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Hmm. Three of his top 10 comps are in the HOF (Schilling might well make it four), though Catfish Hunter and Don Drysdale are two of the weaker BBWAA choices.

Admin (JD): Comment not appropriate for the Hall of Merit. Deleted.

I don't think Drysdale is a weak HoFer at all. He sailed into the HoM.

Also, Catfish/Drysdale pitched in much more friendly environments, so if Brown is comparable to them raw stat wise, it's likely he was significantly better.

The big knock that I hear against Kevin Brown in HoF discussions is his lack of durability. However, I think that supposed flaw is overstated and focuses too narrowly on his years as a Dodger. Brown made a minimum of 32 starts and pitched a minimum of 210 innings every year from 1991-2000, with the exception of the strike and lockout shortened '94 and '95. That's a solid stretch. He didn't run into injury problems until 2001 when he was 36, and even then he rebounded to throw a full season at 38.

My system sees Brown as fairly comparable in career arc to Tommy Bridges. Possibly just below Bridges when giving him WWII credit (as I do). Which means that Cone is still ahead of him for me.

Jim Palmer v. Kevin Brown (Dan R numbers)

Pitching wins above average: Brown 33.3, Palmer 28.3
WARP2: Brown 68, Palmer 63.7
Best4 consecutive: Brown 8.2, 6.2, 8.4, 5.4 (1996-99); Palmer 7.6, 5.9, 6.5, 6.3 (1975-78)
Seasons >= 4.0 WARP2: Brown 7, Palmer 10 (Brown has 2 seasons of 3.9)

Palmer has more all-star seasons but Kevin Brown has the best seasons

Best 12
KBrown 8.4, 8.2, 7.0, 6.2, 6.2, 5.4, 4.7, 3.9, 3.9, 3.1, 3.1, 2.1
Palmer 7.6, 6.5, 6.3, 5.9, 5.9, 5.7, 5.5, 4.6, 4.1, 4.1, 1.8, 1.6

Other numbers
Pitcher IP ERA+ BBREF WAR
Palmer 3948 126 63.5
KBrown 3256 127 64.8

Playoff WPA Brown 0.2, Palmer 1.2 (here's Palmer's big advantage)

Crunch the numbers pretty much every which way and I can't help but conclude that Kevin Brown was superior to Jim Palmer except in his post-season record. Jim Palmer is according to our consensus somewhere between the 25th and 35th best pitcher ever and 7th in the 1959-present category.

Kevin Brown and Gary Sheffield--first Marlins in the HOM? Piffle or not piffle?

Not piffle if you mean "played as a Marlin." But Brown won't be wearing a Marlins cap. He's a Dodger by WAR and a Ranger by games and innings pitched. Then again, Andre Dawson played for the Marlins too and he's already in the HoM.

The Dodgers and Rangers split the matter of tenure, so clearly we should go with the glossy hardware based factors: 1997 landed him a World Series trophy and 1996 should have landed him a Cy Young.

Fish!

Crunch the numbers pretty much every which way and I can't help but conclude that Kevin Brown was superior to Jim Palmer except in his post-season record.

Or maybe in those 139 extra complete games (211 - 72) where the Orioles didn't have to rely on their bullpen. That may have been nothing but a function of different era strategies, but it still makes for a lot of added value for Palmer, and more work for Brown's GM's.

#5
Brown made a minimum of 32 starts and pitched a minimum of 210 innings every year from 1991-2000, with the exception of the strike and lockout shortened '94 and '95. That's a solid stretch.

True. Let's prorate 1994 and 1995 to 162 team games played, rather than dismiss those two seasons. In 1994 the prorated Brown surpassed 32 and 210 but in 1995 he made 29 starts and pitched 194 innings.

> added value for Palmer

Only if he had more complete games relative to his era than Brown

Top 10 Finishes in Complete Games - Brown 9, Palmer 9

I don't see a huge advantage there

I don't understand why we'd look at non-rate-based stats like WAR, WARP, and WAA and then try to give extra credit for complete games. It's in there.

Brown didn't have Palmer's defenses behind him either . . .

Check that, very few pitchers other than Mordecai Brown had as good of defenses as Palmer did behind them.

Anyone have a breakdown by WAR, IP, etc. of Brown with each team? I could come up with it at some point, but if someone else wants to do it first, that'd be cool too :-)

Brown didn't have Palmer's defenses behind him either . . .

Check that, very few pitchers other than Mordecai Brown had as good of defenses as Palmer did behind them.

1973-1980
AL BABIP was .286
Oriole pitchers gave up .272
Palmer gave up .254

I don't think Palmer's BABIP advantage was solely due to Oriole D (which helped him and all Oriole pitchers) - he was better at suppressing BABIP than his teammates too.

Agreed, I never said it was entirely due to the O's, of course he was a good pitcher.

But the D should get a lot more credit than something like Palmer's ERA+ gives it. Palmer's ERA+ most definitely overstates his value.

Crunch the numbers pretty much every which way and I can't help but conclude that Kevin Brown was superior to Jim Palmer except in his post-season record.

Pretty much every which way? Hmm, Palmer started 50 more games and threw 700 more innings, with basically the same ERA+ (and relatively fewer unearned runs allowed).

I know Palmer had terrific defensive support, but there are still a lot of questions around crediting fielding vs. pitching, and around the run value of a win (especially for starting pitchers) and around bullpen support. The numbers in post 7 make it look like pretty close; the quoted sentence doesn't seem to follow from the data.

> Palmer started 50 more games

Palmer pitched in a 4 man rotation for several years.

I agree in the grand scheme of things it is pretty close, but I think the edge in the Palmer v. Brown comparison leans toward Kevin Brown. If the rest of the electors believe the comparison is close then Kevin Brown will sail in this year.

I have a question that may seem simple on the surface and I should probably know the answer but...


Why are Kevin Brown's Win Shares so low?

My initial pass had him nowhere near my ballot, which appears to be wrong. I use more than WS of course, but that one number is jumping out at me.

Why are Kevin Brown's Win Shares so low?

I'm likely about to display my lack of knowledge on winshares but here goes:
1: Team wins are divided by 3 and divided up among the players
2: Starting pitchers tend to get "too few" winshares, (closers and catchers too many, but that's imho)
3: I know hitting winshares take situational hitting into account- perhaps it does the same with pitching and how it does that is not favorable to Brown?

Brown is 211-144, pitchers with that W-L can make the HOF, but the odds are long
Brown's big year was 1996, a huge year, but he went "just 17-11" on a Team that went on to win the world series the NEXT year, Al Leiter went 16-12 for that 1996 team (with an ERA a full run higher) (and you know what? The Marlins gave Al 4.75 runs per start, and gave Kevin just 3.15- reverse that Kevin goes 23-5, wins the Cy instead of finishing a very distant 2nd and the conversation is: does he get in the HOF before the 5th year on the ballot, rather than does he fall off after a year.

The MSM totally "missed" Browns' prime, as did I- I look at his BBREF page and think, wow, he was a HELL OF A LOT BETTER than I remember- I only really got a good look at him in NY- and he was a DOG in NY, but that was 1/20th of his career- 1996? Don't think I saw a single start, Smoltz went 24-8, I saw about 5-6 starts and I swear to god he was 5-0 with a 12.5 k/9 in those starts

Brown was always in the wrong place at the wrong time, Yankee fans HATE him, Dodger fans dismiss him ("always on the DL", Marlins' fans? what Marlin's fans? I was in Dallas two weeks ago- I couldn't help but as k some Texicans about Kevin Brown- what did I learn? Nolan Ryan rules, Cliff Lee rules, Jenkins was really good one year, and Brown/Helling/Rogers/Sele consisted one mass default "ace" to them.

Brown is gonna get screwed in the MSM's HOF voting, they'l look at his 211-144 and they'l see Milt Pappas or they'll see Bob Welch and Welch's 1990 will look a lot like Brown's 1996 to them.

Anyone have a breakdown by WAR, IP, etc. of Brown with each team?

BB-Ref has a per-team breakdown directly underneath the career totals for each player, if that's what you're looking for (appears to include RAR and WAR in addition to the traditional stats):

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/brownke01.shtml

If elected, I think he goes in as a Dodger.

Pennants added by team:

Team PA IP
TEX - .257 1278.7
BAL - .086 172.3
FLA - .277 470.3
SDP - .135 257.0
LAD - .401 872.7
NYY - .034 205.3

He pitched more for Texas, but he was a lot more valuable as a Dodger.

Kevin Brown—P—2011
Texas (AL) 1986; 1988-1994; Baltimore (AL) 1995; Florida (NL) 1996-1997; San Diego (NL) 1998; Los Angeles (NL) 1999-2003; New York (AL) 2004-2005
Cap: Los Angeles Dodgers (NL)

Brown played on six different teams, but not because of a lack of results; he pitched well for each team he played for and had an excellent overall career. Possessing a nasty sinker, Brown was able to get players out both from strikeouts (39th all-time) and weakly-hit ground balls. Brown was an All-Star on four different teams (Texas, Florida, San Diego, and Los Angeles) and was a six-time All-Star overall (1992, 1996-1998, 2000, 2003). He was the ace of two teams that made the World Series in back-to-back seasons (winning in 1997 with Florida, losing in 1998 with San Diego). Besides the wild-card winning Marlins and division-winning Padres, he was also on the division-winning 2004 Yankees. Led the AL in wins (21) and IP (265.2) in 1992. Led the NL in ERA twice (1996 and 2000), ERA+ (1996), WHIP twice (1996 and 2000), and SO/BB (2000).

theorioleway - it would be better to put these up after the election is over - we do not discuss polling numbers while the polls are still open so as not to potentially sway any voters-to-be.

That said, I recommend the following amended plaque here:

Brown played on six different teams, but not because of a lack of results; he pitched well for each team he played for and had an excellent overall career. Possessing a nasty sinker, Brown was able to get players out both via strikeouts (2397, 39th all-time) and weakly-hit ground balls (do you have his career GB%?). Brown was an All-Star with four different teams (Texas, Florida, San Diego, and Los Angeles) racking up a total of six appearances in the Mid-Summer Classic overall (1992, 1996-1998, 2000, 2003). He was the ace of two different teams pitching in back-to-back World Series (winning in 1997 with Florida, losing in 1998 with San Diego). Besides the wild-card winning Marlins and division-winning Padres, Brown also pitched for the division-winning 2004 Yankees. Led the AL in wins (21) and IP (265.2) in 1992. Led the NL in ERA twice (1996 and 2000), ERA+ (1996), WHIP twice (1996 and 2000), and SO/BB (2000).

The polls are not open - we've already elected all of the players whose plaques theorioleway is working on, including Brown. This is catch-up. Maybe he is working on Palmiero, Cone, Reuschel, Rizzuto, et al., but he hasn't shown us those yet.

I realized that after I posted. I put Brown into my PHOM this year and temporarily confused him with Cone.

Rawagman: Your changes look good to me.

OCF: I have not started working on any new plaques, as I don't know who is going to be elected (I haven't tried counting the ballots early, and the results seem all over the place) and I'm not quite presumptuous to believe you guys will want me to continue doing the plaques. I am more than willing to do so, but figured I would let you judge this first batch before assuming I would do the next ones.

Slight tweak on OCF's #27 . . . the polls are still open - until Wednesday, December 28, 2011 at 8 p.m. EST. Just that Brown was elected last year, so he's not a part of the current polling . . . and yes, the plaques look great!