Here are the averages of the best five seasons of various great pitchers. Each of the anonymous pitchers are already in the Hall or, if I don't miss my guess, will be. See if you can determine who they are based on their wins, losses, winning percentage and ERAs. The ERA figures in the following table are the product of their ERA+ and an assumed league average ERA of 4.00.

The identities of our hurlers are on the next page. Here are some hints: all had fewer wins than Blyleven, Kaat and John, and all were most certainly inducted (or, if not yet inducted, will be) on the strength of their amazing peak seasons rather than their accumulation of gaudy career totals. Here's one more hint: I'm not comparing Guidry to Blyleven, Morris or Sutton this time; the comparison is to many of the greatest pitchers of all time. All but one are Hall of Famers. The one non-HOFer is not yet eligible for the HOF ballot but is generally considered a very good bet to make the Hall.

Here are the identities of these pitching greats:

I included a "Guidry A" and "Guidry B" ("Guidry A" corresponding to "Pitcher G" in the first table) because Guidry, uniquely among these pitchers, had one of his better seasons interrupted by labor strife in baseball. "Guidry A" includes the strike-shortened '81 season; "Guidry B" substitutes his '83 season (21-9, 113 ERA+) for the '81 season. After a slow start in '81 (2-2, 4.30 ERA in his first five starts) Guidry was 9-3 with a 2.30 ERA over the last sixteen starts of the season. The strike, however, wiped out nearly ten weeks of the season from early June to early August, costing Guidry about 12 starts. Guidry gave every indication that he was accelerating toward a big season, and ended the season leading the AL in WH/IP and strikeout-to-walk ratio, and finished in the top five in the league in strikeouts per inning, fewest hits per inning and fewest walks per inning.

Guidry's best five seasons (using either the '81 or '83 season as the fifth) compare favorably with the best five seasons of these other great pitchers. Koufax's ERA and winning percentage obviously stand out. Feller and Hubbell were each very big winners, averaging 23 and 24.4 wins respectively in their best years (Koufax would have averaged more wins per year had he not missed two months of the '62 season and the last six weeks of the '64 season). Gomez's best five seasons include two pitching triple crown seasons, but Guidry's numbers still compare quite well. Hubbell's best five include three ERA titles, but Guidry's ERA, particularly if one includes the '81 season, is virtually the same as Hubbell's.

Just to give some sense of how spectacular the peak seasons of these pitchers are, there are seven pitching triple crown seasons among them - three for Koufax, two for Gomez and one each for Hubbell and Feller. Each of the pitchers listed averaged a 140 or better ERA+ over their best five seasons, with Koufax leading the way with a 167 ERA+ (Gibson was second in this group with a 152 ERA+). The lowest winning percentage in the group was Gibson's .667; Koufax and Guidry both maintained an incredible winning percentage over .750 over their five best seasons.

There were a few small surprises for me in these numbers and one big one. The small surprises included Schilling's excellent winning percentage (.731) and Feller's excellent ERA (I was, for some reason, unaware of how good Feller's ERA+'s were in his prime years). The big surprise was that Guidry won a higher percentage of his starts in his best five than Koufax; Guidry won an astounding 64% of his starts to Koufax's 63%.