Warren Spahn - Why No Hobby Love?

[Hankphenom]

Originally Posted by Topnotchsy

I think there are many factors that come to play, though I'm not a big believer in the NY factor. There aren't exactly a ton of huge value pitchers from NY either. Spahn had an extremely impressive career and a more impressive life, but he isn't the profile of a pitcher who becomes highly collected. While he did league the league in K's for 4 of his 21 seasons, he never K'd 200 in a season and his career total is not 2583, which is nice but not crazy. His K/9 for his career is 4.4, which is extremely low.
Additionally, while he was often a very good pitcher, he was only rarely an elite pitcher. His ERA+ was consistently in the 115-125 range, which is solid but not special. He had 2 seasons (1947 and 1953) when he was absolutely elite. He won just 1 Cy Young award (in 1957 which ironically was one of his solid, but not great seasons) and much of his value is in the sheer number of innings he pitched. His 162 game avg BWAR is 4.4 which reflects a very solid, but not remarkable pitcher. Spahn's consistency and longevity resulted in some incredible career numbers, but his 119 ERA+ is the same as Red Faber, Ron Guidry, Bobby Shantz and Bob Lemon, some very good pitchers, but not all-time greats. The pitchers who get collected are those who put up elite, elite numbers and are 'must watch' baseball. Spahn was boringly very good for a very very long time.

I'm sorry, but if these "modern" metrics of yours add up to the conclusion that Spahn wasn't a LOT better than Red Faber, Ron Guidry, or Bob Lemon, you need to go back to the drawing board. The guy won 20 games or more 13 times, he pitched 5,200 innings despite missing three prime years for military service, he completed 362 games of 665 started, won 363 of them including 63 shutouts (both records for lefties) He was an All-Star 17 times, far and away the most for pitchers. Not enough Ks for you, ERAs not low enough? Maybe he just knew how to pitch, and didn't mind letting his fielders do some work or putting some runners on base until it was time to bear down. Not to denigrate the pitchers you named or any others you might want to lump him in with, but he was head and shoulders above them because 1) he was a prodigious winner for an incredibly long time, 2) his numbers are nothing less than staggering, especially considering he was already 25 when he came up, and 3) oh, by the way, he was a terrific hitter and fielder. Spahnie just "very good?" Give me a break.