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Given the obsession over that One Game for Morris, it's a bit interesting that Hershiser's otherworldly 1988 postseason didn't garner him more votes.
Morris' impending selection is a disorienting anomaly, several degrees of separation from the Hall of Fame's standards.
Someone asked in another thread about Morris vs. Catfish Hunter, as they had the same ERA+, though with Morris having 400 more innings. Hunter's career is appreciably better since he had a much higher peak. With Hershiser, it's Bob Welch. The career statistics of Orel Hershiser and Bob Welch are practically identical; in fact, I believe they have the highest similarity scores of any two players that had significant careers, ever. Same thing there; Hershiser's career is much better, because higher peak and his career extends into the hitting-crazy 1990s. Plus the postseason stuff, if you're into that.
True dat, but I'm not sure anyone else is as convinced as you are that he will actually get in.
Yeah, I didn't think Rice would get in, but even Rice had a better showing in the voting throughout the years than Morris has.
Blyleven of course, for all the handwringing over him compared to Morris, is doing better than Morris currently. Actually, Blyleven's ascent from 17% to 62% has been pretty impressive in its own right.
There are, of course, a fair number of voters that are, now and next year, voting for Blyleven but not Morris. I suspect a high percentage of those voters, once Blyleven is elected, will still want to put a starting pitcher on their ballot, and will add Morris to it.
I could be wrong; I hope I am. Ideally, most of the voters currently voting for Blyleven but not Morris are doing so because they're smart enough to realize Blyleven is obviously a Hall of Famer and Morris obviously is not. We can hope.
I don't know. Jack Morris's career numbers (254-186, ERA+ 105, 3,824 IP) are broadly similar to Red Ruffing (273-225, 109, 4,344), Herb Pennock (240-162, 106, 3,571.2), and Catfish Hunter (224-166, 104, 3,449). Adjusting for era, they're in the same general ballpark probably as Pud Galvin (364-310, 107, 6,003.1). I'm not saying that any of those guys are particularly qualified for the HOF (and Morris was probably worse than all of them), but Ruffing, Pennock, and Hunter were all BBWAA selections. Morris certainly wouldn't be the first decent innings-eater who racked up wins by pitching for good hitting / good fielding teams to be elected to the Hall of Fame.
That said, I'm with Steve and #105, I'm much more skeptical than you that he's actually going to be elected, at least by the BBWAA.
Is it a pattern that voters reach for "best starting pitcher" or "best outfielder" or whatever? I haven't noticed that.
I agree Morris needs to get to about 60 percent by next year, and I'm skeptical of that happening, to have a realistic chance once the big boys start crowding the ballot. Hell, if previous Repoz to actual voting patterns regarding Jack hold up, he still won't hit 50 percent this year. He really hasn't made much progress in 10 years on the ballot.
Kiko: All of those guys had peaks, though. Morris really did not. They're comparable only if you're narrow-sighted enough (probably intentionally so) to consider only the basic career stat line... and then you're still comparing Morris to the very bottom of the BBWAA barrel.
Would you agree to the following BBWAA HOF voting procedure:
1. Reduce the number of years of eligibility to 2;
2. Make each ballot public--these are published writers, it's their job after all; and,
3. Make each candidacy a YES/NO referendum, i.e. remove the "vote for up to 10" restriction on electors?
[82]
Excluding Raines, Parker, Mattingly, and Morris, I count 11 who debuted between 19.5% and 30.4%, and 6 who made it.
IN: Rice (15 ballots), Wynn (4), Aparicio (6), Sutter (13), Billy Williams (6), Drysdale (10)
OUT: Wills, Hodges, Maris, John, Lolich
The INs all took as long or longer than the median and average number of ballots to be elected.
Good for them. Eleven candidates start that low and 6 are elected. Why is that ridiculous? People change their minds all the time. 6 of 500+ post-backlog candidates--ONE PERCENT--is not exactly a tremendous number. Are these the 6 most undeserving players elected by the BBWAA? Murray Chass is not stubbornly right about Blyleven; he's obstinately wrong. There's a difference.
Ridiculous is Snider debuting at 17%, Medwick at 16%, Kiner at 3%, Boudreau at 1%.
IMO there isn't one unchanging way to appropriately assess players. Sutter's candidacy gained momentum from the increasing importance of relief pitching. Do you hold the DH against Edgar Martinez for all time since he'd be the first?
You can argue that some voters allowed themselves to be wrongly swayed, in a few cases. The voting procedure and time impact of first-timers (vote for no more than 10, 15 years of eligibility, must be retired 5 years) is responsible for much of the seeming inconsistency.
You could debate Rice versus Hodges, but that's basically the narrowest election versus one of the narrowest non-elections ever. Otherwise, I think most BBTFers would agree with the end results here, except maybe Sutter. I'd guess most of us don't even have a huge problem with Sutter per se, just that he was elected before Gossage.
Or, in the case of some of us, have a problem with both.
A pitcher who was as good as Roberto Hernandez is a deserving Hall of Famer? Pass.
I'd put in Webb/Oswalt/Hudson/Saberhagen/Cone/Appier/Buehrle/Key/Stieb/etc before him... you get the point.
No relievers in the HoF for you?
The relative lack of innings for relievers is a huge drawback for me. I'd go for some of them -- e.g., Wilhelm, Rivera -- but not Bruce Sutter. He has too many people ahead or near him in value.
Well, despite all those extra innings in the years when he pitched well, he didn't manage to throw any more innings over his career.
One way that a modern reliever can be more valuable than a guy from Sutter's age is to pitch for more than 12 seasons. And not only did Sutter only pitch for 12 years, he was only remotely useful in 8 of them. Eight years is not a lot, particularly for a guy who's just a reliever.
If I could have the careers of each of those guys, Sutter gets the nod because it's better to concentrate performance. But it's really pretty close. There's also something to be said for a guy who can knock out 60 or 70 innings of mostly pretty high quality innings every year like clockwork for the better part of two decades.
Sure, but the relievers of the 1970's and 1980's were more valuable than the relievers of today not just on some "runs saved" metric which is relatively easy to figure out, or even a leverage indexed one, but also because most teams carried only 4 of them. This left extra position players for platoons, pinch hitting, defensive replacements, etc. Managers used those guys. When teams moved to the 12 man pitching staff, they gave up a lot of position-player flexibility in order to ensure that relievers never pitched multiple innings, and hence were always available for left-right substitutions, etc. This may make sense as a strategy (evne though I hate it, I think it probably makes sense), but it does mean that the value of the workhorse relievers of the past is larger than what even advanced stats indicate.
Why compare RP to SP? Shouldn't there be a positional adjustment? Are your HOF standards the same for SS or 2B the same as they are for RF, 1B, or LF?
The reliever's position is the same; it's his role that is different.
I'm interested in value. I don't care who the greatest pinch hitter ever is, either; I'm not interested in electing Lenny Harris. Relievers almost by definition pitch fewer innings than starters; so IMO they need their rate of performance to be a lot better than that for starters.
That said, if we're going by the standards the Hall voters have begun to set out, that's a different story -- but still Sutter was not next in line.
Here we disagree. That's okay. IMO the position of pitcher has split into starters and relievers. Closer is a role, just as "pinch hitter," "long relief" and "utility infielder" are roles, not positions.
Shortstops hit worse than right fielders, so it was a good thing for Ozzie Smith's HoF chances that he was a great fielder to go along with his 87 OPS+. There's five relievers out of 35 BBWAA and 32 VC pitchers in the HoF. In your opinion, are those five relievers worse than the worst starter in the HoF?
The reliever trend will quiet down I believe once the wave of Maddux, Pedro, Randy, Glavine, etc. hits.
You suggesting we should induct everyone who was better than Rube Marquard? We're going to have to re-appropriate most of downtown Cooperstown to make room for all the plaques.
A better questiron would be 'are those five relievers worse than the established minimum standard for starting pitchers, which is guys like Red Ruffing and Catfish Hunter'?
Okay, so, are they better than Catfish Hunter?
Pretty good guess. In this case, I have the difference between Morris's RA+ equivalent 226-199 and Hershiser's 191-157 as 35-42, which is equivalent to an RA+ of 91. And yes, Hershiser's peak seasons are better than Morris's. As for Hunter, I have an RA+ equivalent 206-178, which is a worse record than either Morris or Hershiser, although he has the best peak of the three. Instead of casting Hunter as the established minimum standard for the HoF, I'd put him below that, as a HoF mistake. (Ruffing, on the other hand, was better than that.)
I have Chuck Finley with a career RA+ equivalent of 199-156 (and as little peak value as Morris), making the difference between Morris and Finley 27-42, or a little over 600 innings at an RA+ of about 80. Anyone want to take on Chuck Finley's HoF case as your pet cause?
Well yes. That's the point. Ozzie Smith is in the HOF despite his poor hitting not because he's a shortstop and there's some obligation to induct a bunch of shortstops who aren't actually that good. He's in the HOF because his poor hitting is overcome by a massive amount of value that he provided in a different facet of the game. Positional adjustment helps us to see HOW players are accumulating value - but the actual value provided is comparable.
Relief pitcher is a role which offers no such compensatory element. Being the best at it is all well and good, but it simply doesn't provide the team as much value (in terms of runs produced or prevented) as starting pitchers or position players.
I'm not dogmatic about this. I think, for example, that the number of third basemen in the HOF should be in the same ballpark as the number of second basemen or catchers or center fielders. But that's because on the whole the average third baseman is approximately as valuable to his team as the average second baseman. The average reliever, on the other hand, is a bum who is 50 bad innings from early retirement.
A truly out of this world reliever (call him Mariano) is probably still worth inducting. That level of dominance, combined with the value that the role provides through leveraging of those innings, gets you to the point where a strong case can be made. But Bruce Sutter? No thanks.
BTW, I'm one of the major Edgar-for-HOF supporters around here, but I definitely do not see any point in inducting him because he's "the best DH." His case needs to be made on its own merits - not because he played a certain role.
Relief pitching is a part of the game, regardless of who the average reliever is. (Many starters struggle to make it through 5 IP. That doesn't lessen Maddux's achievements.)
IMO the argument that a dominant RP is less valuable than many starters is merely the "career/peak" or "rate/counting stat" argument in disguise.
And they basically only used one (with rare exceptions) when they had a lead in the late innings. Nowadays they use anywhere from two to four of them.
-- MWE
I remember Bill James years ago... I think it was in his Hall of Fame book... talking about Tinker/Evers/Chance. They're in the Hall of Fame mostly because of a famous poem; so the story goes. But the Cubs of that era were, by any stretch of years you'd care to use, the most successful team in baseball history. Yes, that was in the 1900s and the level of competition was low, but the Cubs didn't have a ferocious offense; there was no Honus Wagner, no Ty Cobb. And it wasn't just Miner Brown, either; several otherwise mediocre pitchers came to the Cubs and pitched like stars and/or left the Cubs and pitched like nobodies. If that team's offense wasn't great, yet it was the most successful team in baseball history... it must have played phenomenal defense in ways the numbers can't seem to capture, in an era when defense was (at least considered to be) everything in baseball.
Then a few years later James developed Win Shares and concluded Tinker/Evers/Chance really were very bad Hall of Fame picks. As far as I know, pretty much all the advanced value metrics agree. Apparently they assign most of the 1900s Cubs' wins to the pitchers.
I'm not smart enough to back it up, and nowhere near as smart as the guys that put together the metrics, but I can't escape the suspicion that somehow, defense is being systematically undervalued. It's interesting that teams like the Red Sox (and now the Mariners?) seem to be pursuing defense; it makes you wonder if some teams have individually figured it out, but aren't about to share.
If you mean they'd bring a guy in in the 7th or 8th inning and he'd finish the game, then yes, I agree with you. On the other hand, it was rare for a pitcher to have more than about 3/4 of his team's saves until the late 1980's.
No, but he was a fine pitcher, broadly equivalent to Andy Pettitte, who will get a lot more support for the Hall.
The Finley example shows the weakness of Morris as a candidate. I take Morris on my team any day of the week, but he's not a HOFer.
Saying that the free agent market undervalues defense isn't the same as saying that advanced metrics undervalue defense. It could be that the Red Sox and Mariners are just using the standard public metrics and finding the best bargains are guys who are better fielders than they are hitters. I think you're probably right, and they have some proprietary information that helps them have more confidence than the public defensive numbers can give, but that doesn't need to be true.
Interesting point about pitchers coming in to places and having career years. That happened with the Braves a lot in the 1990's, especially with relievers. In that case, Leo Mazzone got a lot of the credit. There, the team turned over the defense every two or three years, except for Chipper Jones and Jeff Blauser, so I'd be inclined to buy that Mazzone was valuable.
Yeah, obviously (given the same quality of defense at their respective positions) a LF needs to hit much better than a SS to provide comparable value. A reliever -- given his relative lack of innings to a starter -- needs to prevent runs at a rate much better than a starter to provide comparable value. That seems fairly elementary to me. It's necessary to account for leverage when figuring value, but all that means is that the reliever may not need to be quite so much better than a starter to have comparable value -- not that the reliever doesn't have to be better at all.
I think what's going on is that it's harder to have a longer career at SS than at most other positions.
Right. But I guess I'm saying I suspect both are true.
I don't buy Morris as a Hall of Famer, but there are too many comments of the sort that if you had X innings of Y ERA+ to some random good-not-great pitcher's career, you get Morris's career. A really important part of Morris's value is that he was a real workhorse. He had 9 top 10 finishes in innings pitched, and 10 top 10 finishes in complete games. He was top 5 in most of those seasons. And kind of rating system that rates pitchers relative to the replacement level misses some of the value of a Jack Morris, or, in modern terms, a CC Sabathia. Those extra innings don't just take innings away from a replacement level pitcher. They allow you much more flexibility with your bullpen. Now, I think Morris is so far from the HOF threshold that it's not an issue with him. This would be a big part of a valid argument for Schilling or Brown over Mussina (I'm a yes on Brown and Schilling and a probably on Mussina). Most of the pitchers who consistently rank among the league leaders in innings are also elite per-inning pitchers, and hence there's no real need to debate them on these grounds.
It's a fact that Bert just wasn't there when his teams were good and contending (with the exception of the '89 season). Eight seasons can't attributed to coincidence or bad luck; it's about 40% of Bert's career. And 12.5 wins per season for good teams just isn't Hall of Fame worthy.
EDIT: You are of course entitled to your own notion of what's Hall of Fame worthy; some folks think the minimum standard for MY Hall of Fame is Warren Spahn. It's just that, as of next year, 80% of the BBWAA voters are going to disagree with you.
These 8 seasons count for more than all those seasons when Bert's team was mediocre. These were the years when a Hall of Famer steps it up and helps his team go for the title. Bert didn't. His record in tight September races was even worse - he went 13-14 in September games when his team was either in front or behind by less than five games. I know he had a good post-season record, but that's only six starts. He made forty starts in September pennant races and was a sub-.500 pitcher. There isn't another pitcher from his era who is in the Hall or is still a candidate who has such a poor record in big pennant race games.
Wins above (team winning percentage with other pitchers on the mound), career:
Blyleven 21.1
Nolan Ryan 21.6
Actually, the fact that he had a lower winning percentage than the teams he pitched for in these 8 seasons combined IS "just the '88 season". Excluding '88, Blyleven had a .576 winning percentage in the other 7 seasons, which was better than the combined records of those 7 teams. Toss out '80 as well and Blyleven had a winning percentage over .600 the other 6 times he played for a winner. The World Champion Minnesota Twins in 1987 had a losing record in games started by somebody other than Bert Blyleven.
Don Drysdale faced the Dodgers' chief rival for the pennant 12 times late in the season and went 0-6 with a 5.33 ERA. Against all contending teams, he made 32 starts and went 6-13. (source)
I've seen that statistic about Drysdale (I think Bill James came up with it) and it's untrue. Drysdale beat the Pirates on September 15, 1966 when the Pirates were only 1.5 games behind the Dodgers. And Drysdale was 21-11 in September in 7 pennant races for the Dodgers. Oh, and he had a 2.36 ERA. Bert was 13-14 in September pennant races. Don't even compare Blyleven to Drysdale when talking about pennant race performances.
Both Blyleven and Ryan had W-L records barely better than the teams they pitched for. That's why both are overrated.
I cite it as if it's the figure of a contemporary of Blyleven's who is in the Hall of Fame. Should Ryan's record keep him out? (If so, I'll still disagree, but at least you're consistent.)
Edit: I'm not even sure if we're debating Morris, but he's 17.1 wins above his teams with other pitchers.
My source is the game logs at Baseball-Reference.com. I thought I was helping Bert by excluding late August starts - he got massacred in late August starts in '80, '88 and '89, losing all 3 games and giving up 14 ERs in 17 innings.
There really is no way to help Bert on this statistic. He simply didn't perform well in pennant races, no matter how you define them.
Huh, learn something new every day (yes, it was Bill James). Thanks.
If we also toss out '79 (which was by far his best winning percentage for a contender and, as you rightly note, one of the few times when Bert's W-L record OVER-states his true value) that leaves 5 seasons (I know, we're deep into the cherry-picking here) where Bert pitched for a contender - 1970 (when he was 19), 1977, 1978, 1987, and 1989 (when he was 38). For those seasons, he had 159 GS and a W-L record of 70-48, winning percentage of .593. Those teams had a combined winning percentage of .562 excluding Blyleven's decisions. That works out to a seasonal average of 32 GS for Blyleven with a record of 14-10. Honestly, at this point, I have no idea what any of this is supposed to prove.
Well, James was looking at performance against the Dodgers' "chief rival," which in '66 was the Giants. He extends the study to look at "other contenders," which I assume includes the '66 Pirates (they fit the description presented), and Drysdale goes from 0-6 to 6-13, which is still not particularly impressive.
To be fair, though, the Pirates were in 2nd place at the time of that game in 1966.
Actually, since Drysdale took two late losses against the '66 Giants, his starts in September swung the "chief rival" designation from Pittsburgh to San Francisco. At least for that season, the study kind of stiffs him either way, unless he wins all of the games.
Still: 6-13 is not good.
How well did he pitch WHEN? It depended. In "high leverage" situations (tight score, late innings, etc.) Blyleven was an average pitcher, compiling "OPS+ Against" figures right around the league average of 100. In low leverage situations (blowouts, big leads, etc.) he pitched like Koufax. And that's why Bert's W-L record is so poor compared to his ERAs. It wasn't bad luck or poor run support - Bert had decent run support on average over his career, and he didn't lose any more tight, tough games than other guys who had comparably long careers, like Ryan, Sutton, Niekro, Carlton and Seaver. With a pretty good 118 career ERA+ Bert should have been able to win over 300 games and have a .560 or so winning percentage, but he pitched 12% worse in high leverage situations than in low leverage situations. Guys with real high winning percentages relative to their ERA+'s - like Koufax, Ford, Guidry - made their own luck by pitching much better in high leverage situations.
Look at the "Leverage" statistics at Baseball-Reference.com.
In 1968, Bob Gibson had, by ERA (or RA, or ERA+, or RA+) a spectacular season: over 300 IP at an ERA of 1.12 (RA 1.45, ERA+ 258, RA+ 227), but he "only" had a 22-9 record.
In that season, he pitched very well when he was well-supported, winning games 8-0, 8-1, 6-0, 5-1. He didn't particularly rise to the occasion when he wasn't well-supported, losing several games 3-2 and 2-1 ( and several 1-0). The team was 75-56 in games in which he didn't have a decision, so he was only about 4 games ahead of his team.
In the World Series, he was spectacular in games 1 and 4 (game scores of 93 and 81) but didn't need to be that good, as the team won those games 4-0 and 10-1. But when it really counted, he was the losing pitcher in game 7.
Which of these is the more accurate statement about Bob Gibson's 1968?
1. As indicated by the IP and ERA, this was on a very, very short list of seasons that are candidates for the greatest pitchers season since 1920. (In my RA+ equivalent terms, it's 26-7 and there are none better.) It was a year of legend.
OR
2. That 22-9 record is a fair representation. A very good season, but there have been dozens of seasons that good or better. And he didn't win when it counted.
Which side of that will you take? Remember, this is not Bert Blyleven, the obviously unclutch and unworthy, that we're talking about here; this is the one and only Bob Gibson. Because to maintain any consistency in what you're saying, you'd have to check box #2.
As for the leverage statistics at bbref, I have problems with the leverage approach, but let's go with it for a minute. Unless you're talking about something different, at no point was Blyleven's OOPS+ "about league average." If you're looking at the tOPS+ column, that's his OOPS+ relative to himself, not relative to the league. (But even assuming "leverage" is measuring the right thing, is the best pitcher the one who pitches best in high leverage situations or the one who avoids high leverage situations?)
How many 100 win teams (Tigers 1984) had not a single HoFer on them?
Similar to this I wondered aloud a couple days ago how big the leads were getting that Blyleven was protecting -- specifically wondering whether his relatively poor run support would lead to more 2-1 leads or whatever which are easier to blow. The pitcher who has already given up 2 runs in the 4th inning instead of 1 run is tied 2-2 and there is no "lead" for him to blow.
Numero uno (but you knew that already).
How many World Series winners have had no HOFers? Starting at 1990 and going backwards (to ensure that there aren't players still making their cases as active players on the teams):
1984 Tigers (with Morris and, to some extent, Trammell still under consideration)
1981 Dodgers
No team in the 1960's or 1970's won the Series without a HOFer.
I stopped looking after that, but I suspect that because expansion kicked in in the 1960's, a bigger fraction of players were HOFers before that, and that very few pre-1960's teams won a Series without a HOFer. I did check the war years, and even those teams had HOFers (Musial, Gordon, and Greenberg, and maybe some others).
The 1981 Dodgers had (1) a strike season such that the best team in their division missed the playoffs, which helped them; a few guys who were just short of the standard - Garvey, Cey, Lopes (although Lopes had an off-year); career years from several guys who were clearly not HOFers, but had good, long careers - Reuss, Hooton, and Baker; and two guys who each had half-careers that were HOF caliber, which they were just starting in 1981 - Valenzuela and Guerrero. They also had Reggie Smith in a bench role. It was a terrific team, but the closest to a deserving HOFer on it was probably Cey, or Smith, and they're both the type of players who I'd say would neither really enhance nor detract from the HOF if elected.
Starting in 1903, the 1981 Dodgers are the first. Also, only the 1944 Browns and the 1945 Cubs among the WS losers are unrepresented in the Hall.
Yeah - I wasn't asking you.
The Hall of Merit does have the '84 Tigers nicely represented: Trammell, Whitaker, and Evans. And, although he had only 44 PA in the regular season and 5 PA in the postseason, we do have the '81 Dodgers: Reggie Smith.
I haven't done a systematic search there.
I believe we can go from 1990-till around 2000, making reasonable assumptions about certain players.
90 Reds: Larkin
91 Twins: Puckett, Morris?
92 Jays: Alomar, Winfield, Morris?
93 Jays: Alomar, Henderson, Molitor, Morris?
95 Braves: Chipper, Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz?
96, 98-100 Yanks: Jeter, Mo, Clemens, Posada?, Pettite?, Raines?
07 Marlins: Brown?, Sheffield?
So assuming Sheffield or Kevin Brown and Larkin get elected, then every WS champ of the 90s will also have a HOF player.
Looking at more recent winners, who is going to go into the HOF from the '02 Angels? K-Rod?
Knowing the BBWAA ... I don't think so. Sure, they're HoMers. But.
The '02 Angels do pose a problem. Salmon is classic HoVG. Glaus is someone who started out like he could be a HoFer, but his career didn't develop the way it might have. Relief pitchers are a long shot. I don't see any HoMers there, either.
Maybe John Lackey if he pitches until he's 45, but that's probably not a really smart bet to take.
FWIW, both the 81 Dodgers and 84 Tigers did have a Hall of Fame skipper, so it's not like those teams are completely unrepresented in Cooperstown.
Similarly, as far as the Angels go, Scioscia might end up having the best chance.
Good thing Anderson is still 500 hits away from 3000.
K-Rod probably has the best chance.
You don't. I absolutely do, because the goal is to win games, and maximizing the run support that you get is the most important thing that you do as a pitcher to win games. When you know how many runs that you have to work with, it's your job as a pitcher to make sure that you yield no more than that number of runs, period. Most pitchers will tell you that's the approach they take when they are pitching, and they react as though they have failed when they allow more runs than are scored on their behalf.
-- MWE
I believe the 1987 Dodgers are also in this category.
Sutton.
First of all, wins is pretty much useless. There is a reason all the advanced metrics don't even use wins.
Having said that, there really is no logic comparing a pitchers w/l record to that of his teams. When you do that, you are assuming that the team scores exactly the same number of runs for each starting pitcher. Two pitchers pitching for the same team can have totally different w/l records because of variances in run support received.
The 2005 Indians went 93-69. Cliff Lee, with an era of 3.79, went 18 and 5. Kevin Millwood, with an era of 2.86, went 9 and 11. That just shows you how useless wins and losses really are.
This is a secret, so don't tell anybody. lol The reason Lee had such a good record was that he received an average of 6.37 runs per game. Poor Millwood only received 3.62 runs per game.
And it's not only the average runs per game but the distribution of the runs that is the issue.
Even if that's "the most important thing," there are plenty of other important things that you're basically ignoring by focusing so much on this.
When a pitcher has a lead, he "knows how many runs he has to work with." But ***GETTING A LEAD*** is important also. And a good pitcher gets more leads if he has a better offense (and defense) behind him. You continue to ignore this point.
Do you think it's just entirely random that pitchers get leads? Or might the quality of the pitcher have something to do with that? By focusing so much on blown leads, you act as if a pitcher getting a lead is as random as him drawing a start on a Tuesday.
Millwood's run support
0 runs - 4 times
1 run - 3 times
2 runs - 6 times
3 runs - 5 times
4 runs - 3 times
5 runs - 3 times
6 runs - 1 time
7 runs - 2 times
10+ runs - 3 times
Lee's run support
0 runs - 2 times
1 run - 2 times
2 runs - 2 times
3 runs - 1 time
4 runs - 5 times
5 runs - 4 times
6 runs - 4 time
7 runs - 1 time
8 runs - 1 time
9 runs - 3 times
10+ runs - 7 times
Millwood really sucked that year. How can you go 9 and 11 for a team that went 93 and 69? Millwood's era was 2.69, which led the league, and his adjusted era+ was 146, which was 2nd best in the league, but who cares right? Some people think he actually didn't know how to win. When your team scores 3 runs or less for you in 18 out of 30 starts, you just have to buckle down. You have to work with the runs that your team gives you. LMAO
Chalk me up as another guy who doesn't care about winning percentage "relative to their era+." In fact, I don't really care about wins and losses when pitchers are concerned. Pitchers try to prevent runs from being scored. Teams win games.
As for teams without a HoMer from that 80 year stretch: still no systematic search, but I found one. The 1914 Miracle Braves. Their two HoFers were Johnny Evers and Rabbit Maranville, but neither of them has made it into the HoM, nor has Dolf Luque. (And no, the "George Davis" on that team is just some scrub pitcher, not the SS from a generation earlier.)
Again, your methodology, and that of the poster I was responding to, treats a 119 ERA+ pitcher who won only as many games as a 113 ERA+ pitcher "should" have as though he were a bad pitcher because he did badly relative to his ERA+. But in fact he's a 113 ERA+ pitcher, which is good, not bad.Pitchers don't, of course, "know how many runs they have to work with" until they check the box score the next day, and all you're doing is recycling the "pitch to the score" notion. While a pitcher can let up and allow more runs if he has more run support, he can't allow fewer just because he has less run support. If he knows some magic way of allowing only 1 run just because he has only received 2 runs of support, he should probably employ that magic all the time.
Pudge.
And the 05 White Sox
A tiny bit of Frank Thomas.
BBWAA inductees by decade:
1970s: 15
1980s: 18
1990s: 15
2000s: 17
Pedro
There are a few teams like that, WS teams with only a token appearance by a future HOFer in the regular season and not in the post season, most of them recent. The 1988 Dodgers (Sutton), and the 1989 Giants (Gossage) are other examples.
Pedro
I assume we're actually talking about the '08 Phillies here, because they're the ones that won the title.
1 - 1981 Dodgers
2 - 2002 Angels
3 - 1997 Marlins
4 - 2007 Rockies
5 - 2008 Phillies
6 - 2008 Rays
7 - 1984 Tigers
8 - 1993 Phillies
9 - 2007 Red Sox
10 - 2005 Astros
I'm confident the bottom 3 will get someone (Schilling, Manny, Biggio, among others). Someone from the 84 Tigers should, but it may take until the VC. The Rays, 2008 Phillies, and Rockies are wild cards, each with several players who are nowhere near qualified yet, but have plenty of time. 1997 Marlins, Sheffield is qualified, but I fear he may go the Dick Allen route. The only other one remotely qualified is Brown, and he's going nowhere. Maybe if Renteria gets 3,000 hits. The Angels have no one, barring a miracle, and the Dodgers are dead and buried.
#184 is right, there are twice the number of major league players now, but the HOF voting hasn't increased in decades.
Plus I"ll use this point as a chance to stand on my soapbox against the Wild Card. The 3-division+WC format allows for teams with historically small win totals to sneak into the playoffs. The first round is a criminally short 5 game series, where even a team with 85-ish wins can beat a 100-ish win team. The new playoff format has made it possible for lesser teams to have success in the playoffs, and if they are lucky, win a WS. It's not too much of an assumption to make that lesser teams would have less HOF caliber players on them.
I did a little research 2 years ago. I compared the first 14 years of the WC era (1995-2008) to the last 14 years of the 2-divisional era (1993-1980). I wanted to know how many 90 win or less teams made the LCS. I don't remember the exact numbers, but it was nearly twice as many less than 90 win teams that made a LCS since the WC started.
I think Mike is talking about the fact that when a pitcher takes the mound to start any particular inning, he knows what the score is, and thus he knows, if he has a lead, "how many runs he has to work with" at that very moment.
But of course, he doesn't really know, because he hasn't the foggiest clue how many runs his team is going to score during the rest of the game.
Again, Mike just drops a pitcher into the 4th inning or whatever of a game in which his team is leading 4-2, as if the pitcher had nothing to do with how he got there. In a save situation, in contrast, a closer truly had nothing to do with how he got there. So it makes more sense to focus on "blown leads" there. But a starter helps to make his own leads, and, while protecting leads is obviously important, it's also important to keep games tied and to keep one's team close when one's team is trailing in the game.
There is so much more to starting pitching analysis than blown leads. It can't be what a pitcher's HOF case turns on, *unless that pitcher is borderline*, which of course Blyleven isn't.
I don't think it would take a miracle for John Lackey to make the Hall of Fame. The Mystique and Aura of the Red Sox is prepared to rub off on him! Although I thought he had more wins than he has now (102 at age 31).
As for the 2002 Angels - let's not count Glaus out just yet. If he's healthy again, he's going to be 33 next year, and has 300 homers behind him. From 2005-2008 he put up rate numbers at pretty much his career averages. He could easily reach 500 homers, and he's not a one dimensional slugger. I do agree he's a lot less likely to make it than he appeared at the time. I'm guessing the barrier will have broken on PED cases by the time he comes up.
For the 2008 Phillies - Jimmy Rollins had a bad year, but if that's just a blip, he could put himself back on the right track. Also, Uttley has been so good he has a decent chance. He only turned 31 in November, and has 1600 hits.
Really? You think Helton isn't terribly likely to make it? Even with the Coors discount, I think he's a slam dunk.
It's telling that we've become so jaded that we all assume that Brown will be thrown under the bus the first year he becomes eligible, even tho by almost every standard he blows Morris out of the water.
I put 4-6 in the wrong order. The 2007 Rockies have more chance than the 2008 Phillies and 2008 Rays.
But no, I don't think Helton is close to being qualified, at least by the standards of those who decide.
edit: Do you think Larry Walker is a slam dunk? Cause, That's where Helton is right now, minus the defense, MVP, 2 extra batting titles, and baserunning advantages for Walker.
Times playing at least 150 games in a season: Walker 1, Helton 9
Helton's actually hit the 160 game mark more than Walker. If Helton dropped immediately to a zero value player, maybe they're about equal, but I think Walker's inability to stay in the lineup is crucial. OPS+ misses a lot.
EDIT: Helton's played 160 games more than Walker's played 150. He's played 150 far more times than Walker played 140.
Helton was perceived to have the higher peak, because of his chase at .400. I think Helton is going to benefit from the "perceived to be a HOFer when he played", where as Walker will hurt from that.
That being said, I'm not sure either of them are close to slam dunks. I doubt either fall off the ballot, but I wouldn't be surprised if neither of them are elected.
Walker won an MVP. Helton has never finished higher than 5th in the voting.
Like Walker's defense and baserunning. WAR has Walker ahead 67-57. True, Helton does a little better in big years:
Helton - 8.8, 7.5, 7.4, 6.8, 6.2
Walker - 9.0, 7.4, 5.9, 5.8, 4.9
due to Walker's fragility.
But what the voters are really going to concentrate on is that Walker is a slugger with only 2100 hits and 380 HR. Right now Helton has the same number of hits and 140 fewer HR. With a lack of HR from a hitting position in an extreme hitters park in an extreme hitters era, he will need 3,000 hits, or close to it to have a chance, much less be a slam dunk.
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