Building the best starting pitcher ever

In an era of baseball that is dominated by hitters, there are still many elite starting pitchers that can hold their weight. From the likes of Gerrit Cole, Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, Clayton Kershaw, etc. They all have their own strengths with amazing fastballs, amazing off-speed pitches and fiery effort on the mound.

A combination of these four aces would be a phenomenal treat to watch every fifth day, and would be scary for hitters to face. MLB pitchers have taken this idea and ran with it on Twitter during the season's postponement, picking five pitches to pull from other pitchers to make themselves the best.

As great as picking amazing pitches from some of the best to play the game is interesting, building a pitcher using character traits and abilities from multiple players would generate a more complete pitcher. From head–to–toe, taking aspects from each starter to build the best version of a pitcher ever.

Baseball IQ: Zack Greinke

Greinke has been known around baseball lore for being a little on the weird side. Not giving a lot in his responses to reporters or when he does it is a head scratcher. But when the focus is on baseball, Greinke's focus on the game is like no other. From positioning fielders to match his next pitch, to having one of the slowest curveballs in the era of throwing harder simply because he knows it will throw guys off. He shows how he understands the game at a different level than everyone else, and is just a very different person.

Pitching Mentality: Bob Gibson

The flamethrowing Hall–of–famer was known for three things: throwing complete games, throwing extremely hard and not giving up a single inch of the plate to the batter. Through his 17 year MLB career, Gibson threw 255 complete games and hit 102 batters. Which is not a lot of hit batters for that long of a career, but after he retired Gibson admitted on the Fastball documentary for hard throwing pitchers that he would purposely throw at guys who would "overstep their welcome" at what he called his plate. Gibson knew how to attack hitters, how to win battles and simply, how to win. Bringing home two CY Young's, two World Series' and two WS MVP's. He was not only one of the best pitchers of all time, but he was the best at breaking down a hitter and attacking his weaknesses, and exploiting them.

Heart: Max Scherzer

Watching Scherzer pitch every fifth day is very much enough of a treat, but seeing his passion and heart coming out through his play is even better. Since debuting with the Tigers in 2010, Scherzer has become one of the best pitchers in the league and one of the most passionate. In the same year his Nationals won the World Series, Scherzer illustrated multiple examples of his passion. Through swearing at batters, pitching with a black eye and yelling at his manager, he shows just how crazy he is for baseball; and why if any pitcher had his heart and drive, they would be labeled as hardcore. But for Scherzer, that's just who he is.

Body Recovery: Nolan Ryan

Nolan Ryan is known for having the most strikeouts of all time, the most career no–hitters and throwing a baseball the hardest ever. But the biggest stand out in his 27 year career is simply that. Ryan averaged over 100 M.P.H. over his 27 year career where he amassed 5386 innings, roughly 232 innings per season. Most starters in baseball do not reach 220 innings per year, let alone 230 over 27 years. He was able to throw that hard over and over for that many seasons with 222 complete games. The only reason he finally retired was because in 1993, in his 773th career start Ryan's elbow blew out in the first inning. His final pitch with a torn UCL was clocked at 100 M.P.H. He was able to dominate for that long and his body kept on going. He just kept on pitching beating people up, and throwing the ball harder than anyone else.

Fielding Ability (quick feet): Greg Maddux

Known for his perfect pitching, Maddux dominated on the mound by throwing perfect pitches and by fielding the ball even better. Having won 18 Gold gloves over 23 years would be easy enough to write, but everything Maddux did was in an effort to be as quick and efficient as possible. Throwing no-hitters with less than 100 pitches and acting like a fifth middle infielder, Maddux completely controlled the game of baseball every single start.

Building the best starting pitcher ever is easier said than done. There is no true way to try and develop a perfect pitcher as all of the skills above are natural born talents that can be recreated through practice or drills. Now what pitches they would use or which way they would throw in order to be even better is an even bigger discussion to have.

For now, all of these abilities put together is a phenomenal foundation to build upon when creating the best starting pitcher of all time.

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