The 2011 Hall of Fame Class
January 5th, 2011 | by Ray Flowers |
The Hall of Fame vote for 2011 was released today, and unsurprisingly there were two names listed highlighted by the the name of Roberto Alomar, a year after he was denied entry (to all the voters who withheld their vote for Alomar because of the spitting incident, get off your flipping high horse. I’m sure none of you ever did something of questionable moral value). You can read my reasons for having not a scintilla of doubt about the inclusion of Alomar in the Hall of Fame in Who am I? The other player selected was Bert Blyleven who was finally chosen for the Hall in his 14th year on the ballot. Here are the results of the top-5 from this year’s balloting (a player needs to be named on 75% of the ballots to be awarded a spot in the Hall).
Roberto Alomar: 90.0%
Bert Blyleven: 79.7%
Barry Larkin: 62.1%
Jack Morris: 53.5%
Lee Smith: 45.3%
* For the complete results you can visit The Baseball Writers’ Association of America.
Two of my personal favorites failed to reach 45 percent of the votes in Jeff Bagwell (41.7%) and Tim Raines (37.5%). You can find my reasons for supporting Bagwell in HOF: The Case for Bagwell. As for Raines, I wrote a report titled simply HOF: Tim Raines. However, I’ve never written much about Blyleven, so I thought I would share some thoughts on his election. Some facts on Blyleven.
He was named to three All-Star teams.
He won a Cy Young Award.
He won 133 games in his first 10 seasons.
He owns a career winning percentage of .542.
He was top-10 in complete games eight times including four seasons in which he led the league.
He has an ERA+ mark of 1.14 (14 percent better than the league average).
Are you ready to have your mind blown like the first time you saw The Sixth Sense? Those aren’t numbers that belong to Bert Blyleven, they belong to Barry Zito. I’ll give you a moment to comprehend what we are working our way up to here by giving you Blyleven’s real numbers.
Blyleven was named to two All-Star games, one less than Zito.
Blyleven never won a Cy Young Award (he was 3rd in 1984-85).
Blyleven won 148 games his first 10 years, an average of 1.5 wins a year more than Zito.
Blyleven owns a career winning percentage of .534, .008 less than Zito.
Blyleven was top-10 in complete games 12 times but led the league only once.
Blyleven has an ERA+ mark of 118, slightly better than Zito’s 114 mark.
I think my point should be evident, should it not? I’m not saying Barry Zito should be in the Hall of Fame, but I think it’s rather poignant to think that Barry Zito has been the equal of Blyleven for the first 10 seasons of his career. So I ask, is there anyone out there that thinks Zito will one day deserve to be in the Hall of Fame even if he has another 10 years like his first 10? I mean really, Bert Blyleven was inducted into the Hall of Fame for being a very good pitcher for an awfully long period of time, but when did the Hall of Fame became the domain of very good ball players?
Let me hit on Jack Morris before I leave you today. Let’s compare Morris to Blyleven in some major categories and see if there are real differences between the two.
Blyleven: Two All-Star games
J.Morris: Five All-Star games
Blyleven: 0.45 career shares in Cy Young voting
J.Morris: 0.73 career shares in Cy Young voting
Blyleven: 287 wins, top-10 in wins six times
J.Morris: 254 wins, top-10 in wins 12 times
Blyleven: .534 winning percentage, ERA+ of 118
J.Morris: .577 winning percentage, ERA+ of 105
Blyleven: Hall of Fame Monitor (120), Hall of Fame Standards (50)
J.Morris: Hall of Fame Monitor (122), Hall of Fame Standards (39)
Maybe it’s just me, but I certainly don’t see a hell of a lot of difference between those two other than the fact that Blyleven does have a sizable strikeout lead (6.7 K/9 to 5.8 K/9). My point is that maybe all those Morris supporters will just have to remain patient as it appears that, with time, the voting body will eventually install him in the Hall of Fame.
ADDENDUM
I love the passionate response by everyone below in the Comments section (below). Love it. Wish everyone would share their thoughts more to make things interesting. My point was to cause everyone to get engaged with the topic, and they certainly did.
Let me be clear.
1- Zito is NOT a Hall of Fame pitcher. Period.
2- Zito is NOT as good as Blyleven when you take into count the overall performance of Blyleven over the course of 22 years.
I was merely stating that Zito had more Cy Young’s and All-Star appearances, a better winning percentage, a better K/9 mark and was tougher to get a hit off of than Blyleven. Those are facts, and you can read whatever you would like into them, but I was just pointing out that Blyleven’s efforts weren’t vastly different in many respects. I never said Zito was a better pitcher.
As for Blyleven’s accomplishments, they are historically substantial in terms of his overall workload which was immense (nearly 5,000 innings). The question continues to be – should we reward durability, or should the Hall of Fame be for the best players?
Think of it. Blyleven NEVER led the league in wins or ERA. He only led the league in strikeouts once and only once did he lead in WHIP. In addition, despite all his innings, he only led the league in that category twice. If I add that all up, I don’t know if that’s good enough for the Hall of Fame.
By Ray Flowers
Tags: Barry Larkin, Barry Zito, Bert Blyleven, Hall of Fame, HOF, Jack Morrs, Jeff Bagwell, Lee Smith, Roberto Alomar, Tim Raines
By Don on Jan 5, 2011
I always respected your opinion on baseball topics. But after I read your bashing of Blyleven, that went down the drain.
To Compare players by how many All-Star game appearances or Cy Young awards they didn’t get is not how you should minimize a career full of accomplishments.
If Barry Zito didn’t loose 8 mph on his fastball, he may have sustained a level of excellance to earn a Hall of Fame career. You want your readers to believe that Blyleven is nothing more than a worn out Zito. You dicredited Zito, Blyleven and yourself for not recognizing the facts. I hope your not in Cooperstown when Blyleven gets inducted.
By Rusty on Jan 5, 2011
Blyleven and Zito are not equals over their first ten seasons.
Blyleven threw 625 more innings with an ERA almost a point lower (2.88 vs. 3.84) and an ERA+ of 130 to Zito’s 115. Despite 625 more innings, he walked fewer batters than Zito (711 to 826).
To match Blyleven’s career numbers, Zito would have to pitch for another 15 years or so with an ERA under 3.00.
And the comparison of Blyleven to Morris are all based on two things: his popularity with voters (for All Star and Cy Young awards), and wins. Those things should count for something, but voters back then had even less understanding of stats than they do today, and wins are very dependent on teammates. By any objective measure, Blyleven was a much better pitcher — 1146 more innings but only 173 more earned runs (that would be a 1.36 ERA), 1200 more strikeouts, and even better postseason numbers than Morris.
Zito and Morris are very good pitchers, but not as good as Blyleven.
By Amit on Jan 5, 2011
Aside from the strikeouts, the ERA difference is huge. An ERA+ of 105 is nowhere near good enough for the HOF (or the raw ERA of 3.90). All of the stats above that support Morris are based on Wins, and he had an excellent offense and defense behind him. Even with that great defense, he would have the worst ERA by far of any HOF pitcher.
By Paapfly.com on Jan 5, 2011
the stuff on Zito versus Blyleven is not a good argument, and terribly skewed.
By Brian on Jan 5, 2011
Do we have to go over this again? Blyleven played on lousy teams his whole career, struck out 3700 batters, (5th all time), and had an odd sense of humour. But he was one of the top 5 pitchers of his era, and by any statistical measure relevant to that ERA, he’s a HOF candidate, the first 10 years of Barry Zito’s career notwithstanding. Did Blyleven give your grandfather a hotfoot, Ray?
By AJ on Jan 5, 2011
Disagree with you strongly on Blyleven. How many games did he lose because his team scored 2 or fewer runs? Check that out. A no-doubt HOF’er.
By Brad Warren on Jan 5, 2011
If you want to cherry-pick a few stats that support a position of a candidate being Hall-worthy or not, you can make a case for (or against) just about anybody. Check out baseball-reference.com’s pitching “Wins above replacement” where Blyleven is 13th all time with 90.1, and your boy Morris is 140th at 39.3. “when did the Hall of Fame became the domain of very good ball players?”— Where have you been the last 50 years? The Hall is packed with guys who were “very good” or worse– Rizzuto, Reese, Mazeroski, Dawson. Heck, you can say Cal Ripken, Robin Yount, Carl Yastrzemski, Tony Perez and Lou Brock were merely “very good”… One last thing- check the overall WAR, where Blyleven ranks #43 all-time! He’s ahead of Steve Carlton, George Brett, Roberto Clemente, and yeah, some guy named Joe DiMaggio!
By Jim on Jan 6, 2011
I came across something that brightens the prospects of Bags and Tim Raines being voted into the HOF next time. Apparently, according to Aaron Gleeman over at Hardball Times, the unofficial list of first-time eligible players is thin and on the mediocre side. Some players, like Dave Parker, will also come off the list when they’ve lost the vote 15 times. Maybe it’ll be a good year for those 2 guys to get the induction they deserve.
By Paul on Jan 6, 2011
I don’t remember seeing Blyleven pitch but looking at baseball reference it seems like he landed on the leader board many times during his era including the top 5 in ERA 7 times, top 5 in strikeouts 13 times, top 5 in shutouts 9 times, top 5 in WHIP 7 times.
One stat that floored me was his complete game total of 242, thats just unheard of today, which is why we shouldn’t compare eras.
I really don’t want to say that Blyleven belongs or not, most of his playing time is outside of my era but I do believe at looking at a players era when deciding if he belongs in the HOF. The question is how does he compare to other HOF pitchers in terms of being in the top 5 in main categories?
By Jon on Jan 6, 2011
I don’t think you can just compare numbers from one era to another. I know baseball is a numbers game, but I think the eye test would be a better judge of talent in this case than numbers. Everything can’t be done with numbers.
By Ray Flowers on Jan 6, 2011
I love the passionate response by everyone here. Love it. Wish everyone would share their thoughts more to make things interesting.
Let me be clear.
1- Zito is NOT a Hall of Fame pitcher. Period.
2- Zito is NOT as good as Blyleven when you take into count the overall performance of Blyleven over the course of 22 years.
I was merely stating that Zito had more Cy Young’s and All-Star appearances, a better winning percentage, a better K/9 mark and was tougher to get a hit off of than Blyleven.
I was just pointing out that Blyleven’s efforts weren’t vastly different in many respects. I never said Zito was a better pitcher.
My point was to cause everyone to get engaged with the topic, and they certainly did.
As for Blyleven’s accomplishments, they are substantial in terms of his overall workload which was immense (nearly 5,000 innings). The question continues to be – should we reward durability, or should the Hall of Fame be for the best players?
Think of it. Blyleven NEVER led the league in wins or ERA. He only led the league in strikeouts once and only once did he lead in WHIP. In addition, despite all his innings, he only led the league in that category twice. If I add that all up, I don’t know if that’s good enough for the Hall of Fame.
By Jon on Jan 7, 2011
Your comment really cleared things up Ray, thanks. I agree with you that longevity is a big factor in determining hall of famers, and I personally don’t think it should play of big a role as it does. But it does and I guess that’s just the way things are. I think Pedro Martinez is a great example. His overall numbers are not as good as Blyleven’s, but he was the most dominant pitcher in baseball from 97-03 in a ERA where hitter’s dominated.