Any love out there for Bert Blyleven?

His stats are comparable to Don Sutton's (except for wins)
Sutton:

1. 324 wins
2. 12 seasons of 15+ wins
3. 3574 K's
4. 3x ERA under league avg. by 1 run or more
5. 178 complete games


Blyleven

1. 287 wins
2. 10 seasons of 15+ wins
3. 3701 K's
4. 8X ERA under league avg. by 1 run or more
5. 242 complete games


The numbers of complete games are sick by guys pre 1990

He should be in if for nothing else other than this:

http://assets.espn.go.com/photo/2008/0205/...antasy5_300.jpg


Not is Chris Ferguson's class, but still quite the dancer?

How about Roberto Alomar?

In. 5 Top 6 MVP finishes. 10 GG's. 3 Top 6 BA finishes. Great postseason player. Best player at his position (along with Biggio) for a long period of time. Not as good as Biggio, but in nonetheless.

Blyleven should have been in a long time ago.

Jim Rice?

Averaged 30 HR's and 113 RBI's in 16 seasons presteroid.

WTF?

he was one of the most dominating players at his position during his era...he's in

how about McGwire, Palmiero, and Bonds?

I say yes

Bonds for sure because he was a hall of famer before he used steroids. McGwire and Palmiero are a little iffy. McGwire because he was extremely injury-prone prior to using and was pretty much only a homerun hitter. Palmeiro was never great, just good. His lifetime numbers are helped a lot by the roids.

Huh?
500 HR club member
Ten 30+ HR seasons
Ten 100+ RBI Seasons
3000 Career hits
Over .500 Slugging 12 seasons

We can argue whether he deserves to get in based on the whole 'roids thing, but IMO, if you can look past the 'roids, Palmeiro was definitely a great player. Not massive-supro-enormoid-giganto superstar great, but certainlly "great" ala Kirby Puckett or Clyde Drexler.

His career took a new arc after the strike. If you notice all his great seasons were from 1996-2003. Not saying the roids were responsible for all of it. But it certainly was responsible for him getting 500 HR as well as helping him remain injury-free to rack up the hits. I didn't say for sure no, just iffy. Its hard to say how much steroids helped him but there is no argument that he was good, but not great from 1986-1996.

Bonds:

1. 1 rbi for every 5 ab's 23rd all time
2. 3rd all time in rbi's
3. all those HR's obv
4. 4th all time OPS

McGwire:

1. 1 rbi for every 4.3 ab's 7th all time
2. 65th all time in rbi's
3. 8th in hr's
4. 10th all time OPS

Palmiero:

1. 1 rbi for every 5.6 ab's
2. 14th in rbi's
3. 10th in homers
4. 59th in OPS

Obviously bonds is a no brainer, but Mac and Rafe deserve it too based on stats. 'Course so do others that are not in.

...

Maury Wills? http://maurywills.com/HallOfFame.aspx

3 WS titles, 1 MVP, and I don't think anyone can argue that he didn't change the game. In 1959, Willie Mays led the NL in SBs with 27; in 1962, Wills stole 104.

Putting aside the "I didn't do it" and then testing positive the next day or whatever it was...I still don't know if Palmeiro is HOF worthy IMO. It really depends on if your view of the HOF includes compilers or just the best of the best as it were. I'm a bigger peak dominance guy and Palmeiro just doesn't measure up. Putting together a stretch of 30-40 homerun seasons in an era when guys like Brady Anderson were hitting 50 doesn't do it for me. Palmiero was never truly among the top 5 players in the league (1 Top 5 MVP finish...he finished 5th in 1999). He NEVER ONCE led the league in batting average, homeruns or RBIs. He was consistently very good to excellent, while under a cloud of suspicion (later proven) and never led the league in anything except lies. He's not in IMO. I'd put McGriff in before him.

I think McGwire is a bit different. To me he was the most feared hitter in baseball for a stretch and that's a significant difference in the 2 players. McGwire led the league in homeruns 4 seasons and was in the top 5, 5 other times. Led the league in SLG% 4 times, OPS 2X, etc. He drew a ton of walks and thus had an amazing OBP% for a homerun hitter during his peak. Is he a HOFer? I don't know, injuries killed his career numbers but I think he's a better case than Palmeiro if you are talking dominance.

I really have no idea what's going to happen with these guys because baseball is still wonky from the Mitchell report stuff and the senate hearings, etc. I don't know if I'd reward Palmeiro for being consistently a top 10 power hitter during the steroid era but I also don't know if I should reward McGwire for being the best power hitter during the steroid era either. I think McGwire's dominance with respect to the league gives him an edge though if anything.

Put another way, if you were to "normalize" the steroid data...just hypothetically speaking say reduce the number of homeruns hit by an arbitrary % or whatever. Their career numbers would obviously suffer a bit, but with respect to the league, McGwire would still have led the league in homeruns whether you knocked it down to 40 or what have you. Palmeiro's career numbers would also suffer the same way but he also still would not be in possession of any league leaderboard wins as well whereas McGwire would. He would look a lot more pedestrian in this comparison.

Quite frankly if Phil Rizzuto's in, there should be no reason Wills shouldn't be. If Rizzuto is the measuring stick that is. He was better than Rizzuto both at the plate and in the field. They both have 1 MVP, multiple rings and both hit about the same in postseason play. Wills was the more dominant player during his peak by far.

Yeah, agreed.

Tommy John?

Rizzuto is the HOF's Mendoza Line. IMO, it should be much, much higher.

Agreed

The tendon for sure.

Look at his lifetime stats. He should def be in.

Hey guys...checking in only to certainly pop out again. My thoughts:

Blyleven: Absolutely
Alomar: Certainly
Rice: No
Tommy John: Not quite
Wills: No way
Bonds: Yes
McGwire: Probably
Palmeiro: Probably not

Hey good to see you, however short-lived!

I agree except for McGwire. He's a yes. And I'm probably a little more bullish on Palmiero, too, but I'm willing to listen to good arguments either way.

The idea that Maury Wills is a potential Hall of Famer is laughable. He's terrible. If Omar Vizquel makes the Hall of Fame I'll stab everyone not named Alan Trammell.

Wang

Well, I guess hanging out with Alan Trammell will be safe in a few years, because I'd say there is a 98% chance Omar gets in. If I knew I could collect whenver it happens, I'd be more then happy to give you decent odds.

As much as you'd like to present Maury Wills being 'terrible' as indisputable fact, I would like to hear your reasoning. Unless you meant now (you used is, not was), which I would agree with; I doubt he would be much use to any MLB team these days. However, his value during his era is pretty easily determined. His numbers compare favorably to other HOF ss from/around his era, and that is how he should be judged in this case.

I don't think anyone would argue that the HOF is all it should be (besides the HOF itself), but to borrow from hundreds of uncreative athletes, 'it is what it is'. When judging whether a player is HOF worthy, one should use the system in place and look at things how the actual voters do, not how they wish things were.

That being said, I wish the HOF was 100x more exclusive then it currently is.

Get out your stabbing shoes....and everytime they show how "HOF worthy" he is on baseball tonight leading up to his induction by showing a barehanded catch and throw, take a drink.

Well, his career OPS+ was 88. The year he won the MVP, '62, he was a league-average hitter. This is a laudable accomplishment for a shortstop, but according to Baseball Prospectus, Wills was a slightly below-average defensive shortstop this year (though I'm not sure I trust FRAA that much).

He stole some bases, but he got caught alot too. He started his career very late, and only 4 times in his career was Wills league-average-or-better at the plate. His career offensive numbers are nearly identical to Ozzie Smith's, but Wills was no Ozzie in the field. I don't have to look at whether or not I think Bill Plaschke is going to write a bad, weepy article about Maury Wills that advances his Hall of Fame case. In fact, I WILL NOT do that. He doesn't belong in the Hall of Fame. Give me a player you think he deserves to be in over (either currently in, or currently up for debate, preferably not one of those ridiculous border-line players that's in the Hall that EVERYBODY is better than), and we'll compare.

Wills was a fine player, but he was nothing all that special. No way I'm letting a guy with a career OPS+ of 88 into my hall if he's not bringing something else very, very significant to the table

Ok, reasonable argument. Since you invoked Plaschke, you win. Anyone he deserves to be in over, I would probably consider a marginal at best candidate (Pee Wee Reese, Rizzuto, etc).

Mike Mussina hall worthy?

If he manages a couple more seasons like last season he might get in (especially if he gets to 300 wins). His 3.68 lifetime ERA is not good enough though at this point. If he retires with 300+ wins though, that becomes less noticeable.

No

Not until Pete Rose gets in

Mike Mussina strikes me as completely borderline. I have him a notch below Schilling and consider Schilling just barely on the happy side of the dividing line.

I think I'd give it to him since he's retiring with something left in the tank and not dragging out the inevitable to pad his stats to reach an arbitrary milestone.

Oh he retired? No chance then imo. 270 wins and a 3.68 ERA, unimpressive K and BB numbers, I don't see how he gets in.





Unfortunately for him the hall is all about arbitrary milestones.

3.68 ERA vs. a league average of 4.51. 18 years and 3500 innings of a 123 ERA+ is nothing to shake a stick at. In fact, that's precisely Juan Marichal...only Mussina has 23 more wins. Granted, the shape of the career is different, Marichal's a peak guy whereas Mussina's been quite good for a long time, but in terms of total value, they're close.

I don't buy the wins thing. 270 wins is more than:

Jim Palmer
Bob Feller
Carl Hubbell
Mordecai Brown
Whitey Ford

...and a bunch of other Hall of Famers.

Because I was curious, I looked up Hall of Fame pitchers. There are 62 by my count. 37 of them had less than 270 wins and Grimes also had 270. So, if we're judging Mussina on wins, he's in the upper half of the Hall of Fame.

By ERA+, he's got 34 below him and 1 tie.

Innings: 26 have less innings.

Looks to me like he's an average Hall of Famer. He will look worse in comparison when Clemens*, Maddux, Martinez, Glavine, Smoltz, Johnson, etc, etc...come up for election and make it in before him, but he's still a solid choice.

Hmm fair enough, I guess you're right that he's just on the cusp. Retiring after one of his best seasons should help. But he's had FIVE seasons of 4.40+ era, and has had just one sub-3.00, or one and a half I suppose. Zero Cy Youngs could be the kicker imo.

I think the 300 win thing is going to become less and less important in the era of 5 man rotations and what not. Pedro, for example, is going to fall far short of 300 wins, and he's like a top 5 HoF pitcher.

Yeah, but Pedro's other stats are so incredibly good that it's unimportant. I mean, compare Mussina's one-and-a-half sub-3.00 ERA seasons in his career to Pedro's NINE (including a ridiculous streak of seven straight, which Greg Maddux incidentally equaled), and also including two sub-2.00 seasons (also equaled by Maddux ). I mean obviously I know you're not saying they are comparable pitchers, I'm just generally pointing out that Mussina doesn't have any outstanding statistics.

He has had 5 seasons of 4.40+ ERA, but in 2 of those seasons he managed to still have an ERA better than league average. For those two seasons, he was an All-Star in one and finished 5th in the Cy Young in the other. The other three aren't horrible seasons and they've come at the end of his career in his decline phase. You can find many Hall of Famers with similar results. I'll cherry-pick a few

Catfish Hunter - 7 of 15 seasons with a below league average ERA (note: being better than Catfish is not a good argument for inclusion in the Hall)

Don Sutton - 8.5 seasons with a sub-100 ERA+, Cy Young votes 5 times - 3 fifths, a fourth, and a third. 4 AS games in 23 seasons.

Jim Bunning - useless his last four years

Don Drysdale - 121 career ERA+, cooked at 32.

Early Wynn - 8 sub-100 ERA+ seasons

Nolan Ryan - 6 sub-100 ERA+ seasons

etc...not my best crafted argument, but I played a rebuy tonight and it scrambled my brain...making me erratic.


A better point, I think, is that I'm not going to hold not having a Cy Young against him. He went through his prime in the same league as Pedro Martinez and Roger Clemens, who won like 15 in a row. Lots of great, deserving pitchers haven't gotten one.

Anyway, I understand your ultimate point about Mussina: he never was spectacular; never was dominant. If you're voting on peak, then yeah, Mussina falls short and it's a totally defensible perspective. I think I'm a career voter at heart, so this doesn't bother me as much. I don't think it'll be a crime if he doesn't get in. If he does get in, he'll be better than a good number of pitchers already enshrined. So yeah, either way.

And while we're talking Hall of Fame. Any guesses on how many jackasses leave Rickey off their ballot this year? Who's going to take it upon themselves to perpetuate the "nobody should be unanimous" nonsense? It will happen. 23 people left Willie Mays off. Same with Stan Musial. DiMaggio got 88.84% of the vote. Mantle 88.22. Jesus...Joe Morgan only got 363 of 444. Ed Mathews did even worse...he squeaked in after a number of tries and he was the greatest third baseman to date.

Ugh. Well, it'll happen to Rickey and after that, we'll get to watch it happen to Maddux too.

You make a solid argument, I just don't particularly like Mussina, and like you said he was never really dominant.

And yeah, when Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn don't get in unanimously, there's no way Ricky will. Why the voters think that makes sense I'll never really understand.

Here's hoping Jim Rice manages to get in this year, as it's his last year of eligibility. He just missed last year.

To me Mussina like a lot of others have said he was good, maybe very good, but not great. Of course though I think a lot of what the hall of fame has become is pretty much a joke. REason being is there really is no true formula of how to get in. I think maybe 10-15 years ago there was a bit of a formula or numbers that needed to be reached. Now I think with the inflated numbers those figures have changed.

I know you guys also mentioned Bonds, Mac and Palmero. Bonds is of course a given unless however they bring up the whole steroids thing. I think that could come back against him. THough he had a great career even before that. Mac I think will never get in. He is deserving and was very feared hitter however the whole steroids thing plays too big of a role. And with palmero no chance.

The guys I wonder about will be Maddux, Smoltz and Glavine. How far apart would they get in. Hell do you guys think they do get in? For me I think Maddux is a lock. Glavine with the 300 wins should be. Smoltz could go either way. I mean his win total isn't spectacular however put in his saves and I think you have a bit of a question.

I think you need to go look up Maddux's stats if you have any doubt about him - he's one of the top 5 pitchers in the last 50 years, almost unquestionably. The man has 355 wins and a 3.16 ERA. 355 wins is 8th all time (and that includes 19th century), behind the likes of Cy Young, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, etc, and done in the era of 5-man-rotations and steroids. More wins than Clemens, Nolan Ryan, Steve Carlton, Tom Seaver, Randy Johnson, etc, etc. The only pitcher in the last 20 years as good as him is Pedro, in my opinion.

Smoltz is also a lock I think, especially since he's been so versatile as both a dominant starter and closer. And I think Glavine will get in first ballot as well.

I think smoltz is more hall worthy than glavine.. more dominant at his peak, one of the most clutch big game pitchers of my life time.

my bad after reading your reply I realized I worded my statement wrong about those pitchers. What I meant to say is that Maddux would clearly be what the benchmark of a great pitcher would be. However I wonder with the hall of fame voters would he receive all votes or would they be idiots and not all of them vote for him on his first ballot like the way cal ripken or tony gwynn didn't receive all the votes.

I do agree that Smoltz seemed more dominant. First off gotta say I am a huge braves fan from the Dale Murphy days. I mean Dale Murphy to this day is still one of my favorite players. The one thing about Glavine that always struck me as odd was how he struggled terribly in the first inning.

Jim Kaat for hall of fame?

280+ wins
16 gold gloves

Yes

bonds? yes or no?

bonds yes

Palmiero yes

sosa yes

mcgwire yes

the needle... yes