“I’m optimistic but I’ve also come to terms with that it’s an important lesson life: You don’t always get what you want,” Morris said. “No. 1, it’s an honor to be honored every year and, two, I’ve been kind of a controversial figure in the Hall of Fame because of the cybernetics (sic) guys, the numbers guys, vs. the guys who use … call it ‘the eyeball test.’ You know, ‘Were you there? Did you ever see me pitch?’ “
Robot-like numbers-crunchers aside, Morris realizes the benefit he gets from those who remember his career highlights, notably Game 7 of the 1991 World Series, when he threw a complete-game shutout against the Braves in what many believe is one of the best performances in postseason history. But even Morris’ shining moment, what he calls “the crowning achievement” of his career, has a downside.
“I think there’s a lot more to my career than that, too,” Morris said. “I kind of chuckle inside when people always talk to me about that. And it’s like, ‘Gosh, I pitched a lot of baseball games.’ I threw three one-hitters, I threw a no-hitter. And they don’t even talk about those.”
...“I’ve been through this a long time and I understand it,” Morris said. “December’s always a month when the talk starts all over again. The longer this goes on, the more I realize how much responsibility the writers have. It’s not an easy thing for them to do. And more importantly, I think they all take it serious. They take a real hard look. I respect it more today than I did, say, 10 years ago.”
Repoz
Posted: December 03, 2012 at 02:14 PM |
41 comment(s)
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1. Edmundo got dem ol' Kozma blues again mamaWell congratulations on achieving that along with Bob Welch, Danny Darwin, David Cone, Mike Scott, and Silvio Martinez.
Morris' numbers suffered after he joined the Blue Jays and pitched in the Skynet.
So RA Dickey made 67% of his HoF case in back-to-back starts this past season?
Yeah, but he never took any of that php stuff that everyone else was taking...
He made 67% of his Jack Morris HoF Case™ but of course until he pitches a shutout while the other guy happens to pitch a shutout in the playoffs he has no chance.
Bud Smith and Jose Jimenez feel your pain.
Extremely well-played.
Anyway, he was functionally equivalent to Kevin Tapani in 1991 except for the Famous Game 7. Tapani had a pretty good Game 2, but nobody talks about that either (probably because of Game 5. Ugh.) Morris finished behind Scott Erickson in the Cy Young voting presumably because of those traditional stats, the wins; despite Tapani being better than either of them, he only had 16 of those and finished 7th in the voting.
/advocating for lost causes since 1991, or "try being the Kevin Tapani fan in a junior high full of girls with pictures of Scott Erickson and Chuck Knoblauch in their lockers"
Is a poor vocabulary really something to be celebrated?
Partly true now but, again, less than 25% of the voters put him on their ballot in 2000. That had little/nothing to do with sabermetrics. As of 2004 he was still only at 26%, just 2% ahead of Garvey and nearly 10% behind Lee Smith, 14% behind Gossage and 34% behind Sutter. The high vote totals of Sutter, Rice, Gossage and Smith are an indicator of how little influence sabermetrics was having on the vote. (Blyleven had climbed to 35% just ahead of Morris.)
Sabermetrics has next to nothing to do with Morris not being in the HoF. He's not in the HoF because he failed the eyeball test with a large number of voters. So did Blyleven of course but sabermetrics was able to play a big part in getting him across the line.
No, but almost all the blabbery and controversy comes from the cybernetics crowd, which is what Morris said. It's not as though there's some Nixonian silent majority out there for whom Morris in the Hall of Fame is akin to hippies running loose dropping acid, rooting around in the mud at Woodstock, protesting wars and such.
Wait ... Separated at birth?
"Pitch to the score" isn't blabbery of the first rank?
Jack, That isn't the problem. Your problem IS the rest of your career beyond those four or five games. The highlights are fine and warrant celebration when people look back on the Tigers of the 80's and the 91 Twins. However, the hold up to you being enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame is the other 98% of your career.
Was at the Bud Smith no-no against Padres in September 2001. It was one of those no-hitters that kind of sneak up on you. It was the 6th inning before we realized Smith hadn't given up any hits. Rickey! walked a couple of times and stole a base so I was remembering someone had gotten on; just hadn't realized no one reached via hits. Smith walked 4 in the game and didn't look that overpowering.
I was one of the people who "actually saw" Jack Morris pitch - that's why I know he doesn't belong in the HOF. I've made more detailed analysis in other Morris threads in the past but they don't need to be repeated here.
Did the HOF electorate change their minds just to make sure they disagreed with those new-fangled numbers? Or, in light of the cyber crowd's discussion, did they honestly re-evaluate Jack's career and realize they hadn't recognized his greatness until many years after his retirement?
It's as confusing as those same "old-school" voters deciding that dingers are more important than defense & base-running/total package baseball in the AL MVP vote.
Maybe someone needs to invent a new uber/junk stat that promotes Lee Smith for the Hall, so the voters won't support him anymore . . .
Jack Morris is probably not a deserving hall of famer. He was also awesome
E and if your team found a way to pick him up in his prime you would have been super stoked. Plus he had a great moustauce.
Wasn't Jimenez' no hitter actually the game the SABR convention attendees went to in 1999?
In addition, discussion of Morris' career (positive or negative) detracts from discussions about other pitchers' careers. For example, the career of Greg Maddux is very interesting but because his HOF case is slam-dunk, I hardly ever read any articles/discussion about his career anymore.
I think a major factor is that voters realized the 80's are somewhat underrepresented by HOF'rs, and Morris (with the most wins in the decade) is someone you can pretty easily cobble together an eye test HOF case for. Very good prime, a couple of huge moments, and he was a horse who led a decade in W's. Also, in fairness, Jack Morris was just plain LOOKED like a Hall of Famer, especially in Game 7 of 91.
So, yeah, there's probably some backlash against the stathead community. I think it's also that Morris is a narrative candidate, much in the way Rice was (though I frankly think Rice had a significantly stronger case.)
As #27 says, the main thing Morris had going for him was that he was a horse... You were going to get 250 IP and 35 starts out of him and they were going to be decent-to-good 250 innings. 250 IP and 35 starts wasn't all that rare in the 80s, but doing it for 10-15 years was starting to become so. You had Fernando flaming out after about 5 seasons... followed by Hershiser, who could stay healthy... Gooden, who fell back to earth in a haze of coke... Stieb, who always seemed to be more the hardluck case... then bits an pieces of Saberhagen here, Viola or Key there, etc.
Morris was a fine pitcher, but an awful lot of his value was just tied up in the idea you lock solid count on him to make 35 starts a year, throwing a lot of innings of pretty good baseball. Whether due to changes in the game or whatever - the 80s just happened to be when such a thing just started to become a lot rarer than it had been previously.
It's the 7th worst since 1961.
According to BBRef Stan Bahnsen's 1972 season with 21 wins and an ERA+ of 88 is the "winner." Niekro is the only other one below 100 then Morris. The full list of 20 wins and ERA+ of 105 or worse since 1970;
Bahnsen
Niekro
Morris
Carlton 1971 - 102
Splitoff 1973 - 102
Merrit 1970 - 103
Andujar 1984 - 105
Andujar 1985 - 105
Cuellar 1970 - 105
Wood 1974 - 105
You see, Ray Di Pierna THIS IS A DOG WHISTLE... for you!!!
Actually, it's more like a bat signal. Kinda the opposite of a dog whistle.
also 19 losses. No that's not a "double record" as he lost 20 the year before with a 116 ERA+. 76 losses in 4 seasons -- now that might be a record.
76 losses in 4 years? Nope, not a record. At least three pitchers had 76 (Neikro, Dickson, Mulcahy) and Vic Willis had 92 losses in a four year stretch.
Never saw Morris pitch to the score.
4/20/1983. He pitched to the score, blowing a 6-1 lead in a game the Royals won 8-7. Brett went 4-5, 7 RBI and 3 HR's.
5/13/1983, he went 8 innings and lost 5-2 (giving up 5 runs in the first two innings).
(Also my last day in the majors).
Just awesome.
George Brett hit to the score.
Yes, but Joe Niekro was the greatest clutch pitcher in history. That's a lot for anybody to live up to.
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