But that's IF the team offense is league average. Often, Blyleven's wasn't that good.

I know that people have looked exhaustively at Blyleven's actual run support per game, but I also think that it's important that we put to bed this idea that Blyleven played on teams that didn't score many runs. In a 22 year career, Blyleven's teams scored at least a league average number of runs all but five years (1982-1983 with Cleveland and 1986 and 1987 with Cleveland and Minnesota and one more that I'm forgetting). In fact, in nearly a 1/3 of his seasons his teams were among league leaders in runs scored.

As I said several times, I support the Blyleven candidacy for the Hall of Fame. But, not because he was allegedly the second best pitcher in the last fifty years or other conclusions that I consider far-fetched, but because I think that being a really good pitcher for 20 years is more than enough qualification to make the HOF. Personally, I don't really care much if a guy had only one 20-win season or was only a couple dozens wins over .500 for his career; if a guy posts an ERA that's a half run lower than his league average over almost 5000 innings, I gladly welcome him into the Hall. There are at least a dozen pitchers currently in the Hall who didn't do anything close to that.

My only point initially was to warn about the disconnect that I sense between we statheads and the rest of the world. All revolutions eat their young eventually, and often I fear that as a community we are becoming as close-minded to those that do not share our tenets as those who held the keys to the temple were when we all stormed the gates in the early-1980s.

I know that people have looked exhaustively at Blyleven's actual run support per game, but I also think that it's important that we put to bed this idea that Blyleven played on teams that didn't score many runs.

So what you're saying is that, to evaluate Blyleven, it's more important to know how well his team scored runs when he wasn't on the mound than in the games he actually pitched? Do you mean it's his fault if his team scored less well when he was pitching? Please explain....

James examined this in depth in the 2006 THT Annual, and it's quite clear Blyleven got poor run support. He got an average support of 4.19 R/G, less than 5 of the 6 pitchers James compared him to. He got 6+ runs of support just 27% of the time, while for all six other pitchers it was at least 29%; he received one or two runs of support much more often than the other pitchers as well.

I don't necessarily disagree with your larger point, but if you want to make your case you should at least final real, not invented, flaws in the stathead case for BB.

Guy, why are you being so pedantic? It was you who criticized Mike's stats by saying that his team Blyleven's teams "often" weren't league average. I just thought that it was important to point out that you were completely, totally and utterly wrong about this.

As for finding "flaws" in the stathead case that was never my goal. First I am a stathead and I have been for 25 years (since I bought the Bill James 1982 Abstract off the shelf); if I'm not doctrinaire enough for you in this regard then you've made my larger point for me. My only intention from the beginning was point present a more rounded picture of Blylevlen (he made only two AS teams, he never won a Cy, he wasn't really perceived as a great player while he was playing . . . .). I think that I did that in my very first post. But, apparently, you are too focused on trying to win some contrived argument with me that you missed that entirely. We both think that Blyleven is worthy of the Hall of Fame, but apparently I don't believe it strongly enough to suit you, which is kind of what I was driving at in my larger point.

Tony, if it makes you feel better, I made your Lowe comment into my sig at the forums.

Is it the situation, though, that although his teams weren't always bad offensively in general, they consistently didn't play well on offense for him?

Ultimately, it doesn't matter how many runs his teams scored in general; it only matters how many they scored when Bert was pitching.

If this is in fact the case, then it would explain your misunderstanding here.

I know that people have looked exhaustively at Blyleven's actual run support per game, but I also think that it's important that we put to bed this idea that Blyleven played on teams that didn't score many runs. In a 22 year career, Blyleven's teams scored at least a league average number of runs all but five years (1982-1983 with Cleveland and 1986 and 1987 with Cleveland and Minnesota and one more that I'm forgetting). In fact, in nearly a 1/3 of his seasons his teams were among league leaders in runs scored.

He had lousy run support. Not as bad as Nolan Ryan or Gaylord Perry, but worse than any of the other big inning starters from Kaat to Ryan.

Going by the Palmer/Gillette 'cyclopedia, here's his SUP (run support #) year-by-year. 100 is average, adjusted for park:



That gives him a career SUP of 97, which I feel very stronly is the result of rounding up. RSI was around 95.something for him.

Right, DA. It's been pretty well proved that Blyleven's teams scored fewer runs for him than they did for other pitchers on those teams. I know that, which is why I prefaced my comment by saying that others have looked at these numbers closely. In my #102 comment I was simply disproving Guy's assertion that Blyleven's teams didn't score an average number of runs (a stat which Guy used try to refute Mike's stats). Since Guy is a smart person, I have to assume that he understands that I was not making some silly claim that a pitchers team offense is more important that a pitchers actual run support. I assumed that Guy was simply trying to deflect the focus away from his erroneous claim about the offensive abilities of BB's teams. If that was not Guy's intention, if somehow he was misread my post, then I apologize for sounding so snotty to him.

Do you mean it's his fault if his team scored less well when he was pitching? Please explain....

Ultimately, it doesn't matter how many runs his teams scored in general; it only matters how many they scored when Bert was pitching.

Part of Blyleven's pitching style was to expand the strike zone.
Once it was expanded, it was expanded for both teams.

So yes, he could be responsible for the lack of run support.

Part of Blyleven's pitching style was to expand the strike zone.
Once it was expanded, it was expanded for both teams.

So yes, he could be responsible for the lack of run support.

Oooh, cool thesis. I haven't heard that one before. Very interesting. It'd be fun to look at.

In my #102 comment I was simply disproving Guy's assertion that Blyleven's teams didn't score an average number of runs (a stat which Guy used try to refute Mike's stats). Since Guy is a smart person, I have to assume that he understands that I was not making some silly claim that a pitchers team offense is more important that a pitchers actual run support. I assumed that Guy was simply trying to deflect the focus away from his erroneous claim about the offensive abilities of BB's teams. If that was not Guy's intention, if somehow he was misread my post, then I apologize for sounding so snotty to him.

Anthony: my point in the exchange had to do with the run support Blyelven received, compared to other pitchers. I did say "team offense", which was unclear. However, in context I think it's pretty clear that what matters is the support Blyleven received. Mike was suggesting that looking only at games in which a team scored 2 runs thru 5 innings somehow controls for run support, which I believe is incorrect. I'm still not clear how BB's team's offense in non-BB games -- or their offensive ability in general -- could possibly be relevant.

My only intention from the beginning was point present a more rounded picture of Blylevlen (he made only two AS teams, he never won a Cy, he wasn't really perceived as a great player while he was playing . . . .). I think that I did that in my very first post. But, apparently, you are too focused on trying to win some contrived argument with me that you missed that entirely.

On the contrary, I responded directly to this point in post 33 (as well as correcting a couple of mistaken claims in your original post). I think the value of all these "was he ever considered the best X?" questions is greatly overstated for modern players. The question to anwer with regard to HOF entry is not "how good did people (sportswriters?) think he was?" but rather "how good was he?" The former may be an interesting question as a matter of intellectual history, but should have little bearing on answering the second question. Obviously, you disagree, which is fine -- though I don't think you've made much of a case for this viewpoint.

Part of Blyleven's pitching style was to expand the strike zone.
Once it was expanded, it was expanded for both teams.

So yes, he could be responsible for the lack of run support.

Interesting! Does anyone know about any other pitchers whose style was to expand the zone? This could be a lot of fun to check on.

In particular, was that Gaylord Perry's style? With San Fran, there was a pronounced difference in run support for him and Marichal that bordered on the comical.

You'd have to check this through game logs, but what would you be looking for? Strikeouts for both teams certainly might be an indicator, but sometimes a bigger strikezone just means more weak flies and easy ground outs. Tough nut to crack.

Does anyone know about any other pitchers whose style was to expand the zone? This could be a lot of fun to check on.

Glavine and Maddux are both credited with this. Would there be any specific profile for a 'stretch the strike zone' kind of pitcher? Perhaps low BB & high numbers of called strikes?

Part of Blyleven's pitching style was to expand the strike zone.
Once it was expanded, it was expanded for both teams.

So yes, he could be responsible for the lack of run support.

The only way to truly verify this is go through every game he started on tape. Oy!

Mike was suggesting that looking only at games in which a team scored 2 runs thru 5 innings somehow controls for run support, which I believe is incorrect.

I wasn't suggesting that at all. What I was trying to do is answer this question: Given a predetermined level of run support, how well did Blyleven do compared to other HOF-quality pitchers of his era?

The argument, IMO, is different when you're looking at whether a pitcher is qualified for the HOF, or not. To qualify for the HOF, the expectation isn't that you do "as well" as a typical pitcher with your run support; the expectation is that you're going to do better. The fact that Blyleven didn't get as many runs as a typical pitcher would have gotten is immaterial, in my opinion, to the question of whether or not he pitched at a Hall of Fame level. If he was only given three runs to work with in a game, then his job was to hold the opposition to two or fewer - and if he didn't do that as well as the pitchers who DID make it to the top, that should be held against him in that context; he didn't meet the standard of a HOF pitcher. He may have been above the norm (although in the 5/2 games he wasn't even that), but being above the norm isn't good enough in this case.

Again, Blyleven's reputation wasn't that of an unlucky pitcher; it was that of a pitcher who didn't maximize what he got, who would find a way to pitch "just well enough to lose". Pointing out that he'd have won 300 games if he'd just gotten more runs here and there doesn't address that issue. If Blyleven was losing games 4-3, or getting no-decisions, while Palmer, Hunter, Seaver, et. al. were winning 3-2, that's a mark against him. And that is the direction in which some of the evidence points.

-- MWE

Want to have a real argument? Who was the better pitcher Blyleven or Glavine? Discuss. (I know that it doesn't matter since they are both are HOF caliber but it was fun to watch this argument in person during the Toronto SABR convention).

Has anyone looked at whether Blyleven was the victim of poor defense? His lifetime BABIP was .286 which seems high for a guy with a lifetime 51% ground ball rate. By comparison, Glavine's ground ball rate was 49% but his BABIP is also .286. And you who got really screwed by his defenses? Chuck Finley, who despite being a fly ball pitcher (47% GB), suffered defenses that allowed a BABIP of .300 behind him.

I wasn't suggesting that at all. What I was trying to do is answer this question: Given a predetermined level of run support, how well did Blyleven do compared to other HOF-quality pitchers of his era?

This is exactly what James did in his essay. He calculated the expected win% for a HOF pitcher for each level of run support, and then compared Blyleven to THAT standard. And what he found is that BB' teams won 7.5 fewer games than we'd expect given his actual run support and a HOF pitcher on the mound, accounting for much less than half of BB's shortfall vs. his pythag expectation. Only at the very end of the essay does James acknowledge the obvious point that there's no particular reason to hold BB responsible for this mismatch more than his hitters. When he won those 12-0 and 13-0 games, didn't his hitters waste at least as many runs as he did?

What the essay also shows is that you get very quirky results for any given level of run support. BB was terrible when his team scored 3 runs, for example. But he was fantastic when given only 1 run, and also good with 6 runs of support (though that didn't happen a lot). So your 2-runs-thru-5 study, by itself, tells us almost nothing.

Has anyone looked at whether Blyleven was the victim of poor defense? His lifetime BABIP was .286 which seems high for a guy with a lifetime 51% ground ball rate. By comparison, Glavine's ground ball rate was 49% but his BABIP is also .286.

More important than the GB rate is the change in league BABIP: it was about 20 points lower in Blyleven's day. His .286 is pretty typical, maybe a little bit high; Glavine's is very impressive.

Has anyone looked at whether Blyleven was the victim of poor defense? His lifetime BABIP was .286 which seems high for a guy with a lifetime 51% ground ball rate. By comparison, Glavine's ground ball rate was 49% but his BABIP is also .286.

More important than the GB rate is the change in league BABIP: it was about 20 points lower in Blyleven's day. His .286 is pretty typical, maybe a little bit high; Glavine's is very impressive.

How do you possibly know that this is "pretty typical?" Seriously, where does your info come from? There were 113 pitchers who threw at least 2000 innings between 1965-1995 (Blyleven 1970-1992). Of those 113, Blyleven was 84th. Is that typical for a guy with an completely average GB/FB ratio?

Let's look more closely. Of the 110 pitchers with 1000 IP between 1965-1970, Blyleven was 80th. And in those years he was a fly ball pitcher. Of the 118 pitchers with 1000 IP between 1975-1985 (Blyleven was with TEX, PIT and CLE) Blyleven was 60th, but then he was mostly a ground ball pitcher (so probably pretty lucky). Then from 1985 to 1995 was 68th out of 103 pitchers with 1000 IP, when he was a fairly strong flyball pitcher.

So, basically was victimized by dreadful defense for the first five or so years of his career and then was rather typical.

Ah, I see the data on BABIP now. For most of his career, the league BABIP was in the low .280s. But before 1973 it was in the mid-to-low .270s. Then slowly rose to the mid-to-upper .280s in the late 1980s before jumping into the .295 to .305 range that we have now after 1993.