Better Late Than Never, Bert

Today, Bert Blyleven finally got recognized for being the great pitcher he was. It took fourteen years, but always better late than never. Congratulations, Bert.

In the long, traditional and tainted history of baseball, you will find few players who were as good as Bert Blyleven. A pitcher who spent 86% of his career in the AL, Blyleven was not only one of the most durable pitchers to ever play the game (14th all time in innings pitched), but he also played each and every one of those innings, up until the last few years of his career, remarkably well and consistently. Blyleven was not just "good" at baseball, he was nothing short of great, and unlike Javier Vazquez, he did not underperform his stellar peripherals.

In terms of the topical, traditional statistics, Blyleven's career 3.31 ERA puts him in company with current/future Hall Of Famers Randy Johnson (career 3.29 ERA), Fergie Jenkins (career 3.34 ERA), Phil Niekro (career 3.35 ERA), and Robin Roberts (3.41 ERA). His ERA is also lower than that of Tom Glavine (career 3.54 ERA). You like wins? His 287 wins are give him one more than Robin Roberts, and makes him 27th all time. Only six other players in the history of baseball who have more wins than Blyleven Tommy John (288), Bobby Mathews (297), Randy Johnson (303), Tom Glavine (305), Roger Clemens (354), and Greg Maddux (355)) are not currently in the hall of fame, and five years from now, that number will dwindle down to two. Many pitchers with less wins are already in. Furthermore, Blyleven was never known as a jerk or cheater or drug user during his career, unlike Albert Belle, Ron Santo (God rest his soul), Tim Raines, Kenny Rogers, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, et al. Tto the contrary,Blyleven has a great sense of humor. But wins don't really matter, at least not in measuring a pitchers talent, and attitude has nothing to do with his talent and production on the field.

While Blyleven performed remarkably well in the surface stats that most Hall of Fame voters obsessively oogle, his underlying skill sets are equally impressive. Bert Blyleven ended his career with a 3.19 FIP over almost 5,000 innings pitched, making him top 50 all time amongst starting pitchers who threw 2500+ innings. A 3.19 FIP puts Blyleven in company with such current and future Hall Of Famers as Steve Carlton (career 3.15 FIP) and Jim Bunning (3.22 FIP) and ahead of such guys as Don Sutton (career 3.24 FIP), Greg Maddux (career 3.26 FIP), Fergie Jenkins (3.28 FIP), Dennis Eckersley (career 3.40 FIP), and Phil Niekro (career 3.60 FIP). In fact, Blyleven's FIP was only above 3.00 twice during his first nine major league seasons (one of which was his rookie year). Over those first nine years of his career, his career high FIP was 3.27. In his career, his FIP was above 4 only three times. His BB/9 was only three times above 3.00 in a season and only once above 3.50. Blyleven's K/9 (6.70 career) was also above average each season until his final three in the majors. With the exception of his final three seasons -- over which Blyleven's K/BB was 2.98, 2.76, and 2.41 -- Blyleven's K/9 was never below 6.0.

Blyleven's numbers are so good because his control was superb. It was not Greg Maddux-like, but a career 2.39 BB/9 is none the less fantastic. Blyleven posted a career 2.80 K/BB mark, which is top 35 amongst all pitchers who threw 2000+ innings (top 25 amongst all pitchers with 2500+ innings). And just in case Blyleven's career 2.80 K/BB does not sound sweet enough, between 1970 and 1992, the league average K/BB was only above 1.75 once (1988).

Fangraphs does not have any groundball data available for any season prior to 2002, but it is well known that Blyleven had a fantastic curveball and he kept the ball in the yard plenty with a 0.78 HR/9.

In sum, we have the portrait of a pitcher with great peripherals and quality surface stats. Blyleven was an almost entirely AL pitcher with a good reputation, a lot of wins, great control (in terms of both BB/9 and K/BB), and a very quality FIP and ERA. His 3,701 career strikeouts are fifth all time and he's better than many of the pitchers who are already honored (some of whom should not be...but that post is for another time) in the halls of history in Cooperstown, New York. Blyleven was one of baseball's true greats and I am glad his is finally being recognized as such. With luck, Blyleven's entry will pave the way for Mike Mussina.

On one final note, I would like to point out that Jeff Bagwell's snub, garnering less than 50% of the vote, seems awfully ridiculous. As Chris Jaffee noted earlier this week:

Some talk has surrounded Jeff Bagwell as a steroid taker. He's never been named as one, never tested positive, and there's no solid evidence or even evasive statements before Congress linking him to steroids. But he might be dinged by the power of gossip and innuendo.

Rather than extol upon how unfair tainting innuendo is in our guilty until proven innocent until proven guilty society and rehash a long-winded argument in favor of Jeff Bagwell, I will instead let the numbers visually stand for themselves. Below, courtesy of Fangraphs's WAR graphs is a visual representation of the career of Jeff Bagwell (green) in comparison to the careers of the three most recently elected Hall of Fame hitters -- Roberto Alomar (congratulations!, orange), Andre Dawson (blue), and Jim Rice (purple):



Like I said, I think the image speaks for itself.

The Hall Of Fame*

With the increasing disillusionment that is steroids upon the national pastime, many players who were once thought to be shoo ins for Cooperstown -- guys like ManRam, A-Rod and Clemens -- are speculated to be unvotable into the hall of fame. Seen as disrespectful cheaters, many sportswriters claim (with good reason) that PED users should be left in the footnotes of history.

I tend to disagree with this statement on the basis that as a guy who hits 700+ home runs -- steroids or not -- still hit 700 homers, which is not a remotely simplefeat by any means. The records of these cheaters, unless overturned by MLB, will remain in place in history and the only real punishment incurred by these players (well, accept Manny, who also got a 50-game suspension) will be a ban from recognition as truly great and impactful upon the game of baseball.Is this really fair, however? On one hand, yes, they took steroids and cheated and tarnished the reputation of the sport. On the other hand, according to most accounts, steroids have long been utilized in the game. Who is to say that guys before Canseco and McGwire who are already in the hall weren't users? Who is to also say that simply using PEDs makes you an underserving cheater (it's not like guys who take steroids just inject themselves and then spend the offseason eating potato chips on the couch; they still have to work out very intensely and the steroids aid these "cheating" athletes in reaching the next level of super saiyan). Many of these cheaters", like Barry Bonds pre-1997, were still great (40/40, anyone?) before they started taking PEDs. Hell, even beyond PEDs, guys like Pete Rose, who tarnished the game in their own unique ways, were still among the game's great players.

For these reasons and many more that I am too lazy to list, I assert that we should start a new Hall of Fame for everyone who was great at baseball, but tarnished the sport in someway or another. We can call it The Hall Of Fame* and put a giant asterik over the entrance doors to the museum (perhaps the asteriks can be the door handles!). Here, in The Hall Of Fame*, we can chronical the history of the various players and events (ie, the Black Sox) that tainted the history and reputation of the sport. Rather than pretend steroids and cheating never happened, we can acknowledge it's existence and impact upon the game as we know it. That way, rather than pretending PEDs, gambling, cheating, etc. never happened, we can learn from the past and examine how it affects our present and will affect our future.

Knowing Bud Selig, however, if there were to ever be a Hall Of Fame*, he would probably hide it in the basement of the real Hall Of Fame.

MLB 2009 hall of Fame class announce on Monday

Tomorrow we find out who has been elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in the class of 2009. There are many candidates on the ballot including: Harold Baines, Jay Bell, Bert Blyleven, David Cone, Andre Dawson, Ron Gant, Mark Grace, Rickey Henderson, Tommy John, Don Mattingly, Mark McGwire, Jack Morris, Dale Murphy, Jesse Orosco, Dave Parker, Dan Plesac, Tim Raines, Jim Rice, Lee Smith, Alan Trammell, Greg Vaughn, Mo Vaughn, and Matt Williams.

I would like to see Andre Dawson finally make it. He deserves it! I would also like to See Mark Grace make it, but he won’t and doesn’t really deserve it like Dawson does. Ricky Henerson should be a first ballot hall of famer and should get every vote, but I don’t think that has ever happened before. It has been 20 years since a left fielder has been inducted into the hall of fame. You can get analysis on all of these players other places so I am not going to. We will just find out tomorrow what happens!