Blyleven & Alomar get in the HOF

[tothrk]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Since he played for mostly bad teams, you would think HE would have been that representative more times than two.

I never looked at it that way. I was on the fence about Bert, but this is swaying me towards the notch below HOF camp. With players like Sutton, longevity bothers me. Just because your career lasted longer than a MEARS auction and you reached a magical number doesn't mean you should get in.

[doug.goodman]

Finally

[oldjudge]

Rob--The best he ever finished in a 22 year career was third in the Cy Young voting; he was in the top ten only four times and an All Star only twice. In eight of twenty-two seasons he was at or below .500 in W/L %. He won twenty games only once, but lost seventeen games four times. He was a very good pitcher, not a HOF pitcher.

Originally Posted by oldjudge

Rob--The best he ever finished in a 22 year career was third in the Cy Young voting; he was in the top ten only four times and an All Star only twice. In eight of twenty-two seasons he was at or below .500 in W/L %. He won twenty games only once, but lost seventeen games four times. He was a very good pitcher, not a HOF pitcher.

He was a very, very good pitcher for a very, very long time. When you make your league's yearly top 10 list a collective 60+ times in the categories of wins, complete games, innings, strikeouts, shutouts and ERA, and win 287 games despite support of 2 or fewer runs in over 1/3 of your career starts, and finish your career 3rd in career strikeouts and 9th in shutouts, I think you go into the Hall.

Whenever the HOF becomes a place only for the greatest of the greats, then I'd be the first to vote Bert back out (along with 50-75 others).

Anyways, I'm very happy for Bert - I've had the pleasure of chatting with him, and followed his career from the very beginning, listening to his first start on the radio back in 1970. I aspired to be a pro baseball player at the time, and thought it was just too cool that a teenager just a few years older than me was pitching for my local team.

[Anthony S.]

In 1973 Blyleven finished 7th in the Cy Young voting.

There were 9 starting pitchers who finished in the top 10 of the voting that year (Hiller was the lone reliever). Of those 9:

-Blyleven had the 2nd lowest ERA, 2.52. Palmer was first at 2.40.
-Blyleven had the lowest Whip.
-Blyleven had the 2nd most strikeouts. That was the year Ryan had 383.
-Blyleven threw the most shutouts. Nine. Nine shutouts.
-Blyleven had the highest WAR (I'll admit I don't care about WAR, but it suits my argument here)

Wouldn't you assume that the guy with the 2nd lowest ERA, the lowest WHIP, the 2nd most strikeouts, the most shutouts, and the best WAR would finish higher than 7th?

But Blyleven went 20-17, so those 17 losses (I have no idea what his run support was like in the losses), must have knocked him down to 7th in the voting. Except Wilbur Wood, who had an ERA a full run higher than Blyleven, lost 20 games that year, and finished ahead of Blyleven in the Cy Young Voting.