JAWS and the 2015 Hall of Fame ballot: Pedro Martinez

Sports Illustrated—December 5, 2014

Inning for inning and inch for inch, Pedro Martinez has a case as the best pitcher in baseball history. Though he totaled "only" 219 wins over the course of his 18-year career, Martinez reached levels of dominance that few pitchers ever did. His two best seasons, 1999 and 2000, came at the height of the highest-scoring era in the majors since the mid-1930s and in one of the majors' least pitcher-friendly ballparks.

Though healthy enough to throw 217 innings in 2004 — a year in which he was being paid $17.5 million, a record for pitchers, via an option the Sox had picked up the previous spring — Martinez's effectiveness took a dip.

Martinez was strong enough through his first 15 starts (3.01 ERA, 10.0 K/9) to make another All-Star team, but he left his June 28 start after three ugly innings and was placed on the disabled list due to inflammation in his right hip. He made just seven more starts that year, serving separate DL stints for the hip, a right calf strain and a complete tear of his rotator cuff, the last of which sent him to the operating table of Dr. David Altchek while his teammates battled through the postseason.

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