Rice but not Blyleven?
(I gotta root for a fellow Dutchman)

I don't know how many Corkys there are in the entire world, but there are way too many of them in the BBWAA.

BTW, the Association's website bespeaks a, shall we say, Corkyesque lack of concern with modern technology. It's the most basic, rudimentary, and downright UGLY website I've ever seen for anything bigger than a noe-person home business. Check it out, if only for a second: http://www.baseballwriters.org/

Rice: another reason not to pay attention to anything that the Hall of Fame says or does ever again.

I just don't see the case for Blyleven - pitched a long time - never had more than 3 consecutive winning seasons - Had 2 seasons where he won more than 15 and lost less than 14. From '76-'85 - the 10 years in the prime of his career - he was 132 - 98.

Saw a piece of trivia - two other players were elected in their final year on the BBWAA - one was Ralph Kiner. Kiner led the NL in HRs the first 7 years of his career.

Ok, we should demand explanations from the 26 voters (already got Corky's) who somehow don't believe Henderson's a HOFer. I'm serious. It's not like he's a borderline case. They need to come up with some serious stats & reasons here. They really do.

Bandit, the case for Blyleven is entirely based on whether you think wins are a meaningful statistic for pitchers or not. If you do, then he doesn't look like a Hall of Famer. If you don't, then it looks ridiculous that he hasn't been elected already. The BBWAA clearly falls in the former camp.

Wins are an important statistic - I don't see how any of his other stats are that outstanding either.

"Wins are an important statistic" ... for teams. For pitchers, wins and losses are statistics that are heavily teammate dependent, and therefore not the best indicators of pitching ability or performance.

3700 strikeouts?
242 CG

W-L ratio is holding Blyleven back.

As for Rickey... I think he's obviously a Hall of Famer (and now is), but I could understand how some would leave him off the ballot. His ego and personality are probably the reason for it.

bandit

Do a search of anything written about Blyleven on any quasi-SABR website and you can find about 1,204,035,035 articles about why he should be in the hall of fame based on, if nothing else, the fact that he's far better than a lot of pitchers already in. This would take about 15 seconds or about 10 seconds less than it took you to write that pointless stuff about his career wins and losses.

There are slam dunk hall of famers like Henderson, and there are borderline cases like Rice. Personally, I think there should be 2 tiers to the Hall to reflect this. Put the guys with >90% of the vote in an "Immortals" wing, and the rest in a "HoF" wing.

As near as I can see it, the borderline guys fall into two categories: accumulators and dominators. Accumulators have long careers, play at an above average level and stay healthy. That would include guys like Blyleven, Raines and Mussina.

Dominators have shorter careers, due, usually to injury, but put up more spectacular numbers for large chunks of those careers. They score MVP's and Cy Young awards, but generally, fall short in the counting categories. That would include guys like Rice, Dawson and Murphy.

Accumulators are the darlings of the sabermetric crowd. Dominators are revered by more casual fans, who remember the highlights more pasionately.

I think there are merits to both groups, and I'm amazed with the venom spewed by folks who can't see any point of view except their own. It's a bit sad, actually.

Just my two cents...

The problem with having a two- (or multi-)tiered HOF is that eventually people will start moaning about which tier somebody's on, and whether they're on the borderline between tiers. Like if you banish a bunch of guys into a 2nd tier, people are going to assume that well, the requirements just aren't all that tight for the second tier, and more marginal players start getting in. Then people feel like that second tier is getting watered down, and they'll want a 1.5 tier... eventually it doesn't settle anything and just leads to more arguments.

I like the names you applied to the arguments, Gary: Accumulators and Dominators. I think a HOF player should fulfill both categories.

I'm still agnostic to Jim Rice. On one hand, he was recognized as a dominator for his era. I couldn't find many 70s era outfields represented in the HOF so it's good to see one of the best from that era recognized. But did Rice stack up the numbers necessary to be in the Hall? That's something I wonder about, especially when considering his teammate Dwight Evans. Evans played a couple more seasons, but the numbers are similar -- but Evans often hit in the 2 or 5 slot, whereas Rice was 3 or 4. If the roles were reversed, would Evans have more RBIs than Rice? In that case, and especially considering Evans defensive prowess in the outfield, would he become a more worthy HOF candidate then Rice?

But Evans wasn't recognized as being a dominate player in his era, so how could he be given HOF status afterwards? But if Rice has similar numbers to Evans, how is he HOF worthy? It could be argued that hitting in front of Rice gave Evans more strikes to hit; playing into Rice's HOF worthiness then by arguing that he made the batters around him better.

But still... Those numbers just don't add up. But Rice was a dominate outfielder of his era, and 382 isn't that bad...

I'm still undecided. If I had a vote I probably wouldn't have given the nod to Rice.

Shifting gears to Blyleven, it's definitely the dominator argument which keeps him out of the hall. Some may not value wins and losses, pointing tot he quality of the teams that played behind Blyleven, but... A pitcher either is or isn't an ace. Comparing Blyleven's lackluster records on losing teams compared to, say, Pedro Martinez going 19-7 for the Expos in 1998, a losing team, and we see where an ace pitcher stands out. Blyleven doesn't appear to stand out. The argument I used against Evans also applies here -- if Blyleven wasn't a dominate pitcher during his era, how can he be recognized for such after the fact?

Pedantic pet peeve question:

Can someone explain to me when and how the verb "dominate" replaced the adjective "dominant" in common English?

It hasn't, I goofed. I'm not going to the grammar HOF. :)

Adam, when I suggested the two-tier system (and, I am by no means the first...or last to suggest it), I postulated basing it on writers' votes. Those who received at least 90% of the votes go into the "Legends" wing, those who received 75-89.9% go into the regular old HoF wing. I suppose those inducted by the veteran's commitee would also go into the lower tier, or perhaps even a third tier. The idea is to differentiate between the great and the truly great. Of course, this assumes that at least 90% of past voters knew what they were doing...which, of course, is they didn't.

A flawed system, but I think it's a starting point.

Tas, you bring up some great points. I agree that a HoFer should, ideally, be both a dominator and an accumulator. The best ones (Ruth, Cobb, Williams, Seaver, etc) are. In fact, I'd say you need at least a bit of each to have a shot. Jose Canseco had some dominant years (ROY, MVP, 40/40) but, even without factoring in the steroids issue, he simply didn't do it long enough to garner serious consideration. Likewise, Tim Wakefield is having a long, solid career, but he hasn't been a top 10 or so pitcher at any point. He won't get much support either.

I saw Blyleven pitch his entire career - he wasn't a dominant #1 - He a was a very good consistent pitcher - he was not as good as Mussina -if you don't think W-L doesn't count for a pitcher you just plain don't know wtf you're talking about.

It hasn't, I goofed. I'm not going to the grammar HOF. :)

LOL

I wasn't picking on you - I've seen that all over the place, and I always wonder whether I'm missing some private joke or something...

if you don't think W-L doesn't count for a pitcher you just plain don't know wtf you're talking about

I think that W-L record is a poor evaluation metric for a starting pitcher, as it is teammate dependent. It could be used as a proxy for pitching performance if we didn't have information about pitching performance, but if we have direct information about pitching performance then we don't need it. Overvaluation of W-L record leads to travesties like a 27-6 Bob Welch winning the 1990 Cy Young instead of a vastly more deserving Roger Clemens.

One of Blyleven's contemporaries was Catfish Hunter. Hunter went into the Hall of Fame in 1987 with a 224-166 (.574) record. That's obviously much better than Blyleven's 287-250 (.534), right? Except that Hunter pitched on teams that were a cumulative 1301-1112 (.539), while Blyleven's teams were 1914-1901 (.502). Each pitcher compiled a winning percentage which was 6.5% better than his team's winning percentage.

In his 476 games started, Catfish Hunter won 13 games in which he allowed more than 4 runs. Despite starting 209 more games, Blyleven only won FOUR (4)!!! games in which he allowed more than 4 runs. Do you think that a little bit of offensive support might have made the difference between being stuck at 287 wins rather than getting to 300?

Would you like to discuss it further or are you so convinced that I "don't know wtf [I'm] talking about" that it's not worth the effort?

Taking a look at another Blyleven contemporary, Nolan Ryan pitched five more seasons then Blyleven during the same time period. Ryan's win-loss percentage is even worse (.526), but he has 2000 more strikeouts then Blyleven. Couple that with the legend of 7 no hitters and nobody questions Ryan's dominance -- and rightly so.

I think the question of Blyleven centers around his preceived dominance. There aren't many pitchers comparable to Blyleven accumulation of stats since he started his major league career at 19 and logged a 20 win season (his only one) at 22, before many pitchers today even start their major league careers. And Blyleven stuck around for a while, showing durability combined with skill that very few baseball players have. But if that alone gets a player into the hall of fame, then will we have this argument about, say, Tim Wakefield 20 years from now? Had Wakey started his major league career at 19 instead of 25, his numbers might mirror Blyleven's (except complete games, I know I know, before somebody screams at me about that stat and how modern pitchers aren't comparable to Blyleven there), so should Blyleven get into the hall because he started his career early?

Now after reading your lame reasoning I'm absolutely convinced you don't know what you're talking about. One reason Blyleven's teams weren't more consistent winners is because he wasn't better. People who don't think W/L is important generally know a lot more about losing than winning. If you look at him vs. Hunter look at the years from '71 - '74 when Hunter is in his most dominating prime and the A's win 3 consecutive WS. From '68 - '78 Hunter has 1 losing season and 1 .500 season and wins 20 5 times and in each of those seasons is at least 9 G over .500. And correspondingly his teams win 5 WS. Find any corresponding period in Blyleven's career where he's remotely as good.

One reason Blyleven's teams weren't more consistent winners is because he wasn't better.

LOL

So, if Blyleven's team is 14 games under .500 when he doesn't get the decision, and Hunter's team is 63 games over .500 when he doesn't get the decision over the same four year span, that's evidence of Hunter's superiority?

Let's look at the 1973 season. Hunter finished 3rd in the Cy Young voting with a 20-5 record. Blyleven finished 7th, with a 20-17 record. You would tell me, I suppose, that Hunter had the kind of dominant Ace season that Blyleven never managed.

The thing is, if you look at pitching and not just team performance, you see that Blyleven:
- made four more starts
- threw 69 more innings
- threw 14! more complete games, including 6 more shut-outs
- struck out 134 more batters
- while walking two fewer
- and allowing 23 fewer HR
- In those 69 additional innings, he allowed only four more runs
- and actually allowed four fewer earned runs

In short, if you look at the run-scoring independent pitching performances, Blyleven was FAR more dominant than Hunter. The only reason anyone would think that Hunter had a better year is that his teammates scored a lot more runs when he pitched than Blyleven's teammate's did.