Who are the greatest Atlanta Braves of all time?
By James Kunkle
8. John Smoltz
John Smoltz was not the best of the ‘big three’ (obviously so by my ranking here) but he was my favorite of the group. Perhaps the biggest sign that Smoltz was really good, is the fact he was an All Star and finished sixth in the Cy Young voting in 2007 when he was 40 years old.
One thing that John Smoltz had going for him was he was perhaps the best of the big three in the 1990’s when it came to October baseball. Smoltz was usually more dominant than not when the games mattered even more than normal.
Along with all the other accolades he earned over his career, it’s important to remember that Smoltz was the best closer in the game for a 4 year run early in this decade.
7. Phil Niekro
Phil Niekro sometimes gets overlooked in my opinion when mentioning the greatest pitchers of all time. With a career WAR of 95.9, over 300 wins, and over 3000 career strikeouts, he should be mentioned.
Amazingly, over the course of his 24 year career, Niekro never won a Cy Young award (finished 2nd in 1969). That was not enough to keep him out of both the Atlanta Braves Hall of Fame and the major league Hall of Fame (member of the class of 1997).
The most amazing stat of Niekro’s career certainly has to be his ERA of 1.87 in 1967 as he pitched over 200 innings. Reasons like that are why Phil Niekro sits at seven on this all time list.