Bill James 2010 Gold Mine

markj111

The first 20+ pages have been posted online by the publisher at:

http://www.actapublications.com/images/small/ACTA Sports/Starting Pitchers Article.pdf

I think you will find it interesting.

stown

See, that wasn't too painful, was it?

TheVon

That's an interesting read.

Here are some bullet points for those who don't want to read it all:
-Bill James created a new way to measure pitchers across eras. Under this measurement tool:
-Clemens is the #1 starting pitcher of all time.
-Blyleven is the most ridiculously overlooked HOF candidate at pitcher.
-Guidry's career was more than good enough to meet HOF standards as was Jack Morris's career.
-Roy Halladay will be in the HOF.
-Mike Mussina is the #15 starting pitcher of all time.
-Bill James had no idea how impressive Roy Oswalt's career has been so far. The only year Oswalt wasn't ranked as one of the league's best pitchers was 2003 when he had injury problems.
-Nolan Ryan's "season score" point total under this system makes him a borderline HOF.
-Johan Santana has "already done the heavy lifting for a Hall of Fame career."
-Curt Schilling has almost twice as many points on this scale to qualify him for the HOF.

It's a good read if you're interested in these things.

GDM67

I'm scanning through it and the only serious objection I have is Clemens. He didn't amass those numbers in a vacuum.

Other than that, I'm happy to see most of the guys I think are HOFers (I'm a Big Hall guy, in every sport) make the cut for him. Glad to see Mussina get proper credit and to see Sabermetric whipping boy Jack Morris get his due.

TomGshotput

<< <i>I'm scanning through it and the only serious objection I have is Clemens. He didn't amass those numbers in a vacuum >>



Exactly right. He amassed all those numbers on the baseball field

The article uncovered some interesting things, but the biggest problem is that sometimes an All-Star level season is worth zero. That's why a pitcher like Vida Blue looks so close to Drysdale. You really think Drysdale's 1968 season, 128 ERA+ and 14-12 for a team that was 75-87 overall should be seen as zero points?

As easy as it is to see that Nolan Ryan was not one of the true all-time greats, he had lots of seasons -- close to a dozen -- like 1983 or 1979 where he was not among the very best, therefore earning zero points, but he absolutely was a real asset to his team

Roy Oswalt is much better than I thought. Suffers similarly as Ron Guidry. Guidry came along immediately after all the greats from the 70s: Seaver, Palmer, Carlton, Jenkins, Perry, Sutton, Niekro. The game changed so much in the 80s, yet he is being held to the same standard of those ones who are all more than five years older. Still don't agree with him as being deserving. A full 33% of his score comes from that single season. That's as many points as both of Saberhagen's Cy Young seasons combined. I really wonder if there is anyone who would have rather had Guidry's one great season for their team more than they would have wanted Saberhagen's two best

Too bad Saberhagen, along with Stieb, were ignored in that article, especially in the light he paints Morris in

Back to Oswalt. Clemens, Maddux, Johnson, Smoltz, Glavine, Brown and Shilling are all at least 10 years olderl; Rivera and Mussina are eight years older. Despite overlapping careers, the game has changed so much. Though I'll take Santana over him so far

The real problem, though, is that for some odd reason James mixes the standards set by the writers with the standards set by the veteran's committee, which are so far different. Throw out the names like Newhouser, Gomez, Haines and Marquard that he keeps bringing up and the level needed to exceed the Hall-of-Fame standard is a lot higher than he thinks

fandango

cant wait to read about the Hitters Next!

Bill James is theoretically a Genius (IQ over 150 in case you caveman were wondering)

metsfan

Have never read the Gold Mine books, are they similiar to the abstracts? Those were always fun reads (still have all my old issues).