Blyleven will get in once people realize he had, I believe, 60 shutouts. In the next decade or so people will realize the pithcers they are voting in have around zero complete game shutouts.
Blyleven will get in once people realize he had, I believe, 60 shutouts. In the next decade or so people will realize the pithcers they are voting in have around zero complete game shutouts.He did throw sixty shutouts and in a time when conditions began favouring hitters quite a bit more. But you don't have to point to his shutouts to make his Hall of Fame case, aside from which you could show me Blyleven had half that many shutouts and he'd still have a Hall case. Blyleven's sixty shutouts are comparable to Greg Maddux's thirty-five: they pitched in eras that favoured hitters (and Maddux pitched most of his prime in hitters' parks as his home parks, too), and Maddux's era favoured hitters quite a bit more than Blyleven's even without the question of actual or alleged performance-enhancing substances.