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Hall of Merit— A Look at Baseball's All-Time Best
Saturday, September 08, 2007
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1. John (You Can Call Me Grandma) Murphy Posted: September 08, 2007 at 07:59 PM (#2516778)He should be in the Museum part of the Hall of Fame, most definitely.
By the way, for Dean I have 136-92 and 35. Dean is not on my ballot.
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Totally useless split, presented for entertainment value only:
Saberhagen, even-numbered years: 74-55 and 2
Saberhagen, odd-numbered years: 100-56 and 26.
I disagree with "ahead of Stieb," but I do say they're close.
As for Hershiser: more bulk than Saberhagen, big years not quite as big. I have Hershiser's equivalent record as 191-157, which makes the difference Orel - Bret = 17-46. I take 17-46 as being a net negative, hence Saberhagen > Hershiser. On the other hand, I have Stieb - Bret = 16-16, which is a mild net positive.
He finished with as many wins as walks in 1994 (Mets) and missed by one in 1999 (Red Sox), losing his final game 1-0.
Ramon Martinez came back at the same time ('99 Red Sox), not quite so well.
So yeah, I'm agreeing with OCF who had Stieb > Saberhagen > Hershiser
DRA+ 128. 2863 IP. Ranks 35 in Pennants Added. Ranks 27 using my scores and James' NHBA scoring. Ranks #35 w/JAWS.
Stan Coveleski, Urban Shocker and Amos Rusie are good comps for him (similar tIP and DRA+).
That peak is no joke.
1989 - 9.4
1994 - 7.9
1985 - 7.3
1987 - 7.2
1991 - 5.8
That's damn good.
His defenses weren't very good either.
I knew he was good, never realized he was that good.
Yes, yes it was. Maddux/Glavine/Smoltz before they really existed, to my mind at the time.
That peak is no joke.
No kidding. Saberhagen was one helluva pitcher. Of course he's not HoF, but still.
Toss the WS MVP on top of the CYA in 1985 and it's about as good of a year as a pitcher can put up. I think peak voters should give him the benefit of the extra credit in 1985.
If you like peaks, Dawson and Puckett are considerably better choices than Saberhagen.
What? You can argue that Saberhagen's peak is just too short, certainly, but neither Puckett's nor Dawson's peak is close to his at all. Saberhagen's top three years are at Dizzy Dean level in terms of short uber-peak.
I'd also argue Saberhagen had five seasons ('85, '87, '89, '91, and '94) better than any of John's , and one more ('99) about as good as John's best. YMMV, of course, but just to show where this peak voter is coming from.
Bret took advantage of the big park in K.C. He was gopher-ball prone...but not in KC :)
Lifetime, he allowed 60% more home runs on the road (134 to 84).
Right, thus the Dean comparison.
In John's best years, he threw many more innings than Saberhagen's 1991/94 campaigns with comparable effectiveness, once you treat ERA+ rather than DIPS+ (or equivalent) as the more relevant standard.
Even if that's true, that would be an argument for elevating John, not for reducing the still remarkable peak of Saberhagen, which remains far more impressive, IMO, than those of Dawson or Puckett. I think you may be confusing peak with prime to argue for those two guys as better peak candidates than Saberhagen. As the Commish said, that peak is no joke.
As for John, I'll give his numbers another look with that in mind--but I'm not a career voter by any stretch, so he'd really have to get a massive boost from such an adjustment to get close to my ballot. He's very, very far from it right now.
I still can't believe we dealt him for friggin Kevin McReynolds, Gregg Jeffries and Keith Miller.
If you're going to give Saberhagen "lockout pay" for 1994, you'll probably want to do the same for John in 1981. But yes, if you do that, you could end up with Saberhagen having 4 better seasons than John's best.
The Saberhagen/Cone comparison is kind of interesting. Cone's best year was diminished by the lockout.
Rest assured, I do.
It's hard to compare outfielders to starting pitchers,
Agreed, and I don't have a ton of faith in the way WARP or WS or any uberstat does so. I prefer to see how well candidates do compared to others of their own kind, as it were. And Sabes's peak, to my mind, short though it is, stands out a lot more among other pitchers' than Dawson's and Puckett's do among other outfielders'.
Haven't done Cone yet, but I imagine his '94 will be quite impressive, yes.
Like Pete Browning, prorated, or Albert Belle.
Wait 'til next year!
There are 232 pitchers with 2500 mlb innings and 468 batters with 6500 mlb plate appearances (approx) --baseball-reference update yesterday.
6500 plate appearances is Elmer Flick, Frank Baker, Joe Gordon.
And yes, the 1994 work stoppage was a strike. The memory plays tricks, but "strike pay" works better than "lockout pay" anyway.
And I also woulda thought that Hershiser was a better candidate, but maybe not. (OTOH he is a BG grad, that is worth a big bonus).
Yeah, me too, until I ran the numbers. I had this coming election slated as two-pHOM-slots-to-the backlog for sure before then! Boy, is Tommy Leach going to be disappointed... ;)
Saberhagen, even-numbered years: 74-55 (...)
Saberhagen, odd-numbered years: 100-56
Another pitcher with very similar splits... Tom Seaver:
Odd-numbered years W/L: 178-88
Even-numbered W/L: 133-117
even: 29-12 (1994 + 1998 ; dnp 1996 and 2000)
odd: 18-15 (1995+97+99+01)
He earned a lot of money and perhaps advanced to HOM viable candidacy, but he messed up his pattern.
Seaver, odd-numbered: 182-95, big years score 73
Seaver, even-numbered: 148-106, big years score 20
The split is still there, but using the RA+ equivalent records flattens it out some. And the even-years Seaver was still a heckuva pitcher, just a little win-unlucky.
I would take even-years Seaver (his "bad" side) as a better candidate than odd-years Saberhagen (his "good" side).
> Saberhagen, odd-numbered years: 100-56
Beginning 1994 Saberhagen is
even: 29-12 (1994 + 1998 ; dnp 1996 and 2000)
odd: 18-15 (1995+97+99+01)
1992: 3-5
1993: 7-7
Kansas City (first eight seasons),
even 36-48
odd, 74-30
This does not add up. At least, the original whole-career split does not add up to the whole-career total 167-117.
which of course is like Tommy John's career on speed.
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