Both are Hall-of-Famers, both are two of the best players in Phillies’ history and both had legendary careers, but who’s better? I feel Carlton is, for the record.

(Bill Ingraham/AP Photo)

The bias towards Schmidt in this town is interesting, especially since everybody hated him during his playing career. Now it’s the complete opposite, and not at a healthy medium either, like it probably should be. Sure, I love Schmidt myself for what he’s done for this organization, although I never got to see him play, unfortunately. And there’s no denying that he’s one of the best ever at the hot corner, if not the best; both offensively and defensively. Schmidt’s a likable guy as well, which makes it even easier to respect his playing-career accomplishments.

As for Carlton, he won 329 major-league games, 241 of them coming as a Phillie. He had a respectable winning percentage of 57.4, and struck out over 4,000 batters in 24 years in the majors. 15 out of his 24 major-league seasons were spent with Philadelphia, from 1972-86. Impressively, he won 20 or more games in his career six times, four of which culminated with a Cy-Young victory.

Carlton’s ranked 11th all-time in major-league victories, and second all-time among left handers (only Warren Spahn has more victories for a southpaw, with 363). Carlton became a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer in 1994, earning an impressive 95.6% of the vote. Schmidt was inducted a year later, earning a equally-impressive 96.5% of the vote, as a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer as well.

Individual accomplishments aside, back to the debate.

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Tags: Baseball, better, comparison, Kyle Lutz, lefty, Mike Schmidt, Mike Schmidt HOF, MLB, Philadelphia Phillies, Phillies, schmidt, steve carlton, Steve Carlton HOF, Talk Sports Philly, TalkSportsPhilly, TSP