ip is kinda a lame duck stat. it has been decreasing at almost a constant rate since before the 1900s. what do you think pud galvin would do if he didn't avg 32 complete games a year or go the first 6 years of his career making 70+ starts and through 600+ innings. is the league "watered" down...to some extent, but you cannot make that claim with out acknowledging that koufax benefited from the pitchers era, much larger strike zone, higher mound, no slope, less physical balls used per game, bigger parks, always got to pitch to a pitcher....
batters didn't see the numbers the see now. in 64 there were 10 guys that hit 300 or better, 5 guys that hit 30 homers or more, 5 guys with 200 hits or more...
there is no way to really compare or make any judgement, everything is just opinion. all you can really say is koufax was a great pitcher in a pitcher Era and perdro/johnson/maddox/(whoever) was a great pitcher in a hitters Era. they put up similar numbers over a similar time span and that's about all anyone can really saw about it. i gotta head out for a bit. fun to talk baseball with someone though :rock:
