Bert, Again (and Again, and Again…)
I didn’t really have high hopes this year for being able to write, “our long national nightmare is over … Bert Blyleven is in the Hall of Fame.” I had certainly hoped to be able to do so, as like many others I feel that Bert’s election is overdue.
Not for the first time, the election spurred some discussion over at Batter’s Box, where I hang out frequently. Like everywhere else, Bert is a controversial subject over there, with his supporters and detractors. One thing that caught my eye in particular was the assertion by Mike D of Batter’s Box that if Bert were elected,
He’d be in about the 30th percentile of Hall starting pitchers, and lower than that in the Hall generally.
There are only 49 starting pitchers in the Hall of Fame. This ignores the relievers (Dennis Eckersley, Rollie Fingers, Hoyt Wilhelm, Bruce Sutter), and the Negro Leaguers (for whom comparable data is lacking) and 19th-century pitchers (who were playing a different game). It also excludes Babe Ruth, George Sisler and Satchel Paige who were primarily inducted as non-pitchers (or as a Negro League player in Satch’s case), but includes Cy Young as a guy who pitched a significant amount of time in the 20th century.
Hall of Fame starting pitchers obviously better than Bert: 18.
Pete Alexander
Mordecai Brown
Steve Carlton (a stretch, yes)
Bob Feller
Whitey Ford
Bob Gibson
Lefty Grove
Carl Hubbell
Walter Johnson
Juan Marichal
Christy Mathewson
Jim Palmer
Gaylord Perry (stretch some more)
Eddie Plank
Tom Seaver
Warren Spahn
Ed Walsh
Cy Young
Guys who are hard to compare to Bert but are probably better: 7.
Dizzy Dean
Lefty Gomez
Addie Joss
Sandy Koufax
Hal Newhouser
Dazzy Vance
Rube Waddell
Hall of Fame starting pitchers obviously worse than Bert: 7.
Chief Bender
Jack Chesbro
Burleigh Grimes
Jesse Haines
Catfish Hunter (somebody has to say it)
Rube Marquard
Herb Pennock
That leaves a body of 17 pitchers who might be better than Bert, and might be worse. Where you rank Bert in relation to these players really determines whether you see Bert Blyleven as a Hall of Famer or not. If you’d take these 18 guys (17 plus Bert) and rank Bert in the bottom five, you’ll think he’s out, since he would clearly be among the guys who were not good choices. If you think he’s in the top five, he’s definitely in, unless you are really arguing for an absurdly small Hall. Top 10, you probably think he’s in too. But these are the guys who determine where Bert Blyleven ranks for you—whether in the middle of the Hall of Fame (if you put him first), or somewhere near the bottom (if you put him last).
But if you’re being consistent in any way, it is really hard to rank Bert near the top of that group, and say he should be out of the Hall of Fame. To argue this is to say that half the pitchers in the Hall of Fame shouldn’t be there, and while a person might want a small Hall of Fame, to do so is to flout standards that have been clearly established for the standard required of a Hall of Fame pitcher.
Let me say right now before we start that clearly, just because something is obvious to me does not make it obvious to everyone, let alone true. I talked to Mike Green from Batter’s Box about this, a guy who’s spent as much top-quality brainpower as anyone I know on the question of what makes a Hall of Fame pitcher (see his Hall Watch series for more). He felt strongly that Blyleven was clearly better than guys like Bunning and Faber, among several others, and wasn’t at all happy with me listing guys like Carlton, Perry and Walsh as clearly better. Mike is probably right, truth be told, because the one thing I didn’t want to do in this analysis is to take advantage of the cutting edge of our knowledge and understanding about pitchers. It’s pretty clear, for example, that a lot of what we once thought was Ed Walsh’s pitching is in fact the defense behind him.
But I don’t want to throw those kinds of numbers out here because I am trying to reconstruct the rudiments of both a case for Bert Blyleven for the Hall of Fame and a case against Bert Blyleven for the Hall of Fame. I want the case to be easily and simply understood by someone like an average Hall of Fame voter or average reader of this site, who understands baseball statistics but can get lost very easily (as I can myself) in the more intricate reasoning and calculations of cutting-edge analysis. So while I might “know” that Ed Walsh isn’t in fact “clearly” better than Bert Blyleven, his numbers seem clearly better, and that’s going to be good enough for me to put him in that category.
I know that there are four 300-game winners on our list, and that in the minds of some voters those guys are “clearly” established as better than Bert Blyleven. But every reader of this site knows and understands that 13 wins, or even 37 wins (the difference between Blyleven and Ryan or Sutton), does not “clearly” establish any such thing, so I think that we will allow that argument to slide gracelessly past.
The 17 pitchers are :
Player Played Inducted W L WL% ERA G IP H HR BB SO ERA+ Jim Bunning* 1955-1971 1996 224 184 .549 3.27 591 3760.3 1366 372 1000 2855 114 Stan Coveleski* 1912-1928 1969 215 142 .602 2.89 450 3082.0 990 66 802 981 127 Don Drysdale* 1956-1969 1984 209 166 .557 2.95 518 3432.0 1124 280 855 2486 121 Red Faber* 1914-1933 1964 254 213 .544 3.15 669 4086.7 1430 111 1213 1471 119 Waite Hoyt* 1918-1938 1969 237 182 .566 3.59 674 3762.3 1500 154 1003 1206 111 Fergie Jenkins* 1965-1983 1991 284 226 .557 3.34 664 4500.7 1669 484 997 3192 115 Bob Lemon* 1946-1958 1976 207 128 .618 3.23 460 2850.0 1024 181 1251 1277 119 Ted Lyons* 1923-1946 1955 260 230 .531 3.67 594 4161.0 1696 223 1121 1073 118 Joe McGinnity* 1899-1908 1946 246 142 .634 2.66 465 3441.3 1016 52 812 1068 121 Phil Niekro* 1964-1987 1997 318 274 .537 3.35 864 5404.3 2012 482 1809 3342 115 Eppa Rixey* 1912-1933 1963 266 251 .515 3.15 692 4494.7 1572 92 1082 1350 115 Robin Roberts* 1948-1966 1976 286 245 .539 3.41 676 4688.7 1774 505 902 2357 113 Red Ruffing* 1924-1947 1967 273 225 .548 3.80 624 4344.0 1833 254 1541 1987 109 Nolan Ryan* 1966-1993 1999 324 292 .526 3.19 807 5386.0 1911 321 2795 5714 112 Don Sutton* 1966-1988 1998 324 256 .559 3.26 774 5282.3 1914 472 1343 3574 108 Vic Willis* 1898-1910 1995 249 205 .548 2.63 513 3996.0 1167 66 1212 1651 118 Early Wynn* 1939-1963 1972 300 244 .551 3.54 691 4564.0 1796 338 1775 2334 106 Bert Blyleven 1970-1992 287 250 .534 3.31 692 4970.0 1830 430 1322 3701 118
Bert certainly looks comfortable in this company, but in the end you can’t make a sensible comparison with all this data. What I decided to do was to compare the 17 pitchers on a consistent set of eleven data that is relevant to being a good pitcher. These were wins, winning percentage, shutouts, innings pitched, ERA+, Earned Runs Saved Above Average, Strikeouts per 9 innings, Indicated ERA, Walks per 9 innings, Strikeout-to-Walk Ratio, and Hits per 9 innings, which was somehow deleted from the data table but left in the rankings.
Player W WL% ERA SHO IP H ERA+ ERSAA K/9 IERA W/9 K/B Fibo Jim Bunning* 224 .549 3.27 40 3760.3 3433 114 191 6.8 2.63 2.4 2.9 163 Stan Coveleski* 215 .602 2.89 38 3082 3055 127 267 2.8 0.56 2.3 1.2 202 Don Drysdale* 209 .557 2.95 49 3432 3084 121 236 6.5 2.03 2.2 2.9 159 Red Faber* 254 .544 3.15 29 4086.7 4106 119 271 3.2 0.81 2.7 1.2 179 Waite Hoyt* 237 .566 3.59 26 3762.3 4037 111 165 2.8 1.09 2.4 1.2 189 Fergie Jenkins* 284 .557 3.34 49 4500.7 4142 115 250 6.3 2.38 2.0 3.2 216 Bob Lemon* 207 .618 3.23 31 2850 2559 119 194 4.0 2.78 4.0 1.0 207 Ted Lyons* 260 .531 3.67 27 4161 4489 118 305 2.3 1.44 2.4 1.0 168 Joe McGinnity* 246 .634 2.66 32 3441.3 3276 121 213 2.7 0.36 2.1 1.3 260 Phil Niekro* 318 .537 3.35 45 5404.3 5044 115 301 5.5 2.99 3.0 1.8 215 Eppa Rixey* 266 .515 3.15 37 4494.7 4633 115 235 2.7 0.49 2.2 1.2 152 Robin Roberts* 286 .539 3.41 45 4688.7 4582 113 230 4.5 2.07 1.7 2.6 195 Red Ruffing* 273 .548 3.80 45 4344 4284 109 165 4.1 2.07 3.2 1.3 198 Nolan Ryan* 324 .526 3.19 61 5386 3923 112 229 9.5 3.09 4.7 2.0 202 Don Sutton* 324 .559 3.26 58 5282.3 4692 108 153 6.0 2.27 2.3 2.7 249 Vic Willis* 249 .548 2.63 50 3996 3621 118 210 3.7 0.50 2.7 1.4 180 Early Wynn* 300 .551 3.54 49 4564 4291 106 107 4.6 2.88 3.5 1.3 221 Bert Blyleven 287 .534 3.31 60 4970 4632 118 329 6.7 2.30 2.4 2.8 190 Average of 17 263 .558 3.24 41 4190 3956 115 219 4.6 1.88 2.7 1.8
Some of these numbers (ERA+ and ERSAA) were adjusted to era and park, but most were not. Indicated ERA, for those who are not familiar, is a stat invented by Bill James that is described in the 1988 Baseball Abstract. It is calculated by walks * home runs allowed * 100, divided by the square of innings pitched. I used IERA to stand in for DIPS or some similar measure, primarily because it doesn’t use strikeouts and therefore wouldn’t favor Bert over earlier pitchers who pitched in low-strikeout conditions.
Incidentally, the “Fibo” line in the data table is Fibonacci Win Points, a system developed by Bill James in his book Whatever Happened To The Hall of Fame? that sums up a pitcher’s won-lost record in a single number. Essentially it’s half a pitcher’s wins, plus his games over .500. A pitcher with a .618 winning percentage (as HOFers frequently do) will have Fibonacci Win Points equal to his wins. So Bob Lemon, for example, has 207 wins and 207 Fibonacci Win Points. I didn’t use the Fibonacci Win Points in the ranking, though.
The eleven data points I did use, I felt, were quite well balanced. Two concern a pitcher’s won-lost record (wins and win percentage); two concern his runs allowed (ERA+ and earned runs saved); one concerns straight dominance employing factors from all over the map (shutouts); two concern his control (walks, plus half of Indicated ERA and half of K/W ratio); one and a half concern his strikeout ability (strikeouts plus half of strikeout-to-walk ratio); one concerns directly his ability to prevent hits (hits allowed) and a half concerns his ability to keep the ball in the park (home runs allowed, plus half of Indicated ERA). Then there’s innings pitched, which are an important factor in themselves. Four are count stats (wins, shutouts, innings, earned runs saved) and seven are rate stats (win percentage, ERA+, strikeouts, Indicated ERA, walks, strikeout-to-walk ratio, and hits allowed), so there is balance there too. It’s a good list to measure a pitcher’s quality.
Having these eleven different data points for each pitcher, I used the most simple ranking method I could think of: I just ranked each of the 18 pitchers for each stat and assigned him points equal to his rankings. I then added up each pitcher’s points; lowest score wins.
Player W W% SO IP E+ ER K IE BB KB H Total Rank Jim Bunning* 15 9 11 14 12 14 2 14 8 3 6 108 10 Stan Coveleski* 16 3 12 17 1 5 15 4 7 14 14 108 10 Don Drysdale* 17 6 5 16 2 7 4 8 5 2 4 76 3 Red Faber* 11 12 16 11 4 4 13 5 12 15 15 118 13 Waite Hoyt* 14 4 18 13 15 15 14 6 10 16 17 142 18 Fergie Jenkins* 7 6 5 7 9 6 5 13 2 1 7 68 1 Bob Lemon* 18 2 15 18 4 13 11 15 17 17 3 133 16 Ted Lyons* 10 16 17 10 6 2 18 7 11 18 18 133 16 Joe McGinnity* 1 3 1 14 15 2 11 16 1 3 10 77 5 Phil Niekro* 3 14 8 1 9 3 7 17 14 8 9 93 8 Eppa Rixey* 9 18 13 8 9 8 17 2 4 13 16 117 12 Robin Roberts* 6 13 8 5 13 9 9 9 1 6 12 91 7 Red Ruffing* 8 10 8 9 16 16 10 10 15 12 13 127 15 Nolan Ryan* 1 17 1 2 14 10 1 18 18 7 1 90 6 Don Sutton* 1 5 3 3 17 17 6 11 6 5 2 76 3 Vic Willis* 12 10 4 12 6 12 12 3 13 9 5 98 9 Early Wynn* 4 8 5 6 18 18 8 16 16 11 10 120 14 Bert Blyleven 5 15 2 4 6 1 3 12 9 4 8 69 2
This method finds that Fergie Jenkins is the best of the 18 pitchers in the list, with Blyleven a very, very close second. Don Drysdale, despite his short career, is tied for third with Don Sutton. The system thinks Waite Hoyt, Bob Lemon, Ted Lyons and Red Ruffing are the weakest of the 18, and I would agree 100% with that sentiment, while recognizing that Lemon only ranks so low because of his short career. I thought Bert would come in about the middle of this group, and the high ranking surprised me.
Is Blyleven the second-best pitcher on this list? I tried to be both objective and all-encompassing, and just measure almost everything relevant while keeping the method balanced and simple, and I came to that conclusion. Bert might easily be considered the best; he beats Fergie Jenkins in seven of the eleven categories but big losses in winning percentage and walks put him second.
Having crunched the numbers every way I could think of, I can only conclude that Bert Blyleven is one of the two or three best pitchers on that list of eighteen mid-level Hall of Famers. He belongs.
References & Resources
Thanks as always to Baseball-Reference.com and to the Sabermetric Encyclopedia for making this kind of research a breeze.