The Best of New York Baseball Bracket Challenge: Righthanded Starters

Mariano Rivera looks like a runaway winner in our closer bracket (as he should be) with only one lone vote going to the old-school Goose Gossage. We'll keep the voting going on the right until it's over but we need to start on our next group. Let's move on to the righthanded starting pitchers.

Yankees

Mike Mussina: Hey, I was surprised to put his name on this list too. But let's look at the evidence. He won 123 games from 2001-2008 at a .631 winning percentage. He put up a 3.88 ERA in a hitters division during one of the bigger power breakouts in the history of baseball. His wins leave him 7th among Yankee right handed starters but despite throwing a ton less innings than many of the other guys on the list he was 2nd in strikeouts and among pitchers with at least 1200 innings, he was 1st in BB/9 (1.84), 1st in K/9 (7.41), 3rd in WHIP (1.212), and first--by far--in SO/BB with a 4.02 rate there. He had some memorable playoff outings for the Yankees including 2001 against Oakland (the "flip play" game) and 2003 in relief against the Red Sox (the Aaron Boone game), though his most dominant outing as a Yankee was his perfect game through 8 2/3 against the Red Sox in Fenway until Carl Everett broke it up. (picture from Seven Good Innings)

Red Ruffing: It was tough to choose between Allie Reynolds and Red Ruffing. Amazingly, these two missed each other on the Yankees by one year. Each pitcher was 7-2 in the World Series for the Yankees with an ERA under 2.80. Each one won 6 World Series with the Yankees. And both had better winning percentages than Mike Mussina. But Ruffing pulled ahead because of the sheer numbers: 231 wins is 63 higher than the next closest Yankee righty. He had over a walk less per 9 innings than did Reynolds and had a better SO/BB ratio. It's really close between the two, but I'll go with the Hall of Famer Ruffing who came in the top 8 in MVP voting 3 years in a row (picture from A Yankee State of Mind)

Just missed: Allie Reynolds (who was probably jipped both here and in Hall of Fame voting) and Roger Clemens (who, if he hadn't gone to Houston for those years, may have been near the top of the list).

Mets

Tom Seaver: Only 6 Mets righties have ever thrown 1000 innings (Seaver, Doc Gooden, Ron Darling, David Cone, Bobby Jones, and Craig Swan) and Seaver is on the top of that list with 3,045.2 and in wins with 198. His .615 winning % is higher than Cone or Darling. His 2.57 ERA is by far the lowest as is his 2.5 BB/9, his 1.076 WHIP and his 7.18 H/9. And his 3.00 SO/BB ratio is the highest. Seaver also pitched the Mets to two World Series, winning one of them. He captured the Rookie of the Year, 3 Cy Young Awards (with two 2nd place finishes and five others within the top 8) and came in second in MVP voting in the Miracle year of 1969. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1992 with 98.8% of the votes. (picture from Overtime in New York)

Dwight "Doc" Gooden: No Met (righty or lefty) came close to matching Gooden's .649 winning % (min. 1000 games). Gooden's first two years were simply amazing. His first year, he led the majors in strikeouts (276), WHIP (1.073), H/9 (6.6), HR/9 (0.3), SO/9 (11.4), won the Rookie of the Year and came in second in the Cy Young voting (robbed by Rick Sutcliffe). In 1984, Doc went 24-4 with a major-league leading 1.53 ERA, threw an NL-leading 16 complete games and 276.2 innings and led the majors in strikeouts (268), ERA+ (228) and won the Cy Young (4th in MVP voting). Although the end of his Mets career was marred by drug incidents, Gooden was as good as it gets, going 119-46 (.721) with a 2.82 ERA from 1984-1990 with 54 CG, 1391 SO, and 3.10 SO/BB. He was dominant. (picture from Mets Extra)

Just missed: David Cone (1988 was fantastic with a 20-3 record and 2.22 ERA but never could quite duplicate it before being traded to KC) and Ron Darling (rightfully overshadowed by Gooden)

Vote on the right for the best right-handed starting pitcher in New York!