Taking a look at pitcher v pitcher match-ups

Curt Schilling is on the 2013 Hall of Fame ballot, and to most he seems like a virtual lock to get in. He had somewhat of a strange career, he didn't arrive on the scene until he was 25, and then he struggled until he was 29. From 34-38 he had one of the most dominant stretches of pitching ever. Here is one career number that will be focused on: 3,116. That's the number of career strikeouts Schilling accumulated in his career.

One commenter wrote in to Joe Posnanski and mentioned that since Schilling has so many strikeouts, because he pitched in the National League. A lot of those must have been due to pitchers. Posnanski did a study where he looked at the greatest strikeout pitchers and how many pitchers they struck out. The article can be read here.

Of Curt Schilling's 3,116 strikeouts, 8.6 percent were of pitchers. That is almost exactly the average of all the pitchers in the study (8.8 percent). But, the study -- as mentioned -- is skewed by the DH. If you look only at pitchers who (1) Spent most of their career in the National League and/or (2) Pitched much of their career before the DH came into place -- their strikeout totals are 11 percent pitchers.

Sixteen pitchers in baseball history have struck out 3,000 batters or more. Six of those pitchers needed to strike out other pitchers to achieve that mark. Curt Schilling struck out 2,847 non pitchers, and struck out 269 pitchers. So while he did strike out pitchers, it wasn't as many as one may have thought. Bob Gibson struck out 2,649 non pitchers, compared to 468 pitchers.

Question for the community:

1) Are these strikeout numbers any less impressive, because they struck out National League pitchers?

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