Clemens' Primary Team is Boston

[LouGehrig]

Roger Clemens pitched for Boston from 1984-1996. Most of his awards were achieved as a member of the Boston Red Sox and his best seasons were with the Sox.

Roger and the Red Sox: Clemens' Primary Team is Boston.

[Nat]

Not exactly earth-shattering news...

[bedir than average]

I don't know that it matters what his "primary" team is as he won't be in the Hall of Fame. Do we care that the primary team of McGuire was Oakland? Do we care that the primary team of Jose Canseco?

[Nat]

bedir, surely you jest....Clemens may not be, in Bill James words, the greatest player of all-time, but he was certainly the best pitcher of his generation (along with Maddux). Yeah, he roided later in life if not earlier, but those >2.00ERA seasons are too much to ignore. Like Bonds, he'd be a HOF steroids or not.

[bedir than average]

Nat, McGuire was a lock, right up until that performance on Capitol Hill.

He gets less than 30% two years in a row. He's not going to get more. That's a clear example of how the current batch of writers feel about this era and those that were obviously corrupt during it.

We saw the best pitcher and best hitter in the history of the game, and neither will be in the Hall due to they being selfish and the writers calling them on it.

[adeel]

On the surface, I think Clemens is the best pitcher of this generation. I'm guessing the two supports for that claim are his excellence and his longevity. He has an ERA+ of 143 over 24 seasons, and has won 7 Cy Young Awards between 1986 and 2004. As early as 1986 (I learned to sit that fall) and as late as 2004 (I started university in the fall), he was the best pitcher in baseball.

However, all that falls apart when you consider when he started cheating. Most athletes fade at 33-34, when he went to Toronto and started cheating. From the list of all-time ERA+ leaders, look at Pedro, look at Lefty Grove, look at hundreds of others. Without the use of steroids, he might not have made it to 300 wins, never mind 350. He certainly wouldn't have made it to 300 wins with the commanding performance he had. He certainly wouldn't have those last three Cy Youngs. He was close to being washed up when he left Boston.

[Simp]

He was close to being washed up when he left Boston.

The only thing to base that on was his W-L record, and a piss-poor way at that. He K'd 257 in 242 2/3 innings and his ERA+ was 139 his last year in Boston.

[John F]

Duquette gave up on Roger much more than Roger ws washed up...

[adeel]

Clemens had very good years in 1994 and 1996, but he was only slightly above average in 1993 and 1995. It's safe to argue that without the use of drugs, he would've had more of those years, sort of like Greg Maddux. Maddux posted otherworldly numbers from age 28-32, posting an ERA less than half the league average from 1994-1998. He remained excellent for another four years, and has been reduced to good over the last five years.