I've always considered Hobbs a "hitter's world"...not that there haven't been great pitchers. But it has always felt to me like Hobbs didn't have the lights-out SP's that other worlds I've played in had.
So I tried to come up with a very quick-and-dirty way to nominate a few candidates. Here's what I did: I looked at On-Base % Allowed and Slugging % Allowed for qualitative stuff, and Quality Starts and Saves for counting stats. I picked Quality Starts over wins, figuring it's a little better at pointing out SP's who are both very good and long-careered. I don't think much of saves as an indicator of anything, but didn't have a better way of making sure some top short relievers would hit my candidates list.
For those 4 stats, I looked at the career leaders lists and assigned 5 points to the top guy, 4 for second, etc. Then I added the points for each pitcher and came up with the following candidates (in order of point totals):
Sam Stock
The Case For: dominant leader of the qualitative categories; 4 Cy Youngs and counting at age 27
The Case Against: Has still only pitcher 1200+ innings
Phil Chang
The Case For: #2 in saves lifetime with better qualitatives than saves leader Candelaria (only Chang, Stock and Carey are in the top 5 in both OPS Against and Slugging Against)
The Case Against: only 1255 career innings
Ernest Carey
The Case For: #3 All-Time in both OPS Against and Slugging Against
The Case Against: the ultimate anonymous middle reliever
Jair Gonzalez
The Case For: All-Time Quality Starts leader, so he's got the longevity cred covered (his 4152 IP is #2 All-Time)
The Case Against: Doesn't have quite the qualitative numbers as the better RP's, but SP's rarely do. You can also argue that part of his career covered a more hitter-friendly era (could apply to Chang, Candelaria, Wilson and Fernandez as well). And at .618 OPS-Against, it's still damn good.
Pedro Candelaria
The Case For: All-Time Saves leader with 632, as well as a sterling Career OPS-Against of .610.
The Case Against: Barely topped 1000 career IP
Louis Wilson
The Case For: #2 in Quality Starts
The Case Against: A career OPS-Against (.668) that's very good but lackluster in this list
Orlando Fernandez
The Case For: Combined incredible qualitatives (#2 in Slugging % Against with huge IP totals for a RP: 2641 - and he probably only had 1 season where he was pushed to max innings pitched). His Season 22 could be the greatest single season for a pitcher in Hobbs history: 34-3 in 189.2 IP, with a crazy OPS-Against of .485 (I think the only sub-.500 season for a P with over 162 IP).
The Case Against: Hard to find one. Excelled as a closer, as an anonymous MR who didn't roll up counting stats, and that 1 season in the Sam Stock "early reliever" role.
Aurelio Duran
The Case For: Makes this list solely due to being #2 on the Career OBP-Against list. Not that he's a 1-trick pony, he just looks like it against this competition.
The Case Against: Joins Carey in the anon MR netherworld
I'm going to put all 8 on the ballot, but it looks to me like a choice between Fernandez, Gonzalez and Stock. I'm voting for Fernandez - let's compare him to Stock again in another 12 seasons or so.
The Case Against: Hard to find one. Excelled as a closer, as an anonymous MR who didn't roll up counting stats, and that 1 season in the Sam Stock "early reliever" role.
Aurelio Duran
The Case For: Makes this list solely due to being #2 on the Career OBP-Against list. Not that he's a 1-trick pony, he just looks like it against this competition.
The Case Against: Joins Carey in the anon MR netherworld
I'm going to put all 8 on the ballot, but it looks to me like a choice between Fernandez, Gonzalez and Stock. I'm voting for Fernandez - let's compare him to Stock again in another 12 seasons or so.
