There Will Never Be Another Greg Maddux 

He was an absolute wizard.

Because the plate was often 20 or more inches wide for him.

And let's not forget that Tony Gwynn faced Maddux 103 times in his career, and had a career batting average of .429 against Maddux. In those 103 times Maddux faced Gwynn, he never struck him out. Not even once. Incredible.

Maddux barely hit 90mph most of his career as well. I used to be blown away by that until I started noticing how common it is for low velocity pitchers to find success in MLB. Jamie Moyer, Mark Eichorn and many others took advantage of the fact that hitters rarely faced sub 90mph pitching. So the lower velocity really messed with there timing. You would think pitchers throwing 80mph in mlb would get crushed but more often than not that isn’t the case. Plus like in Maddux’s case slower pitches tend to have more movement. Combine Maddux’s movement with his legendary accuracy and it’s not hard to see why his lower velocity didn’t seem to matter one bit.

@@user-sg8kq7ii3yI’m a San Diego kid and a padres fan, always love this stat

WORD! (Just one of his EXCEPTIONALTIES....)

You'll see more of that as players move around far more than they used to. It's really NOT that big a deal.

Only 9 players in over 20,000 have accomplished it. I agree, absolute legend.

@@karlheinzvonkroemann2217 you’re extremely dumb if you don’t think it’s a big deal. I promise it won’t be happening much in the future

To be fair, there was a period where teams colluded to prevent free agency really existing, and also players had shorter careers.

The contemporary ''Analytics'' A-Hole would completely undo him. The ''Sabermetrics'' Tyrant of today hasn't a clue about what drives a true competitor and they certainly have no appreciation for the once fine art and craft of pitching which they themselves have _driven_ to near extinction. They'd have him in the clubhouse after 5 and 2/3rds , if that, and he'd be on such a tight leash he wouldn't know if he was going or coming. Finally, all of their rigid, arbitrarily set and applied rules would _wind up_ (no pun intended) destroying the arm of even guy like Maddux.

To suggest that someone is “ahead of their time” is to assert that people are better today. Greg Maddux was facing guys like Barry Bonds, Jeff Bagwell and Mike Piazza regularly… among a 💩 load of other insane bat speed guys. I would say he was directly in his time. Either that or guys like Jose Ramirez and Alex Bregman are better than those hitters I mentioned.

You talk like if the late 80s and 90s pitchers weren't good or were in a lower quality than today's pitchers. The reality is that 80s and 90s pitchers were way better than today's pitchers despite today's pitcher throwing harder on a daily basis. P. Martinez, J. Smoltz, T. Glavine, D. Gooden, D. Stewart, D. Martinez, R. Johnson, C. Schilling, K. Appier, M. Mussina, D. Cone, R. Clemens, K. Brown, D. Wells, J. Rijo, R. Martinez, J. McDowell, H. Nomo, N. Ryan, A. Leiter. All those pitchers played at one point in the same season. Think about that. Today's pitchers don't even come close to that quality. And I'm just mentioning starting pitchers.

Ahead of his time? How so? I liken Maddux in many ways to a right handed Warren Spahn: Both pitchers were about the same size, with similar stats/records, and both got by with smarts, guile, and great control. Spahn really didn't get his MLB career started until he was 25 /26 (Spahn HATED rain outs and missed starts) because of WWII. How many Cy Young awards would he have won if the award was around prior to 1956? Warren had 13 - count 'em - 20 game winning seasons. A remarkable pitcher who is all but forgotten today.

What Devon is saying is that Maddux implemented his own Sabermetrics against opposing hitters when such analytics were not widely accepted at that time. So yes, he's way ahead of his time with his analysis.

I'd rather just have a video about his pranks. For starters, the time he approached Andrew Dawson and company in the hot tub.

I would just say pitchers, regardless of left or right

Him pedro and lincecum!

@@jrrivera4450 lincecum wasnt good for long enough

also randy johnson should be the 3rd name here

His slower less hard throwing style really helped for that. From what I remember he was almost always in a proper defensive posture after his pitch as opposed to a lot of pitchers who's hard throwing tendencies leave them more unbalanced.

Understatement of the year! He won 18 Gold Gloves - more than any other player at any other position.

Best ever defensive pitcher, hands down.

Hence the amount of gold glove awards..

18 Gold Gloves. Most of any position player IN HISTORY.

Yep, you can say a lot of things about Ted Turner, but he was a fantastic owner that was never afraid to go out and spend money to get a winner.

Atlanta born and raised here, Moreland Avenue to be exact. Completely agree

Bro, this was my entire childhood! Greg Olsen, Jeff Blauser, Mark Lemke, Terry Pendleton, Ron Gant, David Justice, Fred McGriff, Ryan Klesko, Otis Nixon, Marquis Grissom, Kenny Lofton... I lived by the Braves as a kid

Don't forget Steve Avery. He was great for 2 or 3 seasons in the early 90's.

@@jrpark05 Javier Lopez said the same thing.

Don't forget Steve Avery. That rotation was fantastic

Best bullpen in history.

That staff coming away with only one world series win was a failure.

Can you play a guitar like ringing a bell?

@JohnnyBGood11 I don't think you can label anything those Braves teams did as a failure by any means. Maybe didn't meet some expectations by their fans but a World Series championship, 5 National League championships, & 15 or 16 Division championships are the signs of a successful run.

Oh we were spoiled for sure Sun comes up Sun goes down Braves win the division

As of the present moment, it's important not to forget that the Braves are undergoing a renaissance.

40 games over .500 at the moment...

You’re a wizard Greg.. Just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Maybe in Borat’s voice.

Can’t believe yall only got 1 title during that time

People ask me how am I a die hard Braves FAM from Los Angeles? You answered it. TBS!

As a fan of Cincinnati reds I've lost so much money betting against the braves back then😅

Maddox doesn't get enough credit for being the first athlete in the HOF with mild Down Syndrome.

TBS was awesome in the 90's! We only had like 28 channels at the time, none of which aired Cards games, whom I'm a fan of. It was TBS to watch an S-tier rotation or WGN to watch one of the best drunken showmen ramble on about random nonsense that had nothing to do with the game, lol. Good times. My summer's when school was out were spent watching Braves/Cubs day games and then going to baseball games/practice in the evening. Always been a fan of pitching duels, and that's 100% down to watching Maddux/Glavine/Smoltz (and Avery was a decent back of the rotation arm) with Wohlers closing ballgames. Wasn't so bright on the cubs front, though Andre Dawson and Ryan Sandburg were were fun to watch.

I liked the Braves as they played em on TBS in MA

You damn skippy.... that's how good he was...that that part of his game is virtually OVERLOOKED!!

By no means is this meant to minimize that accomplishment, especially given that Maddux is in my opinion the GOAT. But an elite ground ball pitcher like he was will naturally generate a lot more fielding opportunities. Its hard to say if he was the best groundball pitcher during his time since the data didn't exist until late in his career but in the first year it was tracked (2002) he posted a 56% rate which is considered elite. It would be interesting to know how high he may have been at at his peak. His career fielding percentage wasn't that much better than an average starter (about 1% better) and since he had so many opportunities, his season average for errors was over double an average pitcher.

They forgot to mention that he wasn't an automatic out at the plate, either.

I agree. That just shows how good his hand-eye coordination was. It was a superpower that helped both his pitching and fielding.

@@fiftyten84 it also was a huge advantage that he was a pitcher and not a thrower. Throwers arent set to field once they pitch usually as they almost throw themselves off the mound.

an honor lol

He was notorious for making batter just stand there and wonder what just happened.

Those were some great days, Greg Maddux, Tom Glavin, John Smoltz, Steve Avery, Denny Neagle..

Maddux isn't a baseball player He's a pitcher

@@nyeaglesfootballgarbagemen8346 wut

@@tuckerbugeater If you played the game, you'd get it

And 6 inches off the corners that the umpires would give them

Yep....Don Sutton, Skip Carey, Joe Simpson, and I'm probably forgetting someone.

Watching those two duel on the mound would have been a Doctorate level course for anyone wanting to be a pitcher. It would probably still be required viewing.

Maddux fortunately did not appear on a Mitchell report and didn’t need enhancements to be successfully like that counter part. Brown and those ped users should be ashamed.

Unfortunately, you must either be remembering the wrong game or the wrong pitchers involved. Brown and Maddux only faced each other in a day game once... a 3h19m affair in 1999. The quickest game a Brown/Maddux matchup ever produced was a 2h17m night game in 2003. The game you're almost certainly thinking of was Kevin Brown vs John Smoltz, a day game in 1996 that was only 2h11m. Smoltz was great in that one, tossing a complete game 2-hit shutout while striking out 10. Brown gave up 3 runs in 7 innings, taking the loss. For context, the quickest game Maddux ever pitched in lasted 1h46m vs Juan Guzman and the Blue Jays in 1998. His famous 77* pitch outing against the Cubs in 1997 was 2h7m, which incredibly wasn't even the quickest game he threw against the Cubs that season... he beat them 4-0 in a 1h47m game earlier that year.

@@chili015 that must be it! The year is dead on. Sorry for confusing the pitchers.

Kevin Brown awesome so was Doug Drabek

He got 6 to 7 inches off the plate all the time he just looked good.

My mom was a Braves fan so I got the same, although I ultimately ended up not being a Braves fan in my adulthood. Still, my very foundational memories of baseball were the mid to late 90s Braves. Maddux/Glavine/Smoltz was just...indescribable (No offense to Avery). Add in McGriff, Klesko, and my favorite player growing up, a young Chipper Jones (Who just BARELY edged out Maddux, though Maddux is probably my favorite or second favorite pitcher of all time and Chipper...isn't my favorite 3rd basemen even of all time haha). Also Galarraga in '98. Good times...

​@@Tinil0 Avery almost single handedly shut down Barry Bonds when Bonds was still in Pittsburgh. That really determined that playoff series.

Maddux was a great regular season pitcher but was below average in the world series

@@JohnnyBGood11 2-3 in World Series play with a 2.09 ERA. That's not horrible by any means?

Don't feel bad, there were major league pitchers that failed to do the same.

I think him not having a crazy fast fastball helped his other pitches. It was harder to tell when it was a fastball.

For the longest time he wouldn't tell anyone how he was doing it. Even his own teammates. Finally he said he was applying a varied amount of pressure with his ring finger grip and sometimes with his ring finger bent and sometimes without even touching it with his ring finger at all.

The late 60s - early 70s Orioles had a 4 pitchers monster rotation, where all four won 20 or more in one season. In 1971, those four guys, Cuéllar, McNally, Palmer and Dobson won 81 games between them leaving 20 victories to the rest of the staff

There was a guy named Seaver who was as smart as Maddux and had stuff that was Ryan level

World War II cost Warren Spahn about 70 victories, otherwise, he'd be above 430 lifetime wins.

How many victories would have it cost him if he didn't pitch in the generation that the umpire gave the pitchers four inches outside consistently? I would take Seaver way over Maddux especially if the umps would make Maddux throw a strike. If he had 1 or 2 more wins a year is the most ridiculous assessment I have ever heard on someone's career.

If this if that... your argument falls apart with you consider the IFS for Walter Johnson and Cy Young... and a long list of others on that list. THEY did not have multi-billion organization of trainers and nutrition and everything else athletes have today. What if those old dudes had all that? Do you think they might have a few more wins. they were likely working a full-time job in the offseason. Different times.

@@efudd800 You mean the era that hitters were taking "supplements" and home run rates went through the roof? If Maddux's stats are illegitimate because of the wide strike zone, then so are every other pitcher's and we might as well throw out the hitters, as well. Great pitchers are great no matter what era they played in.

@@cmc5394oparva He exploited it more than anyone else because he had the best control. If you can't see that you probably didn't watch enough games in that era. You can put Tom Glavine right there with Maddux. I was a Cubs and Maddux fan but thought it was joke on the calls he got. If they made him throw it over the plate he wasn't nearly as effective.

Nobody is studying him. Very few pitch like him and no one expects the 4 + inches outside pitches to be called strikes.

Maddux was a master. But Tony Gwynn OWNED him. Gwynn faced Maddux 103 times, and had a .429 batting average against the 4-time Cy Young winner. Maddux never could strike Gwynn out. Not even ONCE. Let that sink in for a moment... 103 times facing one another , and Maddux could not strike out Gwynn even ONCE. In the meantime, Gwynn is banging away hits against Maddux like its child's play.

@@user-sg8kq7ii3y Tony Gwynn is also the best contact hitter of all time so I'm not sure what point you're trying to make

@@braxtontaff2371 My point is that, as good as Maddox was, he was no threat to Gwynn. Gwynn had Maddux's number.

There's a channel by a former minor leaguer named Matt Antonelli. He played a few games with Maddux when they were with the Padres. Matt was sitting on the bench during a game and Greg sat beside him. Then he looks down at his leg and noticed Maddux was dripping his chew down his leg the whole time!! They never said a word to one another then Maddux just gets up and walks away!!

@@MickLoud999 yes!!! I enjoy watching Anto!

That 2-seamer hit the inside corner, against lefties, EVERY TIME. And they NEVER swung. Un-real control.

It's pretty overpowering when it takes an almost left hand turn 10ft from home plate! Absolutely insane movement on a fastball it was still going 90+ and with pinpoint control too, most of those strikeout pitches were strikes for about 5ft of the 60ft he threw them. I'd seriously rather have Ryan blow a 108 fastball by me than Maddux turn me into a damn statue at 92.

if he pitched game one he'd then be followed by Glavine & Smoltz. It was an insanely great pitching rotation

Chicks dig the long ball

I thought this was a new video as it said released 37 mins ago, but quickly realized i already watched it. Based on your comment, i guess it was uploaded and then removed? If not, i might need to seek some mental health care 😵‍💫

Also much of the foundation of those Braves teams were because of Bobby Cox as General Manager right before that and eventually transitioning into the on field manager. Both guys were genius at baseball.

You're right, but it's easy to frame the pitch when the guy has the best control in the history of the league...

Yep that's why he typically had a different catcher than the rest of the staff in Atlanta. I remember him primarily using Eddie Perez.

Quite possibly the best rotation ever

They were no match for the Indians and the Yankees back then. NO ONE was.

@@SirJoelsuf1 Uhm, they beat the Indians?

I always found that pitchers back then preferred to pitch faster than today's pitchers. Pedro was also really quick and said that he preferred to keep the batters on his pace to stay in rhythm. That era had some serious monsters between Maddux/Pedro/Randy/etc. Might be the most talented era of pitchers in the modern era.

He always landed his feet towards the plate which made him an excellent fielder

Tony Gwynn was about one of the only hitters who could produce consistently against Maddux. God, those matchups were the baseball equivalent of competitive chess. I'm grateful I grew up in an era before blackout rules. In southwest Ohio, we were spoiled as hell having access to the Reds, Cubs, and Braves on a regular basis.

Baseball oddities. Some players a pitcher couldn’t figure out. Tony was one of em.

He took what they were giving, it was there for the opposing pitcher as well. Can't fault him for that

@@1972mrkleen He actually HIT that corner...and then XPANDED it. It was fascinating to see that happen.

@@scottbaron121 I agree. I never missed a Braves game back then, that was Baseball. I'm not interested in this bastardized version of the game nowadays 🙄

In his prime he threw 93, which was in a time with a lower average fastball velo than today.

@@FuckRU-vidAndGoogle yeah, most fans are pretty dumb.

Umps still do that to this very day. Perhaps you should watch a little more baseball. 🤡

He and Glavine were masters at stretching the strike zone, so much that in the later innings, the strike zone gets ridiculous "generous"

If they'd give it, he'd take it. You'd be stupid not to. He got the calls because of how incredibly consistent he was at hitting his spots.

@2005StangMan I agree. Once he got those calls, he'd be crazy not to throw it there.

GFU!

We were so spoiled back then in Atlanta

@@matthewcollins8602 right? hf, to hit a Thursday game ,sneak outta work at Turner / AOL / CNN tech support , use my annual book of 25 complimentary Braves tix to catch Avery , Glav or Greg pitch....or , catch Marta to AFCS launching pad & see Lemke at short or Deon or Andruw sniping flyballs like he was Spiderman... Bobby waddlingout on his HankHill'sFather-like knees ( bless Bobby) to lay into Angel Hernandez for questioning the strikezone ,😅 not to mention watching HoF headed Hoss get his legacy rollin... but, it was the pitching we came for & knew , regardless of the series or the competition, we WERE 100% going to take 2of3 or 3of4 every single time. That's what we got spoiled by ...after 10 yrs of annually always winning regular season series ..that's the Cox way...and it works if youve got the arms to back. the Braves are part of my soul. One I'm extremely grateful for. ⚾

I agree