Convince me otherwise...
 

Orel Hershiser was a better pitcher than Jack Morris INCLUDING their postseason exploits.

YES. I agree.

There are quite a number of pitchers I would take over Jack Morris, who aren't in the Hall. Hershiser being one of them.

Why stop at Orel? I'd say Ron Guidry was better than Morris too.

Not only did Guidry win a Cy Young, which Morris never did, his 47.8 career WAR in 14 seasons is clearly better than Morris' 43.5 in 18 seasons.

Throw Bret Saberhagen and David Cone in there to, I guess.

I understand why Morris is in there and a lot of other guys aren’t. I also understand why so many question it.

It’s part of the fun of baseball statistics and the mix of old school record keeping and new school analytics. Throw in a little myth making and reputational bias and one guy gets on the Hall and a bunch of others don’t.

It’s all good though. I can’t ever begrudge any player for being recognized by their fans and peers.

Guidry and Hershiser were obviously much better then Morris at their best. They both suffered from being relatively late bloomers and had arm problems in their 30's. Orel had a longer career, but was relatively mediocre in the second half of it (aside from a nice postseason run with Cleveland), while Guidry pretty much petered out after an excellent age 34 season.

Along with the counting stats, Morris had several ups and downs and career arcs that people tend to remember better for some reason. He was an important part of 3 different organizations that won World Series titles, that are not necessarily noted for their post season dominance.

He performed poorly in the postseason his last time around with the Blue Jays in '92, but he did eat a lot of innings and win 21 games for that team, to help get them there in the first place.

I hear the Postseason argument all the time for Morris, when actually he was, in total, almost the exact same pitcher he was in the regular season. He had 2 great post seasons and 3 lousy ones. Hershiser on the other hand, was much better than his regular season numbers in the post season. I don't believe much in "clutch" but if I did I'd have to say Hershiser was significantly more clutch than Morris. Hell, against Oakland in 1988 he went 3 for 3 with 2 doubles! He won 2 League Championship MVP's and one WS MVP.

I don't know. My issue with the Morris mystique is that although he did pitch very well in 2 of the 3 World Series he played in (you can't discount a guy who wins 2 games in a World Series no matter who he is) I don't believe he was the best pitcher on any of the teams.

I'd say Dan Petry was the best pitcher on the 84 Tigers team and that both Tapani and Erickson were far better than Morris on the 91 Twins team. I find it hard to reconcile a guy's HOF status when he wasn't the best pitcher on the team.

At one point Morris was 7-1 with a much lower ERA then he finished with in the post season. That was capped by a 10 inning Game 7, 1-0 Shutout in the Metrodome, against the favored Braves in the 1991 World Series.

Most people throw out what happened to him the following year when he was pitching for the Blue Jays. It was also largely forgivable because the Blue Jays won it all anyways. That staff was led by another mostly forgotten pitcher with a higher career WAR, lower ERA, higher Win%, lower WHIP and higher ERA+ then Jack Morris... in Jimmy Key.

Key didn't even get 1% on the HOF ballot, the 1st year he was eligible.

Tim Hudson is another guy who I think was a very good pitcher who never got his due. The guy won 89 more games than he lost and put up a career 3.49 ERA during an extremely hitter friendly period of major league baseball. His WAR of 57.9 and ERA + of 120 are way ahead of Morris too.

According to Baseball Reference Tim Hudson is statistically the 72nd best starting pitcher of all time compared to Morris at 164.

I mean, check David Cone. He's ranked 48th according to BBR, Has 5 World Series Titles, a Cy Young Award (5 top 6 finishes), a Perfect Game, 8-3 in the Postseason.

Never got past the 1st year of eligibility.

Sheesh. Cone was better than I remember and I remember him being really darn good. Cool delivery too.

I would disagree as Hershiser's noise was made from 84' to 89' and then somewhat averagish after. He never really turned it back after the 90' season to his prior skillset. Without the shoulder injury, I would say it would be likely he would have a member of the hall.

Morris, while a completely different pitcher due to what Sparky wanted, had a far more complete career with not a 6 year arc, but far more accomplishments over time and was even grabbing CYA and MVP votes in 92 with 21 wins 16 years in. There are many short burst stories in the history of MLB, avoiding injury and a long career is hard. They both played 18 years, but Jack faced more than 3k more batters and 650+ innings and still has a fractionally better w-l. Those stinkers in 89 and 93 kill his W-l also.

That said, Orel's career was still pretty darn good and either argument is sound. I just think the injuries ruin the argument for Orel.

No argument here.

There are 66 starting pitchers in the Hall of Fame. Morris ranks 156th in career WAR among starting pitchers, a hair above Jon Lester and a hair below Bob Welch.

I agree on Cone (he's better than a LOT of us remember) - 62.3 Career WAR (54th place, with just a handful of non-HOFers above him).

I'd take Dave Stieb over Morris from that era too.

Stieb is certainly a better HOF option than Morris. His RC in PSA 9/10 has gone insane.

With the "Most SP WAR of the 1980's" he's the sabermetric counterpoint to Morris and his "most wins of the 1980's". Stieb had the 2nd most wins of the 80's.

BTW, Morris had the 12th most SP WAR of the 1980's, between Charlie Hough and Mario Soto.

Morris was a pretty bad choice, whether one favors the new math or the old. We can probably find 30-50 starters not in who are more deserving than Morris. The Baines selection overshadowed this one pretty quickly, but the vets committees are not doing very good the last few years.

At over 3000 IP Hershiser isn't exactly short on career duration, but obviously it splits into two different eras for him. But even with the mediocre portion of his career his ratio numbers pretty thoroughly trounce Morris.

+1 to Stieb and Cone

I picked Hershiser because he was significantly better in the postseason for his career than Morris in similar exposure, yet everyone makes the argument for Morris base on the postseason.

Hell If you want a better pitcher than Morris with more impressive post season credentials who isn't in the hall you don't even have to leave the Tigers. I'd take Mickey Lolich over Morris any day.

The list could get pretty extensive actually even if you stick to pitchers who at least briefly overlapped Morris's career. You can make an argument for:

Lolich, Stieb, Cone, Dennis Martinez, Steve Rogers, Saberhagen, Kevin Brown, Rick Reuschel, Andy Messersmith, David Wells and that's just off the top of my head.

Baines isn't even interesting to talk about. There's easily 100 guys ahead of him who aren't in (and most of them shouldn't be)

Yes, turns out small, in-person committees behind closed doors aren't the best way to make good decisions. Who knew? :D

I think the committees did pretty well this last year, although I thought it'd finally be Dick Allen's year. REALLY interested to see who's on the ballot this time around, and who they elect, if anyone (1980-date careers).

In my book, Baines and Sutter are the worst selections of all time, exempting Frisch’s corruption.

I for one am shocked that this has produced terrible choices! Closed door ballots of old friends are usually so objective.

I’m okay with this years ballot, personally I think Minoso should have gone in many years ago. The others are all very borderline, in my view I think they barely miss, so their election is not a problem. It doesn’t lower the standards of the hall like some others.

I think Allen is basically inevitable to get in at this point, and I would probably vote for him even with his short career.

I think with historical context, many of the players who got in this year meet the standard, to your point, not lowering it. Morris and Baines clearly lowered the HOF standard at their positions, by any measure.

One stat I'd love to see more is MEDIAN WAR for position. Baseball Reference lists average WAR for a HOFer at a position, but those are always skewed by a guy or two at the top (Ruth, Young, Cobb, etc.) So, I think median WAR would be more interesting than "average" in those cases.