The best proxy for (1) is to focus very closely and overweight the ages at which an athlete in any era is at his physical peak -- roughly ages 23-32 or 33.

Because nobody except a Selig-era pitcher could ever possibly have a late peak.

11 games to be exact starting from the KC game on Sep 4th 2002 where the bullpen lost games where Hudson was in the lead in late innings

48's argument is one of the reasons why I don't discount Cliff Lee's chances to get to the HoF.

IF there's a paradigm shift out there (like Bill James once speculated about in re: El Duque), Lee's K/BB numbers since he was first traded to the Phillies would surely weigh very favorably on his behalf.

Hudson has himself to blame as much as the bullpen for that game. He was given an 11-0 lead. He gave up the first 5, along with his fielders.

He may have lost 11 wins by the bullpen blowing late leads, but how many has he lost relative to what a starter should expect over 10 years and 300 or so starts? Hudson's win total does not look low compared to what you'd expect from his innings and ERA+.

He may have lost 11 wins by the bullpen blowing late leads, but how many has he lost relative to what a starter should expect over 10 years and 300 or so starts? Hudson's win total does not look low compared to what you'd expect from his innings and ERA+.

Yes even with the lost wins he would only have 208 not including any he might have received when he lost time due to injuries. So in that case he would have to make the argument with a stellar Post-season record which unfortunately he doesnt have.

I'm not seeing why Hudson is given little chance. He looks like Sabathia to me - and indeed, I thought that before checking his list of sims, and lo and behold Sabathia is first on his list.

And everyone assumes that Sabathia is either almost in or going in. Granted Sabathia is 6 years younger - which is huge - but, again, people seem to think Sabathia is a near lock. If Hudson has a lot of work to do, then Sabathia does.

EDIT: I mean, really, his peak isn't all that impressive on rate. It's fairly impressive for bulk (IP) at a high level, given the era. But while his peak fits _ok_ into a HOF career, he needs the career bulk to round out his case. And even at 3100 innings, looking at him again, I'm not all that impressed. He might need 3500 or 3800. He's missing the scintillating seasons that the others have, although I guess Smoltz as a starter is a fair comp. I'll have to look again when I have more time. Frankly, I'm surprised because I thought he was a lot closer than he appears.

Yup. I think it's the very Jack Morris-like (105 ERA+, career) start to Sabathia's career, distinctly at odds with the CC we now know, that throws things off.

CC: 2001-2005 972 IP, 157 GS. 69-45 W-L, 4.10 ERA, 107 ERA+

CC: 2006-2012 1592 IP, 226 GS, 122-57 W-L, 3.14 ERA, 139 ERA+

A completely different pitcher. The K/BB ratio looks like that of two different guys.

Why? Because he keeps getting put out there and performing worse than Fip predicts, should be an indication that he maybe is not a major league pitcher. I honestly think that at some point in time people have to accept that pitchers who aren't getting results predicted by Fip, may not be the same talent pool that Fip is designed to predict.

Sure, and it yields to the ordinary kind of analysis you'd expect.

Knuckleballers outperfrom FIP, which leads you to think that other pitch types might have an effect on over- and under- performance. Take the 50 pitchers in the last couple of decades who most overperformed, the 50 who most underperformed, and the 50 who most closely matched their FIP. Take note also of pitchers with long careers whose performance relative to FIP changed over time, and how their repertoires changed over time.

Sabathia needs three more good years to get him up to the 3100-innings level which is what he needs with a 125 ERA+.

I think Verlander is a lock as soonn as he reaches 10 years.... Lincecum looks a lot like Johan Santana too me (great peak, no bulk).....

Then isn't Santana already in by this standard? He's a bit better than Verlander.

Hudson has himself to blame as much as the bullpen for that game. He was given an 11-0 lead. He gave up the first 5, along with his fielders.

He may have lost 11 wins by the bullpen blowing late leads, but how many has he lost relative to what a starter should expect over 10 years and 300 or so starts? Hudson's win total does not look low compared to what you'd expect from his innings and ERA+.

BB-REF has him with 24 cheap wins and 23 tough losses.

LINK

That may not be the best way to measure it, but at least it's one way, and it indicates a push.

I'm not seeing why Hudson is given little chance. He looks like Sabathia to me - and indeed, I thought that before checking his list of sims, and lo and behold Sabathia is first on his list.

And everyone assumes that Sabathia is either almost in or going in. Granted Sabathia is 6 years younger - which is huge - but, again, people seem to think Sabathia is a near lock. If Hudson has a lot of work to do, then Sabathia does.

You'd think so, but it's easy to see why voters would think CC is a lot better--much more consist peak; the Cy Young itself, which makes a huge, narrative difference; CC has been better more recently, and we know voters have weird attention spans; CC got the huge deal, "proof" of his status as the best in the game.

It's weird, in that there's essentially no difference in their numbers, but even so, prior to this thread, if asked I would have said, 'oh, sure, Sabathia's a bit better'.

For the voters, though

Hudson: 2nd, 6th, 4th, 4th; a mere 3 AS games, all spread out.
Sabathia: 1st, 5th 4th, 3rd, 4th; 6 AS games, close together. I'll guess the voters find that much more impressive. It's also easy for the casual voter (still... what... half the BBWAA?) to grasp.

Sabathia has a 6 year peak Hudson can't quite touch: 6 years at 142 ERA+ versus 5 years at 137.

I'm not saying Sabathia is much better. There's a hair's difference between then. It's just that it's easy for me to see why voters would think Sabathia 'feels like' a HOFer while Hudson just doesn't quite make the cut, despite their almost identical career W-L records and ERA+s.

In any case, Hudson has very little chance of actually going in, while Sabathia needs three mediocre seasons on a team that's always going to be at or near the top in payroll, meaning that short of his arm falling off, he can be pretty ordinary and still win 15 games a season.

If Mike Mussina isn't considered a lock, Hudson's in real trouble. He's around 80 wins short of Moose's career total.

25. JJ1986 Posted: December 27, 2012 at 01:34 PM (#4333068)

Haren and Webb actually had good starts, but have faded.



Brandon Webb? Faded is quite the understatement.

In his defense he meant a Thelma and Louise style fade.

Wow; had no idea Webb hasn't pitched in the majors since 2009, really 2008. One bad stint in the minors in 2011.

I vaguely recall him getting hurt but didn't realize he was simply out of the league. Everyone talks about Mark Prior being the "What if?" guy, but what about Webb? And Webb was worked very hard.

Webb blew his shoulder out on opening day 2009. I remember watching the game in a bar after drafting him to my fantasy team.

Schilling does not belong but he played the media well, so I imagine at some point he will make it. Kevin Brown wa a dick to the media, so he has no chance. Yes, this is how decisions get made. Yippee.

Kevin Brown wa a dick to the media, so he has no chance.

So were Steve Carlton, Eddie Murray, Jim Rice and Jack Morris, two first-ballot choices and two others who received HoF support far in excess of their performance. Brown had a lot of things working against him, not the least of which was his place in the Mitchell report, but history doesn't suggest that being a dick to the voters is really damaging to one's case.

but history doesn't suggest that being a dick to the voters is really damaging to one's case.

Actually could be a reverse effect where players the media had difficulties with get benefit of the doubt as voters are being extra careful not to let past problems affect their vote.

If Hudson can hang on for another 3 years or so at close to his recent level, he's going to have 230+ wins at a very high winning percentage. That could keep him on the ballot for a while. His ERA+ is probably going to end up better than Sabbathia, Lee, and Buerhle (already better and presumably fewer years left to decline) and counting stats quite a bit higher than Lee, Oswalt and Santana. Compared to the Verlander/Felix/Hamels/Weaver/Cain/Lincecum generation, his peak compares favorably to everyone but Verlander and most of those guys are having trouble picking up wins.

Really, Hudson's biggest obstacle against his contemporaries is that everyone seems to have mostly forgotten about him, though the whole group is in trouble since they will all be held against the Pedro/Maddux/Clemens/Johnson group.

Compared to the Verlander/Felix/Hamels/Weaver/Cain/Lincecum generation, his peak compares favorably to everyone but Verlander

Except that Hudson's peak is probably done, and most of the other guys are still racking up peak years. It's way too early to start the HOF conversation for any of the non-Verlander guys. (Too early for Verlander as well, but as you note, his peak is already better than Hudson's.)

Hudson's ERA is about 1/3 of a run better than his FIP for his career. Yet his fWAR is actually slightly higher than his bWAR. Anyone know what would cause this? After seeing 52 WAR at Fangraphs I was quite surprised to see 51 at B-R.

I didn't vote for either Brown or Cone in the Hall of Merit, so those comparisons don't help Schlilling with me. What DOES help is the postseason credit, which is enough that I will be voting for him. I'm not sure, and I know I haven't looked at everyone who ever played, but Curt has at least one of the very very best postseason credits in history, perhaps the absolute best. For me, that counts a lot. There are "pennants added", but then there are "championships added." Curt scores extremely well on the second one. -Brock Hanke

Iirc fWAR versus ERA isn't the only difference in how fangraphs and BBRef calculate pitching WAR.

Schilling does not belong but he played the media well

Sucking up to the media gave him the 19th highest pitching fWAR and 26th highest pitchers bWAR of all time?

Or did the press give him the best post season record ever?

Anyone who uses ERA or ERA+ to measure Schilling by on this site is obtuse. He's clearly in top 20 all time and that's close to HOF inner circle.

BB-REF has him with 24 cheap wins and 23 tough losses.

LINK

That may not be the best way to measure it, but at least it's one way, and it indicates a push.

With the A's: 9 cheap wins, 5 tough losses (183 starts).
With the Braves: 15 cheap wins, 18 tough losses (222 starts).

The 19th century guys who "started 60-70 games a year" don't really skew the career win numbers. They mostly ended up with just about the same number of career wins as the other top pitchers in history. Distributed over ten years instead of 20, but still, about the same number. There does appear to be a "sweet spot" right around the turn of the century, which is why the top few pitchers in history include Johnson, Young and Alexander. My theory about this is that, during the 1880s, MLB managers realized that their pitchers just could not pitch 500 IP a year without damage, so they started adding pitchers to what we now call a "rotation." Well, once that ball got rolling, it rolled real good. I think that, by 1895 or so, pitchers are pitching fewer innings than their arms could have safely handled. By the turn of the century, this looks very true to me, and then it drifts away because 1) the number of IP a pitcher can handle in a year has gone down steadily since 1879, and 2) the early 20th century, if you read about pitchers, is just obsessed with the curve ball, which we now know to be hard on arms.

AROM (#47) - I see your point about Bob Feller and WWII, but I'm not sure it's accurate. Feller had already pitched a few MLB seasons when he went to war (as opposed to WAR). One guy whose longevity is, I think, due to WWII is Warren Spahn. Warren pitched only one season before he went to war, and apparently came back with a Wonder Arm, given his career longevity. Such medical people as I've heard comment on sports talk a lot about the joints, especially the shoulder joint, not being fully solidified until your early 20s. Feller, having started young, had probably done as much damage to his arm as he was going to do by the time he went to war. Spahn, on the other hand, avoided arm stress during the exact years that it would have been most damaging. Now, I ain't saying that I can PROVE any of this. I'm just offering it as a different way to look at young pitchers and war credit. -Brock Hanke

Hudson's ERA is about 1/3 of a run better than his FIP for his career. Yet his fWAR is actually slightly higher than his bWAR. Anyone know what would cause this? After seeing 52 WAR at Fangraphs I was quite surprised to see 51 at B-R.

Hudson, being an extreme groundballer with a low strikeout rate, is going to have a #### ton of unearned runs, which bWAR counts in addition to earned runs. I think it's about time for ERA to go away and be replaced by RA. At the very list, B-R and FanGraphs should show both. Also, Hudson has generally played on good defensive teams IIRC. And I think (but I'm not sure) that B-R has a higher replacement level.

And I think (but I'm not sure) that B-R has a higher replacement level.

This is the big issue. Both fWAR and bWAR work from RA, not ERA, but they have different calculations of replacement level, so the vast majority of players will have more fWAR than bWAR.

It would be really nice if baseball-reference would publish RA+ numbers alongside ERA+, since their value stats are built off something like RA+.

Hudson, being an extreme groundballer with a low strikeout rate, is going to have a #### ton of unearned runs

Not really. He has fewer than Sabathia in more innings, and a better rate than Cone, for example. He is not some sort of outlier in this regard.

About 92% of runs in a given year are earned. For his career, Hudson's at 91.7%. So yeah, he's been about average in that, which is really surprising considering he's an extreme contact and groundball pitcher. My bad.

I would guess then that the higher replacement level and the defensive adjustments explain his fWAR and bWAR being the same. B-R says Hudson's teams were .07 runs per 9 better than average, which is pretty small. So I guess most of it is the higher replacement level.

Edit to 74, it turns out B-R does have RA/9 in the value section. Looks like you can just divide RAopp by RA and get RA+ (sort of, it's not league average but rather opponents average, which is going to be pretty close over a career). Hudson's at 128 for his career.

BB-REF has him with 24 cheap wins and 23 tough losses.

LINK

That may not be the best way to measure it, but at least it's one way, and it indicates a push.


With the A's: 9 cheap wins, 5 tough losses (183 starts).
With the Braves: 15 cheap wins, 18 tough losses (222 starts).

You also have 30 ND from 2002-2004 which seems pretty high and indicates games where he might have taken leads into the late innings as well. In 2003 alone Keith Foulke had 4 blown saves by July 6th. All for Hudson so I think those numbers for cheap wins and losses are a bit off. Either way he would need to have had a stronger post-season I feel to make it to the Hall. I'm hoping he does because I have a bunch of his rookie baseball cars.

You also have 30 ND from 2002-2004 which seems pretty high and indicates games where he might have taken leads into the late innings as well.

Over his career Hudson has about as many decisions as should be expected. Over the last 30 years, starting pitchers have averaged about one decision per 8.6 innings. Hudson has 2682 innings which should mean 311 decisions. He actually has 301.

He's got a winning percentage of .654, but based on the ERA+ of 126 he "should" only be a .614 pitcher. That's the benefit of playing on good teams for most of his career.

His Innings/ERA+ neutral record is 191-120, so overall a bit lucky, but his win total more or less reflects his ability.

Over his career Hudson has about as many decisions as should be expected. Over the last 30 years, starting pitchers have averaged about one decision per 8.6 innings. Hudson has 2682 innings which should mean 311 decisions. He actually has 301.

Isn't the IP:Decisions ratio fairly consistent throughout most of baseball history?

If Hudson were done tomorrow, his closest comps in innings, and ERA+ are David Cone, Jimmy Key, and Dave Steib. Well, at least among recent retired pitchers. He's nearly identical to Sabathia.

Not a HOFer today, But he certainly has a shot. If he pitches to age 40 at the same level as the last 3 years, he's in. That would give him 250+ wins and keep the ERA+ over 120. There are no cases of pitchers meeting those criteria and not getting into the hall.

Hudson will surely face a lot of "he was never dominant" resistance from the writers. If I'm reading the chart correctly, the only starting pitchers whose careers began after the Cy Young Award began and who have fewer Cy Young shares than Hudson are Blyleven, Sutton and Niekro. I certainly don't think that Sutton would get in if he hadn't won 300. Not sure about Niekro. Although it took a lot of work to get the info out there, Blyleven has many claims to "dominance" that Hudson does not.

Hudson does have a great win%, but I've never gotten the impression that anyone cares about that. (Which, if one cares about "wins" to begin with, isn't too logical. But hey, the "win" stat isn't very logical either, so I guess it's poetic justice.)

I think win% definitely played a part in Blyleven having to wait for so long.

While the bullpen support probably evened out over time, it likely cost Hudson some Cy support in his best 2 years. Particularly 2003, where with 19-20 wins he would have been a happy medium in the Pedro vs Halladay / ERA vs IP argument.

Maddux, Clemens, Johnson, Glavine. Everyone else can pound sand.

Pedro?

Pedro?

Yeah. Okay. He's little. He slips the mind.

The consensus here seems to be that Glavine >> Schilling. Can someone who thinks this explain? This is an honest question, not a gotcha. At first glance I see this:

Schilling (career): 3261.0 IP, 127 ERA+, 89 R/162, 76.9 bWAR, 86.1 fWAR
Glavine (career): 4413.1 IP, 118 ERA+, 95 R/162, 69.3 bWAR, 68.4 fWAR
Glavine (1991-2006): 3503.2 IP, 127 ERA+, 91 R/162, 65.0 bWAR, 60.0 fWAR

Judging by ERA+ and IP, Schilling's career looks a bit like Glavine's 1991-2006, with a bit less bulk and a bit better rate. 1991 is Glavine's first year with ERA+ > 100, and 2006 is his last one. This favors Glavine a bit -- a few extra OK seasons are worth something, at least if you're a career voter. But this is before considering defense (this favors Schilling), unearned runs (favors Schilling), and postseason (both were good, but I'd still give Schilling an edge).

Both b-ref and Fangraphs WAR favor Schilling by a solid margin, both on peak and career. (I'm not so keen on Fangraphs pitcher WAR but it's there in case others are.) Part of this seems to be defense -- bref sees the defenses behind Schilling as average-ish and those behind Glavine as being very good.

In any case, I don't see a lot of separation between Glavine and Schilling at first glance, but I'm willing to be persuaded.

One thing they have at Fangraphs now, which I rather like, is a pure "RA wins" column in their WAR table. B-Ref used to make it easy to pull out their defensive adjustments, but now it requires a spreadsheet to disentangle the different factors. That's annoying.

Best seasons for Schilling and Glavine by pure RA wins (adjusted for league and park):

9.3, 7.8, 7.7, 7.7, 7.4, 6.5, 5.8, 5.8, 5.5, 5.5, 5.3, 3.8, 3.7, 2.4 - Schilling (career 86.2)
8.7, 7.2, 7.1, 6.6, 6.6, 6.6, 5.9, 5.6, 5.3, 5.1, 4.6, 4.5, 4.3, 3.6, 3.2, 2.7, 2.3, 2.3 - Glavine (career 94.7)

It's a peak v career case, but not a classic one because Schilling also wins on 7-year and 10-year prime. Glavine only passes Schilling around year 15. For me, looking over these numbers, I think it's pretty clear that Schilling was the greater pitcher. (I prefer peak/prime to career candidates.) Schilling's insanely low UER rate really obscures his greatness in many of the traditional metrics. He's right there with Glavine in the third tier of contemporary Hall of Fame pitchers, and he should actually be slightly above.

Any adjustments you make to pure RA runs for quality of defense or other factors will almost all benefit Schilling. I really didn't expect him to beat Glavine, or at least I expected it to be a hard call. But I don't think it is.

Best seasons for Schilling and Glavine by pure RA wins (adjusted for league and park):


How does this come out if you add in batting? Glavine has a clear advantage there.

Hey, wow, that makes a huge difference. Adding up batting and pitching wins for Glavine and Schilling-

9.0, 7.8, 7.7, 7.5, 7.4, 6.5, 6.0, 5.5, 5.5, 5.4, 5.4, 3.7, 3.7, 2.4 - Schilling (career 85.5)
9.2, 7.9, 7.8, 7.7, 6.8, 6.7, 6.0, 5.8, 5.6, 5.4, 5.0, 4.6, 4.6, 4.0, 3.4, 3.1, 2.4, 2.4, 2.4 - Glavine (career 101.1)

Glavine has multiple seasons where he's 5-10 runs better with the bat than an average pitcher. Schilling was pretty much dead average with the bat for his career, while Glavine has seasons like 1996 where his 675 OPS adds 10 runs to his value.

Now it becomes a question of the value of those extra 5-7 seasons of moderately above average pitching Glavine adds compared to the various defensive adjustments which should benefit Schilling and push his peak higher than Glavine's. It's a much harder call.

Obviously this doesn't attest to his value, but Schilling having the best K/BB ratio of all time really puts him over the top to me (not necessarily over Glavine, but makes him a clear top 25 pitcher of all time). Also if you're going to count pitcher batting, you should count postseason as well. This, surprisingly, favors Glavine as well. Curt had better rate stats, but pitched 80 fewer postseason innings than Glavine (who was no slouch with a career 3.30 ERA).

... but makes him a clear top 25 pitcher of all time

I have a hard time believing that the -- at best -- 5th best pitcher of his own generation (clearly behind Clemens, Maddux, Johnson & Martinez, closely grouped with Brown, Mussia, Glavine & Brown) is in the top 25. In addition to the four who overlapped, who of Seaver, W. Johnson, Young, Alexander, Mathewson, Grove, Nicols, Hubbell, Koufax, Spahn, Ford, Gibson, Marichal, Perry, Niekro, Feller, Blyleven, Carlton, Roberts, Jenkins, or Ryan would you kick out? That is also ignoring almost all of the early stars (Pud Galvin, Tim Keefe, Eddie Plank, etc.) as well as Negro Leaguers (Satchel Paige, Smokey Joe Williams, etc.) and relief aces (Wilhelm and Rivera may have an argument). Because Schilling got a slow start and had a relatively brief peak, he simply didn't accumulate the value that the top 25 pitchers did.

Schilling is top 30 by bWAR and top 20 by fWAR. I know bWAR is a better value stat over a career, but the K/BB thing (reflected in fWAR) bumps him up to me.

So were Steve Carlton, Eddie Murray, Jim Rice and Jack Morris, two first-ballot choices and two others who received HoF support far in excess of their performance. Brown had a lot of things working against him, not the least of which was his place in the Mitchell report, but history doesn't suggest that being a dick to the voters is really damaging to one's case.

What's interesting about that list of players is that the two who received support far in excess of their performance took many years to ramp up to that excess level of support. Brown's primary problem is that he didn't have enough wins and that he was one of the first steroid guys to hit the HOF ballot, but if he'd gotten over that early hump and got up to year 12-15 of his HOF candidacy the voters might have had time to re-remember his surliness as toughness/manliness/"back in the good ol' days when ballplayers were men instead of the spoiled children they are today"-ness as they did with Rice and Morris.

Glavine has multiple seasons where he's 5-10 runs better with the bat than an average pitcher. Schilling was pretty much dead average with the bat for his career, while Glavine has seasons like 1996 where his 675 OPS adds 10 runs to his value.

FWIW, from Bill James' most recent mailbag:

Hey Bill, if an NL team acquired the top 5 hitting pitchers how many aprox runs would it add to a teams season totals.

Between 10 and 20, depending on the variables.

Dunno what Bill is basing that on.

Don't understand why Smoltz doesn't get more love here. I agree he's a step behind the big boys, but he's not clearly behind Schilling. From 96-99 he put up 30.8 fWAR, with an ERA a little over 3.00, then he came back in 05-07 to put up another 16.5 fWAR. Despite spending the bulk of the time in between those runs as a reliever (and a dominant one at that for what its worth) he still managed to put together 82.5 fWAR for his career. Not as impressive as Pedro's 89 in far fewer innings, but a reasonable peak supported by HOF level career numbers.

Schilling's peak lasted longer, and was higher, and in all honesty the entire picture probably leads to the conclusion that Schilling was better, but not so much as to dismiss the conversation entirely. I guess I just want this on the record for when Smoltz gets way more HOF support than Schilling.

Guys with 49+ pitching WAR, past 30 years, ranked by Adjusted Pitching Wins:

The consensus here seems to be that Glavine >> Schilling. Can someone who thinks this explain? This is an honest question, not a gotcha

I suppose it depends in large part on how much you value Schilling's superior peak and playoff dominance over Glavine's superior durability and career length. ~1150 more innings is pretty impressive.

Not sure how much it matters, but Glavine was pretty much an iron man through most of his career: from 1990-2007, he never started fewer than 32 games in a non-strike season (and he started 25 and 29 in 1994 and 1995, so he was pretty reliable in those years too). Not that Schilling was fragile, but he's got a few seasons with mid-20s starts in the mix.

I think you could make a pretty good argument on pure performance for either player, especially when you account for batting (about an 8 win difference over their careers, which isn't insignificant) and fielding (it's hard to compare a fly ball and ground ball pitcher, but the data we do have suggests that Glavine was significantly better).

It's very difficult to rank these guys. My gut feeling is that Schilling might be the better pitcher while Glavine is the better player; both are easy HOFer but I think if you care at all about career milestones (which I do), I think Glavine's high IP and win totals for the era carry a little more oomph than Schilling's high K total. 216 wins is fairly low for a HOF starting pitcher and 305 wins is fairly high, especially when you do some era-adjustment.