Quote:
Originally Posted by rats60
We just went through a period from Bert Blyleven to Greg Maddux when not a single starting pitcher who entered mlb made the hof. Comparing a pitcher who pitched during this time vs. one who pitched with a high number of hof pitchers is not a valid comparrison.
|
Because it just so happens that all the humans who were born between 1951 and 1966 were unable to pitch well? Surely we can agree that's not the most parsimonious explanation for why offensive numbers were up in the 1980s and 1990s.
No one is arguing that Dave Stieb (who put up the best numbers in the 1980s per se) was as good as Tom Seaver (who put up the best numbers in the 1970s per se) or Bob Gibson (1960s), but to ignore park factors and the systematic changes in the game across generations as related to anything other than the pitchers' abilities in doing these comparisons is to conclude that Ed Reulbach was a better pitcher than Felix Hernandez. And that, I argue, is more egregious than putting Dave Stieb in the Hall of Fame would be.