I think he falls short, but I wouldn't mind another Met cap in the HoM. :-)

Would he get a Mets cap?

I think he might be the most interesting candidate (as in, closest to the in/out line) this year.

Sabes looks better to me, but not by all that much.

It's close, Juan, but he had more value as a Met than as a Yankee.

One word: Laredo.

His motion was really interesting in that he kind of dipped then drove. Not exactly drop and drive, there was this notable hitching in his back knee. I don't know if that makes sense exactly, but if you saw him, you might know what i mean.

Worse than Saberhagen. Better than Hershiser.

Makes my ballot ahead of Lee Smith (who is PHOM), behind Saberhagen.

Better than Hershiser.

And forever connected to Hershiser by their fates in 1988. They both had awesome regular seasons -- Cone probably should've finished as the CYA runner-up, but finished 3rd behind Hershiser and Danny Jackson. And then in the 1988 NLCS, Hershiser's role has, obviously, been well-chronicled. Cone's, OTOH, hasn't been as long-remembered.

Cone agreed to "write" a column for the New York Post, which turned out to be a very bad idea. Don't know who actually wrote the thing for him, but the write-up after Game 1 was a doozy. The Mets had rallied for three in the 9th off Dodgers closer Jay Howell to win the game, 3-2. Cone described Howell as a "high school pitcher" whom the Mets knew they could get to. Lovely stuff, which as you might expect fired up the Dodgers (managed by ever calm Tommy Lasorda, who of course said nothing whatsoever about it . . . .) for Game 2 . . . and scheduled starter David Brian Cone. Mr. Cone's line for
Game 2:

2 5 5 5 2 2

Ouch. The Mets lost that bad boy, 6-3 and the series hurtled towards its awful conclusion.

Cone's journalistic career did NOT continue for the rest of the NLCS, by the way . . . Davey and Frank Cashen made sure of that. And he later redeemed himself with a brilliant Game 6 performance back at Dodger Stadium (complete game, five hitter) that kept the Mets alive and set Hershiser up for his Game 7 brilliance.

At his best, Cone had some truly unhittable stuff. Just filthy. Arguably, getting him for Ed Hearn was the greatest single rip-off trade ever made by a Mets' GM.

Don't know who actually wrote the thing for him

Bob Klapisch says in <u>The Worst Team Money Could Buy</u> (p. 40):

Behind my back, my old buddy Mex was raging about the column I'd written with Dave Cone for the Daily News.

You remember the Column. In it, Cone called Jay Howell a "high school pitcher" -- resulting in a pummeling from the Dodgers in Game Two of the NLCS. It was a bad choice of words by Cone, and a bad decision by me to let it appear in print.

I can believe that Klapisch isn't BSing and they actually did "co-write" it. Cone grew up wanting to be a sportswriter (don't have a cite for that -- Angell's book would probably have it -- but it was said all the time, anyway.) Which is probably one of the big reasons sportswriters loved him too much. There aren't too many MLB players like that.

But, even if writers were predisposed to like him, he did seem like an exceptionally good guy, genuine and self-effacing. Certainly a very smart guy, both off the field, and as a pitcher; the latter became especially apparent once he no longer had the devastating stuff and started getting wacky with his delivery and pitches in Tiant/Duque fashion. I hated that he came in to get Piazza in the 2000 WS, but it was very appropriate. Where did he go, anyway?? Sure as hell seems like he could be a great coach or announcer.

Hall of Very Good for sure, and would be HOF with two or three more good seasons.

Ah, thanks, DA -- I had recalled it was the Post; I guess it was the Daily News, as Klapisch relates it that way. Daily News, or Post, "a bad choice of words" is one heck of an understatement! That was one of many strange turns and twists of fate in that series, and one of the many "What ifs?" that emerged from it.

Speaking of that 1988 Mets' rotation, how long has it been since there has been one like it? They had five starters who ALL had at least 185 innings pitched, AND 100 ERA+ or better. Think about that for a second. What kind of ridiculous starting pitching depth is that? And there wasn't a single flukilicious guy in the bunch, either. This was:

Dwight Gooden (248.3 IP, 102 ERA+, 18-9) -- 194 career wins
Ron Darling (240.7 IP, 100 ERA+, 17-9) -- 136 career wins
David Cone (231.3 IP, 146 ERA+, 20-3) -- 194 career wins
Bob Ojeda (190.3 IP, 113 ERA+, 10-13) -- 115 career wins
Sid Fernandez (187 IP, 107 ERA+, 12-10) -- 115 career wins

Man, what I wouldn't give for a rotation full of guys who could give the Mets 200 innings apiece with an average 114 ERA+ in 2008 . . . .

ED HEARN!!!!!!

The '03 Mariners had a pretty good rotation. 5 guys made at least 32 starts and had ERA+'s of 132, 121, 114, 95, 94.

I have him better than Saberhagen, who made my 2006 ballot.

Cone 3.80 DERA, 2900 IP. 214 PRAA, 916 PRAR
Saberhagen 3.57 DERA, 2562 IP, 254 PRAA, 868 PRAR

I could be convinced perhaps that BPro's replacement level is too low, but it looks to me like Cone has the slightly superior record.

I like Cone better than Saberhagen too. Giving him full credit for 1994-95 helps too.

this year's Cubs weren't that far off, actually--only 19 starts from Marshall, but 152/5 guys and lowest ERA+ of 101....

The 2005 Cardinals were the last team to have 5 starters with 185 innings and a 100 ERA+ or better. They were the first team to do it since the 1988 Mets.

Other teams to do it:

1977 LA
1973 LA
1949 DET
1944 PIT
1931 St.L Cards
1925 PIT
1924 PIT
1923 NYY
1922 NYY
1920 BRK
1912 Boston Red Sox
1911 NYG
1910 NYG
1909 Philly A's
1908 Pit
1907 Cubs
1905 NYG
1904 Cubs
1904 Reds
1902 Pit

In the RA+ PythPat system:

Saberhagen: 174-111, for 169 FWP. Best five years of 21-8. 19-10, 18-8, 14-6, 13-8. Was 14-6 in 1994 and 9-8 in 1995.

Cone: 190-132, for 169 FWP. Best five years of 18-10, 14-5, 16-9, 15-7, 16-9. Was 14-5 in 1994 and 16-9 in 1995.

As for 1988, I have Cone at 16-9 and Hershiser at 20-10. It's definitely Hershiser's Cy Young.

So I put the difference between Cone and Saberhagen at 16-21, which is pretty close to a wash. Saberhagen has an outlier single best year that Cone doesn't have, and is better in his 2nd and 3rd best years, but Cone was better in his 4th-5th-6th-7th best years.. Both lost out on very good 1994 seasons; Cone was also good in 1995 (losing less time to that) while Saberhagen wasn't so good.

The DERA results in Chris's post #14 track pretty closely with this - Cone less effective per inning in more innings. (The differences in defense behind them couldn't have been large.)

The Jays actually came somewhat close this year:

Roy Halladay [120 ERA+ / 225 1/3 IP]
A.J. Burnett [119 / 169 2/3]
Dustin McGowan [109 / 165 2/3]
Shawn Marcum [108 /159]
Jesse Litsch [117 / 111]

A tad short on innings, but pretty stinking good...

I like Cone better than Saberhagen too. Giving him full credit for 1994-95 helps too.

war credit is something but strike credit :^?

war credit is something but strike credit :^?

I don't think Joe is giving strike credit per se, but instead adjusting the season for comparison with other 162 game seasons. No different than adjusting pre-1961 seasons or similarly affected seasons (1972,1981,1994,1995).

Correct Esteban. I mean I guess you could call it 'strike' credit, but it's 'short-season' credit, which I apply for everyone.

It's not like David Cone could have singlehandedly prevented the strike anyway - and the strike most certainly wasn't a function of his skill set, like an injury is.

Forgive me for asking a dumb question, but why doesn't Cone's 2003 campaign delay his eligibility for the HOM?

Because it's 5 games, 18 IP. We've always had rules for ignoring "token" appearances on rosters when we determine eligibility - I can't cite the exact numbers of what is considered token, but Cone 2003 qualifies. That's another little procedural rule in which the HoM differs from the HoF. For instance, we also have no 10-year minimum. (It is rather hard to accumulate enough value in a less-that-10-year career, but that's a question that calls for the judgement of the voters.)

To discount token appearances, a player becomes eligible 5 years after the first time he plays fewer than 10 games in the field or pitches in fewer than 5 games, assuming he never plays in 10/pitches in 5 games again. If he does play in 10/pitch in 5 games later in his career, the HoM ballot committee will determine in which year the player’s HoM eligibility begins.

I should have read the HOM constitution...

Hey, did you hear Rowling said that Grumbledook was gay! I think it was Grumbledook.

So.. I decided to run him first among 2007 newbies, and... Is he Saberhagen's long lost identical twin?

At 1999, David Cone seemed like a very good potential HOFer--Neyer and Epstein note that it seems likely he'd get to 200 wins very soon and with a fine winning percentage likely, he could get in. But in 2000, Cone imploded, his 2001 "Renaissance" was brief, and that was effectively it. There was a good chance that he could get 200 wins and a winning percentage over .600. Of course, Kevin Brown HAS 200 wins and isn't that far from .600, and he's not getting in.

Kevin Brown is so far beyond qualified I don't even know where to begin. Maybe he's not Bert Blyleven, but he seems like a n-b to me. I think he's the best modern-era pitcher after the Big Four, ahead of Glavine, Schilling, Smoltz, Mussina, and Cone in some order.

I don't think Brown has much of a shot at the Hall of Fame. But I agree with you, Dan, that he's a virtual lock to get into the Hall of Merit.

If they'd actually given Brown the NL Cy Young in 1996 when he deserved it (instead of Smoltz), that would have helped his HoF case. And what about 2003 when his 1-inning teammate Gagne won the CY? There's at least a case for Brown that year. And he was at least in the CY mix on some other occasions. I haven't done his RA+ Pythpat yet (or Smoltz either), but a 127 ERA+ over more than 3000 IP - that's a pretty good start of a claim. (I suspect I'll find his RA+ to be a little worse than his ERA+, since GB pitchers get more errors behind them, but he'll still look awfully good.)

I like Hershiser better than Cone though I haven't looked at all the angles. How is Cone better?

Cone versus Hershiser, RA+ system:

Hershiser: 191-157, best 5 years 20-10, 18-10, 17-9, 17-12, 13-8. Best five years fit into a six-year span (1984-1989).

Cone: 190-132, best 5 years 18-10, 14-5 (strike-shortened), 16-9, 16-9, 16-12. Best five years a little more widely scattered, but from 1988 through 1999, 10 out of the 12 years were good (13-10 or better). (Hershiser only had six years that were that good.)

See posts #14 and 15 (Chris Cobb and Joe Dimino). I think both Saberhagen and Cone are clearly ahead of Hershiser. I haven't made up my mind yet about Saberhagen versus Cone, but I'm also not mounting any argument against what Chris and Joe said.

Adding Hershiser to data from post 14:

Cone 3.80 DERA, 2900 IP. 214 PRAA, 916 PRAR
Saberhagen 3.57 DERA, 2562 IP, 254 PRAA, 868 PRAR
Hershiser 4.14 DERA, 3130 IP, 123 PRAA, 847 PRAR</i>

An interesting trio. Hershiser has about as many more innings over Cone as Cone has over Saberhagen; Cone has a .34 DERA advantage over Hershiser, while Saberhagen has a .23 DERA advantage over Cone. PRAR balances playing time and effectiveness in favor of Cone and Saberhagen over Hershiser.

However, Hershiser was 9 wins better than his DERA would indicate (if WARP is correct), while Cone was even and Saberhagen was -3, so depending on how much stock you put into win-based analysis, Hershiser might indeed have a case v. Cone and Saberhagen in one's system.

Batting value would also be relevant to this comparison.

Since we had the digression on Kevin Brown, I did go look him up.

RA+ equivalent record: 216-146. Best five years of 20-6, 20-9, 18-8, 18-8, 16-7.

Matches Cone with 10 years of 10 equivalent FWP (roughly 13-10 or 12-9) or better, but mostly Brown's good years are MUCH better than that. Cone's best year is about as good as Brown's 5th best.

Yes, going to RA instead of ERA does deflate him a little. His 1996 year is an RA+ of "only" 195 (it was an ERA+ of 216 and it's the 20-6 year on the above list.) The whole record matches an RA+ of 121, not 127.

That career record is Cone plus 26-14. It's Saberhagen plus 42-35. It's Hershiser plus 25-(-11). I assume he would go onto Chris's tabulation with a lower DERA than Saberhagen (although that Beltre/Izturis/Cora infield in 2003 was awfully good) and more innings than Hershiser.

I can think of one caveat or caution, which is that ERA for starting pitchers decentralized in the LaRussized LOOGY-setup-closer era, and we saw many more super ERA+/RA+ years (like Brown's 1996). In Dan R's terms, that's a possible standard deviation issue.

I think there's no question that top SP have an ERA+ advantage in this era where they pitch many fewer innings. Well, perhaps not "no question" but it seems very probable. Not just being removed from games earlier, but rested/DL'd much more often than in the past. Pitchers pitch many fewer innings when not close to 100% than they used to. You cannot directly compare ERA+ across eras for that reason. I wasn't around for Marichal, but I don't think Mussina could compare to him, despite IP/ERA+ similarities.

Pitchers with fewer IP would be more volatile both ways, I think.

That's in addition to the advantage of being well rested and all of that. Remember Jake Peavy in the all-star game a couple years ago. Knowing he would pitch only one or two innings, he threw the ball an extra 5 mph faster, if I recall.

But the second matter is just the statistical one. With fewer IP, your ERA would go up or down more and faster for each outing. Like the closers--think Joe Borowski with 45 good outings, a couple bad ones and an ERA of about 5.

So I wonder. In an era when SP throw fewer IP, how good of an indicator is ERA? I wonder if OOB or WHIP or Quality Starts doesn't become more useful, or maybe they were/are always useful. Maybe ERA was never as good a measure as we think?

Brown by BP: The durability of Hershiser, the effectiveness of Cone+:

Cone 3.80 DERA, 2900 IP. 214 PRAA, 916 PRAR
Saberhagen 3.57 DERA, 2562 IP, 254 PRAA, 868 PRAR
Hershiser 4.14 DERA, 3130 IP, 123 PRAA, 847 PRAR
Brown 3.74 DERA, 3256 IP, 259 PRAA, 1069 PRAR

And, as has been pointed out, Brown had an outstanding peak.

I think it's safe to say that with Brown we are looking at a certain HoMer. Cone seems probable, Saberhagen possible, Hershiser a longshot.

Brown was just nasty. Period.

OCF, the standard deviation of RA+ was indeed at all-time highs post 1993. That corresponds with lower seasonal innings totals, which keeps the overall value similar to that of the 1970's guys. But the idea that "the market" sorts out the durability-vs-effectiveness quandary by itself, allowing you to simply compare raw WARP totals across eras, is mistaken, because there was a transitional period (the 1980's) when you had much lower seasonal IP but didn't yet have the high standard deviation. This is why it "appears" that there were no great pitchers in the 1980's, and why my ballot has Reuschel, Saberhagen, and even Doc Gooden on it.

Brown was just nasty. Period.

"High-K groundball pitcher" isn't exactly a common historical description, is it? (Of course, Dan might have been talking about his personality.)

Tiant IP 3263 251 PRAA, 1047 PRAR. DERA is 3.91 but that includes 1980-1982 which I have taken out of the other numbers. I think he resembles Kevin Brown more than he resembles David Cone.

Can someone explain how Kevin Brown is an easy HoM pitcher but Tiant can't crack the top 10? I know he isn't Marichal - the innings were spread out over a longer period of time. Still, I think he's clearly worthy.

League quality adjustments are key in evaluating Brown. In his AL career through age 30, he was a good but not great pitcher, encapsulated by his 110 ERA+ at that point. He moved to the NL (in the most favourable environments) and thrived. Pitchers can, of course, take off at age 30, but you probably have to let some air out for the league differences.

None of that means that he's not qualified, but merely that when comparing him with Mike Mussina, say, the argument that he was better needs to be made carefully.

Dan, what SD adjustments should we be using, year by year - do you have that (back to 1871)? Can you email it if posting would be too clumsy here?

I think there's no question that top SP have an ERA+ advantage in this era where they pitch many fewer innings.

They pitch fewer innings, AND they have less start-to-start deviation in IP. In the old days, pitchers were removed *much* more often in the first three innings when they didn't *have it* than they are today. This doesn't affect the aces as much as it does the lesser starters; the aces will normally have fewer of those 5 IP/7 ER types of starts, and a lot of the time they recover from allowing 2/3 ER in the first couple of innings to post a pretty decent outing, where in the past they might have been pulled in the second or third. This effect also contributes to the ERA+ advantage.

-- MWE

I'm not sure how PRAA and PRAR work, but I think most voters probably notice a 13-point gap in ERA+, as well as the fact that accumulating 3,500 innings in the 60s and 70s was far easier than accumulating 3,300 innings in the 1990s. Here's how I have them breaking down:

Glossary

All numbers are straight-line adjusted to a 162-game season.

IPYr: Innings pitched, straight-line adjusted to a 162-game season.
DERA: BP's DERA (the pitcher's RA+, adjusted for his fielders, expressed as runs allowed per 9 innings in a league scoring 4.5 runs per game with a Pythagorean exponent of 2)
PWA1: Pitching wins above average, calculated by the following formula: IPYr * ((2.25/(20.25+DERA^2))-.0556).
BWA1: Batting wins above overall league average, calculated in the same way as they are for hitters.
LgAdj: Ratio of the 2005 standard deviation of DERA to the regression-projected standard deviation of DERA for the year in question.
PWA2: Pitching wins above average, adjusted for the standard deviation of DERA.
BWA2: Batting wins above average, adjusted for the hitting standard deviation.
Replc: Standard deviation-adjusted wins above average (combining hitting and pitching) that a replacement starting pitcher would have had in the same innings and plate appearances. Replacement starting pitching is fixed at 2.1 wins below average per 200 innings pitched (for now--I'm figuring out how to float it); replacement hitting is the offense of a league-average starting pitcher.
IPTrn: Ratio of the innings pitched of IP leaders in 2005 to the ratio of IP leaders for the year in question. IP leaders are calculated as the average IPYr of pitchers ranked #X/2 to #3X/2 in IP in the major leagues, where X is the number of teams in the major leagues.
WARP: Wins above replacement, calculated as (PWAA2+BWAA2-Replc)*IPTrans.

aTTL is career totals excluding sub-replacement seasons.

Note: some numbers do not add up exactly because the league average DERA in any given season is not actually 4.50 as BP claims it is--it's always lower, sometimes by a little, sometimes by more than a little. I've corrected for this so that total pitching wins above average always sum to 0 for every league-season. Also, career totals will not exactly match real-life ones due to adjusting strike seasons for length.

Tiant probably deserves credit for leverage in '66 and '72 which I am not giving him, but he'd also have to be compared to a higher replacement level. Even if those factors don't even out exactly, it's not enough to substantially change his ranking.


Kevin Brown



3-year peak: 23.6
7-year prime: 46.1
Career: 66.3


Luis Tiant



3-year peak: 19.4
7-year prime: 38.1
Career: 56.7

Tiant is not a bad candidate; I've voted for him in the past. But it's clearly a backlog resume; there are plenty of guys who beat him on all of peak, prime, and career. Brown, by contrast, is a no-brainer--he would be the #1 backlogger on all three measures.

Let me know if you have any questions on the methodology.

Joe, I can definitely email you stdev adjustments, but only for the 1893-2005 period I work with. Sorry. :(

Sorry about the typo--Tiant threw 72.3 innings in 1971, not 702. Oops. None of the other numbers should be affected.

>Can someone explain how Kevin Brown is an easy HoM pitcher but Tiant can't crack the top 10?

1990s
1. Clemens
2. Maddux
3. Glavine
4. Unit
5. Brownie (heckuva job)
6. Smoltz
7. Cone
8. Mussina
9. Pedro (in halfa decade)
10. Schilling

1970s

1. Seaver
2. Palmer
3. P. Niekro
4. G. Perry
5. Blyleven
6. Jenkins
7. Carlton
8. Ryan
9. Sutton
10. Hunter
11. Ryan
12. Tiant

YMMV but...

Thanks for the email Dan - no issue on the SD pre-1893 because I consider those guys separately anyway. Thanks again.

sunnyday, you have Ryan listed twice on your '70s list. Also, my mileage varies in that I would take Tiant ahead of Hunter for sure, as well as the unlisted Kaat and John. Still, I agree with your point in general: Tiant is 10th for his era, while Brown is 5th.

That's the 2 halves of Ryan's career.

NOT.

My error.

Where does Tiant rank in the 60's? He's only a couple years younger than Marichal.

In order to get Tiant to 12th you had to list Ryan twice and slot in the obviously inferior Hunter. Tiant is top 10.

I concede that I listed Ryan twice. I don't concede that Hunter was obviously inferior to Tiant. Caveat, I'm a peak/prime WS voter.

Hunter is one of those guys who is so over-rated, he's under-rated. Keep in mind they threw in the same environment, the AL 1964-1982 (Tiant), Catfish was '65-'79. Hunter threw just as many innings over his career as Tiant, 3449 vs. Luis' 3486. Catfish threw 10 consecutive seasons of 234 IP or more, with an average of about 277.5 IP per year. Catfish threw about 150 more IP in the '60s (though 8 years younger), Tiant threw about 225 in the '80s, there were only 75 IP worth of difference in the '70s. Tiant's prime stretches from age 25 to 39 with 4 non-prime seasons mixed in. Hunter's was age 21-29 with a couple < 100 OPS+ seasons mixed in. If it's noteworthy that Tiant threw into his 40s and Hunter barely made it into his 30s, then it's also noteworthy that Catfish was throwing in the MLs at age 20.

Hunter had 7 "prime" years, meaning ?100 OPS+ and ERA title eligible. He threw about 1750 IP in those 6 years with ERA+ 143-40-34-13-6-3. Not a historic high OPS+ but combined with a big workload for that day... And his 2 year peak of peaks was really outstanding, I think we forget that. 48 wins, led the league in ERA at 2.49 one year, led the league in OOB both years. His 5 year consecutive peak was 116 WS (I don't really care about consecutive or not, it's just that Hunter's was).

Hunter's career OOB is .285, Tiant was .297 in the same league environment. Hunter's ERA was 3.26, Tiant's 3.30, yeah, I get the park factors, but they're in the same ballpark, figuratively. Hunter won 224 games, Luis 229.

Tiant had 10 prime years (to Hunter's 6), and Tiant's best year was certainly better than Catfish's best. Or was it? In '68 Tiant had that supernatural year, 1.60 ERA, 185 OPS+, .168 OBA, .233 OOB. in 258 IP. 28 WS; both of them had 29 WS years. Tiant's 2nd "great" year, the 1.91, was in 179 IP. Not bad, but 19 WS. Catfish was 2.04 in 295 IP, 24 WS that year. Then came his real prime, 1973-76, as measured by WS. (His 1968 was followed by seasons of 11-8-1 WS). 1973-76 he averaged about 280 IP per year at ERA+ 132-28-20-2. Add '72 back in and that's worth 108 WS. That was followed by 3 more years at OPS+ 99-120-105 in modest workloads. Other than 1968, his best ERA+ in ? 200 IP was 132.

Tiant earned 256 WS, Catfish just 206. Catfish earned 189 of those in 11 consecutive ERA eligible years. Tiant earned 214 in 12 ERA eligible years, each about 18 per year.

Career--Tiant had more seasons and more WS and leads on ERA+ 114-104. Catfish threw as many innings and won just as many games.

Prime--again, Tiant had more prime years but with a smaller workload. Hunter had 10 years and Tiant 8 of 200+ IP.

Peak--Tiant had the one obvious year (though it only earned 28 WS; both Hunter and Tiant had 29 WS years). But Hunter has a slightly better consecutive peak, and just eye-popping workloads.

If Tiant is better, it's close. I wouldn't argue Catfish being better too strenuously though the particular list I grabbed (above) sees it that way. Hunter has been under-rated but I'm not saying he's HoM, I don't have him PHoM by any means. I think Tiant is fairly close to Hunter. They're both somewhere around 8-9-10-11th for their era.

My two cents on where the pitchers mentioned above rate on a career value scale designed so that 300 means you are fully qualified for the Hall of Fame:

279 Kevin Brown
260 Bret Saberhagen
251 David Cone
237 Luis Tiant
232 Orel Hershiser
210 Jim Hunter

My system takes into account IP, ERA, SO, BB, WHIP, complete games, shutouts, and saves,
all relative to era, win pct relative to team, and post-season performance.

I think he's the best modern-era pitcher after the Big Four, ahead of Glavine, Schilling, Smoltz, Mussina, and Cone in some order.

My initial reaction, before looking anything up, is that theres no way he was better than Curt Schilling, and this is coming from someone with no love for the Red Sox.

With Glavine, its obviously a peak/career issue, which I won't bother getting into.

With Schilling, his best years match up very well against Brown. Maybe he loses points because unlike Brown, he didn't put his best 5 years together in a row, but I don't see why that has to be a big deal.

Record wise, simple version, they are both very similar and so is John Smoltz.

207-145 127 ERA+
211-144 127
216-146 127

If you can't tell go look up which record belongs to who.

I would give the edge to both Smoltz and Schilling based on their postseason records.

Tom Glavine has 300 wins and a helluva resume including a Cy Young. I'd say we can call it a 'Big 5', not Big 4.

Ah, can I respectfully disagree? Again, using my career values briefly described above, here is what I have for active starting pitchers:

403 Roger Clemens
360 Pedro Martinez
359 Randy Johnson
355 Greg Maddux

303 Curt Schilling
299 John Smoltz (includes his relief pitching)
297 Mike Mussina!
285 Tom Glavine

Let's not go overboard with our praises of Glavine.

Glavine has two Cy Youngs. But I agree with Rob - he's comfortably below the big four.

Dan R., could you post numbers for Rick Reuschel in the same format you have posted them for Tiant and Brown above? It would be very helpful to see his SD scores and IPtrans. broken down season-by-season.

No way, Joe D. Clemens, the Unit, and Maddux all have so much more career value than Glavine (as well as dramatically higher peaks) that they can hardly be mentioned in the same discussion. Pedro and Glavine might be comparable to a *pure* career voter, but with any consideration of peak it's also no context. I agree that Glavine is the cream of the second tier, but he's closer to all of them than he is to the Big Four.

Wow, Rob. Your list in post #56 looks very similar to my rankings. Where would you put Gooden?

My system takes into account IP, ERA, SO, BB, WHIP, complete games, shutouts, and saves,
all relative to era, win pct relative to team, and post-season performance.

How much weight does your system give each factor, and how did you decide on those weightings?

#59 and #56 have the current starters in almost exactly the order and shape that I have them. The Schilling/Smoltz/Mussina grouping is, I agree, very tight, but they're significantly above the backlog pitchers you guys are seriously considering, so separating them is perhaps not so important. Thinking about playoff time gets important because both Schilling and Smoltz have thrown 200 superb innings in the post-season.

And, again, we've had this discussion a dozen times or more over the years. "It's 2007" and we KNOW that Clemens, Maddux, Pedro, Unit, Glavine, Schilling, Smoltz, Mussina and Brown are coming down the pike. Not that they're on the ballot, but we know where Sabes and Conie fit into their generation. And we know that we're short of catchers and 3B.

But, sure, it comes down to whether Cone is "the best" candidate available right now, today. Nobody is going to vote for Elston Howard or Ed Williamson just because of the position they play. But I can't get Cone into the top 10 eligible pitchers, much less the top 3 eligible players period. That would have to be one steep mutha of a timeline.

I can live with Big 4, Glavine, 2nd Tier. Glavine, IMO is clearly ahead of the 2nd tier, but you are correct, he's behind the other 4.

I'd still call it a Big 5, because in terms of Hall of Fame or Merit, the questions start after Glavine, not with him.

Not that they're on the ballot, but we know where Sabes and Conie fit into their generation.

Yes, we do. Sabes isn't in it. Except for Clemens, his best years were when the others were in baseball diapers.

Sabes shouldn't soley be compared to the Clemens, Maddux, Glavine, etc. group, but that doesn't mean there shouldn't be some type of comparison with them. IOW, the comparison should be a weighted one.

If I were going to systematically create 'cohorts' for a pitcher, I'd figure his career pennants added. Find the mid-point of his career (the year in witch a pitcher with 1.00 PA earned his .50th PA). Do that for everyone. A pitcher's cohort would then be everyone with a 'mid-point' season that is within 6 years in either direction.

I get Saberhagen at 1.012 PA.

His midpoint is .506 PA. That was in 1989 (the very tail end of 1989 - at the end of that season he has .509 PA).

So for me, anyone whose mid-point of his career is set at 1983-1995 becomes Saberhagen's 'cohort'.

If this number of pitchers is too big, I'd drop it to 5, then 4, etc. If it's too small, I'd increase it to 7 or 8.

I haven't done this for everyone, but that's how I'd approach it.

I'm not a HOM voter but I was attracted to this thread since Cone was my first favorite player (and remained so basically until he became a Yankee).

Anyway, I have a hard time understanding the rankings in 59. I know he gives credit for Ks, so he's probably penalizing Glavine and Maddux for having good defenses behind them, but still...I have a hard time seeing how Schilling comes out ahead of Glavine, or how Johnson or Pedro come out ahead of Maddux. The difference in innings is just huge.

Just going by ERA+, Glavine is equal to Schilling plus ~1,100 innings of 98 ERA+. Hard for me to believe those 1,100 innings don't have value, especially given Glavine's consistency and durability.

Likewise, the difference between Johnson and Maddux is ~1,000 IP at a 119 ERA+. Or Pedro plus ~2,100 IP at a 111 ERA+. Maddux is basically Pedro's career (to-date) with Mike Hampton's career tacked onto it. And with bonus points, in my mind, for durability and consistency.

If I were going to systematically create 'cohorts' for a pitcher, I'd figure his career pennants added. Find the mid-point of his career (the year in witch a pitcher with 1.00 PA earned his .50th PA). Do that for everyone. A pitcher's cohort would then be everyone with a 'mid-point' season that is within 6 years in either direction.

I get Saberhagen at 1.012 PA.

His midpoint is .506 PA. That was in 1989 (the very tail end of 1989 - at the end of that season he has .509 PA).

So for me, anyone whose mid-point of his career is set at 1983-1995 becomes Saberhagen's 'cohort'.

If this number of pitchers is too big, I'd drop it to 5, then 4, etc. If it's too small, I'd increase it to 7 or 8.

I haven't done this for everyone, but that's how I'd approach it.

I've done that for a bunch of players, using WARP. I also get 1989 as Sabes' midpoint year this way.

To answer one question, my career value rating of Gooden:

219 Dwight Gooden

I am not sure that this is of interest to many, but I'll briefly describe my career value system(s). When Bill James announced in one of his early Abstracts, around 1984 I think, that he was applying his techniques to ranking the all-time greats for an upcoming book (the Historical Abstract), a friend and I co-developed our own systems (one for hitters and one for pitchers) to try to anticipate his results.

We tweaked our systems several times over the years, but they are essentially the same systems today that we originally developed over 20 years ago. They rely almost exclusively on hitters' or pitchers' career stats, though we also have variables reflective of seasonal (or peak) values.

In our system, the bulk of a pitcher's value comes from inning and ERA (both measured relative to his era). We decided to use the average of the top 3 innings per league-season to reflect the "ease" of which it was to rack up innings. I am not sure that this is the best way to do it, but I am pretty happy that it has held up so well over the years.

But we didn't believe that this was 100% of his value. We believed that a pitcher's "peripheral" stats reflected his true value/ability too. Such as strikeouts, walks, baserunners per inning, complete games, shutouts, win pct relative to team, saves, and post-season performance. Of course, every variable was measured relative to his era.

The systems have been documented in a variety of SABR publications over the years, so I won't bother with the details.

Rob, I'm not a big fan of Luis Tiant...I mean, as a HoMer. But even so, you seem to under-rate him a bit. What's your feeling of how he rates in your system. Is it that some of his contemporaries were racking up really big IP totals, or what?

And Glavine, as already discussed, is lower than one might expect. What data points pull him down, or Mussina et all up?

Thanks, Rob. That puts Gooden between Hershiser and Hunter on your list. Once again, we have this cohort ranked in the exact same order.

Here is the data that I use in my pitcher career value system.

IP is the pitcher's innings scaled to the average of top-3 each season
ERA is ERA+ (using slightly different park effect methodology than bb-ref)
WHIP is baserunners per inning adjusted to historical norm (.000)
SO is strikeouts adjusted to historical norm
W500 is win pct relative to team (as if he pitched on a 500 team)
SHO is shutouts adjusted to historical norm
CG is complete games adjusted to historical norm
SOW is strikeout to walk ratio relative to historical norm (.00)
SV is saves, adjusted for ease of modern saves
PS is post-season performance
WMV is resulting career value (where 300 is fully qualified for HOF)

IP ERA WHIP SO W500 SHO CG SOW SV PS WMV
ROGER CLEMENS 5751 144 897 3409 650 69 305 168 0 3.0 404
PEDRO_J. MARTINEZ 3314 161 1012 2093 680 24 162 224 2 2.0 360
RANDY JOHNSON 4628 138 897 3255 656 52 252 179 1 1.5 359
GREG MADDUX 5745 134 892 2257 590 47 311 176 0 0.0 355
CURT SCHILLING 3891 126 908 2103 597 26 205 225 13 7.5 300
MIKE MUSSINA 4130 123 881 1905 612 33 209 196 0 ¯0.5 298
JOHN SMOLTZ 4057 127 868 2055 556 21 192 157 92 7.0 297
TOM GLAVINE 5210 119 775 1764 583 33 263 92 0 0.5 285
KEVIN BROWN 3881 127 834 1704 589 22 206 149 0 1.0 279
BRET SABERHAGEN 2922 125 892 1277 589 23 162 203 1 0.5 256
DAVID CONE 3488 119 807 1947 586 29 173 134 1 3.0 251
LUIS TIANT 3333 113 813 1936 555 46 229 130 15 3.5 235
FRANK TANANA 4406 106 783 2213 524 39 248 131 1 ¯0.5 232
OREL HERSHISER 3640 112 787 1472 567 31 194 111 4 5.0 231
RICK REUSCHEL 3733 114 776 1636 544 28 205 130 5 ¯1.5 227
DWIGHT GOODEN 3179 110 775 1707 619 28 174 135 2 ¯1.5 219
CATFISH HUNTER 3225 104 832 1624 558 35 221 126 1 4.0 206


Glavine vs Mussina: Glavine's advantages = 1,000 IP, 50 CG; Mussina's advantages = 4 points of ERA+, 100 points of WHIP, 150 strikeouts, 30 points of W500, 100 points of SOW. To me advantage to Mussina though I can admit it may be close to others.

Schilling is like Mussina, even more extreme (away from Glavine), with, of course, his great post-season performance on top of it.

Tiant does not look overly great in this heady company. While he was a very good pitcher, his career stats do not add up all that well. For example, his W500 is in the group with Hershisher, Reuschel, and Hunter, far below the other great pitchers in the table. His IP, ERA+, and WHIP are pedestrian as well.

Yikes, my table did not line up. Can someone remind me how to make a table aligned?

Thanks.

Any system that has Tiant closer to Hunter than to the HoF is a good system.

Rob,

Use []s around pre and /pre. And don't let there be any consecutive spaces at all.

One more try with the table:

You can have two consecutive spaces but not three. That's my theory, anyway. Here's my shot at Rob's table.

I've been working on WS above the "median ace." I start with a list of all of the #1 starters on each team, and find the median--the 4th + 5th best/2 for an 8 team league, and so on. Here's who I have studied so far.

Pre-Expansion Backlog

1. Dizzy Dean +39 WS--his median year is +6.5 and he threw 6 prime seasons, it is a coincidence that his +39 = +6.5 X 6, but there it is

2. Bucky Walters +39 WS with a modest WWII discount, I could be persuaded that the discount (10 percent) is not high enough, so he goes behind Diz

3. Don Newcombe +36 WS--this is with about 2.5 years of MiL and 2.5 years of mil MLE credit

4. Wilbur Cooper +33 WS
5. Burleigh Grimes +25 WS
6. Vic Willis +6 WS
7. Addie Joss +1 WS
8. Lefty Gomez -8 WS
9. Tommy Bridges -9 WS
10. Eddie Cicotte -14 WS

Post-Expansion Backlog

1. Orel Hershiser +29 WS
2. Bret Saberhagen +26 WS
3. David Cone +20 WS
4. Luis Tiant +15.5 WS
5. Dwight Gooden +9 WS
6. Jack Morris +2 WS
7. Rick Reuschel -4 WS

HoM/not PHoM Backlog

1. Wes Ferrell +48 WS
2. Jim Bunning +37 WS
3. Dave Stieb +23.5 WS
4. Early Wynn +13 WS
5. Billy Pierce -7 WS

Upcoming

1. Greg Maddux +103 WS
2. Roger Clemens +101 WS
3. Tom Glavine +42 WS
4. Kevin Brown +28 WS

I'm still working on Randy Johnson (est. +42), Pedro (est. +65) and Smoltz (est. +20 for his years as a starting pitcher only).

I was interested to find that for this measure, an awful lot of a pitchers score can tend to come in one or two seasons. Hershiser is +29. His peak is fairly low at +11. For Saberhagen the numbers are +26 with half of that, +13, in one year. For Cone, it's +20 total and +14 for his best year. For Brown it's +28 and +12. For Stieb it's +23.5 and +10. Gooden is the extreme case at +9 total and +17 for his best year. Well, Vic Willis is pretty extreme, too, at +6 total and +16 for his best year.

For others, however, the "value" is spread around. Glavine is +42 with no more than +8 for any one season. For the Big Unit it's +42ish and +12. For Pedro it's +65 with 2 years at +14. Clemens best year was +19 and Maddux was +21, but even with those kind of seasons it's not too concentrated. But of course these are all guys with high career totals.

Just for the record, Newcombe's "actual" is +20 with no MLE credit. If you don't give him any MLE credit, he's obviously not a contender. But even then he's in Saberhagen, Stieb, Cone, Grimes, Tiant and Kevin Brown territory.

And since this is the Cone thread, I'll just say I was shocked to see Cone ahead of Tiant, but of course, think about their cohorts. Still, Cone was no Saberhagen, which you knew, nor Hershiser, which you probably didn't. He's close to Stieb and well ahead of Early Wynn, but that just means Stieb and Wynn are over-rated. And Newcombe is exactly even with no MLE credit whatsoever.

Not sure that it matters for HOM, but somewhere else we had discussed whether Cone was 'good in the clubhouse' due to his many team changes....

http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/newsstand/discussion/si_belth_the_story_behind_the_yankee_years_verducci_interview/

Verducci: We all have known how important Cone was to the success of the Yankees. But in reporting the book I gained an even greater appreciation for his role. He was the de facto captain before Derek Jeter. At every turn—whether it was keeping David Wells in check, counseling Chuck Knoblauch on his playoff gaffe against the Indians, stepping up during the key 1998 clubhouse meeting, knowing how to push the buttons of everybody from George Steinbrenner to Paul O’Neill—Cone was the single most influential player in that clubhouse. I was fascinated when Mussina talked so often about how much those teams missed Cone—and Mussina didn’t even play with Cone. But Cone was so important to those teams that Mussina understood it just by his absence.

83. sunnyday2 Posted: November 01, 2007 at 07:19 AM (#2602269)
I've been working on WS above the "median ace." I start with a list of all of the #1 starters on each team, and find the median--the 4th + 5th best/2 for an 8 team league, and so on. Here's who I have studied so far.

Which seasons count for each pitcher? In other words, what is the criterion for a negative season vs no season? For example you might take every league season and count the top 3T by pitcher starts.

Brock Hanke, 2011 ballot thread, comment #174:

I make a deduction for watching him (Cone) blow up in pressure ballgames early in his career, with the Mets. He may have gotten over that by the time he reached the Yanks.

The normal pattern for pitchers in high-leverage situations is that they trade walks for extra-base hits - OPS is virtually unchanged, as is BA, but the tradeoff is something on the order of 7-8 points of OBP for 7-8 points of SLG.

Cone showed the opposite pattern during his early Mets' career. In situations other than high-leverage plate-appearances while Cone was a Met, he held the opposition to a .225/.294/.337 BA/OBP/SLG against, while allowing an unintentional walk about once per 12.3 PAs. The walk rate went "down" in high leverage (LI > 1.5, about 18% of the PAs against Cone as a Met), to about one unintentional BB for every 12.8 PAs, but teams hit .225/.295/.344 against him in high leverage - the OBP increase is due to intentional walks, which are mostly issued in high leverage PAs. If you adjust for intentional walks, the OBP in high-leverage actually went down by about the same amount as the SLG went up - again a virtually identical OPS, but for Cone it was SLG-heavy instead of OBP-heavy.

This pattern may explain Brock's perception of Cone "blowing up" under pressure as a Met. I haven't run my blown leads analysis on Cone yet (that will have to wait for my DB update to be complete), but I thought this part was interesting enough to share.

-- MWE

Looking at Cone's performance in late-innings while with the Mets, I don't see anything terribly unusual. He gave up a somewhat higher percentage of leads than the typical pitcher did from the sixth inning on, but not enough so that you'd notice, and the leads he did give up were all of the one-run or two-run variety.

Brock may very well have been thinking of this game, where Cone took a 9-0 lead into the bottom of the seventh and then imploded (aided in part by a Dave Magadan error), but it should be noted that (a) the Mets won the game anyway and (b) this is one of only three innings from the sixth inning on (out of 412 total such innings) I could find during Cone's career with the Mets where he left an inning three or more runs worse off than when he started. That's not the pattern of a guy who blew up in the late innings on a regular basis.

-- MWE

Great stuff Mike. Thanks!