If he provided more value than the AVERAGE Hall of Famer, then he's a no-brainer. Debate over Reuschel has always (at least, those debates I'm aware of) centered on whether he was over the entry level, which is a lot lower than the average. So, did you mean average or entry level? - Brock Hanke

If he provided more value than the AVERAGE Hall of Famer, then he's a no-brainer. Debate over Reuschel has always (at least, those debates I'm aware of) centered on whether he was over the entry level, which is a lot lower than the average. So, did you mean average or entry level? - Brock Hanke

Well, here's one argument. There are 58 starting pitchers in the HOF. Just going by WAR, #29 is Stan Coveleski with 60.7. Reuschel has 64.6 which ties him with Amos Rusie at #23, just a hair below Carl Hubbell and just a hair above Jim Palmer.

Reuschel is a case where it's pretty clear that none of us watching him at the time thought he was remotely a Hall of Famer. He did get listed on several Cy Young ballots in 1977 and again in '87, so his work was appreciated, but there were a lot of obvious HOFers pitching in the late 1970s, and Reuschel was never thought of in their class.

There aren't a whole lot of comparable pitching careers. Here's a list of comps centered on Reuschel in terms of Starts and ERA+, but it has to take in a broad range to get to 15 pitchers. Reuschel is low on his own list in terms of both Wins and IP, but very high in WAR: clearly because WAR must judge that his offensive and defensive support was not brilliant (and that his ability to prevent home runs in Wrigley Field was more valuable than it looked; I think we can go along with that).

It really seems counterintuitive for Reuschel to have more WAR than Jim Palmer, or to have quite a lot more than Jim Bunning. Those guys were big stars, respected as hard-nosed competitors. Reuschel was not; he was one of the fat-but-athletic pitchers (Reuschel was a pretty good hitter, and well-regarded as a fielder, too). He's in the HOM, and one can see why; but it's a judgment that most of his face-value scoreboard stats are illusions. Persuading the HOF of that looks futile, unless a century passes and Reuschel is someday voted in à la Vic Willis or somebody like that.



Studded with HOFers, for sure. And Jack Morris!

Fun fact: according to WAR, the 1974 Cubs were the worst fielding team of all-time. The. Worst.

Just going by WAR

Reuschel...very high in WAR

It really seems counterintuitive for Reuschel to have more WAR than...

This says it all, really. A HoF case based on WAR isn't good enough. At the moment, WAR is a starting point for discussion, but not conclusive evidence. The attitude of the electorate will certainly change over time, but I'm expecting my daughters to be married off before that happens (the youngest is 11).

is low on his own list in terms of both Wins and IP,

And while this doesn't say it all, it says a lot. Counting stats are still given great importance. And that's the argument that WAR needs to engage with. Why is it a better indicator than counting stats?

according to WAR, the 1974 Cubs were the worst fielding team of all-time.

What's even more scary is that in my opinion TotalZone makes good fielders look worse, and bad fielders look better.

Just Reuschel versus Palmer on that list - you would think that 11 points of ERA+ and 400 innings would put Palmer clearly above Reuschel. The difference is nearly all defensive adjustment. Palmer pitched in front of great defenses and relied on them quite a bit (there is strong evidence he pitched to his defense). Reuschel pitched in front of awful defenses quite often and had more value with the bat.

From a statline perspective Mussina and Palmer would seem to have more in common than Reuschel and Palmer. Reuschel and Bunning are pretty comparable though and I have no problem honoring both of them.

Reuschel was basically Phil Niekro with about 200 fewer starts -- and thus about 100 fewer victories. About half of Reuschel's career 64 WAR came from 1976-80 (he had nearly 30 WAR in those five years, including 9.2 in '77)...but all he had to show for that period was a ho-hum 77-62 record and a solid but unspectacular 122 ERA+.

If Reuschel had won 250, or the Cubs actually managed to win something (yes, he was on the '84 team, but he didn't contribute much), he's probably be a solid HOF candidate. (Hell, if he led the Cubs to a World Championship or two, he'd be a freakin' god in Chicago. Ernie who?) But he didn't, and they didn't, and 214 career wins with an ERA+ of 114 ain't sniffing Cooperstown, WAR or no WAR.

In my ebook on the Hall of Fame, I created something I call the "WAR Portfolio", which combines both career and dominance scores. As pointed out, Reuschel scores very well in WAR in comparison to the middle tier of HOF starting pitchers, both in career total and seasonal WARs of 5+ or 3+. Where he falls short of HOF standards are in the dominance scores, which are the things HOF voters have always noticed. In my system, Reuschel is a borderline middle tier HOF pitcher- a lot better than the bottom tier, but if you feel HOF pitchers should be both effective and dominant and wanted to keep him out on the basis of not dominating his league throughout his career, I can see that (Kevin Brown falls into the same category). Personally, I would vote for him, and it's guys like Rick Reuschel who should be the tough HOF votes, not Jack Morris.

I do remember at the time that my dad thought Reuschel was pitching on the wrong side of town, which was the highest form of praise from him.

As far as the HOF is concerned, it comes down to this: are we to honor the guys who actually were the best, or the guys who were considered to be the best. Reuschel is a 'yes' if it's the former, a 'no' if it's the latter. WAR I think overrates him a little, but not all that much and not enough to put him over the 'out' line. The folks in 1970s could believe Catfish Hunter was a better pitcher all they wanted, he wasn't.

Most oddly for a guy who would go in as a Cub, he pitched in two World Series. He caught a bad break in that when he finally got liberated from the Cubs and went to the Yankees, his shoulder went almost immediately. If you're old enough to remember him from his Giant days, he was a different pitcher after that than he was before (sort of like Tanana only not as dramatic).

(sort of like Tanana only not as dramatic).

Reuschel has something else in common w/ Frank Tanana - they both allowed homers to both Barry Bonds & Hank Aaron. They are the only pitchers who can say that.

That is my all-time favorite baseball trivia question/answer.

As far as the HOF is concerned, it comes down to this: are we to honor the guys who actually were the best, or the guys who were considered to be the best. Reuschel is a 'yes' if it's the former, a 'no' if it's the latter.

Can someone lay out the evidence for the weakness of the Cubs defense in the 1970s?

I realize obviously that they rate poorly in TZ. Do they rate equally poorly in other defensive statistics? (They rate poorly in defensive efficiency. How bad are their DefEffs once a Wrigley park effect is figured?)

Are there other secondary signs of bad defense? Pitchers moving from Chicago and giving up many fewer runs? I don't see any pronounced tendency, though obviously this would only be weak evidence if it existed. Were the 1970s Cubs a defensive laughingstock among fans at the time?

Were the 1970s Cubs a defensive laughingstock among fans at the time?

When Reuschel came up ('72-'73) they were still largely the Durocher Cubs, long in the tooth but respected as veterans who didn't make mistakes. Later in his tenure, guys like Bill Madlock and Bill Buckner did have pretty bad defensive reputations, as, obviously, did Dave Kingman: yes, I'll venture to say that Kingman was a defensive laughingstock. But Manny Trillo had a wonderful reputation (deservedly, by my "naked eye") and so did Ivan DeJesus. Perhaps the largest discrepancy between reputation and metrics is Rick Monday. He was considered a pretty decent centerfielder, but the metrics now say he was Godawful as a Cub. Either that's an illusion, or Monday got bad and slow very young, and was dining out on his Oakland reputation. If Reuschel was pitching in front of a terrible centerfielder who at the time was reckoned a good one, that's another big prima facie problem for his HOF case.

So, Reuschel wasn't quite as good as Andy Pettitte; longer career, but not by a lot, and the were roughly as durable in-season given their eras--maybe Pettitte gets more credit for pitching a higher percentage of expected starts per season. I don't see Pettitte as a HOFer and he's a good comp for RR. 400 fewer innings, but a 117 v. a 114 OPS+. Pettitte was an extremely solid postseason pitcher while Reuschel was historically awful, and got worse the deeper in the postseason he went. It sounds like RR's entire case depends on WAR's interpretation of defense. That's not very convincing.

I had forgotten Reuschel took most of three years off in the middle of his career while they re-attached his arm.

One of the reasons Reuschel had such a good career was his ability to adapt. Earlier in his career, he was more of a power pitcher, relying on a good fastball. As he lost velocity, he really refined his sinker, which became his out-pitch. I loved his no-windup delivery, too.

Pitchers moving from Chicago and giving up many fewer runs?

Steve Stone is an obvious one. Mike Krukow to some extent. Willie Hernandez's career took off after he left. Same with Donnie Moore. Dennis Lamp to some extent. BBRef WAR has his defensive support at -0.18. That would change his ERA+ to about 119.

Steve Stone is an obvious one. Mike Krukow to some extent. Willie Hernandez's career took off after he left. Same with Donnie Moore. Dennis Lamp to some extent. BBRef WAR has his defensive support at -0.18. That would change his ERA+ to about 119.

Ray Burris too. ERA with the Cubs was 4.27. After leaving the Cubs he spent the next 5 years with the Mets and Expos where his ERA's were 3.94 and 3.79. Bill Bonham ERA of 4.08 with the Cubs, 3.73 with the Reds.

edit: Burt Hooten too. And Geoff Zahn. Zahn played with 4 teams in his career. ERAs of 3.64, 3.90, 2.16, and 5.20. Guess which one was with the Cubs.

Ray Burris too. ERA with the Cubs was 4.27. After leaving the Cubs he spent the next 5 years with the Mets and Expos where his ERA's were 3.94 and 3.79.

But most of this is already reflected in ERA+. Burris' ERA+ with the Cubs was the same as it was with Montreal and better than his time in New York. And I'm not really seeing a pronounced effect in those other guys listed.

Stone's time in Balt. stands out from his stints on either side of Chicago, and looks quite flukey. But as for the rest, you'd be hard-pressed to look at those guys and think "wow, they must have had lousy defense with Chicago." Moore was worse for three straight years after leaving Chicago, Krukow had a one-year post Cubs bump that looks more like the product of a career-low homer output, and while Lamp's immediate before and after seasons are dramatic (and he gave up a metric shitton of hits his last year on the Northside), they're not consistent with the other years around them.

Check out the defense on the 80-81 Cubs sometime. Check out the defensive stats of Jerry Martin and Jerry Morales. Contemplate the mystery of Morales's MLB career. Then weep for Cub pitchers and those of us who watched those sorry teams.

But most of this is already reflected in ERA+. Burris' ERA+ with the Cubs was the same as it was with Montreal and better than his time in New York. And I'm not really seeing a pronounced effect in those other guys listed.

I made a speadsheet and plugged in all the guys listed, their runs allowed and innings with the Cubs, and their runs allowed and innings for the 5 years after leaving the Cubs. For Cubs careers, 5598 innings, 2869 runs, 4.61 RA. Post Cubs, 6338 innings, 2860 runs, 4.06 RA. 740 more innings, 9 fewer runs allowed. Some of that of course is park factor. How much is beyond my skills to determine.

Contemplate the mystery of Morales's MLB career.

As a kid, I always liked Jerry Morales. Maybe it was that one year he hit .330 in the first half and played in his only ASG. Of course he then hit about a buck 90 the rest of the year as the Cubs fell out of the race, so there's that.

The folks in 1970s could believe Catfish Hunter was a better pitcher all they wanted, he wasn't.

There is something very odd about the way WAR is treating Hunter.

1971 273.3 IP, 113 ERA+ is only 2.4 WAR
1973 256.1 IP, 107 ERA+ is only 1.5 WAR

Compare to Reuschel.

1974 240 IP 89 ERA+ is 3.4 WAR
1975 230 IP, 102 ERA+ is 3.0 WAR
1976 260 IP, 111 ERA+ is 4.5 WAR

That doesn't pass the smell test to me.

On the 74 Cubs ... I suppose not a laughingstock but, yes, that was a bad team. Andre Thornton could hit and had the glove to prove it. Vic Harris was an embarrassment -- a reasonably large piece of the Jenkins trade (Madlock was the big one), the bat and glove were both horrible. If I recall the Cubs considered a move to CF. I just mentioned Morales -- -13 dWAR in 5000 PA, he was never a good fielder. Madlock was never considered good, Billy Williams was on his last legs and playing a good chunk of 1B for nearly the first time in his career.

I can't necessarily say that Kessinger was really THAT bad by that point but he was a guy who even in his prime had to rely on that jump-throw thing from the hole so it wouldn't have taken much loss of range to make him pretty terrible. I can't say Monday was Griffey bad. And then a lot of that putrid-ness comes from truly awful defensive numbers from truly awful bench players -- I mean I don't remember Dave Rosello well enough to say he was historically awful defensively but I remember he was useless. And his defensive stats that year are consistent with his career -- -45 in just 1000 PA. Matt Alexander was a career pinch-runner and nobody found a use for him in the field. Did Ron Dunn really put up -7 Rfield in 80 PA ... I don't remember him at all.

I can't guarantee that was the worst defensive team of all-time but they were a legitimately terrible defensive team. Note how much of it is due to 2B -- Harris, Rosello, Dunn, Sperring combined for -38 runs (some of that at SS/3B). This was the beginning of the dark days of the Cubs' complete inability to develop position players. Also, most of that team was brought back for 75 and were consistently but not historically awful at -83 runs. B-R doesn't even like 75 Trillo and he still saves them about 25 runs.

It's possible there's something off in the OF measures -- I mean those guys were bad but I don't remember them being Griffey bad. But that could be bad memory. Also the Cubs, for a long time, concentrated on building a team for Wrigley. They were bad at that even because they were the Cubs but that did mean they didn't go for speedsters in the OF because Wrigley was small. When those guys went on the road, especially on Astroturf, things did look pretty laughable. I don't know if there are H/R splits on defense but the mid-70s Cubs in St. Louis, Montreal, etc. did look pretty terrible by my memory.

He's in the HOM, and one can see why

Sure ... because it was an exceptionally weak ballot and they have a rule that the top vote-getters are inducted. Reuschel's HoM support was quite meager.

As to "average" HoFer ... that includes all the awful VC picks. The writers have made some mysterious starting pitcher picks (e.g. Hunter) and they have treated many good starters in a dismissive manner (i.e. not even making 5%) but Reuschel would have been borderline for the BBWAA in the best of non-Hunter circumstances. Guys like Sutton, Niekro, Perry and Jenkins weren't exactly shoo-ins, Bunning didn't make it, guys like Tiant, Lolich, Kaat, John never really came close. Their standards might be too high (Hunter and Morris aside) but it's hard to argue that Reuschel surpassed their standards.

How bad are their DefEffs once a Wrigley park effect is figured?

Taking '74 only: the NL had a leaguewide BABIP of .282. The Cubs allowed a .297 BABIP... on the road. That figure would have been the second-worst in the league. Their home BABIP allowed of .318 put them over the top, of course, and opposing hitters also reached on errors 116 times, the highest total in the league, which also factors into DefEff.

But what does this have to do with Fr... Oh.

The '74 Cubs had the worst DefEff in the league by 9 points, 30 points below average.

In '75, the Cubs had no H/R BABIP split, .309 in Wrigley and .310 on the road. (To be fair, you'd probably expect teams to have a home field advantage in BABIP; the league split was 5 points lower at home.) Their BABIP allowed was once again highest in the league, this time by 11 points, but at least they only allowed the third-most ROE in the league. They still had the worst DefEff in the league by 12 points, 27 points below average.

'76, again no H/R split, .294/.296 (league split of 5 points again). Highest BABIP in the league once more, but not by nearly as wide a margin; their DefEff was not the worst in the league this year, although it was right there with the bottom feeders (.692, beating out the three teams tied at .691), and 12 points below average.

'77, the H/R split goes the other way, .293/.304; this reflects a leaguewide shift (13-point split) which makes me curious. Anyway, their defense seems to have moved into the realm of the merely quite bad - 9th out of 12, 12 points below league average, but also 9 points out of last. (There was some serious defensive stratification in the NL in '77; the bottom 4 teams all had DefEff between .677 and .686, and the other 8 were all between .700 and .711.)

Going back to '73, the split was .301/.291, with a league split of 7 points the other direction. Worst DefEff in the league by 6 points, below average by 17.

So there are a couple of years in which there's a good-sized Wrigley effect, but even accounting for that, probably the best you can do for the Cubs' defenses is to pull them roughly even with the Nate Colbert Padres in a tie for worst in the league. And there are a couple of years in which the Wrigley effect is pretty undetectable, and they're still the worst.

That doesn't pass the smell test to me.

MASSIVE difference in defense. In 71, Hunter is getting .28 R/9 from his defense and in 73 it's a massive .51! That's Orioles-esque. Those three Reuschel years you mentioned were the pit of the Cubs defense. That 74 team was (by b-r) worth -.8 R/9 -- that's even more than bizarro O's. 75 was -.5 and 76 was -.25.

So you are talking anywhere from half to 1.3 runs per 9 difference due to defense.

Reuschel posted that 89 ERA+ in 74. Give him those .8 runs back and he's up to a 110 ERA+. Give him the average of those two Hunter years (+.4) and he's up to 124.

By b-r's estimation, an average pitcher against an average offense, half the time in Wrigley, all the time in front of the Cubs defense would have given up an average of 5.4 runs per 9. Reuschel gave up just 4.9 r/9. For Hunter 73, b-r estimates that average at 3.59 runs per 9 while Hunter was giving up 3.69. Compared to average pitchers, Reuschel was .6 4/9 better than Hunter who, by b-r's estimate, was actually below average.

So I'm not sure what smells funny. Those A's teams were very good defensively, those Cubs teams were awful. Hunter in 73 was a bit above-average while pitching in front of a very good defense so it's not hard to believe that after adjusting for defensive quality that he would be below average. Obviously the estimates of how good and how awful have error in them so maybe the gap wasn't as big as estimated (or maybe it was bigger). And of course WAR makes no attempt to determine if the Cubs defense played better/worse for Reuschel or A's for Hunter.

For what it's worth, that 74 Cubs team gave up 129 unearned runs, 42 more than the average team. That Cub team gave up 5.1 r/9 in a league that gave up 4.15. They gave up a 308 BABIP in a league where it was 282 (no idea what Wrigley's effect on BABIP is but I wouldn't imagine it's very big, it mostly inflates HR ... I guess the small foul ground helps BABIP). Reuschel's BABIP was 313 so he may have actually gotten even less defensive support. For comparison, 2012 NL BABIP was 300 and the Rox were the worst at 321 and the worst non-Coors team was the Cards at 316.

Obviously we can quibble around the edges but I don't see anything very smelly here. Hunter got above-average results pitching in front of a very good defense; Reuschel got below-average results pitching in front of a truly awful defense.

EDIT: My 1/4 full 2-liter bottle of Pepsi Max to Eric J. Sorry about the backwash.

By way of comparison, here are the A's from '71 to '75, Hunter's best years:

'71: Best DER in the league, even beating out the AL champion, Weaver-managed Orioles by a point, and league average by 16. Allowed a higher BABIP at home than on the road by 3 points; league split is 6 in the other direction.

'72: They fall behind (way behind) the Orioles, but hang in second, 14 points above average. The park effect at least runs how you'd expect this year, a 24-point split compared to a league difference of 13.

'73: Second in the league to Baltimore again, but 25 points above average (which unsurprisingly drops a good deal with the addition of the DH). Park split was 24 points again; the league split this year was 0.

'74: One point behind the O's, 13 above average. Park split of 12 points, league split of 3.

'75: Five points behind the Birds, 23 above average. Park split of 6, league split of 4.

Yeah, this kind of reminds me of the Andruw Jones discussion. Sure, Andruw may not have really put Willie Mays' glovework to shame, and Reuschel may not have really pitched in front of the very dirt-worst defenses ever. But how far can you push a "those stats can't match the reality" argument, when everyone does indeed seem to have subjectively observed that Andruw was a great fielder and that the Cubs' defenses stunk?

In both cases, the player is far enough into the stratosphere that determining whether he was literally the most exceptional shouldn't be necessary for most purposes. All we'll normally need is the reality that has already been subjectively acknowledged. Andruw is one of the all-time greatest defensive CF, and Reuschel is one of the all-time greatest (i.e., HOF) pitchers.

Taking the numbers in 26 and 28 to make a rough park adjustment, I get a Wrigley effect inflating a team's BABIP by 5 points, and a Coliseum effect deflating it by 4 (after accounting for the fact that the teams only play half of their games at home). Adjusting the qualities of their respective defenses by that amount, I'm coming up with Reuschel allowing 57 extra hits from '73 to '77 (including 20 in '74 alone), and Hunter allowing 65 fewer from '71 to '75. That's, what, a 60-run difference between the two of them? Somewhere in that range, at least.

Same list as above, but with pitching WAA, not re-sorted

Player            Pitching WAA
Eddie Plank       47
Mike Mussina      49 
Rick Reuschel     38
Jim Palmer        33
Jim Bunning       29
Andy Pettitte     30
Eppa Rixey        22
Jerry Koosman     24
Jack Powell       18
Red Ruffing       15
Dennis Martinez   15
Burleigh Grimes   14
Mickey Lolich     17
Bob Friend        12
Jack Morris       10 

Add: Jim Hunter 6

All we'll normally need is the reality that has already been subjectively acknowledged. Andruw is one of the all-time greatest defensive CF, and Reuschel is one of the all-time greatest (i.e., HOF) pitchers.

But that hasn't been subjectively established about Reuschel. The thing that pulls him into the HoF discussion is the idea that he was playing before the dreadfulest of defenses. Remove some of that massive boost away and he's on the outside looking in (even if he's still better than the mistakes like Hunter).

OK, a step further (oh, and let's also correct for the fact that Hunter was a Yankee in '75 rather than an A). Assuming (dubiously) that hit type saved runs in the same proportion as hit type allowed (for example, roughly 20% of Hunter's hits allowed on balls in play in '71 were doubles, so we'll assume that 20% of the extra hits the defense prevented for him were doubles as well), and using the linear weights values here, I get Hunter with 28 extra runs prevented by his defenses (on a corrected 49 extra hits), and Reuschel with 31 extra runs allowed by his. That moves Hunter's ERA over this span from 2.65 to 2.82, and Reuschel's from 3.45 to 3.22. By ERA+, Reuschel climbs from 115 to 123; Hunter drops from 127 to 119. (Hunter still has extra innings. On the other hand, I wouldn't consider this a particularly complete defensive adjustment; there are things other than DER, like double plays and throwing by catchers and outfielders.)

But that hasn't been subjectively established about Reuschel. The thing that pulls him into the HoF discussion is the idea that he was playing before the dreadfulest of defenses. Remove some of that massive boost away and he's on the outside looking in (even if he's still better than the mistakes like Hunter).

Reuschel and Jones are in the same boat. They need to the full extent of their "credit" to be HoFers. If Andruw Jones was 'just" the best CF ever (not miles ahead) and if Reuschel just pitched in front of bad defenses (instead of some of the worst ever) they're both in the HoVG.

If Andruw Jones was 'just" the best CF ever (not miles ahead) and if Reuschel just pitched in front of bad defenses (instead of some of the worst ever) they're both in the HoVG.

With Andruw, I was limiting myself to discussing his defense, not his HOF case in general. We don't need to buy that he was a much better fielder than Mays to accept that he was one of the best defensive CF, is my analogy.

It doesn't seem accurate that Reuschel needs every bit of his WAR-awarded defensive credit to deserve the HOF when WAR is currently ranking him above no-brainers like Jim Palmer and Bob Feller.

With Andruw, I was limiting myself to discussing his defense, not his HOF case in general. We don't need to buy that he was a much better fielder than Mays to accept that he was one of the best defensive CF, is my analogy.

I accept that he was one of the best ever. WAR is giving him credit for quite a bit more than that; a ten year average that equals the best single seasons put up by other elite CFs.

It doesn't seem accurate that Reuschel needs every bit of his WAR-awarded defensive credit to deserve the HOF when WAR is currently ranking him above no-brainers like Jim Palmer and Bob Feller.

He's only ahead of Feller if you give zero war credit and ignor Feller dominance completely.

But if you knock Reuschel down into the high 50's WAR, I'd guess no one would be touting him as a deserving HoFer. He's Tommy John w/o the wins.

This is a very good thread. Walt Davis, I did not know you had the Cubs background!

Take it for what it is (as Axl taught us), but the two smartest defenses I've ever seen were the early-'70s A's and the early-'80s Angels. The former, unlike the latter, were in their physical primes. And I would guess that the early-'70s Orioles were smarter, but I didn't see them that much.

Rick Reuschel was one of my favorite pitchers when he was with the Giants. I may have told this story before, but it's too good to not retell in a Reuschel thread.

He and I bore a pretty strong resemblance. I had a copy of Reuschel's SI cover at home. Someone saw it and asked if I had gotten that at the mall, at one of those places that make fake magazine covers with your picture on it. She didn't believe it wasn't me.

The fact I was married to her at the time....

Steve Stone is an obvious one.

Steve Stone's ERA+ improved when he left the city of Chicago, but his ERA+ in Chicago went 95-92-97-94-91-87. Only the 92-97-94 were with the Cubs; his numbers before and after for the White Sox look pretty comparable.

The defense is a huge deal, but for me the eye-opener was the unearned runs. I mean, the defense was 70 runs. That's going to be, what, 10 WAR over his career? Let's with an average defense (which throws out even the eyeball test), he'd still be a 55 WAR pitcher. That should generate more discussion that it has, no?

Remove some of that massive boost away and he's on the outside looking in

No, remove the boost and look at just his ERA+ and innings numbers and he's comparable to Jim Bunning. If we want to see pitchers recognized at a rate commensurate to their contribution they're both in. I'm fine with Pettitte being elected too.

No, remove the boost and look at just his ERA+ and innings numbers and he's comparable to Jim Bunning. If we want to see pitchers recognized at a rate commensurate to their contribution they're both in. I'm fine with Pettitte being elected too.

Looking at just IP and ERA+ and he looks more comparable to Luis Tiant, who's not in and not a real strong candidate at the moment. And Pettitte isn't universally regarded as a HoFer (though he's not a good real comp with Rick, for a variety of reasons). Guys with those innings and that ERA+ aren't clear cut HoFers, particularly ones that are relatively peakless like Reuschel was (1977 excepted).

I'm not saying a Rick Reuschel in the Hall would be a mistake, particularly with the defensive credit. But a Rick Reuschel without it is somewhere around the borderline, and he's got none of the other markers that likely lead to election.

Reuschel allowing 57 extra hits from '73 to '77 (including 20 in '74 alone), and Hunter allowing 65 fewer from '71 to '75. That's, what, a 60-run difference between the two of them?

I think you're understating because you don't seem to have accounted for the value of the extra outs. Relative to an out, an IP hit is worth about .8 runs (.5 for the hit - -.3 for the out).

Just quick eyeballing puts the Cubs defense from 73 to 77 at about -.4/9 according to BR and Reuschel around 242 IP per year (for rounding purposes) works out to an average of 11 runs per year or about 55 over the 5 years. Hunter's defenses average about a +.3/9. In Reuschel's innings that would have been worth about 8 runs per year or 40 over 5. So total difference on the order of 95. Of course Hunter pitched a lot more innings in those years which shows up in Rrep and another 10 or so runs saved.

By the way, I don't think Reuschel is deserving of the HoF or at least I need more convincing. But he was better than Hunter much less Morris. And Snapper (and SoSH U) slightly overstates things with this:

But if you knock Reuschel down into the high 50's WAR, I'd guess no one would be touting him as a deserving HoFer. He's Tommy John w/o the wins.

But the defensive knock for Reuschel's career is just .18 per 9. He played in front of a number of good defenses after he left the Cubs. So all he's getting from his "defensive boost" is 70 runs, call it 7 wins. So that's the absolute lowest you can get him down to. Include IP and he's the spitting image of Drysdale and Marichal. He's much better than John unless you have no love of peak whatsoever. He's also similar to Tiant, Cone, Bunning (and Eckersley) and Bunning came close and made it via VC. Alas, Cone and Marichal also are given "credit" for pitching in front of bad defenses so Reuschel is going to gain back 2-5 wins if you adjust them in the same manner.

Reuschel is given credit for 38 WAA. The fully reduced Reuschel is still 31 wins above average. Palmer is 33, Sutton is 23, Tiant is 35, Cone is 36, Marichal is 30, Drysdale is 29, John is 22 and Bunning is 29. Even fully reduced Reuschel is right there with Palmer, Marichal, Drysdale and Bunning and well ahead of Sutton. Fully credited Reuschel leads that pack in WAA (with Smoltz at 38 too). And I think everybody except Tiant is in the HoM.

And that's the WORST you can make him (in WAR terms) by assuming he pitched in front of average defenses. Assume they were at least below average overall and he's going to gain back 3-4 wins which makes him John Smoltz and Don Sutton (also Tiant) in total WAR and Tiant/Cone in WAA.

As I said earlier, he's on the borderline of the BBWAA selections ... but so were Sutton and Drysdale. Yes, you can make a reasonable case that he was no more screwed over than Tiant, Cone and Bunning. But he was way better than Tommy John.

Anyway, in the end, defense matters. I assume everybody here believes this. I assume everybody here believes that pitching in front of good defenses will lower the ERA and increase the win total. Everybody here should agree that the 70s Cub defenses were terrible even if you doubt they could be that terrible. And I'm going to assume that nobody here has more reliable defensive numbers than b-r.

If Andruw Jones was 'just" the best CF ever (not miles ahead) and if Reuschel just pitched in front of bad defenses (instead of some of the worst ever) they're both in the HoVG.

If Andruw was the best CF ever to play, better than Willie, better than DiMaggio, that and 434 home runs punches his ticket to Cooperstown, as far as I'm concerned. I don't think it's particularly close, either.

First, I'd like to second Matt Welch and say this has been a pretty great thread. Thanks for the all excellent answers to my question above (especially to Walt and Eric J) - I'm growing convinced that the Cubs really were terrible and Reuschel really was kinda great.

I accept that [Andruw Jones] was one of the best ever. WAR is giving him credit for quite a bit more than that; a ten year average that equals the best single seasons put up by other elite CFs.

This is partly an artifact of WAR's defensive methodology. For seasons for which there is no or less granular PBP defensive data, Total Zone regresses more significantly to the mean. For the entire spread of defensive numbers in the 1950s and 1960s, there is less variance than among defensive numbers in the 1990s and 2000s.

Andruw Jones, then, rates as head and shoulders above all defensive center fielders from the PBP era. Guys like Mays and Speaker may well have been just as good - they almost certainly were, if they weren't better - but the regression to the mean in TZ hides that. They rate as roughly as dominant within their eras as Jones does within his. My preferred fix to this problem is not to cut 50% off Jones' defensive ratings, but to add 50% or more to the defensive ratings of players from the pre-PBB era considered to have been the best fielders of all time.

BTW - Cone is in the Hall of Merit and Tiant is pretty consistently in the top 10 not elected.

BTW - Cone is in the Hall of Merit and Tiant is pretty consistently in the top 10 not elected.

And Cone and Reuschel are the very definition of the HoM borderline, elected in an "Oh, crap we've got to elect three more guys and the obviously deserving ones are in" year (that may not be the technical name for it). If the HoM electorate, who presumably had access to some of this information about Reuschel's dreadful defense, were barely persuaded of his enshrinement bona fides, I'm sticking with the idea that without such a boost he's otherwise on the wrong side of the HoF bubble.

I think you're understating because you don't seem to have accounted for the value of the extra outs. Relative to an out, an IP hit is worth about .8 runs (.5 for the hit - -.3 for the out).

Good call. Hunter also loses 16.1 IP over the 5 years due to outs being turned into hits, and Reuschel gains 19. Accounting for that and the difference in run values, I get Hunter '71-'75 at 1455.1 IP, 2.95 ERA (114 ERA+), with Reuschel '73-'77 at 1242.2 IP, 3.05 ERA (130 ERA+). Hunter has 42 extra innings per year, but I'm still comfortable calling that a decent-sized advantage to Reuschel.

Edit: Technically, I think these adjustments should be made to RA rather than ERA, since a lot of the Cubs' bad defense shows up in errors. The resulting adjustment would probably be a little less extreme. But B-R doesn't have RA+ numbers available.

For the sake of comparison, here's how my half-baked defensive adjustment compares to B-R's:

Reuschel (BR): -.28, -.84, -.51, -.25, -.27
Reuschel (ME): -.32, -.73, -.62, -.20, -.19

Hunter (BR): +.28, +.32, +.51, +.24, +.24
Hunter (ME): +.32, +.26, +.60, +.25, +.09

Pretty comparable. B-R's adjustment is maybe a bit larger in both cases.

Lamp's immediate before and after seasons are dramatic (and he gave up a metric shitton of hits his last year on the Northside)

And that wouldn't have anything to do with an outfield manned by Dave Kingman, Jerry Martin, Mike Vail, Scot Thompson, Bill Buckner, Larry Biitner, and Cliff Johnson? Good lord, has any team had so many natural born 1B and DH patrolling their outfield? Those guys combined for 3400 of the team's 4400 outfield defensive innings.

edit: Jerry Martin was a perfectly adequate, even good defensive corner outfielder. But he was a disaster in CF. In Philly early in his career, playing mostly left and right, he compiled +22 Rfield. In KC and NY late in his career, playing mostly RF, he compiled +6. Inbetween, 2 years on the Cubs and one on the Giants, playing almost exclusively CF, he rang up a -41.