, and it is certainly to Clemens's credit that he never had a single season of his career when he was a below average pitcher.

The 1994-95 Player Strike

One factor that can come into play when trying to compare players is season lengths. Players from earlier generations who played in 154-game seasons simply had less time available to them to accumulate value than players who played in 162-game seasons. Of course, that doesn't matter in this case, since Maddux's and Clemens's careers spanned almost the exact same seasons and took place entirely in the era of 162-game seasons.

Actually, that last sentence is not necessarily accurate. Roger Clemens and Greg Maddux both played in 1994 and 1995, both of which were shortened due to a nasty labor strike that ultimately cost Major-League Baseball the 1994 World Series.

In theory, the 1994-95 strike affected Clemens and Maddux the same. They both missed the same time period to the strike. The reality was not necessarily the same, though.

Roger Clemens missed parts of one pretty good season (1994) and one fairly mediocre season by Roger Clemens standards (1995). For those two seasons combined, Clemens amassed a pWin-pLoss record of 19.4 - 14.6, good for a total of 4.3 pWORL.

If Clemens's records in these two seasons are blown up to 162-game equivalents, his record becomes 24.8 - 18.7, and his pWORL increases to 5.5. This implies that Roger Clemens lost perhaps 1.2 Player wins to the 1994-95 strike.

The strike could not have come at a worse time for Greg Maddux. Those two seasons, 1994 and 1995, were the years in which Greg Maddux made his case for possibly being the greatest pitcher in major-league history. Maddux's record over those two seasons was a jaw-dropping pWin-pLoss record of 30.9 - 15.6, good for a total of 10.9 pWORL.

If those records are blown up to 162-game equivalents, Maddux's record becomes 39.1 - 19.9, and his pWORL increases to 13.7. This would imply that Greg Maddux might have lost 2.8 Player wins to the 1994-95 strike.

In other words, normalizing for the 1994-95 strike in this way gives Greg Maddux 1.6 more wins than Roger Clemens. Adjusting both players' entire careers to 162-game seasons produces the following career comparison.

Season	Games	pWins	pLosses	Win Pct.	pWOPA	pWORL	Games	pWins	pLosses	Win Pct.	pWOPA	pWORL
	Roger Clemens						Greg Maddux
1984	21	7.3	5.8	0.558	0.7	1.3
1985	15	5.8	4.6	0.561	0.6	1.2
1986	33	17.4	9.9	0.637	3.7	5.0	6	1.6	2.3	0.418	-0.2	-0.1
1987	36	18.2	11.7	0.609	3.3	4.8	34	10.0	13.6	0.423	-1.5	-0.4
1988	35	18.0	11.9	0.603	3.1	4.5	37	17.3	12.4	0.581	3.0	4.3
1989	35	14.8	12.7	0.537	1.0	2.3	35	16.1	14.1	0.533	1.5	2.8
1990	31	16.7	8.7	0.657	4.0	5.2	35	15.6	14.8	0.514	1.0	2.3
1991	35	16.8	11.1	0.602	2.8	4.3	39	16.0	13.9	0.535	1.6	3.0
1992	32	15.4	10.2	0.603	2.6	4.0	35	17.7	12.4	0.587	3.3	4.7
1993	29	12.7	12.6	0.502	0.1	1.3	36	18.1	13.5	0.572	2.8	4.2
1994	34	14.9	11.3	0.570	1.8	3.3	36	20.5	11.6	0.640	5.1	6.7
1995	26	9.9	7.5	0.569	1.2	2.1	32	18.6	8.4	0.689	5.7	7.0
1996	34	13.4	11.0	0.549	1.2	2.6	35	16.2	11.7	0.581	2.8	4.2
1997	34	18.6	9.8	0.656	4.4	6.1	33	14.2	9.2	0.608	3.0	4.2
1998	33	15.6	9.2	0.629	3.2	4.5	34	17.1	12.0	0.588	3.1	4.5
1999	30	13.2	12.3	0.516	0.4	1.8	33	15.9	12.9	0.552	2.0	3.4
2000	32	14.1	12.1	0.538	1.0	2.4	35	17.1	12.2	0.583	3.0	4.4
2001	33	14.0	8.9	0.611	2.6	3.8	35	16.1	11.7	0.580	2.7	4.1
2002	29	11.6	9.2	0.559	1.2	2.4	35	13.2	10.3	0.562	1.9	3.0
2003	33	13.3	11.0	0.548	1.2	2.6	37	13.5	13.9	0.493	0.3	1.7
2004	33	14.8	10.8	0.578	2.5	3.8	34	14.7	13.1	0.529	1.4	2.8
2005	32	14.0	9.8	0.590	2.6	3.7	35	12.5	14.7	0.458	-0.6	0.6
2006	19	7.2	4.8	0.598	1.4	2.0	17	6.6	6.2	0.518	0.5	1.1
2007	18	5.9	5.5	0.519	0.2	0.9	35	11.5	11.2	0.507	0.5	1.7
2008							17	5.1	6.9	0.423	-0.7	-0.1
------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------
CAREER RECORDS (Regular Season)	722	323.5	232.2	0.582	47.0	75.8	740	325.1	262.8	0.553	42.3	70.3
------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------
Postseason	35	12.4	11.2	0.525	0.7	1.9	37	12.5	12.5	0.500	0.5	1.7
------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------
CAREER RECORDS	757	335.9	243.4	0.580	47.7	77.7	777	337.5	275.3	0.551	42.8	72.0

So Who Was Better? Roger Clemens or Greg Maddux

So, after all of that, who was better, Roger Clemens or Greg Maddux? The best answer is that it was too close to call and/or that a case could be made for either one of them. After adjusting for the 1994-95 strike, the postseason, and everything else, Clemens still leads Maddux in career pWORL, 77.7 to 72.0, and pWOPA, 47.7 to 42.8. Maddux does lead in pWins, 337.5 to 335.9. Maddux also leads in context-neutral wins, WOPA, and WORL.

At the season level, adjusting 1994 and 1995 up to 162-game equivalents, gives Maddux more pWOPA and more pWORL in both of those seasons than Roger Clemens managed in any season. Outside of those two seasons, though, Clemens holds his own with Maddux in terms of peak and prime. They each have 4 seasons of pWORL of 5.0 or higher, and Clemens beats Maddux in seasons with 4+ pWORL (11-10).

It's a tough call. If push came to shove, I guess I'd pick Clemens, but I probably wouldn't argue the case too hard.

Article revised on August 28, 2014.

All articles are written so that they pull data directly from the most recent version of the Player won-lost database. Hence, any numbers cited within these articles should automatically incorporate the most recent update to Player won-lost records. In some cases, however, the accompanying text may have been written based on previous versions of Player won-lost records. I apologize if this results in non-sensical text in any cases.

Home List of Articles