Posted on 01/10/2006 11:09:01 AM PST by commish
Edited on 01/10/2006 12:59:51 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
I wonder why not Blyleven ?
he's 5th all-time in strike outs.
Thanks very much for troubling to enlighten me. I didn't know that the low number of votes in his first year of eligibility eliminated Henke from further consideration until 2016. I surely can't disagree with any of your picks, and I would only add one to the ones you have highlighted: Tony Fernandez (and maybe, just maybe, Devon White).
thanks for the stats. I have a Saints autographed baseball from when Stawberry and Morris were both playing for them.
I admit I was swayed by a fabulous piece by Bill James in the new, indispensable "Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2006."
James couldn't figure out why a guy with Blyleven's stats won "only" 287 games, or ended up "only" 37 games over .500. So he walked through Blyleven's career, start by start, and then compared it to the careers of the best Hall of Fame candidates of that era.
He found Blyleven had the worst run support of any pitcher in the group except Don Sutton and accumulated the most "tough losses," a stat James invented personally to measure losses in which pitchers deserved better. There is zero doubt Blyleven already would be a Hall of Famer if he'd won 300 games. And that research helped explain the mystery of why he didn't.
But I might have voted for Blyleven anyway. After a summer of arguing, during last year's fun-filled Cy Young debates, that "wins" were overrated by way too many people, I already had convinced myself to look past them in Blyleven's case.
After all, we live now in an age that offers us many more incisive statistical tools. So why not use them? And we're especially lucky to have gizmos like Lee Sinins' new Sabermetric Baseball Encyclopedia CD-ROM -- which provided a stat that probably did more to propel me into Blyleven's voting bloc than any other fact.
According to that encyclopedia, Blyleven allowed 344 fewer runs in his career than the average pitcher of his day. In the live-ball era, only eight pitchers have done better in that department. And those eight comprise a group that essentially consists of the best modern pitchers who ever threw a baseball: Roger Clemens, Lefty Grove, Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, Tom Seaver, Carl Hubbell and Bob Gibson.
If you look more closely at that stat, you also find it wasn't just a tribute to longevity. Blyleven had six seasons in which he allowed at least 30 fewer runs than the average pitcher. That's as many seasons like that as Tom Seaver -- and more than Steve Carlton, Sandy Koufax, Juan Marichal or Jim Palmer.
So does that sound like a Hall of Famer to you? In the end, it did to me.
And it sounds like a Hall of Famer to me, too.
2010: Andres Galarraga, Edgar Martinez, Robin Ventura
Mark Grace? No way. And I don't think Galaragga, Martinez or Ventura gets in first ballot either, and maybe not ever. Rickey Henderson is the only lock I see.
By the way, I don't think there is a veterans committee vote this year. Weren't the rules changed a few years ago so the veterans committee will vote every two years on players, and every four years on non-players? I remember reading that somewhere. I think there is a vote on negro league players scheduled, so some of them may make it in.
work = word
5% is the criteria for qualification for next year.
Not even close. He has 2247 hits. He won't get in.
Gossage and Dawson should probably be in for prolonged excellence. Blyleven and Smith may deserve to go in, but not right away. Trammell and Concepcion should go in as excellent shortstops but get slighted for their lower overall batting totals. Morris and John are borderline.
Garvey, Parker, and Murphy come up just short. Mattingly was great for about 5 years, but that's it. He shouldn't make it.
YES!
I love stuff like this. I really think when you crunch the numbers, and come up with groupings like this, you're sorta onto something. ;-) Thanks for the post!
You're switching to their opinions but not mine?!!!
For a minute there I thought you were arguing with yourself and I thought I'd better stay out of that!
Some things come through on paper and some things you see with your eyes. You could see how great Blyleven was on many occasions. Like a lot of pitchers, he tailed off after six or seven innings, probably around 100 pitches. Mauch would leave him until he lost the lead, when anyone in the ballclub could see had had lost his best stuff two-three batters earlier.
Remember Greg Gagne's error costing him a win in the 1987 World Series?
People like you guys remind me why I ever loved baseball. I have to admit, looking at the sport with adult eyes makes it hard to love, but discussions like this are what it's all about.
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