No, it's not really meaningless because there have been mistakes made. That's why I listed the players I did. When you win 11 and win them in both leagues.
Gold Gloves aren't entirely meaningless, but they are by far the least meaningful awards given, and always have been. They way they generally work is that the first GG a player wins, he probably deserved it, or was at least a reasonable contender. The second one is less meaningful, especially if it is consecutive with the first, but still means something. After that, and again especially if they are consecutive, they mean next to nothing. It might be the case that some are deserved, but much more often than not they are not. GG voters, historically mostly managers, simply don't have enough experience or information to cast an educated vote. They may vote for the guy who did really well in the handful of games the manager actually saw him play, or (most of the time) they vote for the guy who won it the year before because they simply have no idea who they should really vote for.
You really think he was just an average fielder, or only good for a couple years?
Over the course of his career, yes, he was about average. He was (almost) as great as you remember him when he started and did deserve his first GG in 1993; 1994 looks suspect, but he probably deserved the 1995 GG, too. After that, he just kept winning them because that's how GGs work. Alex Gonzalez never won a single GG because Vizquel kept getting them handed to him, but he should have at least as many as Vizquel (i.e., maybe three each), and A-rod, who finally started winning some when Vizquel got so far from GG quality that even the managers noticed, had one or two robbed from him by Vizquel, too. For the last several years of his career Vizquel was well below average, and downright putrid by the end, and the end result was a total career that wasn't far from average.
So because someone won one (or five) they didn't deserve, Omar didn't deserve ANY? Great hitters over the years have won them unfairly. Omar was never a great hitter.
Asked and answered - he deserved two, maybe three.
I am not a big Omar guy, even if it looks that way, but give him SOME credit.
He deserved two or three Gold Gloves; I give him credit for that. And that is the sum total of his HOF qualifications, leaving him miles behind Jim Fregosi in the HOF-deserving line.
Pitcher: Greg Maddux - 18 Gold Gloves
Giving GG to pitchers has always been funny since they field about half a dozen balls a season that aren't underhand tosses from 15 feet away that your granddaughter could catch, but they do provide whatever proof one might need that GG are given to whoever won it the year before. No other position sees streaks of GG as ridiculously long as pitcher, because nobody, and I do mean nobody, has a clue who the best fielding pitcher is, nor is there any reason at all that they should care.
Catcher: Ivan Rodriguez - 13 Gold Gloves
Pudge was probably the greatest fielding catcher of all time, so I don't want to diminish in any way how great he was. And I don't think it does diminish him in the least to say that he probably deserved 7 or 8 Gold Gloves rather than the 13 he actually won. Pudge could hit (another factor in who wins GGs, although it obviously shouldn't be) but there are catchers who can't hit who still have careers in MLB solely because they are great catchers. Ron Karkovice was such a catcher, but he has no GG because Pudge stole them. Steinbach probably deserved one or two, as well.
First Baseman: Keith Hernandez - 11 Gold Glove
Great first baseman, but, like everyone else ever, not the best each and every year. Also, like everyone else you've listed, it's the consecutiveness of the awards that really ought to give it away. Hernandez ended the GG streak of Steve Garvey at 4, and they spent the next many years being about equals. In some years, Hernandez was better, in just as many years Garvey was better. When Garvey gave out, a young Glenn Davis was at least the equal of the aging Hernandez. Hernandez was great, but he didn't deserve anywhere close to 11 Gold Gloves.
Second Baseman: Roberto Alomar - 10 Gold Gloves
Probably deserved as many Gold Gloves as anyone in history, at any position; maybe as many as 8.
Third Baseman: Brooks Robinson - 16 Gold Gloves
The greatest concentration of top-fielding third basemen converged in the AL during Brooks Robinson's career. Frank Malzone, Clete Boyer, Graig Nettles, and Aurelio Rodriguez all crossed paths with Brooks. Malzone alone won - he won several GG, and deserved them, before the voters turned their eyes to Robinson. The biggest loser was Boyer, probably the greatest fielding third baseman of all time but over the course of a career too short to legitimately claim the GOAT title. He finally won his one and only GG when he got traded to the NL, but deserved at least three of the ones Robinson got. Then Boyer gave way to Graig Nettles, who was a legitimate defensive superstar when he was young, and who was a heck of a lot better fielder than an old Brooks Robinson; probably another three GG taken away by Robinson. And Rodriguez was Nettles true competition for Gold Gloves as Robinson's streak marched inexorably on for no reason other than that's how Gold Gloves work. Rodriguez finally won his one and only Gold Glove when Robinson's streak ended, but should have one or two more. And if you take away half, or more, of Robinson's Gold Gloves? He's still got more than anyone else, and now they actually mean something!
Shortstop: Ozzie Smith - 13 Gold Gloves
I am contractually forbidden from saying anything less than 100% positive about Ozzie, so I'll stop here. But there are no exceptions to the rule that any player with a streak of Gold Gloves longer than about four has more Gold Gloves than he deserves.
Left Fielder: Alex Gordon - 7 Gold Gloves
>
Center Fielder: Willie Mays - 12 Gold Gloves
Right Fielder: Roberto Clemente - 12 Gold Gloves
>
Nothing specific about Clemente, but it is almost always the case, every year, that the three best fielding outfielders are in CF. I picked a random year from Clemente's streak (1965) and they gave the other two GGs to CFs (Mays and Flood). The third GG should have gone to LA CF Willie Davis, but instead it went to a RF, who was the second-best OF on the Pirates. Bill Virdon who was in CF, where the best OF on every team plays assuming the manager is not brain damaged, was the best OF on the Pirates throughout most of Clemente's streak.
Other than Maddux and Brooks, Omar is right there with everybody on this list.
If your opinion is that he's not a good enough player to merit the HOF, that's one thing, to say he wasn't a great fielder, I would disagree strongly.
Hope this cleared that up.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
Omar Vizquel never jumped off the page until these accusations.... his HOF case is more along the lines of a lifetime achievement award similar to Harold Baines.... IMO.... Durability is his calling card. If fidelity based domestic abuse were on every ballot most players would have ex's come testify to keep these traveling lovers out of the HOF..... IF Omar is good enough based on his between the lines field acumen to get into the HOF have at it...IMO. Otherwise accusations in the climate we live in are so often thrown about with reckless abandon ~Who will ever know ultimately shy of video evidence?
@BriantheTaxGuy said:
... if your best argument is "so-and-so is in" then you really do no belong.
Agreed, but just to be clear, there is nobody in the HOF less deserving than Vizquel so he doesn't even have this weak argument available to him.
I'd nominate Baines, Morris, and Hunter as contenders. It's impossible to compare Candy Cummings. Rice was notably better, and far more deserving.
I wasn't thinking about pitchers when I made that statement, so I may have to retract. I think Baines, as ordinary as he was, was still more deserving than Vizquel. But Morris and Hunter, and a couple relief pitchers, give Vizquel a run for his money. It's hard for me to identify a least deserving pitcher, but whichever one it is - probably Hunter - I have to agree is less deserving than Vizquel. It is sobering to think that we are discussing players and pitchers an order of magnitude less deserving than Gene Tenace and Milt Pappas, and how few people realize that's what we're doing.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
I wasn't thinking about pitchers when I made that statement, so I may have to retract. I think Baines, as ordinary as he was, was still more deserving than Vizquel. But Morris and Hunter, and a couple relief pitchers, give Vizquel a run for his money. It's hard for me to identify a least deserving pitcher, but whichever one it is - probably Hunter - I have to agree is less deserving than Vizquel. It is sobering to think that we are discussing players and pitchers an order of magnitude less deserving than Gene Tenace and Milt Pappas, and how few people realize that's what we're doing.
Dennis Eckersley is far less-deserving than Hunter. He got in as a reliever and really only had 3 great seasons as one (1989, 1990, 1992). He then had 1 other good one (1988) and was about average in 1991. That's a really, really thin resume for a guy who pitches 65 innings a year.
No, it's not really meaningless because there have been mistakes made. That's why I listed the players I did. When you win 11 and win them in both leagues.
Gold Gloves aren't entirely meaningless, but they are by far the least meaningful awards given, and always have been. They way they generally work is that the first GG a player wins, he probably deserved it, or was at least a reasonable contender. The second one is less meaningful, especially if it is consecutive with the first, but still means something. After that, and again especially if they are consecutive, they mean next to nothing. It might be the case that some are deserved, but much more often than not they are not. GG voters, historically mostly managers, simply don't have enough experience or information to cast an educated vote. They may vote for the guy who did really well in the handful of games the manager actually saw him play, or (most of the time) they vote for the guy who won it the year before because they simply have no idea who they should really vote for.
You really think he was just an average fielder, or only good for a couple years?
Over the course of his career, yes, he was about average. He was (almost) as great as you remember him when he started and did deserve his first GG in 1993; 1994 looks suspect, but he probably deserved the 1995 GG, too. After that, he just kept winning them because that's how GGs work. Alex Gonzalez never won a single GG because Vizquel kept getting them handed to him, but he should have at least as many as Vizquel (i.e., maybe three each), and A-rod, who finally started winning some when Vizquel got so far from GG quality that even the managers noticed, had one or two robbed from him by Vizquel, too. For the last several years of his career Vizquel was well below average, and downright putrid by the end, and the end result was a total career that wasn't far from average.
So because someone won one (or five) they didn't deserve, Omar didn't deserve ANY? Great hitters over the years have won them unfairly. Omar was never a great hitter.
Asked and answered - he deserved two, maybe three.
I am not a big Omar guy, even if it looks that way, but give him SOME credit.
He deserved two or three Gold Gloves; I give him credit for that. And that is the sum total of his HOF qualifications, leaving him miles behind Jim Fregosi in the HOF-deserving line.
Pitcher: Greg Maddux - 18 Gold Gloves
Giving GG to pitchers has always been funny since they field about half a dozen balls a season that aren't underhand tosses from 15 feet away that your granddaughter could catch, but they do provide whatever proof one might need that GG are given to whoever won it the year before. No other position sees streaks of GG as ridiculously long as pitcher, because nobody, and I do mean nobody, has a clue who the best fielding pitcher is, nor is there any reason at all that they should care.
Catcher: Ivan Rodriguez - 13 Gold Gloves
Pudge was probably the greatest fielding catcher of all time, so I don't want to diminish in any way how great he was. And I don't think it does diminish him in the least to say that he probably deserved 7 or 8 Gold Gloves rather than the 13 he actually won. Pudge could hit (another factor in who wins GGs, although it obviously shouldn't be) but there are catchers who can't hit who still have careers in MLB solely because they are great catchers. Ron Karkovice was such a catcher, but he has no GG because Pudge stole them. Steinbach probably deserved one or two, as well.
First Baseman: Keith Hernandez - 11 Gold Glove
Great first baseman, but, like everyone else ever, not the best each and every year. Also, like everyone else you've listed, it's the consecutiveness of the awards that really ought to give it away. Hernandez ended the GG streak of Steve Garvey at 4, and they spent the next many years being about equals. In some years, Hernandez was better, in just as many years Garvey was better. When Garvey gave out, a young Glenn Davis was at least the equal of the aging Hernandez. Hernandez was great, but he didn't deserve anywhere close to 11 Gold Gloves.
Second Baseman: Roberto Alomar - 10 Gold Gloves
Probably deserved as many Gold Gloves as anyone in history, at any position; maybe as many as 8.
Third Baseman: Brooks Robinson - 16 Gold Gloves
The greatest concentration of top-fielding third basemen converged in the AL during Brooks Robinson's career. Frank Malzone, Clete Boyer, Graig Nettles, and Aurelio Rodriguez all crossed paths with Brooks. Malzone alone won - he won several GG, and deserved them, before the voters turned their eyes to Robinson. The biggest loser was Boyer, probably the greatest fielding third baseman of all time but over the course of a career too short to legitimately claim the GOAT title. He finally won his one and only GG when he got traded to the NL, but deserved at least three of the ones Robinson got. Then Boyer gave way to Graig Nettles, who was a legitimate defensive superstar when he was young, and who was a heck of a lot better fielder than an old Brooks Robinson; probably another three GG taken away by Robinson. And Rodriguez was Nettles true competition for Gold Gloves as Robinson's streak marched inexorably on for no reason other than that's how Gold Gloves work. Rodriguez finally won his one and only Gold Glove when Robinson's streak ended, but should have one or two more. And if you take away half, or more, of Robinson's Gold Gloves? He's still got more than anyone else, and now they actually mean something!
Shortstop: Ozzie Smith - 13 Gold Gloves
I am contractually forbidden from saying anything less than 100% positive about Ozzie, so I'll stop here. But there are no exceptions to the rule that any player with a streak of Gold Gloves longer than about four has more Gold Gloves than he deserves.
Left Fielder: Alex Gordon - 7 Gold Gloves
>
Center Fielder: Willie Mays - 12 Gold Gloves
Right Fielder: Roberto Clemente - 12 Gold Gloves
>
Nothing specific about Clemente, but it is almost always the case, every year, that the three best fielding outfielders are in CF. I picked a random year from Clemente's streak (1965) and they gave the other two GGs to CFs (Mays and Flood). The third GG should have gone to LA CF Willie Davis, but instead it went to a RF, who was the second-best OF on the Pirates. Bill Virdon who was in CF, where the best OF on every team plays assuming the manager is not brain damaged, was the best OF on the Pirates throughout most of Clemente's streak.
Other than Maddux and Brooks, Omar is right there with everybody on this list.
If your opinion is that he's not a good enough player to merit the HOF, that's one thing, to say he wasn't a great fielder, I would disagree strongly.
Hope this cleared that up.
I agree with much of what you said.
How then did Omar get the last two? He's "well below average" by this time and in a new league. He hadn't won a GG for a while either. Common sense would say a guy coming from the AL would not be "handed" a GG if he didn't impress.
I could NEVER go as far as to say Harold Baines is more deserving than Omar, he wasn't even good enough to start for much of his career. Very good hitter though.
I think a lot of you are going to be surprised and angry when Omar gets in.
2013,14 and 15 Certificate Award Winner Harmon Killebrew Master Set and Master Topps Set
@Tabe said:
Dennis Eckersley is far less-deserving than Hunter. He got in as a reliever and really only had 3 great seasons as one (1989, 1990, 1992). He then had 1 other good one (1988) and was about average in 1991. That's a really, really thin resume for a guy who pitches 65 innings a year.
I disagree. If he had spent his entire career as a reliever then I wouldn't argue (except to say that Bruce Sutter is even less deserving than Eck on that basis), but he was a good starter before that. Compare Eckersley's career from 1975 to 1986 - 2.500 innings and an ERA+ of 111 - to Hunter's career from 1970 to 1979 (throwing out Hunter's bad years, so I'm helping him, not hurting him) - 2,400 innings and an ERA+ of 110. Dennis Eckersley is essentially Catfish Hunter PLUS Bruce Sutter, and so can't be less deserving than either one of them individually.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
@JoeBanzai said:
I agree with much of what you said.
How then did Omar get the last two? He's "well below average" by this time and in a new league. He hadn't won a GG for a while either. Common sense would say a guy coming from the AL would not be "handed" a GG if he didn't impress.
You'd have to ask the people who voted for him to know for sure, but my guess is that he won the first one because the NL voters had no idea who they should vote for and saw a guy with 11 Gold Gloves and settled on him. Jack Wilson, the SS who deserved the GG that year, was a terrible hitter on a terrible team and got overlooked. Vizquel won the next one because he had won the first one.
And that's a point worth considering. When we think of who the best at any position was, we naturally focus on the ones we remember. And the one's we remember are usually the ones on good teams who also hit well. But, especially at SS, there are players who had long careers who couldn't hit a lick - not even as well as Vizquel - and who toiled away on small market and/or bad teams. But those are exactly the players you should look at first; the only reason they got to play at all, let alone play for 10+ years, was because of their fielding. Check out Dick Schofield (senior) some time. He played MLB for 19 seasons, usually as a backup although he was a regular for a few years, despite not breaking the Mendoza line about half of those seasons. Somebody always wanted him because he was a GREAT shortstop.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
@JoeBanzai said:
I agree with much of what you said.
How then did Omar get the last two? He's "well below average" by this time and in a new league. He hadn't won a GG for a while either. Common sense would say a guy coming from the AL would not be "handed" a GG if he didn't impress.
You'd have to ask the people who voted for him to know for sure, but my guess is that he won the first one because the NL voters had no idea who they should vote for and saw a guy with 11 Gold Gloves and settled on him. Jack Wilson, the SS who deserved the GG that year, was a terrible hitter on a terrible team and got overlooked. Vizquel won the next one because he had won the first one.
And that's a point worth considering. When we think of who the best at any position was, we naturally focus on the ones we remember. And the one's we remember are usually the ones on good teams who also hit well. But, especially at SS, there are players who had long careers who couldn't hit a lick - not even as well as Vizquel - and who toiled away on small market and/or bad teams. But those are exactly the players you should look at first; the only reason they got to play at all, let alone play for 10+ years, was because of their fielding. Check out Dick Schofield (senior) some time. He played MLB for 19 seasons, usually as a backup although he was a regular for a few years, despite not breaking the Mendoza line about half of those seasons. Somebody always wanted him because he was a GREAT shortstop.
I remember Schofield he was a good one.
2013,14 and 15 Certificate Award Winner Harmon Killebrew Master Set and Master Topps Set
@Mickey71 said:
I think I heard somewhere that saber-metrics showed Rod Carew was not very good. LOL
Rather than allowing your opinions to be influenced by things you think you heard somewhere, wouldn't it be better to learn about sabermetrics for yourself and reach your own conclusions?
P.S. No, you did not hear that, and sabermetrics does not show that. My best guess is that you heard that sabermetrics showed that Carew wasn't as good as Joe Morgan or Mike Schmidt or Harmon Killebrew or some other great player with a much lower batting average than Carew. But not being as great as another great player is not at all the same thing as not being great, let alone not even very good. Or, maybe you got the names mixed up and you heard sabermetrics showed that Jim Rice wasn't very good, in which case you heard correctly.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
@BriantheTaxGuy said:
... if your best argument is "so-and-so is in" then you really do no belong.
Agreed, but just to be clear, there is nobody in the HOF less deserving than Vizquel so he doesn't even have this weak argument available to him.
I'd nominate Baines, Morris, and Hunter as contenders. It's impossible to compare Candy Cummings. Rice was notably better, and far more deserving.
I wasn't thinking about pitchers when I made that statement, so I may have to retract. I think Baines, as ordinary as he was, was still more deserving than Vizquel. But Morris and Hunter, and a couple relief pitchers, give Vizquel a run for his money. It's hard for me to identify a least deserving pitcher, but whichever one it is - probably Hunter - I have to agree is less deserving than Vizquel. It is sobering to think that we are discussing players and pitchers an order of magnitude less deserving than Gene Tenace and Milt Pappas, and how few people realize that's what we're doing.
I'm not sure. Certainly Baines was a much better hitter and far more glamorous than Vizquel, but Vizquel was a far better defender. It is easy to find players like Tenace and Pappas that are far more deserving. Easily a hundred far more deserving than any of the above. All I'm saying is that we could make an argument for Vizquel being able to say "If Baines is in, I should be in." It's a stupid argument, and Vizquel is not clearly more deserving than Baines, but I think he meets that low bar. Belanger must go in first, however.
@daltex said:
I'm not sure. Certainly Baines was a much better hitter and far more glamorous than Vizquel, but Vizquel was a far better defender.
Fair enough. Vizquel was better at what he was good at, for a while, than Baines was at what he was good at. What I really was saying - and I concede this was my bad since this was not the topic - is that Baines was "better" than Vizquel, since hitting well is much more important than fielding well. As the Official Defender of Bill Mazeroski, I should not have gotten those mixed up.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
Ted Williams once told Tom Yawkey; "You know that huge ovation you hear when you are at the ballpark? That's somebody getting a hit, not catching a ball."
Or words to that effect.
2013,14 and 15 Certificate Award Winner Harmon Killebrew Master Set and Master Topps Set
@craig44 said:
i am not a fan of letting off field actions effect hof voting. I can assure you, none of the hof are full of choir boys. meanwhile, i am far from convinced Vizquel is deserved of Cooperstown.
So you're in favor of Pete Rose being inducted, yes?
As far as Viqzuel, he should no sniff the hall and if your best argument is "so-and-so is in" then you really do no belong.
absolutely in favor of letting Rose into the hall. absolutely.
Don't forget though that even if he did again become eligible, he's still gotta get 75% like everyone else. And his chances of getting that number might not be as good as you might think.
@Tabe said:
Dennis Eckersley is far less-deserving than Hunter. He got in as a reliever and really only had 3 great seasons as one (1989, 1990, 1992). He then had 1 other good one (1988) and was about average in 1991. That's a really, really thin resume for a guy who pitches 65 innings a year.
I disagree. If he had spent his entire career as a reliever then I wouldn't argue (except to say that Bruce Sutter is even less deserving than Eck on that basis), but he was a good starter before that. Compare Eckersley's career from 1975 to 1986 - 2.500 innings and an ERA+ of 111 - to Hunter's career from 1970 to 1979 (throwing out Hunter's bad years, so I'm helping him, not hurting him) - 2,400 innings and an ERA+ of 110. Dennis Eckersley is essentially Catfish Hunter PLUS Bruce Sutter, and so can't be less deserving than either one of them individually.
That's fair but let's be honest - he got in because of being a reliever. And he wasn't that great. 3 great seasons as a closer is nothing. I mean, that's less than Craig Kimbrel.
Hunter's best seasons as a starter were better than Eck's - while also throwing 70-80 more innings in those seasons - while his worst were also better than Eck' s worst. And let's not forget he became a reliever because he bombed out as a starter.
@craig44 said:
i am not a fan of letting off field actions effect hof voting. I can assure you, none of the hof are full of choir boys. meanwhile, i am far from convinced Vizquel is deserved of Cooperstown.
So you're in favor of Pete Rose being inducted, yes?
As far as Viqzuel, he should no sniff the hall and if your best argument is "so-and-so is in" then you really do no belong.
absolutely in favor of letting Rose into the hall. absolutely.
Don't forget though that even if he did again become eligible, he's still gotta get 75% like everyone else. And his chances of getting that number might not be as good as you might think.
I didnt say I think he would get in, I said i think he should get in.
@Tabe said:
Hunter's best seasons as a starter were better than Eck's - while also throwing 70-80 more innings in those seasons - while his worst were also better than Eck' s worst. And let's not forget he became a reliever because he bombed out as a starter.
I'll note that Eckersley led the league in ERA+ once with 149; Hunter never led the league and never had an ERA + that good.
But mostly I object to describing Eckersley as having "bombed out as a starter". He was a starter for 12 seasons, with an ERA+ of 111. That's a quality starter. His last season he struggled with an ERA of 4.57, but his FIP was only 3.45 - that is some very tough luck and he was actually still pitching pretty well. And note that Hunter's first four seasons his ERA+ was 94 and the only thing he'd led the league in was earned runs allowed. Catfish Hunter "bombed out as a starter" to a greater degree than Eckersley did, but he got to keep pitching anyway. He then had the five year "career" upon which the entire myth of Hunter's greatness is built. And it's a five-year "career" with an ERA+ of 127, as compared to Eckersley's five-year peak of 128.
Eckersley being in the HOF doesn't bother me, and if he weren't in it wouldn't bother me either. But Hunter being in the HOF is just absurd.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
Eck had a 1.34 WHIP that last year as a starter - he was awful. If he'd been good, he wouldn't have been moved to the pen. They mixed in two more starts for him in 1987, one good, one awful, giving him a combined 6.94 ERA as a starter in 1987.
Eck's 149 ERA - which came with a FIP of 3.83 - was 246 innings. Hunter's 144 - with a FIP of 3.30 - was 328 innings. I'd rather have the 328 innings.
I am not making the case for Hunter to be in the Hall, just saying Eck doesn't belong. He's in because of his years as a reliever n which, again, were simply not that great.
OK, fine, I'm overstating my case for Eckersley. But since I've come this far, I'll add this: in 1979, Eckersley, as a starting pitcher, deserved the Cy Young Award as the best pitcher in the AL. Hunter won a Cy Young in 1974 but stole it from Gaylord Perry; Hunter was never the best pitcher in the AL.
I know we agree about Hunter not belonging in the HOF, and we're close enough on Eckersley (I'm on the fence), but I stand firm in saying that Eckersley is MORE deserving of the HOF than Hunter, even if we're talking about tiny fractions.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
Quick reference point for evaluating how good a pitcher was is RAA, in the Player Value - Pitching section on baseball-reference. The stat measures how many runs the pitcher allowed less than an average pitcher, adjusted for ballparks, etc.
For Catfish Hunter, that number is 35
Jim Kaat: 49
Mark Fidrych: 54
Ken Forsch: 70
Jack Morris: 76
Sonny Siebert: 87
Vida Blue: 112
Mickey Lolich: 132
Frank Tanana: 163
Milt Pappas: 168
Tommy John: 179
Don Sutton: 191
Eckersley (as a starter only): 196
Jim Bunning: 236
Don Drysdale: 247
Sandy Koufax: 249
Dave Stieb: 265
Dennis Eckersley (entire career): 266
I believe Eckersley's RAA of 266 is higher than any pitcher's who is not in the HOF (or will be soon), and as you can see it's higher than some HOFers. Even discarding all of his relief years entirely (which would not be reasonable), he's still sitting on top of Don Sutton (and every reliever in the HOF, plus several other starters). Dave Stieb ought to be in the HOF, and would be if he had won the four consecutive Cy Young Awards he deserved. You can search for a pitcher with an RAA over 200 who doesn't at least have a serious case for the HOF, but I think you'll come up empty. For Eckersley specifically, I think if he hadn't spent so many years in Fenway and Wrigley, you'd see his case more clearly.
And just to be perfectly clear, I am not saying that if Pitcher A has a higher RAA than Pitcher B that he is better than Pitcher B. There's more to it than that, but RAA is, I believe, the very best starting point for a "better than" comparison, and then moving forward from there. Fidrych was not better than Hunter, and Eckersley was not better than Koufax; but I do think Eckersley was better than every pitcher above with an RAA less than 200, and considerably better than Hunter or Morris.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
@Tabe said:
Eck had a 1.34 WHIP that last year as a starter - he was awful. If he'd been good, he wouldn't have been moved to the pen. They mixed in two more starts for him in 1987, one good, one awful, giving him a combined 6.94 ERA as a starter in 1987.
Eck's 149 ERA - which came with a FIP of 3.83 - was 246 innings. Hunter's 144 - with a FIP of 3.30 - was 328 innings. I'd rather have the 328 innings.
I am not making the case for Hunter to be in the Hall, just saying Eck doesn't belong. He's in because of his years as a reliever n which, again, were simply not that great.
You almost make his point for him. If Eckersley has a 149 ERA+ with a FIP of 3.83 and Hunter is 144 and 3.30, then it is clear that Eckersley pitched under much more difficult conditions.
In any event, after a borderline HOF career as a starter, certainly good enough to get into the "Hall of Very Good" and better than some enshrined. He then tacked on a relief career that included FOUR Top-6 MVP finishes (not to mention the four Top-6 Cy Young finishes). Now I yield to no one in my beliefs that people, especially in the late 80s-early 90s, overvalued one inning saves, but clearly that level of dominance would push him far over the top.
@dallasactuary said:
Quick reference point for evaluating how good a pitcher was is RAA, in the Player Value - Pitching section on baseball-reference. The stat measures how many runs the pitcher allowed less than an average pitcher, adjusted for ballparks, etc.
For Catfish Hunter, that number is 35
Jim Kaat: 49
Mark Fidrych: 54
Ken Forsch: 70
Jack Morris: 76
Sonny Siebert: 87
Vida Blue: 112
Mickey Lolich: 132
Frank Tanana: 163
Milt Pappas: 168
Tommy John: 179
Don Sutton: 191
Eckersley (as a starter only): 196
Jim Bunning: 236
Don Drysdale: 247
Sandy Koufax: 249
Dave Stieb: 265
Dennis Eckersley (entire career): 266
I believe Eckersley's RAA of 266 is higher than any pitcher's who is not in the HOF (or will be soon), and as you can see it's higher than some HOFers. Even discarding all of his relief years entirely (which would not be reasonable), he's still sitting on top of Don Sutton (and every reliever in the HOF, plus several other starters). Dave Stieb ought to be in the HOF, and would be if he had won the four consecutive Cy Young Awards he deserved. You can search for a pitcher with an RAA over 200 who doesn't at least have a serious case for the HOF, but I think you'll come up empty. For Eckersley specifically, I think if he hadn't spent so many years in Fenway and Wrigley, you'd see his case more clearly.
And just to be perfectly clear, I am not saying that if Pitcher A has a higher RAA than Pitcher B that he is better than Pitcher B. There's more to it than that, but RAA is, I believe, the very best starting point for a "better than" comparison, and then moving forward from there. Fidrych was not better than Hunter, and Eckersley was not better than Koufax; but I do think Eckersley was better than every pitcher above with an RAA less than 200, and considerably better than Hunter or Morris.
I always thought Sutton had an excellent chance to be the first pitcher to win 300 and not be enshrined.
I always thought Sutton had an excellent chance to be the first pitcher to win 300 and not be enshrined.
I think Sutton ought to more or less define the line for HOF greatness; he should be either the least deserving pitcher in, or the most deserving pitcher out and I'd be fine in either case. Eckersley, I think, is more or less Sutton's equal and so the same applies to him. The pitchers I listed below Sutton have no business in a HOF discussion, let alone an actual spot in the HOF, but by inducting Hunter and Morris there is no logically consistent reason why Vida Blue and Mickey Lolich, etc. haven't also been inducted, along with 100 or so others.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
@Tabe said:
Eck had a 1.34 WHIP that last year as a starter - he was awful. If he'd been good, he wouldn't have been moved to the pen. They mixed in two more starts for him in 1987, one good, one awful, giving him a combined 6.94 ERA as a starter in 1987.
Eck's 149 ERA - which came with a FIP of 3.83 - was 246 innings. Hunter's 144 - with a FIP of 3.30 - was 328 innings. I'd rather have the 328 innings.
I am not making the case for Hunter to be in the Hall, just saying Eck doesn't belong. He's in because of his years as a reliever n which, again, were simply not that great.
You almost make his point for him. If Eckersley has a 149 ERA+ with a FIP of 3.83 and Hunter is 144 and 3.30, then it is clear that Eckersley pitched under much more difficult conditions.
In any event, after a borderline HOF career as a starter, certainly good enough to get into the "Hall of Very Good" and better than some enshrined. He then tacked on a relief career that included FOUR Top-6 MVP finishes (not to mention the four Top-6 Cy Young finishes). Now I yield to no one in my beliefs that people, especially in the late 80s-early 90s, overvalued one inning saves, but clearly that level of dominance would push him far over the top.
@Tabe said:
Eck had a 1.34 WHIP that last year as a starter - he was awful. If he'd been good, he wouldn't have been moved to the pen. They mixed in two more starts for him in 1987, one good, one awful, giving him a combined 6.94 ERA as a starter in 1987.
Eck's 149 ERA - which came with a FIP of 3.83 - was 246 innings. Hunter's 144 - with a FIP of 3.30 - was 328 innings. I'd rather have the 328 innings.
I am not making the case for Hunter to be in the Hall, just saying Eck doesn't belong. He's in because of his years as a reliever n which, again, were simply not that great.
You almost make his point for him. If Eckersley has a 149 ERA+ with a FIP of 3.83 and Hunter is 144 and 3.30, then it is clear that Eckersley pitched under much more difficult conditions.
In any event, after a borderline HOF career as a starter, certainly good enough to get into the "Hall of Very Good" and better than some enshrined. He then tacked on a relief career that included FOUR Top-6 MVP finishes (not to mention the four Top-6 Cy Young finishes). Now I yield to no one in my beliefs that people, especially in the late 80s-early 90s, overvalued one inning saves, but clearly that level of dominance would push him far over the top.
Yeah, don't even get me started on his joke MVP finishes. In 1988, when he was roughly equivalent to Jeff Reardon as a relief (with a lower ERA+ in fewer innings, no less), he finished ahead of Wade Boggs and his .366 average and .965 OPS. Gimme a break. The year he won? Roughly 50000 guys had a higher WAR. Shouldn't have even been top 10 let alone winning.
@dallasactuary said:
Quick reference point for evaluating how good a pitcher was is RAA, in the Player Value - Pitching section on baseball-reference. The stat measures how many runs the pitcher allowed less than an average pitcher, adjusted for ballparks, etc.
For Catfish Hunter, that number is 35
Jim Kaat: 49
Mark Fidrych: 54
Ken Forsch: 70
Jack Morris: 76
Sonny Siebert: 87
Vida Blue: 112
Mickey Lolich: 132
Frank Tanana: 163
Milt Pappas: 168
Tommy John: 179
Don Sutton: 191
Eckersley (as a starter only): 196
Jim Bunning: 236
Don Drysdale: 247
Sandy Koufax: 249
Dave Stieb: 265
Dennis Eckersley (entire career): 266
Now do Phil Niekro. Most underrated player of all time?
Now do Phil Niekro. Most underrated player of all time?
Knucksie's RAA was 415, double the standard HOF line. Among his HOF contemporaries:
Catfish Hunter: 35
Rollie Fingers: 60
Goose Gossage: 148
Don Sutton: 191
Hoyt Wilhelm: 234
Jim Bunning: 236
Juan Marichal: 237
Don Drysdale: 247
Sandy Koufax: 249
Jim Palmer: 271
Nolan Ryan: 297
Steve Carlton: 306
Fergie Jenkins: 348
Gaylord Perry: 364
Bob Gibson: 374 Phil Niekro: 415
Bert Blyleven: 436
Tom Seaver: 533
Bert Blyleven, although common sense finally overcame idiocy and he is now in the HOF, remains the most underrated pitcher of all time, but I think Niekro is definitely top 5. Luis Tiant (269) is up there, too.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
@daltex said:
Now do Phil Niekro. Most underrated player of all time?
I was always an American League guy, so other than the "big names", like Seaver, Gibson and Carlton, I wasn't that informed on the other pitchers in the NL.
From 1971 to 1979 Tom Seaver was the best pitcher in the NL, after that, I would give it to Phil HANDS DOWN.
He pitched more innings than anyone and had a great WAR, even though his ERA+ was only huge in 1974 and 1978. He should have won the Cy Young in both of those years.
Bob Gibson was better until 1972, Steve Carlton was amazing in 1972 and 1977, but (to my surprise) not really that great year to year. Phil actually was better than Steve every year other than those two!
Don Sutton was another guy I didn't think much of until I looked closer. He's just about as good as Phil.
2013,14 and 15 Certificate Award Winner Harmon Killebrew Master Set and Master Topps Set
I thought of a way to show the absurdity of Catfish Hunter being in the HOF a bit more visually. Below are all of the pitchers who pitched most of their career in the second deadball era (1961-1975), were "good" (had a career RAA > 0), and pitched a meaningfully long career. I may have forgotten someone, but I don't think it would change anything.
I already listed career RAA for a bunch of pitchers, and I said that was a good start to a "best" pitcher ranking. Mostly what we're missing is some measure of peak performance - how good was the pitcher in his best seasons. For this purpose, I decided to represent peak with the pitcher's RAA in his top five seasons. For the Tom Seaver's of the world, career RAA dwarfs peak RAA, but there are quite a few pitchers - like Koufax - whose career value is pretty much confined to their top five seasons, and some - like Hunter - whose peak RAA dwarfs his career RAA because outside of their top five seasons they were below average pitchers.
Ranking by peak only would be just as wrong as ranking by career value only, so I combined the two. And it has been my experience that most people, particularly fans of Koufax and Hunter, believe peak performance matters a lot more than career performance. Whether or not that is right, for this list I weighted peak RAA double, and added it to career RAA. If anyone thinks I'm still not being fair to Hunter, I'd love to hear why.
For clarity, I bolded the HOFers, and you'll see the top 12 on the list are all bolded. After that you see a mix of bold and unbold names; this is the range where the best discussions of HOF worthiness take place. From Tiant down to Tommy John, there are arguments to be made for and against each pitcher, and pretty much everyone draws their HOF line above or below one of these pitchers (even if they don't actually think of it in this way). Below that we have only three HOFers - Hunter and two relievers - and a whole bunch of comparable pitchers who I'm willing to bet many of you have never heard of. Hunter has a career value significantly below Gary Nolan and a peak value significantly below Jon Matlack. I don't care how you combine the two, if you get a HOFer as a result then you're doing it wrong.
This list is, I think, a fairly reasonable ranking of the best pitchers of that era, and Catfish Hunter ranking as the 38th best pitcher of his own era sounds about right.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
This list is, I think, a fairly reasonable ranking of the best pitchers of that era, and Catfish Hunter ranking as the 38th best pitcher of his own era sounds about right.
There's no way Gary Nolan was anywhere as good as Hunter. 1674 innings and only 3 seasons with 34 or more starts should eliminate him from any list of great pitchers. Matlack was better than anyone realizes, but I doubt that he was THAT much better than Hunter.
I am going to dig into your list (minus your absolute hate for the Catfish) and see realistically where he ranks.
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There's no way Gary Nolan was anywhere as good as Hunter. 1674 innings and only 3 seasons with 34 or more starts should eliminate him from any list of great pitchers. Matlack was better than anyone realizes, but I doubt that he was THAT much better than Hunter.
I am going to dig into your list (minus your absolute hate for the Catfish) and see realistically where he ranks.
OK, I have gone another step towards bending over backwards to make Hunter look as good as he possibly can. The list I created was based no RAA, or runs allowed less than an average pitcher. When evaluating pitchers in a HOF context I believe this is the correct way to look at it; hanging on as a below average pitcher detracts from a HOF case, it does not add to it.
But, that's just my opinion and you are free to disagree. So, I redid the analysis using RAR - runs allowed less than a replacement level pitcher - rather than RAA. Now Hunter, and everyone else, gets credit for pitching poorly, but not too poorly, for lots of innings. And this list lines up even better with the actual HOF, so I conclude that HOF voters agree with you - pitching poorly but not too poorly for a long time is a HOF credential. The revised list:
Note two things about the revised list: (1) The pitchers actually in the HOF are now all at the top (first 14 names), without the gray area we had before, and (2) the only HOF pitchers who fall way down the list are Hunter and the relief pitchers. Hunter himself rises from 38 to 28, and I don't think there is any reasonable way to get him any higher than that. He passes the group of pitchers with many fewer innings, such as Bill Hands, Mel Stottlemyre, etc. He does not pass Jon Matlack, who was simply a better pitcher than Hunter no matter how you look at it.
Edit to add: two pitchers I forgot are Camilo Pascual and Claude Osteen (I'm sure there are several others, but they would fall near the bottom of the list). Pascual scores 833 on this list, so add one more above Hunter. Osteen scores 766, right below Hunter, but looking at Osteen's career it struck me that he was the same pitcher as Hunter. Look for yourself; there's not a dime's worth of difference between them, except that Osteen topped out at being named on two HOF ballots, which is two more than either he or Hunter deserved.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
Took a pretty good look at the guys on your list ranked above Catfish and not in the HOF.
I eliminated anyone that wasn't a starter (John Hiller), anyone who pitched less than 2492 total innings (had to keep Sam McDowell in there) and anyone who was unable to pitch at least 4 seasons with more than 250 innings. I thought about reducing it to 200 innings, but decided that during that era 250 made more sense.
Biggest surprise was Tommy John with the most innings pitched of all the guys I looked at had only 3 seasons where he was able to throw 250 innings or more! Second was Dean Chance had an ERA+ of 200 in 1964, with 278 IP!
I did not even glance at wins or won/lost percentage, ERA titles or All-Star games.
Here are my rankings;
Luis Tiant and Mel Stottlemyre at the top.
Kaat, Lolich, McDowell, Blue and Wood the next bunch.
Catfish, Koosman and Perry the bottom three.
I was a little surprised at Stottlemeyre's numbers; best ERA of the players that made my top 10 and 9 straight years of 34+ starts and 250+ innings before an injury ended his career.
Tiant had a longer, but less consistent career, with a couple of monster seasons 1968 and 1972.
The next 5 were impossible for me to put (and keep) in any kind of order. Kaat, Blue, Lolich, McDowell, Wood?
Wilber was a reliever for quite a while and Kaat pitched more innings than any on the top 10, but I can't see a clear "winner" here.
I had Catfish and Koosman tied at 8-9 and Perry at number 10.
Do ANY of these guys "deserve" to make the HOF no matter how you rate them? They were all great pitchers!
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Well, at some point you have to decide how many starting pitchers from one era belong in the HoF. Even if you agree that they were all great pitchers, it's likely you'll agree that 24 is too many.
@daltex said:
Well, at some point you have to decide how many starting pitchers from one era belong in the HoF. Even if you agree that they were all great pitchers, it's likely you'll agree that 24 is too many.
I'm not sure any of "my" ten should go in. I really like Stottlemyre, but he had a short career and other than a couple of years leading te league in complete games, never led in anything and was never in the Cy Young hunt. HOF?
I am on the fence with Tiant as well. Two ERA titles, one where he only pitched 179 innings, and a lot of average to above average years.
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I am on the fence with Tiant as well. Two ERA titles, one where he only pitched 179 innings, and a lot of average to above average years.
Tiant suffers from two things:
(1) he pitched for many years in Boston when scoring runs was as easy as anywhere in history. He was better in 1974, by far, than Hunter but they gave Hunter the Cy Young.
(2) He got injured right at the peak of his career in 1970. That cost him not just 1970, but in 1971 they tried to bring him back too soon and he tanked. They overreacted in 1972 and brought him back in the bullpen and didn't put him back in the rotation until late in the season. Replace the 344 innings he pitched in those three years with 800 innings of peak Tiant, and he would have sailed in to the HOF.
Mel Stottlemyre was a very good pitcher for about a decade. Swap him and Hunter (putting Hunter on Stottlemyre's pathetic Yankee teams, and Stottlemyre on Hunter's Oakland and Yankee dynasties) and Stottlemyre would be in the HOF and nobody in the world would think Hunter was better than Jon Matlack.
Of all the pitchers on my list who aren't in the HOF, the only one that I think deserves to be in is Tiant, although I don't lose sleep over his exclusion. Wilbur Wood may have been the best pitcher of the whole group, but the White Sox wasted him in the bullpen for many years. When they finally put him in the rotation he was the best pitcher in the AL from 1971-1975 and deserved the Cy Young (over Vida Blue) in 1971. It wouldn't bother me at all if Wood was in the HOF, either. He was so much better than Hunter, and over the same seasons in the same league, that there's no way anyone can not see it if they just look.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
Tiant got injured right at the peak of his career in 1970. That cost him not just 1970, but in 1971 they tried to bring him back too soon and he tanked. They overreacted in 1972 and brought him back in the bullpen and didn't put him back in the rotation until late in the season. Replace the 344 innings he pitched in those three years with 800 innings of peak Tiant, and he would have sailed in to the HOF.
I remember when he got hurt. He was pitching great for the Twins. They ended up RELEASING him the next spring. Apparently he had been hurt in 1969 with Cleveland and the Twins figured it was best to let him go.
Shades of David Ortiz!
1974 was a great year for pitchers in the AL, but Hunter had the most wins and the lowest ERA and WHIP. I would have given it to Hunter, but Gaylord Perry or Fergie Jenkins were equally deserving as well as Luis.
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1974 was a great year for pitchers in the AL, but Hunter had the most wins and the lowest ERA and WHIP. I would have given it to Hunter, but Gaylord Perry or Fergie Jenkins were equally deserving as well as Luis.
Correction, the Athletics had the most wins. And Hunter pitched in the deadest hitters park in MLB; neither his ERA nor his WHIP was the best in the league once you take that into account. And Hunter gave up a lot of HR, and WHIP treats HR and singles as if they're equal; adjust for that and Hunter's WHIP was worse than both Tiant's and Perry's (and several others). Since I was talking up Tiant I didn't say it at the time, but Gaylord Perry was the best pitcher in the AL in 1974 by a considerable margin, with Tiant, Jenkins and Blyleven the next three (in some order). Kaat, Jim Perry, and Hunter were in the next group down.
Quick fact that I won't research for everyone else mentioned: in 1974 Hunter got 6+ run support from his team 16 times and was 12-1 in those games; he got 0-2 run support 8 times and was 1-6 in those games. Gaylord Perry got 6+ run support only 9 times, and was 9-0 in those games. He got 0-2 run support 11 times and, amazingly, was 5-5 in those games. Had the Indians hit behind Perry the way the A's hit behind Hunter, Perry may well have had a record of 28-6, plus or minus a win; it was a truly dominant season.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
You theorys are correct, however the numbers are the numbers, and we really have no way of proving any of the "what ifs".
Perry might have relaxed a bit pitching in an easy park and not been as good. I really doubt it, but it MIGHT have happened IF he traded spots with Hunter.................we just don't know.
Put Killebrew in Boston for 20 years and he hits 1000 HR, but it didn't happen. If anyone doesn't think he was capable of averaging 50 per year playing half his games in front of "the monster" they're wrong. He hit 45 a year playing in Minnesota for a decade. Before that he hit 40 a year in one of the biggest parks in baseball.
I actually thought that Perry should have won it in 1974 without knowing about his run support, now I like him even more.
That's why I didn't look at wins even once during my evaluation. I looked at who was good for an extended period of time while pitching a lot of innings every year. I also discounted any season with a high ERA+ if the pitcher threw under 200 innings.
It seems to me you have a strange hatred(?) for Hunter. 10 seasons of 34 or more starts and 10 seasons of more than 250 innings pitched (with 2 of them over 300) is better than every other player on my "top 10" list. He was a damn fine pitcher for quite a long time, who had the good fortune to play on a great team in a pitchers park, kind of like Sandy Koufax, but he played longer and wasn't as good as Sandy.
_If you want to play IF. Had Hunter been pulled from some of those games earlier, he might have had even better numbers. _
Overall, I agree that Hunter was a little over rated and probably isn't a HOFer, especially if your a "the HOF is watered down" guy.
Hunter is not as bad as you make him out to be though.
2013,14 and 15 Certificate Award Winner Harmon Killebrew Master Set and Master Topps Set
@JoeBanzai said:
Overall, I agree that Hunter was a little over rated and probably isn't a HOFer, especially if your a "the HOF is watered down" guy.
Hunter is not as bad as you make him out to be though.
I think we need to define our terms. Is Hunter "as bad as I make him out to be"? I rate Hunter as:
The equal of Claude Osteen.
The equal of Jon Matlack, had Matlack hung around for 1,000 more innings as a replacement level pitcher (ERA+ of 82).
Somewhere in the neighborhood of the 30th best pitcher from his own era.
Not in the same ballpark of greatness as any other starting pitcher from his own era who is in the HOF.
Tell me which of these you disagree with and then we can see how different my assessment of Hunter is from yours.
If you are on board with opening the HOF to Milt Pappas, Mickey Lolich, Camilo Pascual, Tommy John, Jim Kaat, Sam McDowell, Luis Tiant, Jerry Koosman, Larry Dierker, Jon Matlack, Vida Blue, Andy Messersmith, and so on (and this is just from Hunter's era; there are a comparable number from every other era) then we're not disagreeing on Hunter, we're disagreeing on the HOF. I don't think there ought to be 3-4 times more pitchers in the HOF than there already are, but if "as good as Jim Hunter" is a HOF qualification, then that's where we end up.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
Correction, the Athletics had the most wins. And Hunter pitched in the deadest hitters park in MLB; neither his ERA nor his WHIP was the best in the league once you take that into account. And Hunter gave up a lot of HR, and WHIP treats HR and singles as if they're equal; adjust for that and Hunter's WHIP was worse than both Tiant's and Perry's (and several others). Since I was talking up Tiant I didn't say it at the time, but Gaylord Perry was the best pitcher in the AL in 1974 by a considerable margin, with Tiant, Jenkins and Blyleven the next three (in some order). Kaat, Jim Perry, and Hunter were in the next group down.
Perhaps someone ought to devise a stat (or has someone already) OPSIP and OPS+IP. Those would seem to be useful.
Perhaps someone ought to devise a stat (or has someone already) OPSIP and OPS+IP. Those would seem to be useful.
If I understand you correctly, you are looking for a stat that combines OPS+ (how well did he pitch) with IP (for how long). If so, that stat does exist - it's the RAA stat that I used to make my first list above. And I agree that it's a very useful stat, and one that eliminates the need for virtually every other stat. The difference between having a given pitcher on your team or having a generic "average" pitcher is RAA. Catfish Hunter had an RAA in 1975 of 43; that's a great season and by far the best of Hunter's career. For the remainder of his career, Hunter's RAA is -8. This phenomenon - having RAA in one season exceeding career RAA - describes Catfish Hunter, Mark Fidrych, and a whole lot of short career forgettable pitchers. There is no other pitcher in the HOF who is remotely close, nor, of course, should there be.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
@JoeBanzai said:
Overall, I agree that Hunter was a little over rated and probably isn't a HOFer, especially if your a "the HOF is watered down" guy.
Hunter is not as bad as you make him out to be though.
I think we need to define our terms. Is Hunter "as bad as I make him out to be"? I rate Hunter as:
The equal of Claude Osteen.
Osteen was another very good pitcher no one knows about. He wasn't as good as Hunter. Osteen pitched in a "Pitchers Park" for more years than Hunter. Osteens OPS+ looks a bit inflated, but he had a very nice 10 year run 1964-1973.
The equal of Jon Matlack, had Matlack hung around for 1,000 more innings as a replacement level pitcher (ERA+ of 82).
But he didn't.
I just don't think you can look at Hunter fairly. I don't care about him, or any of these guys really. The only exception would be Mel, he was a STUD...........until his arm fell off. Bummer.
I'm happy that Bert Blyleven got in, he was better than ALL THESE guys.
2013,14 and 15 Certificate Award Winner Harmon Killebrew Master Set and Master Topps Set
@dallasactuary said:
The equal of Jon Matlack, had Matlack hung around for 1,000 more innings as a replacement level pitcher (ERA+ of 82).
But he didn't.
I understand that he didn't. My point is that I consider hanging around for 1,000 innings as a replacement level pitcher to be a negative when evaluating a pitcher, particularly when considering whether he is HOF worthy. You have now explicitly taken the opposite position.
Pitcher A and Pitcher B each pitch 2,500 innings, with Pitcher A being noticeably better than Pitcher B. At that point, they have both given all they have and Pitcher A retires. Pitcher B decides to keep going, pitching badly year after year, costing his team wins and collecting a veteran's paycheck. Why - seriously, explain to me why - would anyone consider what Pitcher B did to be HOF-worthy? As I said, I can accept the position that we ignore those bad years, in which case Hunter and Matlack are more or less equals. What I can't accept, because I don't understand it, is actually considering all of those bad years to be a positive HOF-worthy addition to a pitcher's career. You are the one who has taken the position that pitching badly is a good thing, and pitching badly for a long time is an even better thing, and you are going to have to explain why.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
@JoeBanzai said:
If RAA took innings into account, Sonny Siebert would NEVER be rated above Hunter.
Well, it does, so you may want to rethink your evaluations.
Siebert pitched 1,300 less innings than Hunter, he never even pitched 250 innings in a season, so that's about 7-8 less "Siebert seasons". His best year, he pitched 188 innings, some of those as a reliever. About 6 innings a start. He doesn't merit a comparison with Hunter, who pitched 7.75 innings per start in his best year. Siebert was a very nice part time pitcher who had 2-3 decent, but not great, years.
@dallasactuary said:
The equal of Jon Matlack, had Matlack hung around for 1,000 more innings as a replacement level pitcher (ERA+ of 82).
But he didn't.
I understand that he didn't. My point is that I consider hanging around for 1,000 innings as a replacement level pitcher to be a negative when evaluating a pitcher, particularly when considering whether he is HOF worthy. You have now explicitly taken the opposite position.
Matlack was released after the 1983 season in which he pitched just 73 innings he "hung around" as long as he could. There were zero innings for him much less another 4-5 years worth. He wasn't good enough.
You are the one who has taken the position that pitching badly is a good thing, and pitching badly for a long time is an even better thing, and you are going to have to explain why.
That's not my position at all.
Your position is that if a guy pitches with a 110 ERA+ for 5 seasons he's a better pitcher than the guy who pitched for 15 seasons and had a 109 ERA+.
You must think Mark Fiidrych is better than them all with his lifetime 126 ERA+! He hung around for a couple of years too. If he would have retired just two years earlier his ERA+ would have been 156!!!!!
What you ignore is, that the 5 year guy wasn't GOOD ENOUGH to "hang around" for an extra 10 years. A player producing at an average or slightly below average is better than a guy not playing at all.
I never understood this "hanging around" argument. When a player is deemed not good enough, management MIGHT give them a year to make sure they aren't going to bounce back, but then they get released.
Siebert pitched 174 innings his last 3 years, Hunter pitched 366. Who was working, and who was "hanging around"? In Hunters second to last year his ERA+ was 102, that's not hanging around.
I'm sure if we took Hunter's best 174 innings in those 3 seasons, he would have great numbers for that period. Yet Siebert was "better" with a 91 ERA+ over that span than Hunter with an 87. Not to me. Not even close.
Hunter had a 10 year stretch where he averaged a 113 ERA+ while pitching an average of 277 innings per year and never less than 234. Never missed a start during that time. Find me 5 other pitchers not named Tom or Walter who can say that.
He also was an 8 time All-Star and 4 time top 4 in Cy Young and 4 times in the top 12 for MVP...............all meaningless , of course. Siebert was an All-Star 2 times, Matlack 3, but they were better.
Let's just move on. No one here agrees with you on Matlack or Siebert being better than Hunter.
Should Hunter be in? Probably not. Oh wait, he IS!
;-) Happy New Year!!!!!
2013,14 and 15 Certificate Award Winner Harmon Killebrew Master Set and Master Topps Set
Comments
I'd nominate Baines, Morris, and Hunter as contenders. It's impossible to compare Candy Cummings. Rice was notably better, and far more deserving.
Gold Gloves aren't entirely meaningless, but they are by far the least meaningful awards given, and always have been. They way they generally work is that the first GG a player wins, he probably deserved it, or was at least a reasonable contender. The second one is less meaningful, especially if it is consecutive with the first, but still means something. After that, and again especially if they are consecutive, they mean next to nothing. It might be the case that some are deserved, but much more often than not they are not. GG voters, historically mostly managers, simply don't have enough experience or information to cast an educated vote. They may vote for the guy who did really well in the handful of games the manager actually saw him play, or (most of the time) they vote for the guy who won it the year before because they simply have no idea who they should really vote for.
Over the course of his career, yes, he was about average. He was (almost) as great as you remember him when he started and did deserve his first GG in 1993; 1994 looks suspect, but he probably deserved the 1995 GG, too. After that, he just kept winning them because that's how GGs work. Alex Gonzalez never won a single GG because Vizquel kept getting them handed to him, but he should have at least as many as Vizquel (i.e., maybe three each), and A-rod, who finally started winning some when Vizquel got so far from GG quality that even the managers noticed, had one or two robbed from him by Vizquel, too. For the last several years of his career Vizquel was well below average, and downright putrid by the end, and the end result was a total career that wasn't far from average.
Asked and answered - he deserved two, maybe three.
He deserved two or three Gold Gloves; I give him credit for that. And that is the sum total of his HOF qualifications, leaving him miles behind Jim Fregosi in the HOF-deserving line.
Giving GG to pitchers has always been funny since they field about half a dozen balls a season that aren't underhand tosses from 15 feet away that your granddaughter could catch, but they do provide whatever proof one might need that GG are given to whoever won it the year before. No other position sees streaks of GG as ridiculously long as pitcher, because nobody, and I do mean nobody, has a clue who the best fielding pitcher is, nor is there any reason at all that they should care.
Pudge was probably the greatest fielding catcher of all time, so I don't want to diminish in any way how great he was. And I don't think it does diminish him in the least to say that he probably deserved 7 or 8 Gold Gloves rather than the 13 he actually won. Pudge could hit (another factor in who wins GGs, although it obviously shouldn't be) but there are catchers who can't hit who still have careers in MLB solely because they are great catchers. Ron Karkovice was such a catcher, but he has no GG because Pudge stole them. Steinbach probably deserved one or two, as well.
Great first baseman, but, like everyone else ever, not the best each and every year. Also, like everyone else you've listed, it's the consecutiveness of the awards that really ought to give it away. Hernandez ended the GG streak of Steve Garvey at 4, and they spent the next many years being about equals. In some years, Hernandez was better, in just as many years Garvey was better. When Garvey gave out, a young Glenn Davis was at least the equal of the aging Hernandez. Hernandez was great, but he didn't deserve anywhere close to 11 Gold Gloves.
Probably deserved as many Gold Gloves as anyone in history, at any position; maybe as many as 8.
The greatest concentration of top-fielding third basemen converged in the AL during Brooks Robinson's career. Frank Malzone, Clete Boyer, Graig Nettles, and Aurelio Rodriguez all crossed paths with Brooks. Malzone alone won - he won several GG, and deserved them, before the voters turned their eyes to Robinson. The biggest loser was Boyer, probably the greatest fielding third baseman of all time but over the course of a career too short to legitimately claim the GOAT title. He finally won his one and only GG when he got traded to the NL, but deserved at least three of the ones Robinson got. Then Boyer gave way to Graig Nettles, who was a legitimate defensive superstar when he was young, and who was a heck of a lot better fielder than an old Brooks Robinson; probably another three GG taken away by Robinson. And Rodriguez was Nettles true competition for Gold Gloves as Robinson's streak marched inexorably on for no reason other than that's how Gold Gloves work. Rodriguez finally won his one and only Gold Glove when Robinson's streak ended, but should have one or two more. And if you take away half, or more, of Robinson's Gold Gloves? He's still got more than anyone else, and now they actually mean something!
I am contractually forbidden from saying anything less than 100% positive about Ozzie, so I'll stop here. But there are no exceptions to the rule that any player with a streak of Gold Gloves longer than about four has more Gold Gloves than he deserves.
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Nothing specific about Clemente, but it is almost always the case, every year, that the three best fielding outfielders are in CF. I picked a random year from Clemente's streak (1965) and they gave the other two GGs to CFs (Mays and Flood). The third GG should have gone to LA CF Willie Davis, but instead it went to a RF, who was the second-best OF on the Pirates. Bill Virdon who was in CF, where the best OF on every team plays assuming the manager is not brain damaged, was the best OF on the Pirates throughout most of Clemente's streak.
Hope this cleared that up.
Omar Vizquel never jumped off the page until these accusations.... his HOF case is more along the lines of a lifetime achievement award similar to Harold Baines.... IMO.... Durability is his calling card. If fidelity based domestic abuse were on every ballot most players would have ex's come testify to keep these traveling lovers out of the HOF..... IF Omar is good enough based on his between the lines field acumen to get into the HOF have at it...IMO. Otherwise accusations in the climate we live in are so often thrown about with reckless abandon ~Who will ever know ultimately shy of video evidence?
I wasn't thinking about pitchers when I made that statement, so I may have to retract. I think Baines, as ordinary as he was, was still more deserving than Vizquel. But Morris and Hunter, and a couple relief pitchers, give Vizquel a run for his money. It's hard for me to identify a least deserving pitcher, but whichever one it is - probably Hunter - I have to agree is less deserving than Vizquel. It is sobering to think that we are discussing players and pitchers an order of magnitude less deserving than Gene Tenace and Milt Pappas, and how few people realize that's what we're doing.
Dennis Eckersley is far less-deserving than Hunter. He got in as a reliever and really only had 3 great seasons as one (1989, 1990, 1992). He then had 1 other good one (1988) and was about average in 1991. That's a really, really thin resume for a guy who pitches 65 innings a year.
I agree with much of what you said.
How then did Omar get the last two? He's "well below average" by this time and in a new league. He hadn't won a GG for a while either. Common sense would say a guy coming from the AL would not be "handed" a GG if he didn't impress.
I could NEVER go as far as to say Harold Baines is more deserving than Omar, he wasn't even good enough to start for much of his career. Very good hitter though.
I think a lot of you are going to be surprised and angry when Omar gets in.
I disagree. If he had spent his entire career as a reliever then I wouldn't argue (except to say that Bruce Sutter is even less deserving than Eck on that basis), but he was a good starter before that. Compare Eckersley's career from 1975 to 1986 - 2.500 innings and an ERA+ of 111 - to Hunter's career from 1970 to 1979 (throwing out Hunter's bad years, so I'm helping him, not hurting him) - 2,400 innings and an ERA+ of 110. Dennis Eckersley is essentially Catfish Hunter PLUS Bruce Sutter, and so can't be less deserving than either one of them individually.
You'd have to ask the people who voted for him to know for sure, but my guess is that he won the first one because the NL voters had no idea who they should vote for and saw a guy with 11 Gold Gloves and settled on him. Jack Wilson, the SS who deserved the GG that year, was a terrible hitter on a terrible team and got overlooked. Vizquel won the next one because he had won the first one.
And that's a point worth considering. When we think of who the best at any position was, we naturally focus on the ones we remember. And the one's we remember are usually the ones on good teams who also hit well. But, especially at SS, there are players who had long careers who couldn't hit a lick - not even as well as Vizquel - and who toiled away on small market and/or bad teams. But those are exactly the players you should look at first; the only reason they got to play at all, let alone play for 10+ years, was because of their fielding. Check out Dick Schofield (senior) some time. He played MLB for 19 seasons, usually as a backup although he was a regular for a few years, despite not breaking the Mendoza line about half of those seasons. Somebody always wanted him because he was a GREAT shortstop.
I remember Schofield he was a good one.
I think I heard somewhere that saber-metrics showed Rod Carew was not very good. LOL
Rather than allowing your opinions to be influenced by things you think you heard somewhere, wouldn't it be better to learn about sabermetrics for yourself and reach your own conclusions?
P.S. No, you did not hear that, and sabermetrics does not show that. My best guess is that you heard that sabermetrics showed that Carew wasn't as good as Joe Morgan or Mike Schmidt or Harmon Killebrew or some other great player with a much lower batting average than Carew. But not being as great as another great player is not at all the same thing as not being great, let alone not even very good. Or, maybe you got the names mixed up and you heard sabermetrics showed that Jim Rice wasn't very good, in which case you heard correctly.
I'm not sure. Certainly Baines was a much better hitter and far more glamorous than Vizquel, but Vizquel was a far better defender. It is easy to find players like Tenace and Pappas that are far more deserving. Easily a hundred far more deserving than any of the above. All I'm saying is that we could make an argument for Vizquel being able to say "If Baines is in, I should be in." It's a stupid argument, and Vizquel is not clearly more deserving than Baines, but I think he meets that low bar. Belanger must go in first, however.
He was a very poor home run hitter.
Fair enough. Vizquel was better at what he was good at, for a while, than Baines was at what he was good at. What I really was saying - and I concede this was my bad since this was not the topic - is that Baines was "better" than Vizquel, since hitting well is much more important than fielding well. As the Official Defender of Bill Mazeroski, I should not have gotten those mixed up.
Ted Williams once told Tom Yawkey; "You know that huge ovation you hear when you are at the ballpark? That's somebody getting a hit, not catching a ball."
Or words to that effect.
Just think if they would have just played Baines at shortstop for his entire career.
GOAT!!!!
;-)
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Don't forget though that even if he did again become eligible, he's still gotta get 75% like everyone else. And his chances of getting that number might not be as good as you might think.
D's: 54S,53P,50P,49S,45D+S,44S,43D,41S,40D+S,39D+S,38D+S,37D+S,36S,35D+S,all 16-34's
Q's: 52S,47S,46S,40S,39S,38S,37D+S,36D+S,35D,34D,32D+S
74T: 37,38,47,151,193,241,435,570,610,654,655 97 Finest silver: 115,135,139,145,310
73T:31,55,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,80,152,165,189,213,235,237,257,341,344,377,379,390,422,433,453,480,497,545,554,563,580,606,613,630
95 Ultra GM Sets: Golden Prospects,HR Kings,On-Base Leaders,Power Plus,RBI Kings,Rising Stars
When did he become eligible?
That's fair but let's be honest - he got in because of being a reliever. And he wasn't that great. 3 great seasons as a closer is nothing. I mean, that's less than Craig Kimbrel.
Hunter's best seasons as a starter were better than Eck's - while also throwing 70-80 more innings in those seasons - while his worst were also better than Eck' s worst. And let's not forget he became a reliever because he bombed out as a starter.
But I get where you're coming from.
I didnt say I think he would get in, I said i think he should get in.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
no modern relief pitcher should ever make the HOF. and yes, that includes Rivera. they dont pitch enough innings. just not enough value.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
I'll note that Eckersley led the league in ERA+ once with 149; Hunter never led the league and never had an ERA + that good.
But mostly I object to describing Eckersley as having "bombed out as a starter". He was a starter for 12 seasons, with an ERA+ of 111. That's a quality starter. His last season he struggled with an ERA of 4.57, but his FIP was only 3.45 - that is some very tough luck and he was actually still pitching pretty well. And note that Hunter's first four seasons his ERA+ was 94 and the only thing he'd led the league in was earned runs allowed. Catfish Hunter "bombed out as a starter" to a greater degree than Eckersley did, but he got to keep pitching anyway. He then had the five year "career" upon which the entire myth of Hunter's greatness is built. And it's a five-year "career" with an ERA+ of 127, as compared to Eckersley's five-year peak of 128.
Eckersley being in the HOF doesn't bother me, and if he weren't in it wouldn't bother me either. But Hunter being in the HOF is just absurd.
Eck had a 1.34 WHIP that last year as a starter - he was awful. If he'd been good, he wouldn't have been moved to the pen. They mixed in two more starts for him in 1987, one good, one awful, giving him a combined 6.94 ERA as a starter in 1987.
Eck's 149 ERA - which came with a FIP of 3.83 - was 246 innings. Hunter's 144 - with a FIP of 3.30 - was 328 innings. I'd rather have the 328 innings.
I am not making the case for Hunter to be in the Hall, just saying Eck doesn't belong. He's in because of his years as a reliever n which, again, were simply not that great.
OK, fine, I'm overstating my case for Eckersley. But since I've come this far, I'll add this: in 1979, Eckersley, as a starting pitcher, deserved the Cy Young Award as the best pitcher in the AL. Hunter won a Cy Young in 1974 but stole it from Gaylord Perry; Hunter was never the best pitcher in the AL.
I know we agree about Hunter not belonging in the HOF, and we're close enough on Eckersley (I'm on the fence), but I stand firm in saying that Eckersley is MORE deserving of the HOF than Hunter, even if we're talking about tiny fractions.
Quick reference point for evaluating how good a pitcher was is RAA, in the Player Value - Pitching section on baseball-reference. The stat measures how many runs the pitcher allowed less than an average pitcher, adjusted for ballparks, etc.
For Catfish Hunter, that number is 35
Jim Kaat: 49
Mark Fidrych: 54
Ken Forsch: 70
Jack Morris: 76
Sonny Siebert: 87
Vida Blue: 112
Mickey Lolich: 132
Frank Tanana: 163
Milt Pappas: 168
Tommy John: 179
Don Sutton: 191
Eckersley (as a starter only): 196
Jim Bunning: 236
Don Drysdale: 247
Sandy Koufax: 249
Dave Stieb: 265
Dennis Eckersley (entire career): 266
I believe Eckersley's RAA of 266 is higher than any pitcher's who is not in the HOF (or will be soon), and as you can see it's higher than some HOFers. Even discarding all of his relief years entirely (which would not be reasonable), he's still sitting on top of Don Sutton (and every reliever in the HOF, plus several other starters). Dave Stieb ought to be in the HOF, and would be if he had won the four consecutive Cy Young Awards he deserved. You can search for a pitcher with an RAA over 200 who doesn't at least have a serious case for the HOF, but I think you'll come up empty. For Eckersley specifically, I think if he hadn't spent so many years in Fenway and Wrigley, you'd see his case more clearly.
And just to be perfectly clear, I am not saying that if Pitcher A has a higher RAA than Pitcher B that he is better than Pitcher B. There's more to it than that, but RAA is, I believe, the very best starting point for a "better than" comparison, and then moving forward from there. Fidrych was not better than Hunter, and Eckersley was not better than Koufax; but I do think Eckersley was better than every pitcher above with an RAA less than 200, and considerably better than Hunter or Morris.
You almost make his point for him. If Eckersley has a 149 ERA+ with a FIP of 3.83 and Hunter is 144 and 3.30, then it is clear that Eckersley pitched under much more difficult conditions.
In any event, after a borderline HOF career as a starter, certainly good enough to get into the "Hall of Very Good" and better than some enshrined. He then tacked on a relief career that included FOUR Top-6 MVP finishes (not to mention the four Top-6 Cy Young finishes). Now I yield to no one in my beliefs that people, especially in the late 80s-early 90s, overvalued one inning saves, but clearly that level of dominance would push him far over the top.
I always thought Sutton had an excellent chance to be the first pitcher to win 300 and not be enshrined.
I think Sutton ought to more or less define the line for HOF greatness; he should be either the least deserving pitcher in, or the most deserving pitcher out and I'd be fine in either case. Eckersley, I think, is more or less Sutton's equal and so the same applies to him. The pitchers I listed below Sutton have no business in a HOF discussion, let alone an actual spot in the HOF, but by inducting Hunter and Morris there is no logically consistent reason why Vida Blue and Mickey Lolich, etc. haven't also been inducted, along with 100 or so others.
Yeah, don't even get me started on his joke MVP finishes. In 1988, when he was roughly equivalent to Jeff Reardon as a relief (with a lower ERA+ in fewer innings, no less), he finished ahead of Wade Boggs and his .366 average and .965 OPS. Gimme a break. The year he won? Roughly 50000 guys had a higher WAR. Shouldn't have even been top 10 let alone winning.
Now do Phil Niekro. Most underrated player of all time?
Knucksie's RAA was 415, double the standard HOF line. Among his HOF contemporaries:
Catfish Hunter: 35
Rollie Fingers: 60
Goose Gossage: 148
Don Sutton: 191
Hoyt Wilhelm: 234
Jim Bunning: 236
Juan Marichal: 237
Don Drysdale: 247
Sandy Koufax: 249
Jim Palmer: 271
Nolan Ryan: 297
Steve Carlton: 306
Fergie Jenkins: 348
Gaylord Perry: 364
Bob Gibson: 374
Phil Niekro: 415
Bert Blyleven: 436
Tom Seaver: 533
Bert Blyleven, although common sense finally overcame idiocy and he is now in the HOF, remains the most underrated pitcher of all time, but I think Niekro is definitely top 5. Luis Tiant (269) is up there, too.
I was always an American League guy, so other than the "big names", like Seaver, Gibson and Carlton, I wasn't that informed on the other pitchers in the NL.
From 1971 to 1979 Tom Seaver was the best pitcher in the NL, after that, I would give it to Phil HANDS DOWN.
He pitched more innings than anyone and had a great WAR, even though his ERA+ was only huge in 1974 and 1978. He should have won the Cy Young in both of those years.
Bob Gibson was better until 1972, Steve Carlton was amazing in 1972 and 1977, but (to my surprise) not really that great year to year. Phil actually was better than Steve every year other than those two!
Don Sutton was another guy I didn't think much of until I looked closer. He's just about as good as Phil.
I thought of a way to show the absurdity of Catfish Hunter being in the HOF a bit more visually. Below are all of the pitchers who pitched most of their career in the second deadball era (1961-1975), were "good" (had a career RAA > 0), and pitched a meaningfully long career. I may have forgotten someone, but I don't think it would change anything.
I already listed career RAA for a bunch of pitchers, and I said that was a good start to a "best" pitcher ranking. Mostly what we're missing is some measure of peak performance - how good was the pitcher in his best seasons. For this purpose, I decided to represent peak with the pitcher's RAA in his top five seasons. For the Tom Seaver's of the world, career RAA dwarfs peak RAA, but there are quite a few pitchers - like Koufax - whose career value is pretty much confined to their top five seasons, and some - like Hunter - whose peak RAA dwarfs his career RAA because outside of their top five seasons they were below average pitchers.
Ranking by peak only would be just as wrong as ranking by career value only, so I combined the two. And it has been my experience that most people, particularly fans of Koufax and Hunter, believe peak performance matters a lot more than career performance. Whether or not that is right, for this list I weighted peak RAA double, and added it to career RAA. If anyone thinks I'm still not being fair to Hunter, I'd love to hear why.
For clarity, I bolded the HOFers, and you'll see the top 12 on the list are all bolded. After that you see a mix of bold and unbold names; this is the range where the best discussions of HOF worthiness take place. From Tiant down to Tommy John, there are arguments to be made for and against each pitcher, and pretty much everyone draws their HOF line above or below one of these pitchers (even if they don't actually think of it in this way). Below that we have only three HOFers - Hunter and two relievers - and a whole bunch of comparable pitchers who I'm willing to bet many of you have never heard of. Hunter has a career value significantly below Gary Nolan and a peak value significantly below Jon Matlack. I don't care how you combine the two, if you get a HOFer as a result then you're doing it wrong.
This list is, I think, a fairly reasonable ranking of the best pitchers of that era, and Catfish Hunter ranking as the 38th best pitcher of his own era sounds about right.
There's no way Gary Nolan was anywhere as good as Hunter. 1674 innings and only 3 seasons with 34 or more starts should eliminate him from any list of great pitchers. Matlack was better than anyone realizes, but I doubt that he was THAT much better than Hunter.
I am going to dig into your list (minus your absolute hate for the Catfish) and see realistically where he ranks.
OK, I have gone another step towards bending over backwards to make Hunter look as good as he possibly can. The list I created was based no RAA, or runs allowed less than an average pitcher. When evaluating pitchers in a HOF context I believe this is the correct way to look at it; hanging on as a below average pitcher detracts from a HOF case, it does not add to it.
But, that's just my opinion and you are free to disagree. So, I redid the analysis using RAR - runs allowed less than a replacement level pitcher - rather than RAA. Now Hunter, and everyone else, gets credit for pitching poorly, but not too poorly, for lots of innings. And this list lines up even better with the actual HOF, so I conclude that HOF voters agree with you - pitching poorly but not too poorly for a long time is a HOF credential. The revised list:
Note two things about the revised list: (1) The pitchers actually in the HOF are now all at the top (first 14 names), without the gray area we had before, and (2) the only HOF pitchers who fall way down the list are Hunter and the relief pitchers. Hunter himself rises from 38 to 28, and I don't think there is any reasonable way to get him any higher than that. He passes the group of pitchers with many fewer innings, such as Bill Hands, Mel Stottlemyre, etc. He does not pass Jon Matlack, who was simply a better pitcher than Hunter no matter how you look at it.
Edit to add: two pitchers I forgot are Camilo Pascual and Claude Osteen (I'm sure there are several others, but they would fall near the bottom of the list). Pascual scores 833 on this list, so add one more above Hunter. Osteen scores 766, right below Hunter, but looking at Osteen's career it struck me that he was the same pitcher as Hunter. Look for yourself; there's not a dime's worth of difference between them, except that Osteen topped out at being named on two HOF ballots, which is two more than either he or Hunter deserved.
Took a pretty good look at the guys on your list ranked above Catfish and not in the HOF.
I eliminated anyone that wasn't a starter (John Hiller), anyone who pitched less than 2492 total innings (had to keep Sam McDowell in there) and anyone who was unable to pitch at least 4 seasons with more than 250 innings. I thought about reducing it to 200 innings, but decided that during that era 250 made more sense.
Biggest surprise was Tommy John with the most innings pitched of all the guys I looked at had only 3 seasons where he was able to throw 250 innings or more! Second was Dean Chance had an ERA+ of 200 in 1964, with 278 IP!
I did not even glance at wins or won/lost percentage, ERA titles or All-Star games.
Here are my rankings;
Luis Tiant and Mel Stottlemyre at the top.
Kaat, Lolich, McDowell, Blue and Wood the next bunch.
Catfish, Koosman and Perry the bottom three.
I was a little surprised at Stottlemeyre's numbers; best ERA of the players that made my top 10 and 9 straight years of 34+ starts and 250+ innings before an injury ended his career.
Tiant had a longer, but less consistent career, with a couple of monster seasons 1968 and 1972.
The next 5 were impossible for me to put (and keep) in any kind of order. Kaat, Blue, Lolich, McDowell, Wood?
Wilber was a reliever for quite a while and Kaat pitched more innings than any on the top 10, but I can't see a clear "winner" here.
I had Catfish and Koosman tied at 8-9 and Perry at number 10.
Do ANY of these guys "deserve" to make the HOF no matter how you rate them? They were all great pitchers!
Well, at some point you have to decide how many starting pitchers from one era belong in the HoF. Even if you agree that they were all great pitchers, it's likely you'll agree that 24 is too many.
I'm not sure any of "my" ten should go in. I really like Stottlemyre, but he had a short career and other than a couple of years leading te league in complete games, never led in anything and was never in the Cy Young hunt. HOF?
I am on the fence with Tiant as well. Two ERA titles, one where he only pitched 179 innings, and a lot of average to above average years.
Tiant suffers from two things:
(1) he pitched for many years in Boston when scoring runs was as easy as anywhere in history. He was better in 1974, by far, than Hunter but they gave Hunter the Cy Young.
(2) He got injured right at the peak of his career in 1970. That cost him not just 1970, but in 1971 they tried to bring him back too soon and he tanked. They overreacted in 1972 and brought him back in the bullpen and didn't put him back in the rotation until late in the season. Replace the 344 innings he pitched in those three years with 800 innings of peak Tiant, and he would have sailed in to the HOF.
Mel Stottlemyre was a very good pitcher for about a decade. Swap him and Hunter (putting Hunter on Stottlemyre's pathetic Yankee teams, and Stottlemyre on Hunter's Oakland and Yankee dynasties) and Stottlemyre would be in the HOF and nobody in the world would think Hunter was better than Jon Matlack.
Of all the pitchers on my list who aren't in the HOF, the only one that I think deserves to be in is Tiant, although I don't lose sleep over his exclusion. Wilbur Wood may have been the best pitcher of the whole group, but the White Sox wasted him in the bullpen for many years. When they finally put him in the rotation he was the best pitcher in the AL from 1971-1975 and deserved the Cy Young (over Vida Blue) in 1971. It wouldn't bother me at all if Wood was in the HOF, either. He was so much better than Hunter, and over the same seasons in the same league, that there's no way anyone can not see it if they just look.
Tiant got injured right at the peak of his career in 1970. That cost him not just 1970, but in 1971 they tried to bring him back too soon and he tanked. They overreacted in 1972 and brought him back in the bullpen and didn't put him back in the rotation until late in the season. Replace the 344 innings he pitched in those three years with 800 innings of peak Tiant, and he would have sailed in to the HOF.
I remember when he got hurt. He was pitching great for the Twins. They ended up RELEASING him the next spring. Apparently he had been hurt in 1969 with Cleveland and the Twins figured it was best to let him go.
Shades of David Ortiz!
1974 was a great year for pitchers in the AL, but Hunter had the most wins and the lowest ERA and WHIP. I would have given it to Hunter, but Gaylord Perry or Fergie Jenkins were equally deserving as well as Luis.
Correction, the Athletics had the most wins. And Hunter pitched in the deadest hitters park in MLB; neither his ERA nor his WHIP was the best in the league once you take that into account. And Hunter gave up a lot of HR, and WHIP treats HR and singles as if they're equal; adjust for that and Hunter's WHIP was worse than both Tiant's and Perry's (and several others). Since I was talking up Tiant I didn't say it at the time, but Gaylord Perry was the best pitcher in the AL in 1974 by a considerable margin, with Tiant, Jenkins and Blyleven the next three (in some order). Kaat, Jim Perry, and Hunter were in the next group down.
Quick fact that I won't research for everyone else mentioned: in 1974 Hunter got 6+ run support from his team 16 times and was 12-1 in those games; he got 0-2 run support 8 times and was 1-6 in those games. Gaylord Perry got 6+ run support only 9 times, and was 9-0 in those games. He got 0-2 run support 11 times and, amazingly, was 5-5 in those games. Had the Indians hit behind Perry the way the A's hit behind Hunter, Perry may well have had a record of 28-6, plus or minus a win; it was a truly dominant season.
You theorys are correct, however the numbers are the numbers, and we really have no way of proving any of the "what ifs".
Perry might have relaxed a bit pitching in an easy park and not been as good. I really doubt it, but it MIGHT have happened IF he traded spots with Hunter.................we just don't know.
Put Killebrew in Boston for 20 years and he hits 1000 HR, but it didn't happen. If anyone doesn't think he was capable of averaging 50 per year playing half his games in front of "the monster" they're wrong. He hit 45 a year playing in Minnesota for a decade. Before that he hit 40 a year in one of the biggest parks in baseball.
I actually thought that Perry should have won it in 1974 without knowing about his run support, now I like him even more.
That's why I didn't look at wins even once during my evaluation. I looked at who was good for an extended period of time while pitching a lot of innings every year. I also discounted any season with a high ERA+ if the pitcher threw under 200 innings.
It seems to me you have a strange hatred(?) for Hunter. 10 seasons of 34 or more starts and 10 seasons of more than 250 innings pitched (with 2 of them over 300) is better than every other player on my "top 10" list. He was a damn fine pitcher for quite a long time, who had the good fortune to play on a great team in a pitchers park, kind of like Sandy Koufax, but he played longer and wasn't as good as Sandy.
_If you want to play IF. Had Hunter been pulled from some of those games earlier, he might have had even better numbers. _
Overall, I agree that Hunter was a little over rated and probably isn't a HOFer, especially if your a "the HOF is watered down" guy.
Hunter is not as bad as you make him out to be though.
I think we need to define our terms. Is Hunter "as bad as I make him out to be"? I rate Hunter as:
The equal of Claude Osteen.
The equal of Jon Matlack, had Matlack hung around for 1,000 more innings as a replacement level pitcher (ERA+ of 82).
Somewhere in the neighborhood of the 30th best pitcher from his own era.
Not in the same ballpark of greatness as any other starting pitcher from his own era who is in the HOF.
Tell me which of these you disagree with and then we can see how different my assessment of Hunter is from yours.
If you are on board with opening the HOF to Milt Pappas, Mickey Lolich, Camilo Pascual, Tommy John, Jim Kaat, Sam McDowell, Luis Tiant, Jerry Koosman, Larry Dierker, Jon Matlack, Vida Blue, Andy Messersmith, and so on (and this is just from Hunter's era; there are a comparable number from every other era) then we're not disagreeing on Hunter, we're disagreeing on the HOF. I don't think there ought to be 3-4 times more pitchers in the HOF than there already are, but if "as good as Jim Hunter" is a HOF qualification, then that's where we end up.
Perhaps someone ought to devise a stat (or has someone already) OPSIP and OPS+IP. Those would seem to be useful.
If I understand you correctly, you are looking for a stat that combines OPS+ (how well did he pitch) with IP (for how long). If so, that stat does exist - it's the RAA stat that I used to make my first list above. And I agree that it's a very useful stat, and one that eliminates the need for virtually every other stat. The difference between having a given pitcher on your team or having a generic "average" pitcher is RAA. Catfish Hunter had an RAA in 1975 of 43; that's a great season and by far the best of Hunter's career. For the remainder of his career, Hunter's RAA is -8. This phenomenon - having RAA in one season exceeding career RAA - describes Catfish Hunter, Mark Fidrych, and a whole lot of short career forgettable pitchers. There is no other pitcher in the HOF who is remotely close, nor, of course, should there be.
If RAA took innings into account, Sonny Siebert would NEVER be rated above Hunter.
Osteen was another very good pitcher no one knows about. He wasn't as good as Hunter. Osteen pitched in a "Pitchers Park" for more years than Hunter. Osteens OPS+ looks a bit inflated, but he had a very nice 10 year run 1964-1973.
But he didn't.
I just don't think you can look at Hunter fairly. I don't care about him, or any of these guys really. The only exception would be Mel, he was a STUD...........until his arm fell off. Bummer.
I'm happy that Bert Blyleven got in, he was better than ALL THESE guys.
Well, it does, so you may want to rethink your evaluations.
I understand that he didn't. My point is that I consider hanging around for 1,000 innings as a replacement level pitcher to be a negative when evaluating a pitcher, particularly when considering whether he is HOF worthy. You have now explicitly taken the opposite position.
Pitcher A and Pitcher B each pitch 2,500 innings, with Pitcher A being noticeably better than Pitcher B. At that point, they have both given all they have and Pitcher A retires. Pitcher B decides to keep going, pitching badly year after year, costing his team wins and collecting a veteran's paycheck. Why - seriously, explain to me why - would anyone consider what Pitcher B did to be HOF-worthy? As I said, I can accept the position that we ignore those bad years, in which case Hunter and Matlack are more or less equals. What I can't accept, because I don't understand it, is actually considering all of those bad years to be a positive HOF-worthy addition to a pitcher's career. You are the one who has taken the position that pitching badly is a good thing, and pitching badly for a long time is an even better thing, and you are going to have to explain why.
Siebert pitched 1,300 less innings than Hunter, he never even pitched 250 innings in a season, so that's about 7-8 less "Siebert seasons". His best year, he pitched 188 innings, some of those as a reliever. About 6 innings a start. He doesn't merit a comparison with Hunter, who pitched 7.75 innings per start in his best year. Siebert was a very nice part time pitcher who had 2-3 decent, but not great, years.
Matlack was released after the 1983 season in which he pitched just 73 innings he "hung around" as long as he could. There were zero innings for him much less another 4-5 years worth. He wasn't good enough.
That's not my position at all.
Your position is that if a guy pitches with a 110 ERA+ for 5 seasons he's a better pitcher than the guy who pitched for 15 seasons and had a 109 ERA+.
You must think Mark Fiidrych is better than them all with his lifetime 126 ERA+! He hung around for a couple of years too. If he would have retired just two years earlier his ERA+ would have been 156!!!!!
What you ignore is, that the 5 year guy wasn't GOOD ENOUGH to "hang around" for an extra 10 years. A player producing at an average or slightly below average is better than a guy not playing at all.
I never understood this "hanging around" argument. When a player is deemed not good enough, management MIGHT give them a year to make sure they aren't going to bounce back, but then they get released.
Siebert pitched 174 innings his last 3 years, Hunter pitched 366. Who was working, and who was "hanging around"? In Hunters second to last year his ERA+ was 102, that's not hanging around.
I'm sure if we took Hunter's best 174 innings in those 3 seasons, he would have great numbers for that period. Yet Siebert was "better" with a 91 ERA+ over that span than Hunter with an 87. Not to me. Not even close.
Hunter had a 10 year stretch where he averaged a 113 ERA+ while pitching an average of 277 innings per year and never less than 234. Never missed a start during that time. Find me 5 other pitchers not named Tom or Walter who can say that.
He also was an 8 time All-Star and 4 time top 4 in Cy Young and 4 times in the top 12 for MVP...............all meaningless , of course. Siebert was an All-Star 2 times, Matlack 3, but they were better.
Let's just move on. No one here agrees with you on Matlack or Siebert being better than Hunter.
Should Hunter be in? Probably not. Oh wait, he IS!
;-) Happy New Year!!!!!