As baseball has gotten more and more analytical, statisticians have been trying to come up with advanced metrics to show which players are truly the top of the league each season and all-time. MLB pitching stats are not exempt from this trend. As recently as the early 1990’s, the go-to stats for pitchers have been wins, strikeouts, and earned run average (ERA). In fact, a pitcher who leads the league in all three of these is said to have won the pitching triple crown.
Then, with the popularity of Billy Beane’s Moneyball approach, talent evaluators began looking at ERA+ and Walks + Hits Per Innings Pitched (WHIP). The idea behind the latter is that better pitchers will not allow baserunners. It’s a statistic that makes sense for those who argue against Nolan Ryan as an all-time great. There’s no point in acknowledging his MLB record of 5,714 strikeouts or seven no-hitters when the naysayers can point to his 2,795 walks (also an MLB record), and by association, his WHIP of 1.247, which ranks behind players like Josh Beckett (1.2316) and Bill Swift (1.2414).
The Leader In MLB Pitching Stats
The newest evolution in evaluating pitchers is the stat WHERIP (Walks+Hits+Earned Runs per Inning pitched). It’s simple mathematically. A player’s ERA is divided by nine, since an ERA is the number of runs they allow per nine innings, and then that number is added to the player’s WHIP. It has been a foolproof way to determine which pitchers are the best of all time and the best from season to season. It is not without flaws, since it relies on WHIP, so unfortunately, Ryan still gets no love when using WHERIP.
It’s hard to argue the results, though. In 2025, the MLB leaders for WHERIP for starting pitchers were Detroit Tigers ace Tarik Skubal (1.137) and Paul Skenes of the Pittsburgh Pirates (1.239). Not surprisingly, Skubal won the American League Cy Young Award, and Skenes took home the same hardware for the National League. Jacob DeGrom of the Texas Rangers finished third (1.251), and that is not surprising when looking at his career pitching stats.
When looking at the all-time leaders for WHERIP, it will consist of guys who pitched before the turn of the century, when nobody hit home runs, and starting pitchers threw until their arms fell off. Then a new arm would be sewn on, and they would continue pitching. For this reason, a couple of filters need to be used alongside WHERIP to determine the GOATs, is era, and innings pitched.
For this experiment, nobody who pitched before 1940 will be considered, and nobody who has fewer than 2,000 innings pitched (or DeGrom would be the best pitcher ever (1.2715 WHERIP in 1,539 IP). In the top five are names that most would expect to be there. Pedro Martinez is third all-time (1.4070), and Sandy Koufax is fourth (1.4128). There are some surprising names on the list as well.
Juan Marichal has the fifth-best WHERIP ever (1.4223), and Chris Sale (2,084 innings pitched) is second (1.3800). Finally, the lowest WHERIP in MLB history by a lot, and thereby the greatest pitcher of all-time, is Clayton Kershaw (1.2988). This is thanks to his career ERA of 2.53 and career WHIP of 1.0177. It does not factor in his 3,052 strikeouts, which rank 20th in history.
WHERIP may be considered absurd by those pesky traditionalists, and it will certainly be scoffed at, but how is it any different than OPS (On-base percentage + Slugging)? It’s not. It is exactly pitching’s version of OPS, and if the latter can determine the best hitters ever, then WHERIP proves who the best hurlers ever are.
