IIRC, Schilling is 15th all-time in bWAR among pitchers, historically low unearned runs, multiple world series appearances and all time best playoff winning percentage. And the bloody sock game. How small a hall does this guy want?

I think Schilling will be elected, and I reckon I'd induct him into my pHOM, if I had such a thing. But in addition to his many superb qualities, he's 88th in Starts, 95th in IP, and 82nd in Wins all-time. I can see being "Small-Hall" enough to keep him out in terms of career length and overall totals. There would be fallacies involved – he's awfully good compared to his contemporaries on all sorts of measures, and his contemporaries included some amazingly inner-circle types. But a "small hall" sans Schilling is not a totally absurd contention.

Never heard the term.

I wouldn't be surprised if he coined it 20 years ago and then spaced it.

I found an old notebook of mine from my Army days which were 1987 to 1991. I read some stuff and asked myself WTF was that?

Please allow me to be a ##### on this topic, and dissent.

I do think it's absurd, especially if Small-Hall uses usage stats biased towards first half of century pitchers who routinely started 40+ games a year and threw over 300 innings in a season. Felix Hernandez, one of this generations workhorses, is going to have to pitch 15 years without injury or decline to pass Schilling on those metrics. He will do it, but more likely in closer to 20 seasons given injuries, decline, and the next CBA negotiation.

Schilling lost starts, and innings to the Orioles early use of him and labor strife. And obviously injuries.

As the hall is currently comprised, it's about 2 players per season. If you assume 1/3 should be pitchers the line should be around 80 pitchers, which even by less useful stats unadjusted for era like starts, innings, wins, Schilling is very close to. if you adjust Schillings starts, wins, and innings for his eras typical usage, I'd bet he'd he'd be close to top 50 in those measures.

If Small-Hall draws his line at 50 pitchers, and use adjusted versions of those stats with ERA+, Schilling would be right on the line. And this despite ERA+ significantly undervaluing him because of his skill at suppressing unearned runs. This is all why I used WAR, despite it's imperfections, because it's the best summation of a pitchers career value. Even if Small-Hall thinks bWAR somehow vastly and magically over-rates Schilling so much that he's really only a top 50ish pitcher in regular season accomplishments/value, there are also the playoff wins, the bloody sock, etc.

Schilling should be a slam dunk HOF pitcher even if your line is 30 pitchers over the last 130 years.

Roberto Clemente had a very poor reputation at one point? I Googled unsuccessfully.

IIRC, Schilling is 15th all-time in bWAR among pitchers,

Schilling is 26th in career pitching WAR at BB-Ref.

Schilling should be a slam dunk HOF pitcher even if your line is 30 pitchers over the last 130 years.

I think that overstates it. As I said, BB-Ref has him 26th in bWAR among pitchers. Just skimming down the list of guys below him, I notice the following players who you could make a decent argument are more deserving HOFers than Schilling: Glavine, Hubbell, Palmer, Sutton, Smoltz, Feller, Eckersley, Marichal, Drysdale, Bunning, Newhouser, Cicotte, Rivera, (3-Finger) Brown, Ford, Koufax. Some of those guys beat Schilling in career (Sutton) and some in peak (Koufax), so it's unlikely you'd see somebody put every one of these guys ahead of Schilling. Of course, this also excludes Negro Leaguers entirely. Schilling's a well-qualified, deserving HOFer given the size of the actual Hall of Fame, but I think one could draw a non-absurdly small Hall for which Curt Schilling would be borderline.

Schilling should be a slam dunk HOF pitcher even if your line is 30 pitchers over the last 130 years.

That seems a stretch, I'm not even sure he breaks the top 20 of the past 50 years.

Just in the past 50 years, pitchers better and more deserving than Schilling. (off the top of my head, probably missing some or maybe overrating one or two)
1. Randy 2. Clemens 3. Maddux 4. Pedro 5.Glavine 6. Halladay 7. Gibson 8.Koufax 9. Marichal 10.Carlton 11. Seaver 12. Palmer 13. Niekro 14. Perry 15. Mussina 16. Blyleven 17. Kevin Brown. 18. Smoltz(debatable) 19. Ryan(debatable)

If add just the big names from prior to that you have Johnson, Young, Feller, Spahn, Alexander, Mathewson, Grove... that is 26 or so with no effort. I'm sure Robin Roberts or others could be argued.

Mind you, I would vote for him if I had a vote, but he's not close to an inner circle even from his own era.

33

yes. he sat out games when folks thought he could play so writers thought he was a jaker

also told people to call him bob and if he had told you and you didn't call him by that name he would ignore you

basically writers being petty

Could some of the anti-Clemente bias have been racism? Clyde Sukeforth told a story about being asked to scout Clemente by Branch Rickey. The previous scout had questioned whether Clemente threw well enough. Sukeforth reported that he wasn't sure whether Clemente threw as well as Carl Furillo, and Rickey took Clemente in the Rule 5 draft.

Carl Furillo

I like the story about him charging into the opposing dugout from first after a HBP to choke Durocher after Durocher yelled at the pitcher to "stick it in his ear".

Roberto Clemente had a very poor reputation at one point?

I see Harvey's has covered what I intended to post. I remember it being "Bobby" that he objected to being called.

t:

pretty much

there is a retired pittsburgh gazette writer who has been interviewed and he has no warm feelings about roberto. he dismisses the racial aspect but being there i completely disagree

clemente was a proud guy and didn't conform to what the writers wanted

I remember it being "Bobby" that he objected to being called.

It was; he wanted to be called "Roberto". Bob Prince was the one who kept calling him "Bobby".

-- MWE

cfb -- no love for Fergie? Them's fightin' words ... or fightin' lack of words!

I assume Schilling does so well in WAR because of his sparkling K/BB and his amazingly low number of UER. The former is more about how he got it done rather than how he got it done so I'm not sure should hold that much weight in an HoF discussion -- although it is the sort of thing that can be useful for deciding inner-circle or (for a borderline guy) in/out. But the latter is rather interesting:

ERA and RA/9:
Schillng 3.46 3.64
Maddux 3.16 3.56
Clemens 3.12 3.45
Unit 3.29 3.71
Smoltz 3.33 3.60
Brown 3.28 3.75

That puts Schilling right in the middle of that bunch. Obviously Maddux, Clemens and (to a less extent) Johnson have a lot more innings than Schilling and Maddux especially has a decline phase Schilling never did. And, of course, some unearned runs are genuinely unearned so maybe those other guys just got unlucky with defense.

On the topic of small Hall -- I do think that actual HoF voters have some responsibility to precedent. I don't think they necessarily have to adopt a "the VC put that guy in?" standard but they do have a duty to the institution of the HoF and baseball history to be "fair." Of course that's at the collective level and any collective will have its share of kooks.

I vaguely recall Clemente having some problems with fans. Early 60s i Think.

cfb -- no love for Fergie? Them's fightin' words ... or fightin' lack of words!

I thought I had him in there.... I think I did a quick look at baseball-reference and decided that with about 12 point era+ difference was a little to much to overcome...but I also had looked at the innings pitched differences incorrectly thinking there was only about a 600 ip difference between Schilling and Jenkins, when it's closer to 1300 and that is more than enough to propel Jenkins ahead of Schilling.

Surely Clemente had a ton of problems with the Pittsburgh fans and press (or the fans/press had problems with Roberto) early to mid of his career.

These issues are well documented and reflect poorly on the fans/press -- not Clemente.

Clemente's "bad reputation" came particularly in his early years. He was referred to as a "Puerto Rican hot dog" by one newspaper, so there was definitely a racist angle there. He was also called a hypochondriac at various stages of his career--even Danny Murtaugh felt he was a bit of a hypochondriac--because he often complained that he was hurting and not feeling well. But despite the complaints, he always appeared in a high percentage of Pirates games.

Bob Prince was the one guy who could get away with calling him "Bob" or "Bobby." He let it slide, because they were friends. But most anyone else who called him Bob was doing something that he considered offensive.

In his first five seasons, Clemente was not a particularly good player. He swung at everything, regularly missed the cutoff man, and made bad decisions on the bases. So there was plenty to criticize in terms of his on-field play. But come the 1960s, he improved remarkably--to the point of becoming a flat-out star by 1960.

The only time I remember Clemente having problems with the fans was around 1969 or 1970, when he was booed at home for one of the few times in his career. Generally speaking, though, he was beloved by the Pittsburgh fans. I don't recall him ever having a public run-in with the fans.

This podcast has some great detail about Clemente and his reputation (it is near the beginning so you dont have to listen too long)

http://www.freakonomics.com/2012/07/19/legacy-of-a-jerk-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcasts/

Harvey's I love the use of "jaker"

Schilling is 26th in career pitching WAR at BB-Ref.

Apparently I often confuse Pedro Martinez and Schilling, which obviously is pretty easy to do:)

If I trust my eyes (which I'm nowvnot sure I should) fWar has Schilling at 19th, which makes my mistake somewhat less egregious.

Mind you, I would vote for him if I had a vote, but he's not close to an inner circle even from his own era.

I was never a big Schilling fan while he pitched, when he retired I was shocked at how high his value was, so it's become a pet peeve of mine. He certainly pitched in an era with some of the greatest ever, Clemens, Maddox, RJ, etc. But if his regular season career value was somewhere in the mid-low 20s, combined with a legitimate claim to being greatest playoff starter ever (2nd in win % with twice the innings of anyone close) and the legendary ketchup sock, he should be a slam dunk top 30, if not 20.

And I just can't imagine a hall so small that it wouldn't have at least 30 pitchers in it from a 130 years of baseball.

Never heard the term. Of course, I’m a notoriously poor listener.. ..

Sometimes, I think he's just kayfabing the smarks.

The parameters of "small Hall"/"large Hall" could be set by the ratio of BBWAA/Vet-Old Timer player selections. "Small Hall" would be about 55% of the "large Hall". However, that's complicated by the fact that some of those Vet picks really should have gone in thru the front door...so setting the actual lower limit is not such a straightforward exercise. Any ex-post facto scheme is pretty much just an arbitrary overlay and is pretty much starting from the idea (whether implicit or explicit) that the whole thing needs to be done over.

All of which is exactly why I think the Hall of Merit should impose the BBWAA rules on itself as a thought experiment and see how its selections differ from what's happened in real life. They just might set an empirically derived answer to what the "small Hall" would be by including a series of players who had to wait for the Vets Committee...and it's a safe bet that their total of "BBWAA elected" players (those receiving 75+% of the vote) will be a good bit higher than the BBWAA's.

Carl Furillo

I like the story about him charging into the opposing dugout from first after a HBP to choke Durocher after Durocher yelled at the pitcher to "stick it in his ear".

IIRC that incident took place in early September of 1953, and while the HBP shelved Furillo until the World Series, it also froze his BA at .344, and wound up giving him the batting crown by 2 percentage points over Red Schoendienst.

Clyde Sukeforth told a story about being asked to scout Clemente by Branch Rickey. The previous scout had questioned whether Clemente threw well enough.

What a weird detail. That previous scout must've gone & seen some other "Roberto Clemente" guy.

Clemente's "bad reputation" came particularly in his early years. He was referred to as a "Puerto Rican hot dog" by one newspaper, so there was definitely a racist angle there. He was also called a hypochondriac at various stages of his career--even Danny Murtaugh felt he was a bit of a hypochondriac--because he often complained that he was hurting and not feeling well. But despite the complaints, he always appeared in a high percentage of Pirates games.

What didn't help Clemente's reputation as a hypochondriac was that Clemente had this annoying habit that, whenever someone would ask how he was, he would tell them.

DB

Any insight on why the qualifying limit on being considered a rookie is based on At Bats rather than Plate Appearances? It would be possible to have two players who stepped up to the plates exactly the same number of times in one season and the next year one of them would qualify for the ROY award and the other one wouldn't.
Asked by: Hank Gillette
Answered: 9/3/2012

Is that correct? What's your source for that? I always thought it was plate appearances.

I was wondering about this too. Hank is correct, as far as I can tell. The reason it's interesting at this very moment is that Mike Trout came into the season with 123 career AB, but 135 career PA. (130 AB is the rookie cutoff.)

That puts Schilling right in the middle of that bunch. Obviously Maddux, Clemens and (to a less extent) Johnson have a lot more innings than Schilling and Maddux especially has a decline phase Schilling never did. And, of course, some unearned runs are genuinely unearned so maybe those other guys just got unlucky with defense.

We should remember that Schilling was really an extreme fly-ball pitcher by the standards of top-level pitchers. Only Randy Johnson was close to him in FB/GB ratio among the pitchers in Walt's table. That will lead to a lot fewer errors. Also, Johnson faced an enormous number of right-handed batters, so their pulled grounders went to the left side of the infield where errors are more common. If you were going to draw up a prototype of a pitcher who wouldn't allow unearned runs, it would be Schilling - right-handed strikeout and flyball pitcher with excellent control.

I was wondering about this too. Hank is correct, as far as I can tell. The reason it's interesting at this very moment is that Mike Trout came into the season with 123 career AB, but 135 career PA. (130 AB is the rookie cutoff.)

Hank is correct. Scott Rolen had 130 ABs in his debut year. He was HBP and broke his hand in his next PA, leaving him at 130 ABs. That meant he was still a rookie the next year, and picked up a ROY award.

If you were going to draw up a prototype of a pitcher who wouldn't allow unearned runs, it would be Schilling - right-handed strikeout and flyball pitcher with excellent control.

Do the other pitchers of this type -- Jenkins and Robin Roberts come to mind, maybe Blyleven -- exhibit a similar lack of unearned runs?

even late in his career, it's "Bob" Clemente on his 1969 baseball card

http://www.amazon.com/1969-Topps-Roberto-Clemente-Ex-Near/dp/B003T86NBU

He "graduated" the following year:

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://i.ebayimg.com/t/1970-Topps-Bob-Clemente-350-Pirates-Very-Good-/00/$(KGrHqMOKjsE4h9h)!KbBOOZD+7iO!~~0_35.JPG&imgrefurl=http://www.ebay.com/itm/1970-Topps-Bob-Clemente-350-Pirates-Very-Good-/190562213810&h=300&w=224&sz=30&tbnid=9bqP-QLvhjb_mM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=67&zoom=1&usg=__AHdgO00zHMNWPq4kzM7IHvr4pUs=&hl=en&sa=X&ei=E49EUK_rNsGJ6AHx5IHwBg&ved=0CEMQ9QEwCA&dur=317

Do the other pitchers of this type -- Jenkins and Robin Roberts come to mind, maybe Blyleven -- exhibit a similar lack of unearned runs?

Yes.

If you were going to draw up a prototype of a pitcher who wouldn't allow unearned runs, it would be Schilling - right-handed strikeout and flyball pitcher with excellent control.

And someone who played in the 90-aughts, when errors weren't being assigned as frequently.

Clemente came into the Pirates organization as their first black Latino.
English was very foreign to him as a young man and it took quite a number of years for him to acquire the skills of communication.

While Pittsburgh is a true melting pot of languages, most of the immigrants to western PA were from Europe and very few spoke Spanish as their native or heritege language.
In a nutshell it took 5 or 6 years for Roberto to mature with his baseball and english langiuage skills and it took Pittsburgers just as long to understand Roberto's response to injury and his proud demeanor. Many fans thought him aloof but there was a huge gulf in their mutual understandings of one another.

I'm getting tired of James answering the question he feels like answering rather than the question that was asked. The writer didn't ask how Jeter's age-38 season stacks up against other age-38 seasons. He asked how Jeter's current good season stacks up against his earlier great seasons considering the difference in offensive environments. If you don't want to answer that question, then simply pick a different letter. Or, alternately, write a grab-bag column of things you want to talk about on your own rather than shoe-horning them into an erstwhile mailbag piece.

For the record, Jeter's 2012 is his 10th best season in OPS+, which is based on league average and therefore adjusts to changes in offense. At 116 to date, it's pretty good but well short of his career highs of 153 in '99 and 132 in '06. However, it's only his 14th best season for offensive WAR (the writer specifically asked James to ignore defense for this question). A good final month could boost him another notch or two. At 3.6, he's within 1.0 WAR of two other seasons. It's a nice comeback at the age of 38 (especially after poor seasons in '10 and '11) but it's only his 10th or 12th best offensive season and well short of what he did at his peak.

#36: Of course, that raises the question of why you'd need Bill James to look at a guy's B-Ref page for you :-)

Reminds me of people who (allegedly, I suppose) write into Parade magazine and ask who is the star of such-and-such a TV show. Umm...?

He asked how Jeter's current good season stacks up against his earlier great seasons considering the difference in offensive environments.

This looks like a pretty clear answer to that question;

Well, Jeter at 38 is still reasonably NEAR his peak. The 2012 season will not be one of his five best seasons.

He then leaps off and gives some additional context to the answer but I think he answered the question pretty clearly right out of the gate. That's not to say that James doesn't do exactly what you said he did.

37. The District Attorney Posted: September 03, 2012 at 11:36 AM (#4225480)
#36: Of course, that raises the question of why you'd need Bill James to look at a guy's B-Ref page for you :-)

Reminds me of people who (allegedly, I suppose) write into Parade magazine and ask who is the star of such-and-such a TV show. Umm...?

There's a comic book journalist, Craig Shutt, who does a good job with this shtick. He begins his columns with obviously fake letters that introduce the topic he wants to write about. For example, if he wants to write about Superman, the question will come from a C. Kent, Smallville or an L. Lane, Metropolis; if he wants to write about Batman, the question will come from a B. Wayne, Gotham or an A. Pennyworth.

pitchers who routinely started 40+ games a year and threw over 300 innings in a season

KT, name some pitchers whose careers started in the 20th century and made 40 starts and pitched 300 innings in half of their seasons.

name some pitchers whose careers started in the 20th century and made 40 starts and pitched 300 innings in half of their seasons.

Most seasons 40+ GS since 1900:



most seasons >299 IP since 1900:

So the answer to jwb's question is Christy Mathewson (or no one, depending where you come down on the whole when a century starts issue).

For single seasons, From 1901 to 2012, (requiring year_min>=1901, GS>=40 and IP>=300), sorted by greatest Seasons matching criteria

                                                      
Rk                    Yrs From   To                Age
1         Wilbur Wood   4 1971 1974 29-32 Ind. Seasons
2       Mickey Lolich   4 1971 1974 30-33 Ind. Seasons
3        Don Drysdale   4 1962 1965 25-28 Ind. Seasons
4      Pete Alexander   4 1915 1920 28-33 Ind. Seasons
5       George Mullin   4 1904 1907 23-26 Ind. Seasons
6         Eddie Plank   4 1903 1907 27-31 Ind. Seasons
7         Phil Niekro   3 1977 1979 38-40 Ind. Seasons
8       Gaylord Perry   3 1970 1973 31-34 Ind. Seasons
9      Fergie Jenkins   3 1968 1974 25-31 Ind. Seasons
10       Sandy Koufax   3 1963 1966 27-30 Ind. Seasons
11           Ed Walsh   3 1907 1912 26-31 Ind. Seasons
12        Bill Singer   2 1969 1973 25-29 Ind. Seasons
13       Denny McLain   2 1968 1969 24-25 Ind. Seasons
14           Jim Kaat   2 1966 1975 27-36 Ind. Seasons
15        Jim Bunning   2 1966 1967 34-35 Ind. Seasons
16         Bob Feller   2 1941 1946 22-27 Ind. Seasons
17     Walter Johnson   2 1910 1914 22-26 Ind. Seasons
18          Irv Young   2 1905 1906 27-28 Ind. Seasons
19       Steve Rogers   1 1977 1977 27-27 Ind. Seasons
20         Jim Palmer   1 1976 1976 30-30 Ind. Seasons
21        Randy Jones   1 1976 1976 26-26 Ind. Seasons
22   Andy Messersmith   1 1975 1975 29-29 Ind. Seasons
23         Nolan Ryan   1 1974 1974 27-27 Ind. Seasons
24     Catfish Hunter   1 1974 1974 28-28 Ind. Seasons
25      Bert Blyleven   1 1973 1973 22-22 Ind. Seasons
Rk                    Yrs From   To                Age
26      Steve Carlton   1 1972 1972 27-27 Ind. Seasons
27      Claude Osteen   1 1969 1969 29-29 Ind. Seasons
28         Bill Hands   1 1969 1969 29-29 Ind. Seasons
29      Juan Marichal   1 1963 1963 25-25 Ind. Seasons
30         Bob Friend   1 1956 1956 25-25 Ind. Seasons
31      Robin Roberts   1 1953 1953 26-26 Ind. Seasons
32      Bill Voiselle   1 1944 1944 25-25 Ind. Seasons
33        Dizzy Trout   1 1944 1944 29-29 Ind. Seasons
34        Bobo Newsom   1 1938 1938 30-30 Ind. Seasons
35        George Uhle   1 1923 1923 24-24 Ind. Seasons
36     Stan Coveleski   1 1921 1921 31-31 Ind. Seasons
37         Fred Toney   1 1917 1917 28-28 Ind. Seasons
38     Pete Schneider   1 1917 1917 21-21 Ind. Seasons
39          Babe Ruth   1 1916 1916 21-21 Ind. Seasons
40       Dick Rudolph   1 1915 1915 27-27 Ind. Seasons
41     Dave Davenport   1 1915 1915 25-25 Ind. Seasons
42       Jeff Tesreau   1 1914 1914 26-26 Ind. Seasons
43         Jack Quinn   1 1914 1914 30-30 Ind. Seasons
44      Cy Falkenberg   1 1914 1914 34-34 Ind. Seasons
45       Larry Cheney   1 1914 1914 28-28 Ind. Seasons
46          Bob Groom   1 1912 1912 27-27 Ind. Seasons
47         Bob Harmon   1 1911 1911 23-23 Ind. Seasons
48        Jack Coombs   1 1911 1911 28-28 Ind. Seasons
49        Frank Smith   1 1909 1909 29-29 Ind. Seasons
50   George McQuillan   1 1908 1908 23-23 Ind. Seasons
Rk                    Yrs From   To                Age
51        Oscar Jones   1 1904 1904 24-24 Ind. Seasons