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Hall of Merit — A Look at Baseball's All-Time Best Tuesday, January 09, 20072007 BBTF HOF Results: Ripken, Gwynn, Blyleven, Trammell and Gossage!In his first year of eligibility, iron-man shortstop Cal Ripken, Jr. was selected by the BBTF electorate unanimously. San Diego legend Tony Gwynn was also picked by 100% of our voters. Curveball specialist Bert Blyleven found his way on easily more than the required number ballots again for the third straight year with a strong 87%, though that was down from his 96% in 2005 and 2006. Standout shortstop Alan Trammell was the fourth BBTF HOF pick with his 84%, up from 79% in 2005 and 81% in 2006. Last but not least, intimidating fireman Goose Gossage earned 82% of the electorate’s vote, though slipping again in support (he had 93% in 2005 and 87% in 2006). Supreme power hitter Mark McGwire missed with 69% of all ballots in his first year of eligibility. He was hurt by many protest non-votes, which cost him a near-unanimous vote. Rounding out the top-ten were: Andre Dawson, Albert Belle, Dale Murphy and Tommy John. New candidates Dante Bichette, Bobby Bonilla, Scott Brosius, Jay Buhner, Ken Caminiti, Eric Davis, Wally Joyner, Paul O’Neill, Devon White and Bobby Witt received no votes. 111 voters participated in our exercise, 9 more from 2006. How will the BBWAA compare? Thanks to everyone who submitted a ballot or joined in the discussion! RK LY Player Votes ------------------------------ 1T n/e Tony Gwynn 111 1T n/e Cal Ripken, Jr. 111 3 1 Bert Blyleven 97 4 3 Alan Trammell 93 5 2 Goose Gossage 91 ------------------------------ 6 n/e Mark McGwire 77 7 6 Andre Dawson 32 8T 5 Albert Belle 24 8T 11 Dale Murphy 24 10 8 Tommy John 22 11 10 Lee Smith 17 12T 14T Jack Morris 9 12T 9 Jim Rice 9 14 14T Dave Concepcion 8 15 13 Don Mattingly 7 16 12 Dave Parker 6 ------------------------------ 17 n/e Tony Fernandez 5 18 n/e Harold Baines 4 19 n/e Bret Saberhagen 3 20 n/e Jose Canseco 2 21 17 Steve Garvey 1 Dropped Out: Orel Hershiser(16). Ballots Cast: 111; 84 votes required for election. Hall of Merit Group RK LY Player Votes ------------------------------ 1T n/e Tony Gwynn 43 1T n/e Cal Ripken, Jr. 43 3 1 Bert Blyleven 40 4 2 Goose Gossage 39 5T n/e Mark McGwire 37 5T 3 Alan Trammell 37 ------------------------------ 7 6 Andre Dawson 16 8 5 Albert Belle 14 9 11 Dale Murphy 12 10 8 Tommy John 11 11 10 Lee Smith 8 12 9 Jim Rice 7 13 12 Dave Parker 6 14 13 Don Mattingly 5 15T 14T Dave Concepcion 4 15T 14T Jack Morris 4 17T n/e Harold Baines 3 17T n/e Tony Fernandez 3 17T n/e Bret Saberhagen 3 ------------------------------- 20T n/e Jose Canseco 1 20T 17 Steve Garvey 1 Ballots Cast: 43; 33 required for election. John (You Can Call Me Grandma) Murphy
Posted: January 09, 2007 at 12:34 AM | 105 comment(s)
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Those are the exact 5 I voted for, though I'm hardly the only one who can say that.
Weren't we supposed to be having the HOF standards here?
I'll vote McGwire into the HOM on 1st ballot.
The average was 7.84 votes per ballot by HOM voters.
There were 111 ballots cast overall, and a total of 753 votes.
There were 68 ballots cast by non-HOM voters, for a total of 416 votes.
The average was 6.12 votes per ballot by non-HOM voters.
The typical HOM voter voted for 1.72 more candidates per ballot than the typical non-HOM voter.
Correct, OCF.
John, what is this comment based on? Did almost all of the 31 percent of the non-McGwire voters indicate they were leaving based on McGwire's qualifications?
Here's one approach to coming up with an answer to that.
The active time-period of the HOF can be estimated to run from 1847 (George Wright was born) to 1960 (Kirby Puckett was born). That is 114 years. The time span of a HOF ballot is 15 years, so the last 15 years should still have active quality candidates. Also one of the findings of the HOM is that the HOF did not adequately cover the early years. So let's just round that 114 down to about 100 years. There are about 230 players in the HOF. 230/100 yields us a working estimate of about 2.3 HOFers per year.
With 2.3 HOFers per year, then about 34 or 35 HOFers should have become eligible during the 15-year span of a ballot. The BBWAA has elected 19 of those eligibles during the previous 14 elections (plus one other who became eligible before the current 15 year span). So if the HOF had followed a fairly consistent set of standards in selecting its membership, there should be about 15 or 16 additional HOF-quality players who became eligible during the last 15 years. Of course, this assumes that there were a typical number of star players during that period, no unusual shortage or surplus.
So, it wouldn't be surprising to discover about 15 HOF or HOM quality players still available to be elected who became eligible 1993-2007. (This includes those who were dropped due to the 5% rule.)
Did almost all of the 31 percent of the non-McGwire voters indicate they were leaving him off their ballots in protest, or were you speculating that he would have been a near-unanimous choice?
It's based on my reading of the ballots, SoSHially.
I have no doubt that he would have easily made it into the 90% range had it not been for the steroid scandal surrounding him. I'm being conservative, BTW.
He wouldn't have been unaminous, though. There were a few voters who just didn't like his stats.
Some voters, like myself, chose not to vote for anyone whom they felt they had strong suspicion of steroid use. I would consider my vote effectively a "protest."
Some voters took an X% steroid discount from McGwire's production, and didn't vote based on the stats of a theoretical "McGwire - steroids" player. I don't think that's a protest vote - it's an attempt to quantify the effects of PEDs. In some ways it's a protest against PED, but I think it's a bit more complicated than that. I think many of these voters would vote for Bonds, but not McGwire.
I expect few of the HoM voters would agree with that statement. McGwire did not throw games, bet on baseball, land on the HoF's ineligible list, or make a colossal public ass of himself. The steroid issue is a different issue, and voters will respond to it differently.
I would agree, though, that HoM voters, through the HoM process, are less inclined to give weight to "character issues" than other voters.
I expect that McGwire wll garner rather less than 59% of the vote from the BBWAA tomorrow, though, and I am curious to see whether the non-HoM BBTF voters are closer to the HoM electorate or to the BBWAA in their response to McGwire's candidacy.
And congratulations to Blyleven, Gossage and Trammell for being inducted three years in a row! :-)
The major difference with what McGwire probably did was this: Under no circumstances did it prevent his team from winning. I'm not debating whether steroids are right, or moral, or how much they affect the game -- but they are, essentially, a method of gaining a competitive advantage, rather than a practice by which a player or team may be put at a competitive disadvantage.
I, personally, don't have the patience for the Hall of Merit (or rather am too lazy), but tend to view the Hall of Fame as already an amoral place. (For the love of God, Ty Cobb is in it.) McGwire received slight demerits from me because I'm not sure he would have been quite as good a hitter without the drkqs. It was only enough to knock him from second on my list to fifth. I dislike intensely passing moral judgement on people I don't know based on things they supposedly did in an arena in which one's actions have no inherent moral value. (Ie, to hit a home run is not an absolute good. To feed a starving child is. If that's clear.)
And, by the way, I did not vote for Zarqawi because I have absolute proof that he is on steroids.
I'm not sure that's true. Certainly in my case I have set aside my feelings about character issues because the rules of the HoM require one to assess a player only on his on-field performance.
Those are the exact 5 I voted for, though I'm hardly the only one who can say that.
John should post an honor roll of those of us who obviously steered the consensus to the correct five choices. It'll be one of the few times we can pretend that anyone was ever paying any attention to our opinions....
Horrifying...trying to send thousands more to die in Iraq is horrifying. Applying this to the HoM is melodramatic.
Anyhoo, from my POV, our results easily improve on the BBWAA's performance in that we got ALL the no-brainers, rather than just a couple. Unfortunately, Blyleven, Gossage and Trammell will all be back next year for us to vote in a fourth time. This only distracts us from meaningful discussions concerning the players near the Hall's in/out line.
So I find our results neither horrifying nor satisfying.
And I'm not horrified that you're not satisfied.
Sure, but what sending 125,000 to kill 100,000-300,000 Iraqi civilians. Now that's horrifying.
And I'm sorrified you're not hatified. Whatever.
The horror ... The horror ...
While not horrifying, it's significantly shocking that people don't understand park effects, and so continue to vote for Rice but not Parker. 9 votes to 6 - that means that it's possible that 3 people had Rice but not Parker, a more feared hitter and player in the late 1970s. And it could mean that 9 people had Rice but not Parker. Obviously, I haven't checked the ballots for the actual votes.
While not horrifying, it's significantly shocking that people don't understand park effects, and so continue to vote for Rice but not Parker. 9 votes to 6 - that means that it's possible that 3 people had Rice but not Parker, a more feared hitter and player in the late 1970s.
I didn't vote for either of them, but if I had to vote for one, I'd choose Rice, not Parker. OPS+, which takes into account park effects, leans toward Rice (career of 128 to 121). More importantly, Rice had a 13 year period where he was both durable and relatively consistent, putting up an OPS+ of over 120 in 11 of those years. Parker had a five year period in the late 70's where he was very good, but other than that, he was nothing special, putting up an OPS+ of 120 or more only once outside the five year peak.
In short, they were pretty comparable in the 70's, and Rice was clearly better in the 80's, IMO.
The horror ... The horror ...
No fisticuffs from me, Ron. :-) But if it becomes political to the point that I don't want to be around here anymore, then I'll bid everybody adieu.
Wiseguy. :-)
I think PEDs are a notch or two ahead of Perry-like cheating, though it's still not close to Jackson-Rose-George Hall shenanigans, IMO.
Jeez, I did the same thing last year without any problems. Some people! ;-)
Heh.
While I reluctantly voted for Big Mac, I'm not upset with him not reaching the 75% mark this year, so can I be placed on the list, too? :-)
I'm not so sure. Parker was a LHB who took full advantage of Three Rivers, with a 346/393/571 line at home and 296/359/494 on the road during his peak from 1975 to 1979. He would likely not derive the same benefit from Fenway as would a right-handed power hitter like Rice, though a switch to the AL would have bestowed the added bonus of league expansion to pad his stats a bit. It's certainly possible that Parker would have put up better stats in Boston, especially if he could have avoided some of the injury, weight, and drug problems that derailed his career in Pittsburgh, but I'm still skeptical. On the other hand, if you put Rice in Three Rivers, he'd be a lock to underperform relative to Parker.
For whatever it's worth, over their careers (well except for Parker's half-season in 73) I have Parker leading Rice in WPA 38.88 to 27.45.
23.5 for McGwire.
Blyleven at 47.7% and Rice at 63.5.
Results
2006 Results, for comparison
All hail Harold Baines!!
Candidate Votes% of Votes
Cal Ripken Jr. 537 98.5
Tony Gwynn 532 97.6
Rich Gossage 388 71.2
Jim Rice 346 63.5
Andre Dawson 309 56.7
Bert Blyleven 260 47.7
Lee Smith 217 39.8
Jack Morris 202 37.1
Mark McGwire 128 23.5
Tommy John 125 22.9
*Steve Garvey 115 21.1
Dave Concepcion 74 13.6
Alan Trammell 73 13.4
Dave Parker 62 11.4
Don Mattingly 54 9.9
Dale Murphy 50 9.2
Harold Baines 29 5.3
Orel Hershiser 24 4.4
Albert Belle 19 3.5
Paul O'Neill 12 2.2
Bret Saberhagen 7 1.3
Jose Canseco 6 1.1
Tony Fernandez 4 0.7
Dante Bichette 3 0.6
Eric Davis 3 0.6
Bobby Bonilla 2 0.4
Ken Caminiti 2 0.4
Jay Buhner 1 0.2
Scott Brosius 0 0.0
Wally Joyner 0 0.0
Devon White 0 0.0
Bobby Witt 0 0.0
Frank Costanza is a Hall of Fame voter?
McGwire 23.5% meaning that both the HOM guys and the non-HOM guys are way over the BBWAA consensus.
Good news: Gossage is now achingly close to election. 71%, 21 votes shy. Bad news: Blyleven didn't really get much traction, remaining in the 40s.
Notables falling off: Hershiser, Belle, Saberhagen, Canseco, Fernandez. And Bobby Witt. Man 460 HR don't buy much these days, huh? It does seem contradictory that Fernandez goes but Concepcion stays, they aren't that different in value.
And in his last year on the ballot, Steve Garvey polls 21%, which was better than all of these guys did:
Dave Concepcion 13.6%
Alan Trammell 13.4%
Dave Parker 11.4%
Don Mattingly 9.9%
Dale Murphy 9.2%
Harold Baines 5.3%
One trend to see is that most every backlogger lost votes, except Gossage.
Gossage +6.6%
Rice -1.3%
Morris -4.1%
Trammell -4.3%
Dawson -4.3%
Garvey -4.9%
Smith -5.2%
Bert -5.6%
John -6.7%
That's kind of interesting. Perhaps it's the presence of superior up-ballot candidates at work? Ideally, they should have no effect on the voting for lower-down guys, but who knows.
Too bad Goose didn't make it as well, but it looks like only a matter of time.
It also means 14 more years of this, unless he somehow is elected before his eligibility ends.
Forget their kids, they should take away their ballots.
2. Disappointed, but not surprised that neither got in unanimously. There are jerks out there who will come up with any rationale to not vote for someone. We even saw some of that on this board when one poster said he wouldn't vote for Ripken before changing his mind on the ballot thread. "Babe Ruth wasn't unanimous either." "The streak hurt his team." "He's over-rated." I even know of some Detroit area people who wouldn't vote for Ripken because they feel he unfairly overshadowed Trammell. They're all reasons, though none of them are good reasons not to vote for a guy.
3. Glad to see Gossage gaining ground. He's going in in 2008 for sure.
4. Sad to see Rice lose as much ground as he did. He might not be able to make it in in 2008 after all. And responding to Eric Chalek: yeah, this happens pretty much every time that some strong new candidates enter the ballot. Most of the returning candidates lose ground. It's as if some of the voters have a self-imposed limit of 2 or 3, instead of 10. And then there are others who vote for the story. They don't want the induction of clear-cut guys like Ripken and Gwynn somehow "sullied" by having anybody else inducted at the same time. They're all reasons, though once again, not good ones.
5. Glad to see Harold Baines get the 5%. I'm not sure he's a Hall of Famer. And I didn't vote for him this year. But I'd like some more time to think about it.
6. Sad to see Orel Hershiser go. He got the 5% last year and would probably get the 5% this year. But all it took was a few guys cutting back on the number of players they voted for (see point #4) and Hershiser got squeezed out.
I'm glad Goose moved up, makes sense, like I said on the ballot thread - once you vote for Sutter, it's near impossible to not support Gossage.
I'll be very disappointed if Rice makes it. I can think of half a dozen better OFs (Wynn, Belle, Singleton, Dawson, Murphy, Parker) without even thinking very hard about it. Not to mention guys like Bobby Bonds and Roy White who were just as good. And that's only from the last 40 years.
What does that mean?
Gossage to 71.2. (!)
. . .
52. Dag Nabbit Posted: January 09, 2007 at 02:16 PM (#2276918)
Only Concepcion and Goose gained ground. That's typical when so many big names enter a ballot. Actually, I'm amazed anyone gained ground. Goose goes in next year for sure.</i>
It has been clear for a few years that some people have supported Rich Gossage, some even considering him superior to Bruce Sutter, but have believed that Bruce Sutter should be elected first because he was a pioneer, maybe even changed the game. (Believe me, although I can't cite anyone by name.)
I'm surprised that Lee Smith lost ground.
It has seemed to me that the relief pitchers still gain ground, not so remarkably as the old general pattern (see especially Fox, Bunning, Cepeda, who ceilinged at about 74%), but in a way that is no longer common for regular players.
A look behind Lee Smith's separation from the pack on the overall ballot shows that pitchers Smith and Morris polled relatively well from the HOM nonvoters while Rice, Parker, and Mattingly did not, supported by HOMeboys almost alone.
Why do baseball fans have higher standards than football fans? Why are baseball fans so annoyingly righteous about everything (maybe myself included in this post?). Merriman gets 6 of 50 possible votes for Defensive Player of the Year, in the same season he was suspended. And there wasn't any doubt, like there is with McGwire. Quoting an article from October, "Merriman's positive test was "definitely for steroids … not one of those supplement deals," " - yet McGwire gets shunned. You can't write stuff this funny.
I see no difference from McGwire to Perry. As was said above, both cheated (though with McGwire it's, 'probably' not definitely), and the establishment looked the other way. It's a product of the times. You try to flush it out going forward, for sure; but you don't retroactively penalize guys for something that was overlooked by everyone at the time.
It's times like these when I realize why I still can't buy booze on a Sunday. We still live in Puritanical Massachussetts in many ways . . .
It won't be a crime if he's elected, but I find both Parker and Murphy more deserving.
Don't think Dawson's great, but it won't hurt my feelings if he's elected.
I think we know that many voters don't think Ralph Kiner is a good Hall of Famer. Not so many to put Belle below 5% if Belle=Kiner, but many, and Belle gave everyone reasons to cut him no slack.
I'll be very disappointed if Rice makes it. I can think of half a dozen better OFs (Wynn, Belle, Singleton, Dawson, Murphy, Parker) without even thinking very hard about it. Not to mention guys like Bobby Bonds and Roy White who were just as good. And that's only from the last 40 years.
The BBWAA vote shows extreme separation between Rice and Dawson on the one hand, Murphy and Parker on the other; Bonds with Murphy and Parker (surviving the first cut). Wynn, White and Singleton with Belle, on the third hand (who? are you kidding?).
Among all these players, Dawson is all the many things that I think I know baseball writers like, and Rice is the still-limited understanding of park effects. Meagre support for Murphy shows that pretty much all the writers understand park effects now, at long last.
Where, in Quaker Pennsylvania?
scruff, that's what the HOM is for.
On the question of the NFL, perhaps the problem is with the NFL fans' standards, and not with the BBWAA's.
As for Gaylord Perry, he paid his penalties long ago, and the writers were fully cognizant of his spitballing when they voted him into the Hall. Just as the writers were fully cognizant of what McGwire did when they gave him 23.5%. It's obvious they don't equate the two forms of cheating. You're in a distinct minority if you equate them yourself.
And when you don't like what one institution does, you establish your own. Just like you did yourself, to our undying gratitude and with our sincere admiration. Long live the HOM.
He was constantly scolded by a minority of writers, mocked by opposing fans, harrassed by opposing managers and players, and I think once he may have been suspended for a game or two. All of which pretty much shows just how seriously baseball treated spitballs. And maybe they were onto something in their casual attitude.
But the other thing about Perry is that the effectiveness of his spitball was far more in the batters' minds than in was in the pitch, which he used more as an implied threat than anything else---which is also one of the main reasons they couldn't catch him in the act in spite of the fact that he had to load up in full public view.
Anyway, I think that the best comp for Jim Rice is Chuck Klein. Not necessarily by the numbers absolutely. But Klein played in a park that pumped up lefty pull hitters to insane degrees, he had a pretty good (not superb) peak, a good prime, and a shortish total career. Like Rice. And he limped into the Hall via the Vets committee which probably never saw a home/road split for him. It's my belief that Fenway of the 1970s boosted offense bigtime for righty pull hitters (above the park factor because the park is psychzoid and often plays against lefties), and I think Rice did the same thing Klein did, which he ought to of course(!). I think that Jim Rice in County Stadium or Arlington Stadium or Memorial Stadium would have been an obvious HOVG member, and no one would talk much about his HOF credentials. He'd poll 10% or less and be off the ballot quickly. As it is, I'm not sure he'll get in by the BBWAA, but I have a feeling the Vets will vote him in someday. To my chagrin (and Joe's apparently).
Cal Ripken Jr.
That is fast.
I concur. They are the same type of guy, but certainly not the same guy. If they were on the same ballot together, I would certainly rank Kiner higher.
Yeah, I think Sean Forman does bb-ref for his "day job" now so the amount of new material there of late has been simply staggering. Three cheers for Sean!
Perhaps true on the moral issue, but at least Perry's numbers warrant the HoF if you disregard the cheating. We can talk about McGwire's steroid use all day long, but I wouldn't have voted for him either way. His numbers are not impressive compared to the guys we typically elect to the HoM who played 1b, IMO. And McGwire had some DH in there.
If you trust BP at all, McGwire isn't much more impressive than Tony Fernandez, and certainly not when you take into account the other HoFers and HoMers at their positions.
While we are on that subject, Fernandez was a beauty to watch at short. He had impeccable timing. He'd lob a submarined throw over to first just in the nick of time to nab the runner by a half step. That was true whether he was throwing out Kenny Lofton or Terry Steinbach. No wasted effort...just enough to get the out.
I heard Keith Olberman on the radio today, he said it was typical, "12 hall of famers on the ballot and they only elect 2". Of course he had the wrong 12 (Concepcion in, Trammell out, Morris in).
The stats you presented before on another thread did NOT demonstrate this effect (Fenway favoring Rice more than a typical teammate) but was close to what one would expect given the Fenway park factor you quoted.
The conventional wisdom of the time was that Fenway did not give Rice a huge added boost (unlike the lefties like Yaz or Boggs). Lefties could pull it around the Pesky Pole, use the huge right field for average, or inside-out the ball to get soft fly balls off the wall (Boggs' approach). Plus they got an over-abundance of right-handed pitchers. Rice was more of a line-drive hitter and would have needed to add more uppercut to loft them over the Green Monster; instead he hit rockets that dented the tin covering on the wall about 10-20 feet up, going for doubles.
Are you a career voter? McGwire's rate numbers simply staggering, but I suppose it was an injury-riddled 7600 PA.
Belle was better in the field. Belle hit a bunch more doubles, Kiner hit a few more HR - it's a lot easier to rack up black in an 8 team league than in a 14-team league. Reason number 9,729,112 why I think ink is essentially useless.
Kiner 149 OPS+ 6256 PA (6581 if you adjust from 154 to 162 games).
Belle 143 OPS+ in 6673 PA - only that doesn't adjust for the DH, which costs Belle a few points of OPS+.
Belle has 90.0 WARP3 to Kiner's 76.4. That does adjust for the DH. I like Belle's peak better too.
I think they are basically the same player - Kiner very slightly better hitter, Belle a better fielder. There's no way one is in and the other is out.
Don't get me wrong, I felt Kiner was a mistake in the Hall of Merit - maybe he deserved eventual election, but there are others in the backlog I like a lot better. But there's no justification for honoring Kiner and not Belle - there are very few cases of more similar players out there - the two are a spitting image of each other.
I also don't buy the - being a jerk or nice guy is the tie-breaker - idea, to me it's irrelevant.
Hey - Kiner got below 5% once, too!
Why do baseball fans have higher standards than football fans? Why are baseball fans so annoyingly righteous about everything
Everything? Yea baseball fans have such a higher standard about signing kids out of high school than basketall fans . ..
McGwire played about 2% of his career games at DH. He played nearly as many games (28) at third base and right field as he did at DH (37).
1T n/e Cal Ripken, Jr. 111
3 1 Bert Blyleven 97
4 3 Alan Trammell 93
5 2 Goose Gossage 91
Which one doesn't belong?
Cal Ripken........17.0, 15.0, 13.9, 12.5, 10.9 (69.3)..169.1
Bert Blyleven.....12.3, 10.0, 9.2, 8.7, 8.4 (48.6)..142.0
Tony Gwynn........12.1, 10.8, 10.2, 10.0, 9.3 (52.4)..124.3
Alan Trammell.....13.1, 10.5, 10.2, 10.2, 9.7 (53.7)..123.3
Goose Gossage.....10.5, 10.5, 7.8, 7.4, 7.1 (43.3).. 89.5
Why do we feel the need to include relief pitchers in the Hall of Fame. The # 1 requirement to become a relief pitcher is to have been a failed starter. If you're a successful starting pitcher you never get a shot as a reliever, except through age or injury late in your career. Becoming a reliever is always a back-up alternative when starting becomes impractical. In 1976 Gossage made 29 starts with a 9-17 record and 90+ ERA. It's hard to consider
In 1,809 career innings he had a 1,502/732 K/BB ratio, hardly impressive for an elite closer. For comparison Rivera is 783/226. Wagner is 934/238. Hoffman is 965/250. Francisco Rodriguez is 420/130.
Dec 10,1976 - Traded by White Sox with Terry Forster to Pirates for Silvio Martinez and Richie Zisk.
Feb 12,1988 - Traded by Padres with Ray Hayward to Cubs for Mike Brumley and Keith Moreland.
Mar 28,1989 - Released by Cubs.
Aug 10,1989 - Claimed on waivers by Yankees from Giants.
He played 21 seasons for nine different teams. What's up with this?
Gossage served up three of the more memorable and majestic home runs in major-league history. On Oct. 10, 1980, Kansas City's George Brett hit a tide-turning three-run homer off Gossage into Yankee Stadium's right-field upper deck to lead the Royals to a three-game sweep in the American League Championship Series. Almost three years later during the regular season, Brett got to the Goose again in the Bronx, blasting a go-ahead two-run home run in the top of the ninth in a game memorialized as the "Pine Tar Game." A year later as a member of the Padres, Gossage yielded Kirk Gibson's three-run blast into the third deck at Tiger Stadium, which capped off the Detroit Tigers' 8-4 win in the fifth and deciding game of the 1984 World Series.
Mostly, I'll let my successors count the ways.
But I notice none of those 'big HRs' came in 1981, when Goose saved 6 games in three playoff series in 14.3 IP with 15 K, 4 BB, and a 0.00 ERA.
Wait, that's cherry-picking - is that fair?
Oh, I guess it is.
P.S. I'm not a big fan of relievers, in general, but geesh!
My system for rating pitchers, which takes leverage into account, inherited runners, etc.; shows Gossage as clearly in, without any reliever bonus.
And the number one requirement for being a reliever isn't being a failed starter, that's just a ridiculously biased comment. The number one requirement for being an ace reliever is durability (the ability to pitch multiple times per week), followed closely by having one extremely good pitch.
Ace relievers haven't been mainly 'failed starters' since before WWII. Miscast starter is a much better phrase than failed starter.
I still don't understand the reliever bias out there. Managers make a conscious decision to trade quantity for quality and leverage. If it didn't work, if it wasn't more efficient; we wouldn't have evolved to this system.
If you haven't noticed, K's are at an all-time high right now. Compare Goose to some 1970s and 1980s closers please.
As an example, I've got Rivera slightly behind Rollie Fingers right now as the 4th best reliever ever. He'll pass Fingers next year, assuming nothing bad happens, but Fingers' 2560 LI innings compared to Rivera's 1475 (or so) are slighty more valuable than Rivera's 200-123 DRA+ (my stat, replaces ERA+) advantage. But it's very close.
But that tells you how good a modern guy has to be to compare to a Wilhelm, Gossage or Fingers.
February 25, 1972: Traded by the St. Louis Cardinals to the Philadelphia Phillies for Rick Wise.
That's on the Steve Carlton page. He must have sucked too.
Yeah, in his late 30s, Gossage moved around the league a little, he must have really sucked by then. Except that from age 39-42 his ERA+ were 113, 132, 92 and 117 - so he could still pitch a little, even then. That's why he was allowed to pitch until he was 42.
Rub it it, why don't you? Did you have to bring that up?
Rivera's best season, 2001 scores as 6.7 WAR in my system. Gossage's 1977 scores at 10.6, Fingers' 1981 (adjusted for season length) scores at 9.3, Hiller's 1973 is 12.3.
Of course Rivera closes ground because his 7th best season (4.8) is the best anyone has ever had (Goose's was 4.7), he's been able to do it longer than anyone else at such a high level.
But that's also partially because of his relatively (compared to the 1970s guys) light workload.
19 G, 5-3, 8 SV; 31.3 IP, 29/7 K/BB, 21 H, 2.87 ERA. Using Palmer's formula, that estimated leverage of 2.87. Those are pretty good numbers if you ask me. His teams won 5 of the 8 series; in one of those he pitched great, but they lost anyway (the 1981 WS), and in the other two, he gave up the big dingers mentioned above. I guess he wasn't perfect.
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