One thing I like a lot about halladay and Sabathia over Santana is the innings pitched. Over the last three years Sabathia has 580, Halladay has 571.1 and Santana has 532.1. That's a pretty big difference, and when you think about what 50 innings of Met's relief work looks like you have to wonder if Sabathia isn't the more valuable pitcher.

I am a fan of both the Yanks and Mets (rare I know). So I root now for both Sabathia and Santana wholeheartedly. And I would trade either in second for Roy Halladay. He is simply the man right now.

If Greinke does something remarkable this year (say, a sub 2.00 ERA) does he wrest the title from these 3?

When he pitches, Chris Carpenter has to be in the discussion. Top 5, at the worst.

Joe, I always appreciate you shining a light Strength of Schedule issues with the AL East.

Also, I believe 2005 was the "Line Drive Broken Leg" injury for Halladay which is more a freak accident than a durability issue. Up to that injury just prior to the All Star break, he was clearly the best pitcher in all of baseball that year as well (and would have started the All Star game if not injured).

Does SNLVAR take team defensife ability into account or strength of competition into account? If not is it really an accurate indicator of how good a pitcher really is?

I would think that Sabathia is the best pitcher in baseball. He was definitely the best in both 2007 and 2008 and in opinion, even before giving him extra credit for pitching the Brewers to a playoff slot last year often on short rest. A 3.56 ERA in the third of a season since then isn't enough to lose the title to me.

I enjoyed the article but it does seem like you give much less weight to current year performance when evaluating potential all-stars than you did here.

The SNL in SNLVAR stands for Support Neutral Lineup-adjusted so it does take into account the strength of the opposition.

Pardon me for being a little rusty on these statistics, but what is the difference between SNLVAR, VORP, and PRAR? It seems to me that SNLVAR takes into account the consistency of the pitcher since it is aggregated from each of the pitcher's outing. However it uses a pitcher's raw statistics whereas VORP uses a pitcher's translated statistics. And is PRAR simply VORP without the contribution from the pitcher's bat?

One last comment ... if a team were looking to sign the best pitcher available during the offseason it seems like they would be looking for value above the level of an average pitcher rather than a replacement. Those may be better statistics depending on how you frame your question. This would likely favor Santana since he pitches the least innings of the three but makes up for his relative lack of durability with higher quality.

Very comprehensive article that by looking at the last 2 full seasons and the 35% of this one that has already passed puts a seemingly balance perspective on who truly IS the best pitcher in baseball.

I think this season it clearly is Zack Greinke who has been the top pitcher. Last season Cliff Lee was among the very best. But I agree with you that the three-year approach makes sense.

I could even see giving the current season (at completion) perhaps a 50% weighting, with last year receiving 33% and 2007 getting a 17% balance. Certainly Santana would fare well with that weighting, and over the past three years he likely has been the man -- probably with Halladay second.

I'm a huge Tim Lincecum fan, and I think he will soon take the crown. Tim has been in the majors only two years and a month, so from your broader (and I believe more proper) perspective, he just doesn't have the longevity necessary to be your king. That he is in the top four so quickly is amazing in itself.

I think Sabathia has been the inconsistent one of the group, although as you point out, an argument could be made that he was the best pitcher of 2008. Certainly once he came to the National League he was. And he's been very good over not only the last three seasons, but the past four.

Halladay is the model of both consistency and innings pitched. With the exception of his injury-plagued season of 2004, Roy has been excellent since 2001. And has managed 43 complete games and 12 shutouts along the way.

As for Santana, he pretty much took over the best pitcher mantle when Pedro Martinez's arm started falling off. I think Johan will soon be passing the mantle to Lincecum, but he is certainly doing so grudgingly.

But I kind of like a relay team passing the baton from perhaps Greg Maddux to Martinez to Santana and quite likely to Lincecum.

Somewhere I think that relay team goes all the way back to Walter Johnson.

It would probably require passing the baton to one of the stat-crunchers for the heavy lifting, but it would be pretty cool if BP could daisy-chain together a continuous list of the "best pitcher in baseball" using some incarnation of Joe's formula, and going as far back as statistical accuracy and precision allow.