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H2H 119: Andy Pettitte vs. CC Sabathia – Who was Better?

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Chris Ptacek, Andy Pettitte in April 2010, CC BY 2.0
Keith Allison, CC Sabathia, CC BY-SA 2.0

Disclaimer: I am well aware that Andy Pettitte was alleged to have used steroids in the Mitchell Report and later admitted to it in his testimony to Congress.  With all of this background in mind, this head-to-head between Andy Pettitte and CC Sabathia is meant to compare them based solely on their career numbers and achievements without judgment on Pettitte’s steroid use during his career.

Historically, lefties are over-represented in baseball for strategic reasons: left-handed hitters generally have the advantage in matchups vs. right-handed pitchers and thus, left-handed pitchers are a prized commodity because they can neutralize that perceived advantage.  From Warren Spahn to Sandy Koufax to Randy Johnson to Clayton Kershaw, great left-handed pitchers are nevertheless far harder to come by than their right-handed counterparts due to their relative dearth overall in society (lefties are ~10% of the total population).  As such, Andy Pettitte and CC Sabathia were two of the most valuable pitchers of their era in the 2000s and 2010s – not only were they coveted for being southpaws, but both players also accumulated 250+ career victories apiece; between these two great left-handed starting pitchers, the question is:

Who was better – Andy Pettitte or CC Sabathia?

The Beginning

Both originally star athletes across multiple disciplines in high school, Pettitte and Sabathia took different paths to the major leagues, but each one made an immediate impact at the big league level upon being called up, nearly winning Rookie of the Year in the process.

Born in Louisiana, but raised in Texas, Pettite was a high school standout in both baseball and football before being drafted in the 22nd round of the 1990 MLB Draft by the New York Yankees.  At the time, he opted to first attend San Jacinto College North for a year and then signed with the Yankees in 1991.  From there, he slowly worked his way through New York’s farm system before making the major league roster in 1995 – as a rookie, Pettitte went 12-9 with a 4.17 ERA (111 ERA+, which is an advanced statistic that adjusts a pitcher’s ERA for both his ballpark and the league-wide ERA; 100 is average), 1.41 WHIP, and 114 strikeouts in 175.0 innings pitched to finish third for AL Rookie of the Year.

CC, whose given names are Carsten Charles, was born and raised in northern California and was likewise a multi-sport star, excelling in baseball, basketball, and football (in fact, he even received a college football scholarship from UCLA as a tight end).  Though he originally intended to play baseball and football at the University of Hawaii, Sabathia was drafted 20th overall in the first round of the 1998 MLB Draft by the Cleveland Indians and was the team’s Minor League Player of the Year in 2000 before being called up in 2001.  As the youngest player in MLB in 2001, he compiled a 17-5 record with a 4.39 ERA (102 ERA+), 1.35 WHIP, and 171 strikeouts in 180.1 innings pitched to place runner-up for AL Rookie of the Year to Japanese sensation Ichiro Suzuki.

Career Comparison

For nearly two decades each, Pettitte and Sabathia were among the most durable and consistently excellent starting pitchers in all of baseball, and even ended up being teammates in the Yankees rotation for a few seasons.

Over his first nine years with the Yankees, Pettitte was a consistent workhorse; in fact, he was the first MLB pitcher since 1930 to start his career with nine seasons of at least 12 wins.  During his sophomore campaign in 1996, he nearly won the AL Cy Young with a league-best 21-8 record with a 3.87 era (129 ERA+), 1.36 WHIP, and 162 strikeouts in 221.0 innings pitched, finishing second for the award to Pat Hentgen while garnering his first All-Star selection.  As an encore, Pettitte had another excellent year in 1997, going 18-7 with a 2.88 ERA (his best mark as a Yankee; 156 ERA+), 1.24 WHIP, and 166 strikeouts in a career-high 240.1 innings pitched, this time placing fifth for the Cy Young.  In his prime at the turn of the 21st century, Pettitte posted another top-five Cy Young finish, another All-Star season, and another 20-win season:

As a free agent in 2004, Pettitte signed with his hometown Houston Astros, joining former Yankees teammate Roger Clemens in returning to Texas.  In three seasons with the Astros, Pettitte had by far his best showing in 2005, going 17-9 with a career-best 2.39 ERA (177 ERA+), a career-low 1.03 WHIP, and 171 strikeouts in 222.1 innings pitched, and thus finishing fifth for the NL Cy Young.  Nevertheless, after the 2006 season, he returned to the Yankees and would win 43 games over the next three seasons, albeit with an ERA above 4 each year.

Overall, Pettitte led the 2000s with 148 pitching wins, but in 2007, he was named in the infamous Mitchell Report as an alleged steroid user and later admitted to it in a testimony to Congress.  Nevertheless, after public apologies, he continued pitching for the Yankees and had a final All-Star season in 2010: 11-3 record with a 3.28 ERA (132 ERA+), 1.27 WHIP, and 101 strikeouts in 129.0 innings pitched.  Though he retired after the 2010 season, Pettitte quickly made a comeback in 2012, going 5-4 with a 2.87 ERA in 2012 at age 40.  He would pitch one final season with the Yankees, compiling an 11-11 record with a 3.74 ERA before retiring for good at age 41; upon retirement, Pettitte was tied with Whitey Ford for the most starts in Yankees history, has the most career strikeouts, and is only one of three pitchers with 200+ wins in pinstripes.

Meanwhile, coming off his strong rookie season, Sabathia was a slightly above .500 pitcher the next few seasons with an ERA in the mid-3 to 4+ range; during this period, he earned back-to-back All-Star selections in 2003 (13-9 with a 3.60 ERA (122 ERA+), 1.30 WHIP, and 141 strikeouts in 197.2 innings pitched) and 2004 (11-10 with a 4.12 ERA (106 ERA+), 1.32 WHIP, and 139 strikeouts in 188.0 innings pitched).  Then, in 2006, despite only a 12-11 record, Sabathia had a sterling 3.22 ERA (139 ERA+) and 1.17 WHIP to go with 172 strikeouts in 192.2 innings pitched while pacing the league with 6 complete games and 2 shutouts.  After many years of showing promise, he finally put it all together in 2007: with a 19-7 record, 3.21 ERA (141 ERA+), 1.14 WHIP, and 209 strikeouts in a league-high 241.0 innings pitched, he not only made a third All-Star Game, but won the AL Cy Young Award that year.

As a follow-up to his Cy Young season, Sabathia was having a middling season with the Indians in 2008 (6-8 record) before being dealt at the trade deadline to the Milwaukee Brewers for Matt LaPorta, Michael Brantley, Zach Jackson, and Rob Bryson.  Following the trade, Sabathia dominated – in 17 starts with Milwaukee, he went 11-2 with a 1.65 ERA; overall, he was 17-10 for the year with a 2.70 ERA (156 ERA+), 1.12 WHIP, and 251 strikeouts in 253.0 innings pitched (all career-bests), thus finishing fifth for the NL Cy Young and sixth for the NL MVP in a half-season’s worth of play.  However, in the offseason, he signed with the Yankees on a 7-year, $161M contract, then the largest-ever for a pitcher in MLB history.  In his first three seasons with the Yankees, Sabathia was a truly dominant workhorse, posting three straight top-five Cy Young finishes, a pair of All-Star Game selections, and no fewer than 19 wins per season:

After a final All-Star season in 2012 (15-6 record with a 3.38 ERA (125 ERA+), 1.14 WHIP, and 197 strikeouts in 200.0 innings pitched – his third season out of four with exactly 197 strikeouts!), Sabathia was plagued by injuries and ineffectiveness in the mid-2010s.  In successive years, his ERA ballooned to 4.78, 5.28, and 4.73, respectively, before he was able to bring it back down to 3.91 in 2016.  At that point, Sabathia made a concerted effort to lose weight and transformed himself into more of a finesse/control pitcher, which allowed him to post his best season in half a decade in 2017: 14-5 with a 3.69 ERA (122 ERA+), 1.27 WHIP, and 120 strikeouts in 148.2 innings pitched.  Following another solid 9-7 year in 2018 with a sub-4 ERA (3.65), Sabathia played one final season in 2019: despite going only 5-8 with a 4.95 ERA, he reached 3,000 career strikeouts and retired at age 38 with the most strikeouts in AL history by a left-handed pitcher (even though he is actually right-handed in real life!).

On the whole, Pettitte and Sabathia had very comparable careers – separated by one MLB season, 30 games, and around 250 innings pitched (all tilted in Sabathia’s favor), the former won a few more games with a slightly better winning percentage and a better ERA+, but the latter had better peripheral numbers (ERA and WHIP) with more career strikeouts.  Each pitcher won 15+ games on eight occasions, with Pettitte leading in 20-win seasons (2 vs. 1, though Sabathia also won 19 games 3x), but Sabathia is clearly ahead in 200-strikeout campaigns (3x to none); additionally, Sabathia has the distinct advantage in terms of individual awards and accolades, with more All-Star selections (6x vs. 3x) and a Cy Young Award.  Encapsulating their careers into Wins Above Replacement (WAR), Sabathia likewise comes out slightly ahead at 62.5 to 60.5; the Hall of Fame question is an interesting one – Pettitte has gotten very little Cooperstown support initially, as many voters likely view him as a product of being on so many great Yankees teams; in contrast, Sabathia potentially has a much stronger case – of the pitchers with 3,000+ career strikeouts, the only other ones not yet in the Hall of Fame are Clemens (steroids allegations), Curt Schilling (though continuing to inch closer with each passing year), and Justin Verlander (still active as of the 2021 season).

Regular Season Statistics

Andy PettittePlayerCC Sabathia
18 (1995-2010, 2012-2013)Seasons19 (2001-2019)
531Games Played561
3,316.0Innings Pitched3,577.1
256-153W-L Record251-161
–Saves–
3.85ERA3.74
117ERA+116
1.35WHIP1.26
2,448Strikeouts3,093
4Shutouts12
60.2Wins Above Replacement62.5
3xAll-Star Games6x
–MVP–
–Cy Young1x
5xWorld Series Titles1x
–Other Awards–
–Hall of Fame Induction–

Source: Baseball-Reference.com

Though Sabathia looks to have the edge in terms of regular season success, Pettitte shined in the postseason with the late 1990s/early 2000s Yankees dynasty.

As part of the Yankees “Core Four” together with Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, and Jorge Posada, Pettitte was a near-annual fixture in the postseason with 14 playoff appearances (all but one with the Yankees), eight World Series appearances (7x Yankees and 1x Astros), and five championships, all with New York:

Additionally, Pettitte was named ALCS MVP in 2001 by going 2-0 with a 2.51 ERA (4 earned runs in 14.1 innings pitched) vs. the Seattle Mariners, but would then struggle in a World Series loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks (0-2 with a 10.00 ERA).

Sabathia also made the playoffs 10x in his career (2x with the Indians, 1x Brewers, and 7x Yankees), but he did not have quite the same level of postseason success and was somewhat mediocre individually.  As a Yankee, he won one World Series title and had his individual shining moment in 2009: in the ALCS vs. Vladimir Guerrero and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, he was named ALCS MVP by winning both Game 1 and Game 4, allowing a pair of runs total across 16.0 innings pitched with 12 strikeouts. Then, in the aforementioned World Series victory vs. the Phillies, Sabathia was 0-1 across his Game 1 and Game 4 starts, this time allowing 5 runs in 13.2 innings pitched with another dozen strikeouts.

Playoff Statistics

Andy PettittePlayerCC Sabathia
44Games Played26
276.2Innings Pitched130.1
19-11W-L Record10-7
–Saves–
3.81ERA4.28
1.31WHIP1.54
183Strikeouts121
–Shutouts–

Source: Baseball-Reference.com

Every athlete goes through a natural career lifecycle, from starting off as a rookie to reaching peak years of performance and finally, declining into the inevitable retirement due to a combination of age and/or injury; though each pitcher was a consistent starter for nearly 15 years, both Pettitte and Sabathia gradually slowed down in their mid-to-late 30s to ease into retirement.  For Hall of Fame caliber players across sports, I like to look at a concept I call a “decade of dominance.”  The thinking behind this is that for most Hall of Fame type careers, there are roughly 10 great seasons that define an athlete (this idea is embodied in a sense by the NFL’s All-Decade teams), though due to injury or other factors, they might not be 10 consecutive years.

Decade of Dominance

Andy PettittePlayerCC Sabathia
1996-1998, 2000-2003, 2005, 2007, 2009Decade of Dominance2002-2004, 2006-2012
322Games Played319
2,058.1Innings Pitched2,187.1
169-84W-L Record159-87
–Saves–
3.72ERA3.38
1.33WHIP1.21
1,500Strikeouts1,882
3Shutouts12
43.8Wins Above Replacement48.6

Source: Baseball-Reference.com

Across their decades of dominance, the story is essentially the same between Pettitte and Sabathia – the former had more victories and a better winning percentage, but the latter produced better peripherals with more strikeouts and overall, accumulated more WAR.

My Thoughts

Any baseball team would have loved to have pitchers like Andy Pettitte and CC Sabathia in their starting rotation in their primes – near-locks to take the mound every fifth day, pitch 200+ innings, and win 15+ games annually, plus they have the advantage of being left-handed.  Of the two, I would ultimately pick Sabathia to anchor my rotation – in my view, he was a true workhorse ace who dominated at the top of his game; in comparison, Pettitte was a very good pitcher, more like a strong #2 starter, who benefited significantly from being part of one of the greatest modern-day baseball dynasties – sure, he has the wins, but Sabathia’s other numbers are generally superior.  As to the Hall of Fame, I think Sabathia will get in eventually, though not on the first ballot – with 300 career victories becoming increasingly rare, 3,000 career strikeouts is a near-automatic ticket to Cooperstown; as for Pettitte, I think he falls just short, an esteemed member of the “Hall of Very Good”.

Thus, after weighing their careers against each other in terms of statistics, achievements, and impact, the winner of this faceoff is:

CC Sabathia

As always, vote for your choice and leave your thoughts and comments below.

Who was better - Andy Pettitte or C.C. Sabathia?
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