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Originally Posted by nat
Not to hijack this thread and make it about baseball, but I don't know about calling Plank an "upper tier" hall of famer. His ERA looks really good because he was playing in the deadball era, but once you adjust for that it's a little bit better than Tom Glavine's and a little bit worse than John Smoltz's. He's got a healthy lead over Smoltz in innings pitched, but on that measure he's about exactly equal to Glavine. So I don't know quite where you want to draw the upper/lower tier line, but Plank comes out as having somewhat more value in his career than Tom Glavine. Which is good and all, but it's not Pete Alexander territory.
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I would say Plank is well above Glavine or Smoltz. Smoltz's ERA+ is going to be inflated by his years as a closer. Obviously he is no Alexander, who was the 9th player elected to the HOF. If that is where you draw your line, then you are saying that less than 10 pitchers are upper tier. To me Plank is going to be in the 2nd 10 and that is still upper tier. He is better than most hofers in the set and as a pitcher behind only the big 3.