Most Effective Pitchers Over the Last 3 Years, Below Age 30

I believe that looking at a pitcher's record is by no means an accurate way to determine their true effectiveness (because they could just be playing for a team with a great defense), so what I've done here is compared pitchers, below the age of 30, based on their ERA, K's/9IP and BB/9 IP over the last 3 years. The top 3 were:

1. Johan Santana (MIN, Age 28) - Santana had a 2.87 ERA (1st) with 9.35 K's/9IP (2nd) & 1.86 BB/9IP (3rd). His top rookie cards, 00 Bowman's Best #'d 2999 & Finest #'d 3000, have been selling for an average TAC of $53.00 & $70.00 this month, respectively.
   
2. Jake Peavy (SD, Age 26) - Peavy had a 3.11 ERA (3rd) with 9.57 K's/9IP (1st) & 2.49 BB/9IP. His 01 Bowman Chrome Ref RC has been averaging around $37.00 TAC this month, down from it's $42.25 average in July, and $48.60 in June.
   
3. Roy Oswalt (HOU, Age 29) Oswalt had a 3.06 ERA (2nd) with 6.74 K's/9IP & 1.98 BB/9IP (4th). His 00 SPx RC #'d 1600 is selling for around $105.00 TAC in August, down from it's July average of $122.80.
   

ERA is probably the truest stat to measure a pitcher's effectiveness. BB's & K's represent support to the ERA, as they can help or hurt the opponents' offense, and are almost solely the result of the pitcher. I think that to be on this list, a player needs to have a good combination of all three, because a pitcher who doesn't strike-out many batters relies more heavily on his team's fielding to get outs (which is not the point of this analysis), and a pitcher who walks a lot of batters puts too many potential runs in place, and again relies more on his defense to stop them from scoring.

Two other pitchers that almost made the cut were C.C. Sabathia (3.58 ERA, 7.81 K's/9IP, 2.10 BB/9IP) and Brandon Webb (3.12 ERA, 7.09 K's/9IP, 2.30 BB/9IP).