Sabathia Vs. Tiant and the HOF
Tomi
Posts: 643 ✭✭✭
So they both play 19 years in the majors. Sabathia ends with a lifetime 3.74 ERA and Tiant with a 3.30 and 2 ERA titles to Sabathia's none. Sabathia wins 22 more games in total (just not a measure of greatness since great pitchers pitch for bad teams with no run support). So in a 162 game average Sabathia ends with an average of 15 wins to 10 losses and a 3.74 ERA over a 162 game average while Tiant ends with an average of 15 wins and 11 losses and a 3.30 ERA.
Sabathia is called a future HOF'er by pretty much every announcer on TV but Tiant still waiting. Just don't understand HOF politics in baseball. Maybe if Tiant played for the Yankees things would be different. Just ranting but Tiant just gets no respect. I would even throw in Vida Blue and Ron Guidry , who both had an even lower career ERA than Sabathia and Tiant, but that's another debate.
Comments
Nearly identical IP totals and ERA+.
I'm not sure I hear the same level of campaigning for Sabathia for the Hall as you have.
But, I'm sure people are looking at:
Sabathia has 3,000 K's, so that may be why you hear people mention the Hall with him. Not that it is a fair comparison in regard to Tiant, since K's are much easier to amass in this day and age.
The other thing is Sabathia has one Cy Young under his belt where as Tiant doesn't have any.
Not that these two are compared by many...but that may be the difference between them for some people in regard to the Hall.
Tiant does get lost by many....and I always like when players like him are brought up in threads like this.
I don't see how Sabathia gets in the Hall, and someone like Pettite does not come close. They too have almost identical stats, and Pettite has all the post season stuff that writers like.
Schilling still waiting to get in and he is superior to Sabathia.
I say no for Sabathia just based on those two cases alone, and not even looking further.
I would figure the ERA would make up for the strikeouts.
I could see them both in myself.
Until Schilling is elected, I refuse to engage in debates around any other pitchers.
Shilling and Tiant together!
"El Tiante" pitched for the Twins for about a minute and I thought he was good for at least 45 of his 60 seconds here.
Followed his career a bit after that. He was a wonderful pitcher. Very erratic as I think he had some injuries throughout his career. He's good enough to be in the HOF but I am not going to get on the soapbox for him.
CC's 3000 strikeouts, his Cy Young and 4 other top 5 finishes, and his ALCS MVP the year he won a WS will probably get him over the hump into the hall of fame. His career stats alone wouldn't get him in. Only 18 pitchers in MLB history have gotten to 3000 strikeouts. Even in an age where strikeouts are more common, CC and Verlanders are the only players from our current era to get to the mark. Scherzer, Greinke, Kershaw, and maybe Sale have a chance, but I think that is it. Hamels might have an outside chance. Sabathia's peak was 06-12 where he had 7 real nice seasons. He also played in an era with more offense, homeruns, and steroid issues which most likely inflated his numbers. Runs scored from 64-82 totals 290,084 averaging out at 15,267. Runs scored from 01-19 totals 420,309 averaging out at 22,121 so 7,000 more runs scored per year in the mlb when Sabathia played compared to Tiant.
Luis Tiant to me isnt a hall of famer. 19 seasons, only ever received cy young votes 3 times and never finished above 4th. Only played in 5 postseason games, only 3 all star games, no other awards or recognition. I think he's in the tier below the hall of fame pitchers of the 60s and 70s. he was great but not one of the best of his era. His peak was from 67-76 and that included 6 real good seasons, 1 terrible season, 1 okay season, and 2 injury shortened seasons. Before 67 he was good but not a full time starter. After 76 he had a few okay seasons to but wasnt great.
Some other comments, Shilling should be in, makes no sense why he is not. Pettitte has steroid questions surrounding him probably keeping him out for now. I'd put Vida Blue or Ron Guidry in before Tiant. Kevin Brown needs more recognition as well.
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One can measure the value of wins vs loses as they see fit, but I never bought the pitching for bad teams argument. not for two decades.
That was always the excuse for Nolan Ryan's prolific yet mediocre record. I put on my borrowed actuary cap about a year ago and it turns out that Ryan's teams had close to .500 records in the aggregate, even when excluding his numbers.
More likely that a great pitcher will spend much of his career with better hitting teams (Verlander for example) as a half dozen teams vigorously pursue the expensive talent.
Can't really argue with anything here too vigorously, but I don't put nearly the importance on CY young/MVP stuff unless the guys you are comparing pitched at the same time, and even then only maybe. I also don't put too much importance on post season play if one guy has a lot more playoff appearances than the other. Sbathia got a LOT more post season appearances. Luis was undefeated in the post season though.
I'll toss in a few for Luis; led the league twice in ERA. He should have been CY Young in 1968, he was better than McLain (btw MVP a joke here, Yastrzemski was the MVP, not even close). Obviously McLain winning 31 games was going to win him Cy Young and he did pitch a lot of innings, but look at the numbers, Tiant was #1 in a LOT of categories. Cy Young here clearly won by the team behind the pitcher.
In 1972 Perry winning the Cy Young was fair, but Tiant certainly should have been top three, in 1974, he was as good as Catfish who won Cy Young, but again playing on a better team probably had a lot to do with Hunter winning it. so awards voting is often flawed.
The other thing that gets tossed around a lot is the era argument, and while it has some merit. it is very much an assumption. Was the hitting that much better during C.C.'s time, or was the pitching that much worse? Did steroids hurt Sabathia or did they actually help him by inflating the numbers league wide? The "big three" juicers played in the NL.
I would say that Tiant was a better pitcher when pitching was better, while Sabathia was one of the better pitchers when pitching was not as good.
Sabathia never led the league in any pitching statistic. Wins twice, pitching for great teams. There were 6 pitchers with higher ERA+ numbers the year he won Cy Young. In looking at his best years, CC was never the best pitcher. Top 5, but not the best. He did have a real nice 5-6 year run. Tiant's injury really hurts him right in the middle of his prime.
Neither of these guys are really "all that" Tiant a better "pitcher" Sabathia a better "thrower" with a lot of strikeouts. I did get to see both players and would say they were great, but I hesitate to say HOF.
You can certainly make a case for Tiant in 1968 but throwing nearly 80 fewer innings than McLain - the equivalent of roughly 9 starts - is just too big of a gap to overcome.
I did mention that. I am not on the soapbox screaming "Tiant was robbed!"
My belief is that Tiant "deserves" the award because it is supposed to be awarded to the "best pitcher" not the one who wins the most (30!!!) games, is more valuable to his (first place) team, or pitches the most innings.
Cleveland had a 5 man rotation and Detroit used 4 pitchers while abusing McLain (who's career was very likely ruined by overuse) who had 41 starts (and 28 complete games) while the next two pitchers for Detroit had 33 and 32 starts.
Cleveland had a second pitcher who was nearly as good as McLain and Tiant in Sam McDowell, who started 37 games that year, Tiant didn't have to be the "workhorse" he shouldn't be punished for that. Luis might have missed one start, he was simply the #2 guy on his team, he wasn't going to get 35-40 starts.
In comparing every stat on the 1968 AL Pitching Leaders page on Baseball Reference, "head to head" here's what I see;
McLain "wins" over Tiant in starts, wins, innings pitched walks per inning and complete games. He led the league in Starts, Wins, Complete Games, W/L% and Innings Pitched.
Tiant "wins" in WAR for Pitchers, ERA, WHIP (and that win is bigger than it seems as Tiant walked one more man a game but gave up one less hit per game, since a hit is better than a walk, giving up less hits is better), Strikeouts per 9 innings, Shutouts, and HR per 9 inning. He led the league in ERA, Hits per Inning and WAR for Pitchers. He also beats McLain in regular WAR but I don't think that means much.
Now we get to some "advanced" stats; Adjusted ERA+, Fielding Independent Pitching, Adjusted Pitching Runs and Wins, Base-Out Runs and Wins saved, WPA, and Sit. Wins Saved and it's a clean sweep for Tiant. In every single category he's #1, with McLain being #2 in 6 out of the 8 and #4 in the other two. The significance here (to me) is that when looking at these numbers when comparing players, you seldom see a clean sweep.
Looking at run support; Detriot scored 5.2 runs per game for Denny, only scoring 0-2 runs on 7 occasions. Cleveland scored 3.2 runs per game and scored 0-2 runs 15 times.
Interesting point, the only time all year Detroit didn't score a run for McLain was when Tiant shut them out 2-0. Cleveland was shut out 4 times when Tiant pitched.
McLain pitched more and was really, really good, Tiant was the better pitcher.
It was a forgone conclusion that with Denny winning 30 game, being as good as he was for a team that won the AL and then the WS, he was going to get the hardware.
He did not pitch well in the WS, good thing for Mickey Lolich!
Your points are all valid but... 80 more innings matter. That's 9 games. That's a gigantic gap to overcome when both guys are pitching at an elite level.
That said, all anybody looked at in 1968 was the 31 wins.
Both in the Hall of Very Good
I happened to see both pitch in Cleveland, Tiant at old Municipal Stadium and Sabathia at The Jake. I believe Sabathia COULD be more overpowering but during their Cleveland Indians years they were pretty close in winning percentage(plus .059 for Sabathia) while Tiant had a full 1.00 lower ERA. to be honest, both pitchers hung on to playing for too, too long, especially Sabathia. the last six years of his career he was under .500 and 2017 saved him from being an embarrassment.
I don't believe either pitcher should be selected, they were both above average but not really "great" by any comparative measure.
IF Sabathia gets in it will be for two reasons --- he is a Left Hander and he played about half his career in New York.
More of an MVP Award argument to me, and I'll totally agree McLain was more valuable, and was the MVP.
80 more lower quality innings does not elevate you above the ERA leader unless you are closer than 1.96 to 1.60. Had Tiant missed a few starts, I might be inclined to say McLain, but a victory in innings pitched in this case is quantity over quality. Detroit needed it that year Cleveland didn't.
You can make a fair argument that McDowell was better than McLain that year as well and he started 37 games and had a lower ERA and ERA+ plus struck out more batters. Dave McNally pitched well too!
Yes. Very nice accomplishment. You probably will never see another 30 game winner unless a guy can go undefeated and get a decision in every start.
Cleveland didn't win the pennant, Detroit did. Safe to say they needed more starts from Luis
Also, keep in mind that the extra innings are pitched by McLain for Detroit and some nobody for Cleveland.
They had better pitching than Detroit, they needed more runs.
McDowell?
I agree with that. While I'm not in the camp of "Everybody better than Jack Morris/Catfish Hunter should be in the HoF", I strongly believe that we shouldn't put people in while demonstrably better choices are still out. In other words, I'm not saying Rusty Staub belongs in the HoF, just that it's a shame that Harold Baines went in while Staub was still left out. Special situations, of course, must be handled differently. I'm not outraged that Dave Winfield went in while Joe Jackson was still out.
Sabathia was certainly more overpowering. It was a long time ago, but I don't remember Tiant as being overpowering at all.
He could sure make batters look foolish though.
news to some but not really a surprise, Sabathia is not on the Yankees ALDS roster.
You think McDowell - who was their #1- was filling in the innings not tossed by Tiant, their #2? Nah. Games not started by Tiant were taken by a #5.
And as part of the media hype, USA Today's link to that story is entitled "Future Hall of Famer left off postseason roster".
McDowell had 37 starts, pretty close to McLain's league leading 41, so if Tiant was the #1 guy (I hate doing the "if" thing) he would have gotten 5 more starts, and IF he would have maintained his ERA it would have ended this debate.
I pointed out a while back that Detroit had a 4 man rotation and Cleveland had 5 starters. They had a very good starting rotation!
Tiant's ERA was about 20% better than McLain's.
Seems to me we are looking at two different things; McLain was more valuable to his team, Tiant was the better pitcher.
After his first three games Mclain maintained a very consistent ERA of 2.00, or a little below, for the entire year. Reducing his innings pitched for this comparison doesn't seem to change his numbers.
Tiant pitched at a superb ERA of 1.3 for three months and the last two it rose to his final 1.6.
Let's play IF; (if my math is correct) if Tiant got 8-9 more starts to get to around 336 innings (both guys averaged a little over 8 innings per start, so that was about the same) he would have had to give up a whopping 27 runs to raise his ERA to 1.96.
In his worst months; August Tiant had 7 starts and Septenber he had 4. He pitched 75 innings over those 11 starts and gave up 19 runs. In his worst 11 game stretch Tiant pitched as well as McLain did all year.
Luis gave up over 3 earned runs in a start only twice all year, I don't see him doing that on average 7 more times.
Have a great day everyone!
Ah, but you don't get to extrapolate how Tiant would have performed based on how he did perform. What we know is that Tiant didn't pitch those 80 innings - some other guy did. Some other guy who wasn't nearly as good threw those innings.
So...which is better - 336 innings of 1.96 or 258 innings of 1.60 and 78 innings of 4.15 (the ERA of the #5 guy for Cleveland*) ? Answer: the 336 IP of 1.96. The cumulative ERA of the other one is 2.20.
So the question is, how how much value do you place on those extra 78** innings? Since it's such a big number of starts, it seems like a lot of value should be placed on them. Tiant averaged 7.9 innings per start. The 77-2/3 innings difference is nearly 10 starts. 10 starts. That's a LOT of value to make up.
Did Tiant give up fewer runs and generally pitch to a higher peak? Yes. But it's like an MVP debate where one guy plays 123 games and one plays 160 but at a slightly lower level. How many are voting for that guy who played 123 games? (Yes, the ratio of 123:160 is the same as the 258.1:336 for innings pitched).
** - We're going with Tiant's 78 fewer innings pitched, but he actually pitched only 253 innings in starts. 32 starts. So 9 fewer starts and 83 fewer innings in them compared to McLain.
Incidentally, I love debates like this.
I don't think any of the three had close to MVP caliber seasons. Betts was far better than any, and he shouldn't be in the discussion either.
Oh yes, neither is close to deserving of the HoF (as in among the best not yet enshrined). It would be like putting David Ortiz in before McGwire or Palmeiro.
Me too!
Had Tiant missed time because of an injury, I would look at it a bit differently.
It's similar to a guy that wins a batting title with fewer at bats because of things out of his control. If player A plays a full season, but gets fewer at bats and wins the title by 20% and is a little better in almost all the other individual batting areas than player B, he might not have as many hits, but he is the best hitter.
_"Ah, but you don't get to extrapolate how Tiant would have performed based on how he did perform. What we know is that Tiant didn't pitch those 80 innings - some other guy did. Some other guy who wasn't nearly as good threw those innings.
So...which is better - 336 innings of 1.96 or 258 innings of 1.60 and 78 innings of 4.15 (the ERA of the #5 guy for Cleveland*) ? Answer: the 336 IP of 1.96. The cumulative ERA of the other one is 2.20."_
McDowell pitched those innings and he also had a lower ERA than McLain. He was every bit as good as McLain that year too.
McLain didn't pitch better that Tiant in one single category, he did pitch more often, and he did pitch well.
He was also much more valuable to his team, but that's not the same as "better", at least not the way I look at it.
the answer to the debate is the word average. there is every reason to believe that Tiant would have maintained his average had he pitched. also, it isn't reasonable to presume that the #5 pitcher filled in for Tiant, it just didn't and doesn't work that way.
thinking about this thread this morning reminded me that as a child I had Louis Tiant's autograph on a baseball, maybe around 1965-66. my Dad took us kids to a Ball Day and then we hung at that locker room exit. along with Tiant's I got my favorite player as a child, Vic Davilillo, who played CF for the Tribe.
Louis was a big, robust and very happy man as I recall. of course, I think he won that day!!
sadly, the ball is long gone.
Why is there any reason to think that? The only times Tiant started anywhere close to 40 games (37, 38, 38), his numbers were significantly worse (not bad necessarily, just worse than his amazing '68).