No one loves a good debate quite like baseball fans, and with that in mind, we asked each of our beat reporters to rank the top five players by position in the history of their franchise, based on their career while playing for that club. These rankings are for fun and debate purposes only.

Here is Adam Berry’s ranking of the top 5 left-handed starting pitchers in Pirates history. Next week: relief pitchers.

• Pirates' All-Time Team: C | 1B | 2B | 3B | SS | LF | CF | RF | UTL | RHP

1. Wilbur Cooper, 1912-24
Key fact: Franchise leader in wins (202) and complete games (263), leads Pirates lefties with 48.2 Wins Above Replacement

Having spent 13 seasons in Pittsburgh, Cooper is up there with Babe Adams as one of the Pirates’ most accomplished pitchers of all time. The one thing missing from his resume, especially when compared to Adams or the next pitcher on this list: a World Series ring. Cooper’s tenure in Pittsburgh fell between the Pirates’ World Series victories in 1909 and ’25, leaving him without a championship despite his individual excellence.

Cooper is all over the Pirates’ all-time pitching leaderboards as he ranks second in starts (369) and innings pitched (3,199) behind only Bob Friend, third in strikeouts (1,191) and fourth in shutouts (33). Cooper led the Pirates in WAR during six of his 13 seasons with the team, with his best years coming in 1917 (17-11, 2.36 ERA in 297 2/3 innings) and ’22 (23-14, 3.18 ERA in 294 2/3 innings).

Overall, Cooper posted a 2.74 ERA and a 1.20 WHIP with the Pirates before he was traded to the Cubs along with Rabbit Maranville in exchange for George Grantham, Vic Aldridge and Al Niehaus after the 1924 season. The next year, Pittsburgh won the World Series.

Cooper is only one of five left-handers in Major League history to throw more than 3,000 innings with a career ERA below 3.00, but he never received much support from Hall of Fame voters.

2. John Candelaria, 1975-85, ‘93
Key fact: Went 122-80 with a 3.10 ERA, 45 complete games and nine shutouts in 284 games from 1975-84

“The Candy Man” checks a lot of boxes here.

At his peak, he was one of the game’s best starters. In 1977, he went 20-5 with a Major League-leading 2.34 ERA (and 169 ERA+) while working 230 2/3 innings over 33 starts. Although he finished fifth in that year’s NL Cy Young Award voting, he was named an All-Star.

In 1979, he was a valuable part of the Pirates’ World Series championship team. He pitched seven strong innings in Game 1 of the NL Championship Series, and after a rough Game 3 outing, he won Game 6 of the Fall Classic by working six scoreless innings in a 4-0 victory.

And Candelaria has a signature achievement, as he pitched one of the Pirates’ six no-hitters -- and their first at home since 1907 -- against the Dodgers on Aug. 9, 1976. In that outing, he walked one and struck out seven in a 2-0 victory at Three Rivers Stadium.

3. Jesse Tannehill, 1897-1902
Key fact: Put together four 20-win seasons in five years while logging a 2.60 ERA during that stretch

Listed at just 5-foot-8 and 150 pounds, Tannehill was an excellent pitcher and quite a threat at the plate during his six seasons with the Pirates. The lefty posted a 116-58 record and a 2.75 ERA, which was 28% better than the league average when adjusted for his era and home ballpark, while working 1,508 innings over 192 games, including 17 shutouts.

Tannehill led the NL with a 2.18 ERA in 1901, but his best year might have been 1899, when he went 24-14 with a 2.82 ERA in 322 innings. The Pirates thought about using him as a full-time outfielder at one point, according to the Society for American Baseball Research, and indeed he bounced around the outfield on occasion during his Major League career.

Tannehill also hit well for a pitcher during his Pittsburgh days, batting .277 with 38 doubles, 12 triples and 96 RBIs in 945 plate appearances.

4. Bob Veale, 1962-72
Key fact: Two-time All-Star ranks second in franchise history with 1,652 strikeouts

These lists haven’t been loaded with strikeout artists due to the eras in which most of these pitchers played, but Veale is the exception. The 6-foot-6 southpaw struck out more than 225 batters in three of his 11 years with the Pirates and averaged eight punchouts per nine innings during his tenure in Pittsburgh. Overall, Veale is behind only Bob Friend on the Pirates’ all-time strikeout list.

Of course, Veale was one of the NL’s more unpredictable pitchers of that era because he led the league in walks four times. Yet he totaled 116 wins while logging a 3.06 ERA for the Pirates, and he made one appearance as a reliever during the club’s 1971 World Series victory.

Veale’s best season came in 1964, when he went 18-12 with a 2.74 ERA in 279 2/3 innings while leading the Majors in strikeouts (250) and walks (124).

5. Lefty Leifield, 1905-12
Key fact: 1909 World Series champion recorded a 2.38 ERA with 28 shutouts in eight seasons

Albert Peter Leifield “was one of those ain't-got-a-thing pitchers who never threw a ball where the batter wanted it," as The Sporting News once wrote. It’s hard to argue with the results of his career, though, as he won 109 games for the Pirates -- at least 15 every year from 1906-11. “Lefty” worked a complete game in 125 of his 191 starts for Pittsburgh, including 26 of his 37 starts in 1911.

Leifield was a part of the Pirates’ 1909 World Series championship team, though his own performance in the Fall Classic wasn’t all that memorable. He gave up five runs in four innings as the Pirates lost Game 4 to the Tigers, 5-0.

Oddly, one of Leifield’s best games was another loss. On July 4, 1906, he gave up only one hit but lost to Mordecai “Three-Fingered” Brown and the Cubs, 1-0. He was the only pitcher to lose a game with at least nine innings pitched, one hit or fewer and zero walks, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, until the Pirates’ Josh Harrison broke up Dodgers lefty Rich Hill’s no-hitter in the 10th inning of a 1-0 victory in August 2017.

Honorable mention

• Ed Morris (1885-89) could have ranked as high as third on this list, but we’re primarily evaluating players since the Pirates joined the NL. Morris, nicknamed “Cannonball,” did most of his best work when the Alleghenys were part of the American Association. Still, we can’t totally ignore a pitcher who went 129-102 with a 2.81 ERA while working 2,104 innings over 241 games for Pittsburgh.

• Harvey Haddix (1959-63) will forever be remembered for carrying a perfect game into the 13th inning before losing to the Braves on May 26, 1959, but he was also a quality pitcher and a 1960 World Series champion for the Pirates. Haddix was the winning pitcher in Game 5 of the World Series against the Yankees, and he was credited with a win in Game 7 because he finished the top of the ninth before Bill Mazeroski ended the game with a walk-off homer.

• Jim Rooker (1973-80) went 82-65 with a 3.29 ERA in eight seasons with the Pirates and allowed only one run while working 8 2/3 innings in two appearances during the 1979 World Series. Overall, Rooker ranks ninth among Pirates lefty starters with 15.3 WAR.

• Zane Smith (1990-94, ‘96) was simply dominant after joining the Pirates in 1990, going 6-2 with a 1.30 ERA down the stretch as the Bucs won the NL East. He was solid after that as well, recording a 3.37 ERA in 97 outings from ’91-94. Also worth highlighting: Although he went 1-1 in two starts during the 1991 NLCS, he permitted only one run in 14 2/3 innings against the Braves.

• Francisco Liriano (2013-16) merits a mention to represent more recent Pirates history; appropriately, he started the most memorable game in Pittsburgh in a generation as he won the 2013 NL Wild Card Game against the Reds. While A.J. Burnett and Gerrit Cole might have earned more attention during the Bucs’ brief resurgence, Liriano was a stabilizing force for their rotation from 2013-15. In those three seasons, Liriano went 35-25 with a 3.26 ERA and 543 strikeouts in 510 innings.