Middle Relief: Who Is the Best Pitcher in Baseball?

Seems like a straightforward question, right? Flip through the stats to find the league leaders. Use your eyes if you're someone who does that well.

Turns out it's not that easy. Sifting through all the available stats (basic or advanced) and trying to pick out one guy can be an enormous challenge. So can the eyeball test: Even highly trained scouts are subject to human biases … imagine how tough it is for the rest of us to get it right. So many people holding so many different opinions on the subject underscores how tough it still is to evaluate pitching, even with a million tools at our disposal. It's also a nod toward the fleeting nature of pitching success, and how quickly opinions can change. Sometimes radically.

Google "arguably the best pitcher in baseball" and you get results for the following pitchers, to name just a few.

Roy Halladay, June 8 — Crossing Broad: "Halladay has been arguably the best pitcher in baseball over the last decade."

READ MORE: http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-triangle/post/_/id/30750/middle-relief-who-is-the-best-pitcher-in-baseball