Don Drysdale and Jim Bunning each had a significantly shorter career than Don Sutton and therefore offer a better basis for comparison to Guidry. Neither ranks particularly high in terms of career numbers by Hall of Fame standards: Bunning won 224 games, Drysdale 209. Each led the league in victories once, strikeouts three times and innings pitched twice. Neither ever led their league in ERA, winning percentage or complete games. Drysdale won 20 games twice, Bunning once - neither total particularly impressive in an era in which Spahn, Marichal, Jenkins, Koufax and others routinely posted 20-win seasons.

Although neither pitcher was considered the equal of Ford or Koufax, each was durable, reliable and sometimes spectacular. Bunning pitched the first perfect game in the National League in the 20th century (Koufax would pitch the 2nd the following year). Drysdale tossed a record six consecutive shutouts in 1968, breaking Walter Johnson's record for consecutive scoreless innings in the process. Drysdale and Bunning didn't flaunt the annual win totals or sub-2.00 ERA's of some of their contemporaries, but while Spahn was finally stepping aside and Gibson, Marichal, and Seaver just beginning to hit their stride, Drysdale and Bunning finished 1-2 in wins in the major leagues from 1957 to 1966 by averaging approximately 17 wins a season.

The following are Drysdale's, Bunning's, Guidry's and Sutton's statistics for their respective peak periods (11 years in Bunning's case, 10 for Sutton, and 9 for Drysdale and Guidry):


The records are very similar in many respects. The adjusted ERAs are particularly similar, with Sutton ranking last (despite having the best nominal ERA). Guidry actually leads in average wins per season with 17.77 (it should be noted that 1981 was a strike season limited to 108 games, or two-thirds of a full regular season, and Guidry's 154 wins are therefore divided by 8.66 in arriving at his average). Drysdale averaged 17.66 wins per season, Bunning 16.73 and Sutton 16.4.

Guidry compiled his impressive win total despite making significantly fewer starts than the others, a function of having pitched almost exclusively in a five-man rotation rather than the four-man rotation prevalent during the 50's and 60's. Drysdale and Bunning each averaged more than 36 starts per season, or approximately six per year more than Guidry. Guidry, however, won 57% of his starts compared to 46.4% for Drysdale and 45.4% for Bunning. Guidry's percentage of wins per start, like his .697 winning percentage, ranks with the best in baseball history.

Drysdale's and Bunning's peak periods, like Guidry's, comprised the bulk of their careers. Neither compiled win totals that necessarily merit a Hall of Fame nod (as evidenced by the fact nine pitchers in the post-1920 period have higher win totals than Bunning's 224 and have not been inducted into the Hall). It is apparent that Bunning and Drysdale earned elevation to the Hall on the basis of their excellence during their peak years of production. It is also apparent that their peak years, however outstanding, were not as good as Guidry's. Guidry had more 20-win seasons and led the league in more major pitching categories (i.e., wins, winning percentage, ERA, strikeouts, complete games and shutouts) than either Drysdale or Bunning.

A review of the Hall of Fame roster reveals that there are three paths to the Hall: a long career marked by the attainment of historical statistical achievements (i.e., Sutton, Niekro), an abbreviated career that despite its relative brevity establishes the player as one of the greatest of all-time (i.e., Koufax) or a sustained period of eight to twelve years during which a player is fairly regarded as among the very best of his contemporaries (Drysdale, Bunning, Catfish Hunter, Bruce Sutter). Guidry's performance over the period from 1977 to 1985, a period during which he was unquestionably the premier pitcher in the American League, qualifies him for elevation to the Hall of Fame.