I hate to say it, because some of the starting pitchers on the ballot this year are truly intriguing, but I wouldn't vote for any of them.
In fact, though you'll hear debate to the contrary, only four of them have relatively good Hall cases as far as I'm concerned.
Before I get to these four, let me say a few words about the other starters on the ballot, the ones I won't be discussing.
Scott Sanderson - Thank you for playing.
Dave Stewart and Frank Viola - There's a poll currently running on CNN/SI in which fans can vote for this year's class. Except for the fact that you are given three choices - induct now, induct later or induct never - I think the poll is great. It gives us a wonderful look into how most people look at the various candidates. Of the 1,600 or so people who have voted so far, 46% think Dave Stewart should be inducted at some point. Just 27% think Frank Viola should.
Personally, I'm positive that neither of these guys belongs in the Hall of Fame, but I'm also positive that these percentages should be reversed. In fewer seasons and games than Stewart, Viola had more wins, shutouts, complete games, innings, and strikeouts while posting a better ERA and a better WHIP ratio. He did this on a series of generally bad baseball teams (Viola's teams posted a .478 winning percentage when he wasted on the mound; Stewart's were .534) and in some notorious hitter's parks. (The average park factor of Viola's home parks was 103.7; Stewart's was 97.3. Anything over 100 favors hitters, under 100 favors pitchers.) Viola made 3 All-Star teams; Stewart made 1 (the lowest total for any starter on the ballot). Viola won a Cy Young Award; Stewart didn't. In other words, how nearly half of the voting population can think Dave Stewart is a Hall of Famer is utterly beyond me.
Tommy John and Jim Kaat - Let's clear this up right now- Tommy John and Jim Kaat simply don't have Hall of Fame credentials. Yes, each of them compiled a lot of wins and a lot of games and a lot of innings. Yes, each has a distinct claim to fame - John's surgery and Kaat's freakish total of Gold Gloves. But the fact is that the few numbers these guys have that compare well to average Hall of Fame starters are due entirely to their longevity. While there is some value in pitching a long time, the fact is that these guys really weren't making Hall of Fame-type contributions in those extra seasons. In fact, they really didn't make that type of contribution in their respective hey-days either.
Compared to the average Hall of Fame starters - Negro Leaguers excluded for lack of data - both John and Kaat posted lower winning percentages, more losses, fewer complete games, higher ERAs (both actual and in relation to their leagues), higher WHIP ratios, fewer All-Star appearances, fewer top-10 Cy Young finishes, fewer top-10 MVP finishes, and fewer World Championships. Each did this despite pitching for good teams (John's teams posted a .518 winning percentage when he wasn't on the mound; Kaat's were .526). In John's case, he exceeded his team's winning percentage 65% of the time, which is Hall-caliber, but he also pitched almost exclusively in pitcher's parks (98.7 average park factor). The reverse is true for Kaat - he scores a point in his favor for pitching mostly in hitter's parks (102.6 park factor) but loses that point because he exceeded his team's winning percentage just 48% of the time. In other words, more often than not Jim Kaat's teams won more frequently when he wasn't on the mound. That disqualifies Kaat right there as far as I'm concerned.
John's got a slightly better case, but when you factor in that he posted fewer strikeouts than Kaat in more innings, but with poorer control, it makes it clear that he's really not a serious candidate either.
The only four starters left on the ballot are Luis Tiant, Ron Guidry, Bert Blyleven, and Jack Morris (listed in order of how long they have been on the ballot). Each has several key points in their favor, but also has some black marks too. Looking at them one-by-one:
Luis Tiant - Easily has the most intangibles going for him in that he exuded charisma every moment he was on the field. Perhaps the best big-game pitcher of this group, Tiant also had to pitch in the most difficult parks for pitchers (103.8 average park factor). Despite that, he managed to post more shutouts and strikeouts than the Hall of Fame average, along with a better WHIP ratio. Factor in the possibility that he was much older than his baseball card showed and his case is pretty strong.
Still, Tiant's high park factor is tempered somewhat by the fact that he played in a generally low period for offense. And despite pitching more seasons than the Hall average (19 compared to 16.7) and for better teams (.533 winning percentage when he wasn't on the mound compared to .522 for the Hall of Famers) Tiant won much fewer games, just 229 compared to the Hall average of 266. In fact, he falls short in all of the major counting statistics, a clear indicator that he wasn't very durable. Yes, during his healthiest 4-year stretch with the Red Sox he averaged about 280 innings each year, but he managed just 4 other seasons with at least 200 innings during the other 15 seasons of his career. That's not good.
Luis is one of those guys who actually hurt his Hall case by pitching longer. If he had quit after the 1979 season, his win total would have dropped from 229 to 217, but he would have finished with a .582 winning percentage and an ERA+ of 120. Both of those figures are very close to the Hall averages. His actual ERA would have been 3.21, the best on the ballot this year, instead of the 3.30 that makes him fall behind Guidry and look a lot like Blyleven and John.
Alas, El Tiante did pitch those last three years, badly. It's enough to make me pass on him.
Bert Blyleven - I was all set to cast a vote for Blyleven, but I've changed my mind. He's got the strongest superficial case, having passed the Hall average in wins, innings, shutouts, WHIP ratio, and strikeout ratio while whiffing over 3,700 batters. He did all of this in predominantly hitter's parks (102.2 average park factor) and was an outstanding post-season pitcher for two World Champions. It's a very strong case.
It's weakened a bit by the fact that he simply wasn't dominant. A lot of his numerical superiority is accounted for by longevity. Again, a long career is generally a plus, but it does force us to look upon those big totals with some doubt. For instance, he averaged just over 13 wins per season. The Hall average is almost 16. He averaged about 226 innings; the Hall average is about 239. His ERAs, actual and adjusted, are good, but still fall below Hall averages.
He was on the border, but I was leaning toward giving him the nod on the basis of his post-season numbers. Before doing that though, I decided to look at one last negative - his .534 career winning percentage - with an eye toward giving him the nod if I could. If that black mark could be erased or explained, I'd give him my vote.
I figured that the majority of Blyleven's teams weren't that good, which would go a long way toward explaining his poor winning percentage. Sure enough, they barely broke .500 (.504 to be exact) and were actually under .500 (.498) when Bert wasn't getting the decision. Case closed right?
Nope. Yes, Blyleven's teams were mediocre, and yes, he did exceed their winning percentage by 36 points. Unfortunately for him, Hall of Fame pitchers, on average, exceeded their teams' winning percentages by more than 69 points. On this year's ballot, Guidry (96), Viola (62), Morris (45), Tiant (38), and John (37) all did better than Blyleven. Also, Hall starters, on average, posted higher winning percentages than their teams in 66% of their seasons. Blyleven did so 59% of that time, which isn't bad, but it's exceeded by John (65), Morris (61) and Viola (60) on this year's ballot.
So I just can't do it. Bert was an awfully good pitcher, but he doesn't get my vote.
That brings me to Jack Morris. I'll be blunt and tell you that I think Morris just put too many people on base and gave up too many runs to belong in Cooperstown. His 3.90 ERA would be the highest in the Hall. And since he pitched largely in a period of low offense, he really doesn't have an excuse for it. In fact, his adjusted ERA (or ERA+ as reported on baseball-reference.com, where most of these stats come from) would be the third worst, with only Rube Marquard and Catfish Hunter posting worse numbers. His WHIP ratio would also be in the lowest quarter of all Hall starters.
These numbers wouldn't disqualify him all by themselves, but he simply doesn't have the other numbers to pull him up to the point where I would be comfortable inducting him. He is below the Hall average in wins, winning percentage (despite pitching for better teams than the average Hall of Famer), games, complete games, shutouts, innings, All-Star appearances, and top-10 MVP finishes. He just doesn't cut it. He would be a below average Hall of Famer at a time when I think we should be raising the level of players in the Hall. My preferred method for doing so would be to remove about a dozen pitchers and another 15-20 players, but I don't have that power. (I don't have the power to induct anyone either, but we'll ignore that for now.) If anything, removing those that don't belong would make Morris suffer by comparison even more. For me, he's out.
That leaves just Ron Guidry, who, believe it or not, would have had the best case of them all if he had managed another two or three solid, even mediocre years. His percentages are mostly excellent. His 3.29 ERA is the best on the ballot, as is his 120 ERA+ (the Hall average is 122 - 27 Hall of Famers have a worse ERA+ than Guidry). His winning percentage of .651 easily exceeds the Hall average, as does his 96-point gap of winning percentage over his teams. His WHIP and strikeout ratios do the same. In addition, he was the best-fielding pitcher of his day, earning 5 Gold Gloves, and was a very good post-season pitcher too (5-2, 3.02).
That said, ALL of his counting statistics fall short because he started as many as 20 games in only 10 seasons. He surpassed 200 innings only 7 times. Still, it should be noted that both of those totals are better than Sandy Koufax and, in fact, Guidry is the most comparable pitcher to Koufax in history (905 similarity score).
The difference, of course, is that Koufax's totals were the result of four or five of the most dominant pitching seasons ever, preceded by a string of mediocre ones. If Guidry had done the same, perhaps matching his 1978 totals in '79 and'80 at the expense of much worse seasons in '81 and '82 to even things out, we would probably view him in that Koufax light.
But he didn't. As a result I can't vote for him.
There you have it - nine starters, nine passes. Even the best of them, Guidry in my view, suffers from the same problem I attributed to Morris. In short, each would be a below-average Hall of Famer.
Don't we have enough of those already?
» You can read more of Paul's work at www.lostinleftfield.com.
Also by Paul White
» My 2002 Hall of Fame Ballot: Slot #4, Jim Rice
» My 2002 Hall of Fame Ballot: Trammell & Smith
» My 2002 Hall of Fame Ballot: Slot #1, Gary Carter
» Happy Birthday Bob Elliott
» 3,000 Hits That Don't Belong in Cooperstown
» Frankie Frisch's Sad Legacy: The Cheapening of The Hall of Fame
» Babe's MVP Snubs
» The Schalk-Schang Redemption: Two Men Who Prove That The Hall of Fame Veterans Committee Was a Sham
» Being Tony Muser
» More submissions
Copyright © 2001 by Paul White. Posted January 2, 2002.
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