Do the Braves have the best All-Time Rotation?

Recently, I was thinking about how awesome historical Braves pitchers have been and I began to wonder if they have the best 5-man rotation with their historic franchise players. That is, are the 5 best pitchers in Braves history better than the 5 best in any other franchise? Given that our top 5 are either Hall of Famers or soon-to-be Hall of Famers, I figured that we were definitely in the discussion.

So, I compiled a list of the top 5 franchise pitchers for each team and their stats while with that franchise. The pitchers chosen were those who accumulated the most WAR with the given franchise to account for both awesomeness and longevity. For instance, I didn't want the Blue Jays to get credit for more than just 2 years from Roger Clemens. For the sake of comparison, I used only pitchers that played the majority of their careers after 1900 and only used their stats while they were with the team. After compiling all the data from Baseball Reference, I chose the following several teams   for whom cases could be made. So with that, lets actually see where the Braves rank. 

Braves	WAR	Years	IP	ERA	ERA+	WHIP
Greg Maddux	63.7	11	2526.2	2.63	163	1.051
Warren Spahn	85.6	20	5046	3.05	120	1.189
Phil Niekro	85.1	20	4619.1	3.20	120	1..227
John Smoltz	63.2	20	3395	3.26	127	1.17
Tom Glavine	55	16	3344.2	3.37	123	1.29
	352.6	87	18930.5
Phillies	WAR	Years	IP	ERA	ERA+	WHIP
Steve Carlton	60.5	14	3614.1	3.02	123	1.198
Grover Cleveland Alexander	58.2	7	2492	2.12	143	1.066
Robin Roberts	65	14	3739.1	3.46	114	1.171
Curt Schilling	35.1	9	1659.1	3.35	126	1.12
Jim Bunning	29.6	4	1191.2	2.48	141	1.039
	248.4	48	9081.4

Red Sox	WAR	Years	IP	ERA	ERA+	WHIP
Roger Clemens	77.7	13	2776	3.06	144	1.158
Pedro Martinez	51.9	7	1383.2	2.52	190	0.978
Cy Young	63.2	8	2728.1	2.00	147	0.97
Lefty Grove	42.5	8	1539.2	3.34	143	1.321
Lius Tiant	34.1	8	1774.2	3.36	118	1.201
	269.4	44	10200.7

Brooklyn/LA Dodgers	WAR	Years	IP	ERA	ERA+	WHIP
Dazzy Vance	59.8	11	2706.2	3.15	130	1.209
Don Drysdale	57.4	14	3432	2.95	121	1.148
Sandy Koufax	50.3	12	2324.1	2.76	131	1.106
Don Sutton	46.6	15	3729	3.07	111	1.117
Nap Rucker	45.5	10	2375.1	2.42	118	1.175
	259.6	62	14566.4

Athletics	WAR	Years	IP	ERA	ERA+	WHIP
Eddie Plank	69.5	14	3860.2	2.39	120	1.127
Lefty Grove	61.2	9	2401	2.88	151	1.278
Eddie Rommel	46.2	13	2556.1	3.54	121	1.351
Rube Waddell	44.5	6	2961.1	1.97	135	1.102
Tim Hudson	40.5	6	1240.2	3.30	136	1.222
	261.9	48	13018.6

White Sox	WAR	Years	IP	ERA	ERA+	WHIP
Red Faber	61.9	20	4086.2	3.15	119	1.302
Ted Lyons	60.7	21	4158.2	3.67	118	1.348
Ed Walsh	59.6	14	2946.1	1.81	146	0.995
Wilbur Wood	49.1	12	2524.2	3.18	114	1.232
Eddie Cicotte	47.2	9	2322.1	2.25	123	1.154
	278.5	76	16036.8

Twins/Senators	WAR	Years	IP	ERA	ERA+	WHIP
Walter Johnson	144.7	21	5914.1	2.17	147	1.061
Bert Blyleven	46.3	11	2566.2	3.28	119	1.186
Brad Radke	42.6	12	2451	4.22	113	1.260
Johan Santana	34	8	2019.1	3.22	141	1.128
Camilo Pascual	30.8	13	2930.2	3.66	106	1.295
	298.4	65	15880.6

NY/SF Giants	WAR	Years	IP	ERA	ERA+	WHIP
Christy Mathewson	91.1	17	4788.2	2.12	136	1.058
Carl Hubbell	65.3	16	3590.1	2.98	130	1.166
Juan Marichal	58.9	14	3507	2.89	123	1.101
Gaylord Perry	34.6	10	2294.1	2.96	119	1.152
Joe McGinnity	31.7	7	2151.1	2.38	118	1.116
	281.6	64	16330.5

As you can see, determining the top all-time rotation is a very subjective process. It all comes down to what you value the most. The Giants have the lowest rotational ERA with every pitcher posting a sub-3.00 clip, but I hesitate to call them the best because ERA by itself can be misleading. ERA must be understood in the context of the run environment of each pitcher's day. A pitcher can benefit tremendously from pitching in an offensively poor era or in a pitcher-friendly ballpark. ERA+ adjusts for those factors, and is set to a scale where the average ERA+ is 100 and an ERA+ of 125 is 25% better than average, etc.

Looking at ERA+, the Red Sox come out #1 by far. Their 3rd lowest ERA+, Clemens, is higher than anyone's on the Phillies, Dodgers, or Giants. And they had Pedro Martinez, who's first 6 years with the Red Sox might have been the best 6-year stretch by any pitcher in baseball history. The problem with the Red Sox, however, is that their best pitchers were with them for only short amounts of time. Almost every one of their pitchers spent parts of their prime on other teams. Their pitchers have pitched the fewest years (44) and second fewest IP of any of the above teams. If ranking the rotations by ERA+, without having done the math, it appears an absurdly close race between each other team above for second place.

If you want to place an emphasis on greatness and longevity with a team, I think the Braves are the clear #1, accumulating more than 50 WAR greater than the next best team (Twins). Spahn, Niekro and Smoltz each pitched 20 years with an ERA+ of 120 or greater, suggesting, at the very least, extreme reliability and consistency outside of their peak years. The really impressive thing about this rotation is that each pitcher spent the entirety (except for 1 Maddux-year) of their quite-lengthy primes with the Braves. And if longevity is a major determinant in the rankings, then I think 2nd place is close between the Giants, White Sox, and Dodgers. You could make an argument for the Twins here, but the majority of their strength comes from just 1 pitcher - Walter Johnson. As transcendent as he was, he remains an outlier on an otherwise below average (amongst the above lists) staff.

Of course, there are other ways to rank pitching rotations and evaluate pitchers careers. One very common way is to only look at each pitcher's prime, his top 6-8 consecutive years while on the team, to bracket out rocky rookie seasons and sub-par, often injury-riddled, career twilights. The pitchers to make the cut would definitely change - for example, I'm sure Catfish Hunter would make it for the A's. Of course, that method would emphasize strength of prime over length of prime, and little credit would be given to pitchers who managed to stay great for a decade or more. Its hard almost impossible to predict who would come out on top in that method. Greg Maddux and Warran Spahn had amazing primes. But then again, so did Clemens and Martinez, and Carlton and Alexander, and Koufax and Vance, and Grove, Plank and Waddell, and Mathewson, Hubbell, Marichal and Perry. Let's not forget Walter Johnson.

Whichever method you choose, I think the Braves stack up against the best of the best. Ranking and arguing about ranking players is always fun.