The Stros pulled out a rare win last night, but the real story this week is that Roger Clemens reached a milestone that reflects that he is the best pitcher that any of us will ever have the pleasure of watching.
As regular readers of this blog know, I am somewhat of a stathead in regard to baseball, and I particularly find that the Lee Sinins-developed statistic — runs saved against average (“RSAA”) — is the best statistic for evaluating a pitcher’s performance.
As with its counterpart for comparing hitters — runs created against average (“RCAA,” explained here) — RSAA is particularly valuable to evaluate pitching because it focuses on the two most important things for a pitcher in winning baseball games — that is, not giving up runs and getting hitters out. RSAA measures the number of runs that a pitcher saves for his team relative to the number of runs that an average pitcher in the league would give up while obtaining an equivalent number of outs for his team (as with RCAA, RSAA is park-adjusted). Inasmuch as the hypothetical average pitcher’s RSAA is always zero, a player can have either an RSAA that is a positive number — which indicates he is an above average pitcher (i.e., Clemens) — or an RSAA that is a negative number, which means he is performing below average (i.e., Brandon Duckworth or Tim Redding)
Moreover, just as RCAA is a valuable tool for comparing hitting ability of hitters from different eras, RSAA is a very good measure for comparing pitchers who played during different eras. Inasmuch as RSAA measures a pitcher’s ability against that of an average pitcher in the pitcher’s league for each particular season, a pitcher’s lifetime RSAA measures how that pitcher performed against an average pitcher in his era, which is really the best way to compare pitchers from different eras. On the other hand, comparing other pitching statistics — such as earned run average, wins and hitting statistics against — is often skewed between pitchers of hitter-friendly eras (i.e., the current era) versus pitchers of pitcher-friendly eras (i.e., such as the late 1960’s and early 70’s).
Well, even though the Stros lost on Monday, Clemens pitched well (8 IP, 4 H, 2 R/ER, 1 BB, 7 K’s) in his 650th career start and, in so doing, set the modern major league record for career RSAA:

1 Roger Clemens 671
2 Lefty Grove 668
3 Walter Johnson 643
4 Greg Maddux 556
5 Grover C Alexander 524
6 Randy Johnson 512
7 Pedro Martinez 488
8 Christy Mathewson 405
9 Tom Seaver 404
10 Carl Hubbell 355

Even including pitchers from the 19th century, Clemens ranks 3rd on the all-time RSAA list:

1 Cy Young 813
2 Kid Nichols 678
3 Roger Clemens 671
4 Lefty Grove 668
5 Walter Johnson 643
6 Greg Maddux 556
7 Grover C Alexander 524
8 Randy Johnson 512
9 John Clarkson 508
10 Pedro Martinez 488

Moreover, during his career, Clemens has led the league (or tied) in RSAA during a season 6 times and finished in the top 5 an incredible thirteen times:

1986 AL T1ST 46
1987 AL 2ND 46
1988 AL 2ND 42
1989 AL T3RD 28
1990 AL 1ST 55
1991 AL 1ST 50
1992 AL 1ST 49
1994 AL T2ND 40
1996 AL 3RD 46
1997 AL 1ST 69
1998 AL 1ST 51
2000 AL 2ND 32
2001 AL T6TH 24
2004 NL 4TH 32

Even more remarkably, Clemens’ 26 RSAA that he has generated to date during the 2005 season is already a major league record for a 42 year olds pitcher:

RSAA YEAR RSAA
1 Roger Clemens 2005 26
2 Jack Quinn 1926 23
T3 Hoyt Wilhelm 1965 21
T3 Nolan Ryan 1989 21
T3 Warren Spahn 1963 21
6 Babe Adams 1924 15
7 Sad Sam Jones 1935 14
8 Doug Jones 1999 13
T9 Connie Marrero 1953 11
T9 Red Ruffing 1946 11
T9 Grover C Alexander 1929 11
T9 Dutch Leonard 1951 11

Finally, after only one and a third seasons with the Stros, Clemens already ranks 7th in career RSAA for Stros pitchers:

1 Roy Oswalt 115
2 Billy Wagner 99
3 Mike Hampton 76
4 Dave Smith 75
5 Octavio Dotel 67
6 Nolan Ryan 60
7 Roger Clemens 58
8 Wade Miller 56
9 Don Wilson 55
10 Joe Sambito 53

Roger Clemens is truly a pitcher for the ages.