User Comments, Suggestions, or Complaints | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Advertising
Buy MLB playoff tickets, plus 2011 World Series, 2011 ALCS tickets and NLCS game tickets. We also have Texas Rangers playoff schedule, tickets to Red Sox games and Yankees game tickets. Plus, buy Phillies baseball tickets, Tigers playoff tickets and the biggies like ALDS baseball tickets and 2011 NLDS tickets. |
Demarini, Easton and TPX Baseball Bats
|
AllianceTickets.com has cheap MLB Tickets. Get all your Colorado Rockies Tickets, Seattle Mariners Tickets, San Francisco Giants Tickets and all your favorite baseball tickets here. We also carry cheap Denver Broncos Tickets, Seattle Seahawks Tickets and Denver Nuggets Tickets. |
Page rendered in 0.7017 seconds
56 querie(s) executed
Reader Comments and Retorts
Go to end of page
Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.
How about how many women each pitcher ######? What the hell.
What is this all of a sudden. This has been a conversation for quite a while.
Yes, in an Alanis Morissette kind of way.
Nonsense. Rice's W/L percentage was a paltry .500.
Yes, and he's 10th in losses. Not that it should disqualify him. Virtually all of the leaders in losses are in the HOF. But Blyleven is still viewed by many, wrongly I believe, as something less than a "winning" pitcher. You've heard all the arguments: won 20 only once and lost 17 the same year, never won any big awards, ERAs weren't that great, etc. I disagree but then I disagree about the HOF all the time.
BTW, can we just have the HOF establish an *wing for Joe Jackson and Rose and all the steroid boys? Put them in a separate room with a big * on their plaque next to their mug. List their accomplishments and then all the crud that causes the doubts. Then put the burden on the player to clear his name if he cares. The government has the burden to convict Barry Bonds of a crime, but if he wants to be in the HOF free and clear the burden should be on him. Same for Pete. You can say that Bonds hit against pitchers that were juicing and you can say that we don't know how much the juice helped. But the fact is that Bond did it with the intent of chasing records, that he did break records, and that his physical appearance and endurance suggest the juice did help. And we also know that he competed against non-juicers as well, and that there are guys who wouldn't cheat that never had major league careers because they lost out to guys that did. So if Barry wants to be with Willie Mays he should put up or shut up.
Put Blyleven, Santo, Trammell and a bunch of guys in the Hall before we worry about McGwire, Sosa, Bonds, Clemens et al.
Yes, in an Alanis Morissette kind of way.
It's like 287 spoons, when all you need is a knife.
The thing is though, while greenies don't help you hit the ball farther, it does help provide opportunities to hit home runs that might not otherwise exist if he player was too tired/sick/hungover to play.
How many HR did Mays hit in games he required a 'boost' to get into the lineup?
Best Regards
John
Is that what they mean when they say "circle me, Bert"?
It indicates a pitcher didn't have to rely on his defense. It's a mighty dang important thing to have in a person's favor.
It can get screwy comparing across eras, but that's not a big problem on the BBWAA ballot, where everyone retired within 15 years of each other.
It is if you're trying to predict future performance. If you're evaluating the past (which is what you're doing when you look at a Hall-of-Fame ballot), it's next to meaningless. An out is an out is an out.
Strikeouts are only valuable insofar as they contribute to outs. They aren't intrinsically more valuable than other kinds of outs.
Blyleven was horribly "unlucky" considering his ERA and team offense. I'm not sure what you do with that, and while I think he was in some sense better than his W-L record indicates, that extra something mainly goes to predicting future value, which isn't relevant here.
Do you assign any value to defensive play? If so, a pitcher gets less credit for a ground out than a strike out.
Blyleven was horribly "unlucky" considering his ERA and team offense.
From 1970-7, he won 17 fewer games than he should've based on his real life run support and RA/9IP. After that, he broke even in his PItt/Cle years, and then won 8-9 more games than he should've based on support and RA. He was below for his career.
No, jackass, they aren't.
And what's with this "all of a sudden" crap?
— Love, R.
Look at it this way. The better a pitcher is at getting his own outs, the more Derek Jeters your team can have at SS, and hence, the more fist pumps!
Or wins, or something. Anyway, it's not just another out.
Bottom line: Blyleven may have cost his teams 4 wins by pitching too well on a few days his teammates scored lots of runs, and being just average on some days when his teammates didn't hit well. (That's assuming we give him and his hitters each 50% of the blame for this bad timing). Over a 22-yr. career including 685 starts, this is basically a rounding error. Calling it irrelevant to his HOF credentials would be to greatly overstate its importance.
I don't know why you're making that assumption, but FWIW I got something closer to 30 games based on season run support as opposed to Jaffe's 10 in game-by-game run support. It's very quick and dirty, so feel free to check it on your own. I was looking at it for very different reasons, and really don't care about the Hall of Fame.
Fun BB stat: 40% of his losses were quality starts (99 of 250).
Understanding the perils of memory, here's the counterpoints for Blyleven. Was he ever the best pitcher in baseball? No. Was he ever considered one of the four or five better pitchers in his own league? Maybe once or twice. Was he ever considered the "ace" of his own staff? For three or four years on a crappy Twins team and in 1984-85 on crappy Cleveland and Minnesota teams. Was he ever considered the best pitcher on a good team? No. In his 22 year career, was he ever good enough to be recognized in a July exhibition game as one of the ten best pitchers ers in his own league? Yes, twice. Did he have a problem staying in the lineups during his career? Yes. Did he consistently underperform his expected won-loss record? Yes. Was he kicked off a recent World Champ for being a colossal pain in in the ass? Yes. Was he ever traded for Vincente Romo and Bob Owchinko? Was he traded (more or less) straight up for Jay Bell? Was he traded (more or less) straight up for Al Oliver? Was he traded (more or less) straight up for Roy Smalley? Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes.
Blyleven was a really good pitcher for a long time and that should get him in the Hall of Fame. But, it's not like the sportswriters are forgetting to put Bob Gibson in the Hall. He was considered as Jim Perry over a longer period of time. He was Dave Goltz for a long time. He was Rick Reuschel (without Big Daddy's 1981 injury) and I don't see anyone getting all in lather because the Reuschel candidacy hasn't taken legs.
Maybe, I'm just getting old, but I'm looking forward to the day 20 years or so from now when a bunch of young whipper snappers with fancy metrics are going to preach to you all about how you guys are too stupid to realize that Derek Lowe was the third best pitcher of his generation.
How many of your HR came in games that your team won? If the team lost, your HR presumably was good but not good enough. So why should we be counting those HR as if they were valuable? Same thing with all the other positive stats - they should only get counted for games your team won. But not the outs. Because sure, you made some outs, but your team won so they didn't hurt anyone.
But...let's count all of the outs hitters made in the losses. Because if not for those outs, the team would have won.
This will give us a whole new set of stats that will far more fairly represent a player's contribution. It only seems right.
Anthony, for what it's worth (and you might not be referring to him at all), Rich Lederer (most responsible for the resurgence in Blyleven's candidacy) has seen Blyleven pitch in person more than just about any HOF voter or individual on this board.
There are people who saw him for what he was at the time and also have been able to place his historically significant excellence in appropriate perspective years later.
There are usually very good reasons why the favorites of us in the stathead community are not in the Hall of Fame yet. Many of us like to say that so-and-so isn't in the HOF because the writers are too stupid to understand a guy's "actual" worth. And, there is some of htat that happens, but the biggest factor in a guy quick entrance into the HOF has to do much more with how a player is remembered by those who actually saw them play than because writers think that RBI are really important. Ted Simmons isn't in the Hall because you have be 50 years old to remember him as a great player in the 1970s and not as a crappy DH. Whitaker isn't in the HOF because writers remember that he spent much of his career as a platoon player. Jack Morris is getting more support than is reasonable because he was regarded as a "winner" at the time.
You make some valid points. Blyleven's candidacy is hardly flawless. Still, you oversell your case a bit:
Did he have a problem staying in the lineups during his career? From age 20 to 38 (19 seasons) he averaged over 32 starts a season (including one lost season). He ranks 11th in career starts. I don't think durability is a chink in BB's armor.
Did he consistently underperform his expected won-loss record? Not really, once you account for his run support.
Blyleven seems to me the perfect storm of factors that make it hard to see a pitcher's value: 1) he played mostly in hitters parks, on mediocre non-East-Coast teams, with below-average run support; 2) his greatest strength -- Ks -- was overshadowed because his career overlapped that of the greatest strikeout pitcher ever, and 3) he never put together dominant seasons that bring a lot of black ink and Cy votes (in part because of factors 1 and 2). Plus his personality, of course. And all of the answers to your "was he ever considered..." questions -- an ironic Bill James legacy when you consider how much James did to prove that what sportswriters considered "important" often wasn't -- are themselves consequences of these value-obscuring factors. Only factor #3 strikes me as a quasi-legitimate reason to question his qualifications, and not nearly enough to support a No vote.
More importantly, IMO, is this:
When Blyleven DID play on good teams, he wasn't the ace starter. In Pittsburgh, he was behind Candelaria and Bibby; in Minnesota, phase 1, he was behind Perry and Kaat (granting that their last good season was his rookie season); in Minnesota, phase 2, he was behind Viola. Only in Calfornia in 1989 was he clearly the #1 starter.
-- MWE
I saw that curveball and just thought, "holy ####\". I looked like something that shouldn't be possible. I'm pretty sure a lot of batters thought the same.
Are you saying that was the perception, or the reality? Seems to me that should matter....
And especially, the idea that he wasn't the ace as an 18 year old rookie would be held against him--when he was arguably the ace as a 19 year old sophomore--now, that is just totally silly.
Blyleven looks like the best pitcher the Bucs had in '78, while the Candy Man probably just edges him out in '79 despite 30 less innings.
Blyleven clearly had no claim on Pirate greatness in '80.
Both, although perception more than reality. For purposes of HOF voting, however, the perception is far more important than the reality (which goes to Anthony's point).
-- MWE
Just looking at numbers, yes. But when push came to shove, Candelaria, not Blyleven, was treated by Tanner as the ace.
-- MWE
Which is not surprising, Mike, since Candy had just come off a great season prior to '78 for the Pirates. Not to mention the fact that Candelaria's season in '78 wasn't that below Blyleven's for Tanner to upset the cart by selecting Rik as the new ace of the staff. IOW, I don't see any of this as a negative on Blyleven's part.
Drysdale's HOF movement only grew until, after ten years on the ballot, he was inducted. It's Blyleven's tenth year on the ballot. Drysdale's induction was tremendously debatable at the time, with Bill James of all people being very ambivalent. Haven't you all read Politics of Glory? Anyway, Drysdale now seems like a slam-dunk selection but he wasn't. And neither was Duke Snider, who also had to wait ten years. I can't be certain of why right now, since I don't remember either of their playing days, but a whole lot of people who saw them play didn't think they were worthy right away.
That's a bit of a dodge, Mike. Perception should certainly matter if we're trying to explain why BB will or won't make it (or hasn't made it) into the HOF. However, Anthony was making a case on the merits for why BB isn't a slam-dunk (at least, that's how I read him). And for that purpose, I don't think perceptions should matter very much for modern-era players where the statistical record is clear and easy to interpret. If contemporary perceptions reveal something that a first read of the stats miss, that's useful -- but you should then be able to find statistical data to confirm the point.
Anthony seems to be arguing that the perceptions themselves are material to deciding whether a player belongs in the hall. Do you agree? And if so, why?
Or do you think it actually matters whether, by chance, there was usually one pitcher on BB's teams who was as good or better in that specific year? And again, if so, why in the world would that matter?
That's ok. The five year grace period exists to let voters soberly evaluate the merits of a player's candidacy. Emotion, recollection, memory...if they were meant to be such critical components of the evaluation process, the period would not exist.
TSN, 6/19/1976
"Some 20 fans sitting behind home plate started singing "Goodbye Bert . . . We're glad to see you go!" in the eighth and ninth innings. . . . Blyleven walked to the Minnesota dugout, raised his left arm, and grabbed it with his right in an obscene gesture. "I think fans that act like that are bleep, bleep," he said later. . . . "But bleep them. They have the right to act anyway they like." . . . American League President Lee MacPhail reported to ld the Twins to draft such an apology and, if Blyleven didn't sign it, he'd be fined."
Drysdale's relative lack of career wins and Snyder's below .300 career batting average were the things most negatively discussed about those two, IIRC.
Seems like Snider was probably guilty of being compared to Mays and Mantle. (WAG on my part.)
Edit: probably best to listen to Grandma Murphy.
I wonder if those 20 fans would feel that way today with 20/20 hindsight.
Always listen to your elders, sonny! :-D
I never watched Babe Ruth play. Does that hinder my ability to determine that he was one whale of a hitter? Or is that a "silly conclusion"?
I am of an age to remember his reputation, and the one thing that was a constant, was that people all said that he had the best curve ball in baseball, maybe one of the best curve balls ever.
You want to talk about strikeouts not being important -- I have to disagree. If you don't have fielders, you need strikeouts. Jim Palmer is a legitimate Hall of Famer, but the perception of his ability has been inflated by the fact that the Orioles were an incredibly good fielding team.
The difference is that NOTHING studied by historians is measured (and recorded) with anything like the precision of MLB players' on-field performance. For your work, contemporaneous accounts are like the starting 9; for assessing a late-20th century baseball player, they're more like the fifth OF.
32. Anthony Giacalone Posted: December 29, 2007 at 12:20 PM (#2656284)
I wasn't referring to Lederer. And I'm one of those people who recognize that Blyleven is a Hall of Famer, and I've been saying it since 1984.
My second question remains.
I don't remember writers hammering the platoon player aspect that much back then, Tony, but I do remember that they did mention the lack of lefthanded pitching that he faced.
As for his fielding, I always thought he had a good reputation until TPI.
Why is that a silly conclusion? I wouldn't vote for him, but, steroids aside, it's not a ridiculous claim.
All contemporary accounts should be looked at and analyzed, but they shouldn't necessarily be taken as gospel either.
They formed impressions of the players based on those players' statistics. Blyleven's problem is not that people who saw him didn't think he was a HOFer. Blyleven's problem is that people who saw his stats when he played didn't think those stats looked like those of a HOFer.
Has there been a time where that wasn't the case? The only question is what stats were being utilized at the time.
All things being equal, I think most pitchers would rather have the great fastball than an equally great curveball. You get more mileage out of the former.
Is that clearly understand? That I am not "anti-Bert"?
That being written and repeating myself from previous BB threads and as someone who was present for BB's entire major league career:
Bert Blyleven's candidacy is not about "his numbers" as much as it is a referendum on BERT.
To wit:
--Bert was regarded for the first 2/3 of his career as the "King of the 8-inning Complete Game". Meaning he would pitch just well enough to lose on the road. Bert was basically perceived as the counter to Jack Morris. No "pitching to the score" stuff.
--Bert b*tched his way off three teams.
--Bert "quit" on his team in 1980. Folks can dress it up any way they want but that is how many who were present at the time PERCEIVED it.
--Bert was a bit cranky the first 10-14 years of his career before becoming something of a "Dutch uncle" in his second tour in MN. Blyleven was certainly more testy than not with members of the press.
So, you have a fair-sized number of the voters who had first impressions of Bert that weren't that great. And that impression was reinforced over a period of years.
And all the practical jokes on a Championship team and cute Berman nicknames can't wash that away.
The HOF voters who are considering Blyleven's candidacy see a guy who is borderline. And since BB didn't slap enough backs and perhaps tossed more than a few cross words Blyleven is left on the outside looking in.
I know Lederer and others want to talk about the numbers. But that is a waste of effort. Everyone KNOWS the numbers. It's that a good many voters think they also know BERT.
And so they have (superficially) an "ok" stats case and a guy who really didn't warm their hearts nor ever really provide a "wow" factor other than the curveball. In fact, one could say just the opposite at times.
So they are saying, "Nah."
And folks can complain that this is petty and childish and dumb. And I won't argue.
It's also human nature.
Whatchagonnado?
So they are willing to listen. No personal grudges or negative impressions to combat.
I really doubt that the sect that were in the middle or later parts of their baseball writing days during Bert's "heyday" are going to change their vote on Bert.
Though I will be pleased to be proven wrong.
Get me a HOF vote, Harv? ;-)
Agreed, David.
Compute Run Average (count the unearned runs, too) for each season. Turn it into RA+. Convert RA+ into a winning percentage. Assign one equivalent decision per 9.0 IP. Use the above information to create as seasonal equivalent W-L. Add this up over a career. Rank the resulting career equivalent W-L by Bill James's Fibonacci Win Points. The results, in order:
Seaver 330-201
Blyleven 322-230
Perry 337-258
Gibson 265-166
Carlton 328-252
Niekro 334-266
Jenkins 287-213
Palmer 260-179 (Adjusted for defensive support; raw, he'd be 268-171)
Ryan 326-273
Sutton 320-267
Ford 218-134
Pierce 218-150
Bunning 238-180
Marichal 226-164
Eckersley 215-150 (Warning: method may not be appropriate for relievers)
Tiant 224-164
John 281-244
Stieb 190-131
Koufax 163-95
Drysdale 209-157
Saberhagen 174-111
Cone 190-132
Koosman 233-193
Kaat 262-241
Tanana 245-220
Key 171-117
Finley 199-156
Martinez 231-203 (This is Dennis Martinez)
Morris 226-199
Guidry 158-108
Pappas 195-159
Blue 202-169
Lolich 215-189
Hershiser 191-157
Hunter 206-178
Viola 177-138
Gooden 174-137
Friend 212-190
Jim Perry 196-169
Hough 219-203
Candelaria 160-121
Simmons 198-174
Langston 178-151
I've got a "big years bonus" I could add to that; a measure of how much year-to-year totals exceeded 15 FWP. Some samples of this big years bonus:
Seaver 94
Gibson 84
Koufax 63
Palmer 57
Carlton 54
Marichal 53
Blyleven 53
Perry 52
Jenkins 44
Bunning 44
...
Niekro 31
Hunter 31
...
Tanana 21
Sutton 21
Koosman 21
...
Ryan 16
Mike Scott 14
Kaat 13
...
Morris 9
...
John 3
And there is the essence of the case for Bert Blyleven. On the numbers, his case is as good as Gaylord Perry's; it's better than Steve Carlton's. It's been pointed out that Blyleven is young enough that it might not be fair to consider him part of the the Perry/Carlton/Sutton/Ryan/Neikro 300-win generation, which makes his accomplishment even more striking.
Now start from there and hang the worst "he didn't know how to win" and "he was a bad teammate" penalties imaginable on that. Whack away at him all you want. I can see using all of that to lower him below the Perry-Carlton level, but down to what? It's still wall-to-wall HoFers a long way below that. The degree you'd have to penalize Blyleven to lower him out of the HoF range defies common sense.
[As far as I can tell, this is entirely consistent with Harveys' attitude in #70.]
By the same token - Jack Morris simply doesn't belong in the conversation. Now when there's really no reason to take him ahead of Jerry Koosman.
Rich has a whole host of thank you emails from BBWAA converts that would seem to suggest otherwise.
OCF:
Except that the voters can "hide" behind the claim that if Bert then Tommy John and Jim Kaat. And NOBODY is advocating for those guys to the best of my knowledge. So most of the baseball public will shake their heads knowingly and move on.
I think Bert started to say hello around baseball when most were ready to tell him goodbye. And that is hurting his cause.
It happens................
I acknowledged that some are willing to be swayed. But again, to the best of my knowledge those are all (relatively) younger voters who initially using other older writers as their references.
It's just that there a LOT of old-timers casting ballots.
Or has everyone forgotten the Neyer/Law nonsense already?
And again, I SUPPORT BERT GOING INTO THE HOF. And I HOPE ENOUGH PEOPLE CHANGE THEIR MIND.
I know some may find my repeating myself odd but having been around long enough I know how post like mine get misconstrued.
I'm confused. Juan Marichal is in the HOF. And I doubt you could get 20% of any baseball group (writers/fans/people in the game) outside of the analyst community to believe that Blyleven was as good as Marichal.
What are you, anti-Dutch?
[It had to be done]
After God had briefed him on his mission, the minister decided to ask him a question.
“God,” he said, “What is heaven like?”
God replied, “Well, normally I don't tell people this, but since you are my servant, I guess I can tell you. Heaven will be like a city. It will have the best of everything. For example, the French will be the chefs; the Italians will be the lovers; the English will be the policeman; the Germans will be the mechanics; and the Dutch will be the politicians!”
The man looked pleased. “What is hell like?” he asked.
“Well,” he said with a sigh, “the French will be the mechanics; the Italians will be the politicians; the English will be the chefs; the Germans will be the policemen; and the Dutch will be the lovers.”
That being said...it wasn't like any of the three guys I referenced were slam dunks.
I've written about Blyleven (and other potential Hall of Famers) over at my blog...The Hall of Very Good. Check it out!
Toodles!
Yeah, like Ralph Kiner in 1970.
What do you mean John...please enlighten us. I will say that I find it interesting that Kiner got less than 5% his first two years, but ultimately made it in. Nowadays...less than five and you are done.
Your point is that, since Blyleven isn't in the HOF yet in his 10th attempt, it's all over for him, correct? Well, Kiner had to wait 15 years, but he finally did make it. His supporters didn't have to give up on him in 1970, IOW.
Now, Blyleven still might not make it and I personally would bet any money on it, but he has enough support that I wouldn't stick a fork in him just yet.
As for Kiner's first two times on the ballot, if that's not an indictment against the 5% rule, I don't know what is.
This was right around the time they clarified the voting rules, but the 5-year rule was instituted just before then, I think. In 1956, Charlie Keller and Bobby Doerr got votes, but no one else after that. 133 different people got votes in 1960 (the all-time record) but only Kiner had played as recently as 1955.
In 1962, in what should've been his first year on the ballot (they voted only on even-numbered years then), he got 3.1%.
My only problem with the 5% rule is that I'd lower it to 2%.
Looking it up, a lot of screwy things went on around then. They had 269 ballots in 1960, but only 160 in 1962. Then 201 in 1964, and way up at 302 in 1966.
In that midst, you had Kiner get 1% before he should've gotten any, him barely brief on the mini-sized BBWAA committee, then his vote shot up to 15% in 1964 (higher than BOb Lemon, who beat him in), then at 25% at 1966.
How the hell did 100 guys lose their ballot? Did Cooperstown restrict it to people who had been in the BBWAA for 15 years briefly? Was there some sort of internal BBWAA civil war that unduly hurt Kiner's suppporters?
Looking at it, I get the feeling Kiner's vote totals tell us more about the BBWAA, and changing rules at Cooperstown than it does about the 5% rule.
And yet he has a much better ERA compared to average than Morris, who you have advocated for the HoF.
I agree! Outside of him being a prick to the media, I'm still perplexed how Albert Belle got little to no support.
True.
I'm not sure one stat is what you want to base your argument on though is it? I mean, not to add fuel to your fire, but Blyleven bests Morris in wins and strikeouts as well. I think you need to look at the entire picture though.
Thanks for going back and referencing something I wrote in October however.
This is best ERA+ to worst, must qualify for ERA title that year (1 IP per game, so usually 162). The "64" for Carlton means "164", and so on. The ones at the end in parentheses are the years below the 100 league average.
Carlton.....182 64 62 53 50 26 19 17 14 16 11 10 05 05 01 01 (97 97 78) - 115 ERA+ in 5217 IP
Blyleven....158 51 44 42 40 34 29 27 26 25 23 19 18 15 09 07 (96 75).... - 118 ERA+ in 4970 IP
So Carlton's best year is way better, and he has a double-digit edge in Year 2, 3, 4, and 5.
Better peak for Carlton, by far.
Blyleven wins every year from Year 6 thru Year 16, however, by about 10 pts or so per year.
Then Carlton wins Year 17 by a nose, wins Year 18 easily, and he has an extra dreadful year that accounts for most of the difference in their career ERA+ and IP totals.
That's basically what it all comes down to. Carlton did his work in peakier fashion, with his best 3 years being better than Blyleven's best 1, by this measure.
And that's what goes into the vote. Carlton's best was better than Blyleven's best, easily, and Bert's nibbling away during the rest of the years doesn't cut it with voters.
Of course, this approach most benefits the pitcher who clears 162 IP but isn't near the lead in IP overall in that year (Billy Pierce, Tommy Bridges types).
But at a glance, these guys tended to be workhorses in their best ERA+ years, 240 to 300+ IP, so it probably holds up well this time.
002 100 100
then I have
0 runs/1 inning
0 runs/2 innings
2 runs/3 innings
3 runs/4 innings
3 runs/5 innings
3 runs/6 innings
4 runs/7 innings
4 runs/8 innings
4 runs/9 innings
Bert Blyleven, in his career, started 116 games in which his team scored 2 runs in 5 batting innings, 16.9% of his total career starts. He was 40-52, with 24 no-decisions, in those 116 games, for a winning percentage of .435, getting decisions in 79.3% of those games. His team was 14-10 in his no-decisions, for a team winning percentage of .466. During that same time frame, the typical starting pitcher had a .471 winning percentage, got a decision in 71.4% of those starts, and the team winning percentage was .477.
Comparing Blyleven to several other more-or-less contemporary pitchers, HOFers plus Jack Morris, gives this:
Pitcher Starts 5-2 Pct W L ND WPct ExpWP DPct ExpDP TeamWP ExpTWPBlyleven 685 116 16.9% 40 52 24 0.435 0.471 79.3% 71.4% 0.466 0.477
Hunter 476 90 18.9% 40 32 18 0.556 0.495 80.0% 72.8% 0.551 0.496
Seaver 647 114 17.6% 53 37 24 0.589 0.485 78.9% 71.8% 0.553 0.489
Palmer 521 82 15.7% 43 18 21 0.705 0.491 74.4% 72.2% 0.671 0.494
Ryan 773 123 15.9% 47 41 35 0.534 0.478 71.5% 71.2% 0.528 0.482
Carlton 709 132 18.6% 61 42 29 0.592 0.482 78.0% 71.6% 0.591 0.487
Morris 527 97 18.4% 46 35 16 0.568 0.458 83.5% 70.1% 0.552 0.468
I started with 2 runs/5 innings because that's a fairly common level of support through five innings, as you can see (around 1 in six starts is a typical percentage). It's also the type of game in which one might have expected - at least in Blyleven's era - that the staff ace would be more likely to win than a run-of-the-mill starter (and which is to some extent borne out by the records of the other elite pitchers), and goes to some extent to the reasons for the perception of Blyleven as something less than an elite pitcher - elite pitchers being perceived as guys who could win fairly frequently even when their teams were NOT scoring runs for them (which is why harping on Blyleven's relatively poor run support is counter-productive, IMO, for his HOF argument). Note that Blyleven's rate here was NOT exceptionally high, compared to the other elite starters in this group.
-- MWE
1) Could those game have been lost in part because his managers kept him in those games when he was tired?
2) How did the bullpen handle those games when he was taken out of a game with men on?
Sigh. Where to start? Let's see: 2 R thru 5 means 3.6 R/G. Blyleven's career park-adjusted ERA (B-Ref) is 3.90, which means about a 4.30 R/G environment or 2.39 runs after 5. So in the games you're looking at, we would expect this team to score about 3.90 runs in these games and post a .456 W% with average pitching (not .477).
But that's IF the team offense is league average. Often, Blyleven's wasn't that good. So we would expect them to score fewer runs over the remaining 4 IP than a typical team, further reducing our expected win%. And that makes the comparison to other pitchers potentially very misleading: we have to know the quality of their offense to make a meaningful projection. You seem to suggest that you've controlled for run support by looking only at the first 5 IP, but that's not the case.
and goes to some extent to the reasons for the perception of Blyleven as something less than an elite pitcher - elite pitchers being perceived as guys who could win fairly frequently even when their teams were NOT scoring runs for them (which is why harping on Blyleven's relatively poor run support is counter-productive, IMO, for his HOF argument).
Still being cagey, Mike. Are you saying elite pitchers actually win more often with low run support than we'd expect, over and above the impact of their (low) ERA? If you have any evidence for that, you should share it. Or, are you just saying that people believe elite pitchers have this ability? And if it's the latter, shouldn't our priority be setting the record straight?
I believe pitchers will let up a little if they are given enough runs to work with (blowouts, i.e.), but I'm skeptical (though I keep an open mind) in regard to pitching to the score beyond that.
One of Blyleven's "problems" in the weird 1977 season with Texas (he had a 3.11 RA with 4.87 of run support but finished 14-12) was that he lost several close games, particularly in an unlucky (and ill-supported) stretch in May, but he won 13-0 and 14-0 shutouts. But the season before, when he threw six shutouts in a half-season with the Rangers, four of them were 1-0 jobs (two of those in ten innings). No real patterns of pitching to the score emerge in looking at Blyleven's time in Texas.
You must be Registered and Logged In to post comments.
<< Back to main