...then don't you have to also induct [fill in the blank]?" I believe the name cited most frequently to fill in that blank is Dwight Gooden. It's true that the similarities between Gator and Doc are striking, so let's compare and contrast.

Any discussion of Dwight Gooden has to begin with the acknowledgment that he was the greatest pitching phenom in major league history. Only Feller comes close to Gooden's achievements before reaching the age of 21. He finished 2nd in Cy Young voting in his rookie year, shattering the record for most strikeouts per nine innings by more than two-thirds of a strikeout. He then had one of the greatest seasons ever in his sophomore year. He was Dr. K, and he was the biggest star in the game at the age of 20. There was talk that we might be witnessing the greatest pitcher in the history of the game. It didn't turn out that way.

The parallels between Guidry and Gooden are many. Both were absolute sensations in their first two full years; no pitcher has ever had a better two-year start than Guidry and Gooden. Each produced one of the greatest pitching seasons in history in his second year, winning the Cy Young Award unanimously. Neither again achieved the dominance he displayed in his second season, but each nonetheless proceeded to compile by far the highest winning percentage of any starting pitcher in his league over the next seven seasons. Each was a figurative runaway freight train down the stretch in pennant races in their first two full seasons. Each maintained a winning percentage over the first 200 decisions of his career approaching .700.

The similarities don't stop there.

A year-by-year approach I believe is a simple way to compare careers in more detail and depth than merely examining career totals. The following Guidry v. Gooden demonstration reveals striking similarities in the arcs of their respective careers.



















Again, the similarity in their careers is striking. There's not much to choose from in a comparison of their first four full seasons. And the statistical similarity continued for the balance of the respective productive careers. The following are Guidry's career totals and Gooden's totals through 1996 (the last season Gooden would pitch enough innings to qualify for the ERA title):






Almost identical, save for a meaningful, but not huge, edge for Guidry in the ERA+ number. Here's the difference, however. After Dwight's first four seasons he never really put together a season that clearly qualified him as one of the premier pitchers in his league. Despite putting up consistently good winning percentages for good Met teams, Gooden's ERAs and other statistical achievements were notably mediocre. Consider the following:

Here are the averages of the best five seasons of various great pitchers. Each of the anonymous pitchers are already in the Hall or, if I don't miss my guess, will be. See if you can determine who they are based on their wins, losses, winning percentage and ERAs. The ERA figures in the following table are the product of their ERA+ and an assumed league average ERA of 4.00.

...is the only pitcher to have won a Cy Young and received CY votes in five other seasons and be rejected by the Hall?

There have been twelve pitchers to do this and other than Ron Guidry each is already in the Hall or, barring unforeseen circumstances, will be a first ballot HOFer. The twelve are Tom Seaver, Jim Palmer, Ferguson Jenkins, Steve Carlton, Ron Guidry, Dennis Eckersley, Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Greg Maddux, Pedro Martinez, Tom Glavine and Johan Santana.

There are three more pitchers who received CY votes in six or more years but never won a Cy Young Award: Mike Mussina (nine years), Nolan Ryan (eight) and Jack Morris (seven). Ryan's already in, Morris is knockin' on the door, and Mussina's candidacy is certain to be stronger than Morris'.

That makes 15 pitchers who have received Cy Young support in six different seasons, and every one received (or will receive) more than 40% support for the Hall of Fame, except one. You know his name. I'll remind you that he never even received 9% of the vote.

Incomprehensible. Really, just inexplicable.

P.S. Another interesting Cy Young fact: Guidry's six seasons in which he received CY votes happened within a nine year span. Randy Johnson took only eight years to accumulate six such seasons. Carlton, Glavine, Jenkins, Eckersley, Ryan and Morris each took more than nine years to accomplish the feat.

How many wins must a Hall of Fame pitcher have? How many innings are enough, and how many not enough?

The most frequently cited criticisms of Guidry's HOF qualifications are "not enough wins" and "he didn't do it long enough." Most agree that in Guidry's case the quality was there, it's just a matter of quantity. It's certainly true that the duration of Guidry's career, and his number of wins and innings, would place him on the low end of the HOF pitching roster, but does he really fail to meet some informal minimum for the Hall?

It seems this debate always veers to a discussion of Koufax and Dean (who had 165 and 150 wins, respectively) and a discussion of an apparent exception for great pitchers who careers were prematurely ended by injury. But there are also six 20th century starting pitchers in the Hall with fewer than 200 wins who are not named Koufax or Dean and don't qualify for the prematurely-ended-career exception, and thirteen who won fewer than 220 games. Each of these pitchers pitched in times when 4-man rotations were the rule, complete games the expectation, and 20 wins and 280 to 300 innings common for elite pitchers.

Here's the question for the BBWAA and the Veterans Committee: if the five Hall of Famers pictured above (left to right, Lefty Gomez, Hal Newhouser, Bob Lemon, Don Drysdale and Happy Jack Chesbro) are Hall worthy despite win totals ranging from 184 to 209, are 170 wins too few for the Hall if attained in the age of five-man rotations and seven-inning starts?

Let's look at some other HOF pitchers with short careers.


















A distinguished group, to be sure. Every era is represented, with pitchers who pitched primarily in each of the decades of the 20th century from the first decade through the 1970's. In every decade there has been at least one pitcher whose career length, wins and innings are notably low, and whose peak career was relatively brief. Let's sharpen the focus to the period from 1920 to 1970 and look at five pitchers: Dazzy Vance, Lefty Gomez, Hal Newhouser, Bob Lemon and Don Drysdale.

The average career win total for this group is 202. The average innings pitched is approximately 2950. The average number of starts is approx. 371. Guidry, with 170 wins, 2392 innings and 323 starts, is short in each category. Guidry's totals are actually fairly close to those of Gomez and Vance, each of whom frequently pitched in a five man rotation. Newhouser, Lemon and Drysdale each pitched almost exclusively in four-man rotations in their prime and averaged over 280 innings per year during their peak years.

Guidry, however, like all future Hall of Fame candidates, pitched exlusively in a five-man rotation, his career coinciding with an era in which the five-man rotation became the rule rather than the exception. As I've discussed in a previous post, the impact of this on the statistics of future Hall of Fame candidates will be profound. The five-man rotation reduces the average number of starts by elite pitchers by about 15%, and the 5-man rotation together with shorter starts and more prominent bullpen roles reduce wins and innings by approximately 20%. It is a simple fact that Pedro Martinez's 214 wins will be nearer the median for HOF candidates in the future, and Mike Mussina's 270 wins near the very high end.

If Guidry's totals are adjusted for the impact of the 5-man rotation (which has reduced wins, innings and starts by approximately 15% for front of the rotation pitchers), his win total is approximately 200, his innings pitched 2870 and his starts 371, each remarkably close to the average of our five Hall of Famers.*

The fact is that the very productive portion of his career was essentially as long as those of our five Hall of Famers. Our average Hall of Famer had 11 seasons in which he pitched enough innings to qualify for the ERA title, with each of Lemon and Gomez having 10 such seaons - the same number as Ron Guidry. He averaged more wins per season during such years than Drysdale and virtually the same number as Vance, despite making substantially fewer starts than either. If Guidry's wins are increased by 15% to account for the impact of the 5-man rotation, he averaged nearly as many wins per season as Bob Lemon.

These Hall of Fame pitchers won more games than Guidry not because their careers were longer, but because they either pitched primarily in a four-man rotation or in an era when starting pitchers frequently picked up a few wins a year in relief (Gomez, Newhouser and Lemon benefited from these "easy" wins). It is simply not a valid argument that Guidry did not have a long enough career or win enough games, because the length of his productive career was virtually the same as our five Hall of Famers and his win total, when adjusted for the impact of the 5-man rotation, was also virtually the same. And there are four more 20th century pitchers in the Hall - Walsh, Waddell, Chesbro and Marquard - whose careers were no longer than Guidry's and whose win totals are no more impressive when controlled for the impact of the shift from 4-man to 5-man rotations.

The Hall of Fame voters will simply have to acknowledge the impact of modern pitching practices on the career statistics of future candidates. The crop of recently retired or soon to retire pitchers who started their careers in the '80's won't force this acknowledgment because they all had extraordinarily long careers and consequently huge win totals - Maddux, Clemens, Glavine and Johnson. But there are pitchers whose candidacies are on the near horizon - Mussina, Schilling and Brown, for example - who will force HOF voters to closely examine these issues. And it is all but inevitable that in the slightly more distant future there will be pitchers who, like Guidry, win about 170 games over a productive career of ten to twelve years and yet are manifestly Hall worthy; just think of Halladay, Oswalt or Santana, if for some reason they only have three or four more productive seasons. Or think Josh Beckett if he manages to put together four or five more seasons of 15 to 20 wins and grab some more World Series glory. Just think Brandon Webb if he puts together five more top flight seasons and wins another Cy Young or two. What if, like Guidry, each of these pitchers remains one of the top pitchers in their league right up to the moment they hit the 170 or 180 win mark, and then their career ends?

I believe the Hall will soon have to acknowledge that Mussina's 270 wins are the equivalent of the win totals posted by Early Wynn and Lefty Grove. I similarly believe the Hall will have to acknowledge that Ron Guidry might have had five or six 20 win seasons but for the impact of the 5-man rotation and a strike-shortened season, and most certainly would have won approximately as many games as Gomez, Vance, Newhouser, Lemon and Drysdale.

In short, I hope the Veterans Committee recognizes a few things the BBWAA apparently failed to recognize: Ron Guidry was the best big game pitcher of his time, the best pitcher in the American League after Palmer's prime and before Clemens', and his career was as long and productive as at least ten pitchers who are in the Hall. These are all incontrovertible statements of fact, and all strongly argue for Ron Guidry's induction into the Hall of Fame.
____________________________
* I arrived at Guidry's win total by multiplying it by 1.15 and adding an additional 5.5 wins for the strike-shortened '81 season. I also multiplied Guidry's innings and starts by 1.15 although the impact of 5-man rotations and increased bullpen utilization has been to decrease each by approximately 20%. I did this both to be conservative in adjusting Guidry's stats and also because the trend toward increased bullpen utilization, though it began during Guidry's career, increased significantly after Guidry's productive career ended in 1986.

I'm ambivalent about Schilling's qualifications for the Hall, but let's face it - he's going in. His big game reputation and outstanding post-season record will put him over the top.

Schilling Shills generally acknowledge that his record is very erratic, his inconsistency and periodic arm issues resulting in numerous single-digit win totals and poor winning percentages throughout his career. The Shills fairly argue, however, that Schilling's peak years were excellent and deserving of HOF induction. Let's compare Schilling's peak years to Guidry's, doing a year-by-year comparison.

The following table lists Schilling's and Guidry's peak years in descending order of wins.

I've inserted a "G" or "S" in the middle column to indicate which pitcher, in my opinion, had the superior year. Here's my reasoning for each year.

Year One, Guidry's '78 v. Schilling's '02. Amazing year for both. A clear and significant edge for Guidry, however, on the basis of his historic record and ERA, the amazing September and post-season performance, and the fact that Guidry's season was the key to the Yanks' comeback, the biggest in AL history.

Year Two, Guidry's '85 v. Schilling's '01. The same record for each, but Schilling's great October and excellent ERA give him the decision.

Year Three, Guidry's '83 v. Schilling's '04. Another win for Schilling. Better record, better ERA, plus a good October for Curt.

Year Four, Guidry's '79 v. Schilling's '97. Similar records and ERA+'s, but slight edges to Guidry in each case. Also, Guidry won the ERA title.

Year Five, Guidry's '80 v. Schilling's '93: Good records but mediocre ERAs for each. I thought about giving the nod to Schilling on the basis of his good Sept/Oct for the Phils. Guidry also had a good September, however, and has the superior ERA+, so he gets the edge.

Year Six, Guidry's '77 v. Schilling's 2006. Similar records, but Guidry's superior ERA+ and tremendous Sept/Oct performance during the Yanks' championship season give Guidry the clear win.

Year Seven, Guidry's '82 v. Schilling's '99. Schilling has the superior record and ERA, so a clear win for Curt.

Year Eight, Guidry's '81 v. Schilling's '98: An odd comparison because Guidry's season is the strike-shortened '81 season. Schilling has a very slight edge in ERA+, but Guidry's clearly superior record, selection as Sporting News' lefthanded starter for the A.L. and impressive World Series performance gives him the clear edge.

Year Nine, Guidry's '84 v. Schilling's '92: Easy win for Curt; Guidry's only season where arm injury was a significant factor.

Year Ten: Slight edge for Schilling, but this season and all other seasons for each not reflected in this table don't really qualify as "peak seasons."

It's split, five seasons for each, but Guidry takes four of the top six. The point here, however, is not to make some fine distinction between Schilling and Guidry, but to demonstrate how close the two are. The "big game" comparison doesn't really resolve anything, either: both have very similar World Series records, Schilling has the overall post-season edge, but Guidry has a huge edge over Schilling in pennant race performances.

I would ask all the BBWAA voters who will vote for Schilling to explain how the BBWAA as a group could find no more than about 9% of the vote for Guidry. Isn't it apparent that over their peak years they were very similar? Isn't it also apparent that Schilling's "non-peak" years (more numerous than Guidry's, who played only a few years after his peak ended) are not a plus in his HOF resume? Here they are:

Online commenters and kibbitzers tend to disparage Catfish Hunter's HOF qualifications - only 224 wins, an elite pitcher for only a six or seven year span, rather pedestrian ERAs, and, they argue, a big winner only because he played for great teams that gave him excellent run support.

These observations from Catfish's critics may have some merit, but they don't detract from the following consideration. Catfish Hunter made 34 starts for the A's in Sept/Oct of '72, '73 and '74. Almost all of them were big starts because the A's won the AL West by narrow margins each year, clinching only in the last week of each season. His record in these 34 starts was 20-5 with a 2.38 ERA in 246 innings pitched. He was the unquestioned ace of the only non-Yankee team to win three consecutive World Series, and he went 7-1 in the six post-season series the A's played on their way to those three world championships.

The BBWAA obviously thinks that carries a lot of weight. I do, too. I should point out that the same community of online commenters who question Hunter's HOF bona fides generally seems to attach great weight to Curt Schilling's post-season record and reputation as a big game pitcher.

20-5, 2.38 ERA in 246 of the biggest innings in his career and in the history of the Oakland A's franchise. That positively shouts "Hall of Fame" to me. It's enough to put a five time 20-game winner with a Cy Young award and five world championship rings over the top and into the Hall.

It occurred to me that I've somehow omitted any discussion of Blyleven's pennant race performances.

Bert participated in seven tight division races - '70, '77-80, '87 and '89 (again, I've defined a tight division race as one in which the race was within five games at some point in September prior to elimination or clinching, and the pitcher made at least one September start when the race was within five games). Bert's teams won two world championships, three division titles and had an average winning percentage of .562 (equivalent to 91 wins in a 162 game season). In other words, these were good teams, and yet Bert's September records in these races were as strikingly mediocre as the rest of his regular season performances for these teams. Bert made 40 starts in these seven races and had a 13-14 record and 3.04 ERA in 278 innings pitched.

It's the same ol' Bert story: decent ERA but a relatively low win total and winning percentage despite pitching for good teams. Bert didn't win as many as three games in any September until his last one in '89. The fact is that Bert played in seven tight divisional races and didn't have a significant impact on any of them. Three times Bert made six or more starts in September and won only two games. Twice he made five or more starts and won only one game. Even Jack Morris, for all his September troubles, had two Septembers in which he won four games.

The Bert Backers would no doubt remind us that Bert had an excellent post-season record. He absolutely did, but as is the case for many other pitchers, the post-season sample size for Bert is rather small - six decisions and 47.1 IP. In any event, Bert's October record can't obscure the fact that he was perfectly mediocre across 40 starts in seven years in which his teams played very important games in September.

I haven't checked Jim Kaat's pennant race records, but I happened to stumble across an account of Kaat's amazing performance in the great '67 AL pennant race in which he was 7-0 with a 1.51 ERA.

It seems as if every pitching candidate for the Hall of Fame managed to have at least one September where he made his presence felt in a pennant race. Every candidate other than Bert Blyleven, that is.

The following is the opening paragraph from an article on Guidry in Sports Illustrated's September 19, 1977 edition entitled "Getting Fat With The Thin Man," a reference to the slender Louisianan's emergence as the Yankee ace as the team surged past the Red Sox and Orioles to win the AL East title.

"From Aug. 7 through the end of last week, the Yankees won 28 of 34 games and moved from third place, five games out, to two ahead in the American League East...And when a team goes on a tear, there invariably is a starting pitcher high on the list of streakers. Because the Yanks' staff is loaded with the likes of World Series heroes Catfish Hunter, Don Gullett and Ken Holtzman, it is hardly surprising that New York found a hot arm. The astounding thing is that the limb is attached to the left shoulder of Ron Guidry, a pitcher whose reputation had been as puny as his 5'11", 158-pound body."

Baseball Crank has an excellent evaluation of Blyleven, Morris, Kaat, John, Tiant, Guidry and others in a January 2001 post. It's a very detailed, incisive and fair assessment of the HOF qualifications of various pitchers, and I agree with his conclusions that Morris, John and Kaat fall short, if just barely. And I really applaud his support of Luis Tiant's induction, particularly his citation of Tiant's outstanding September records for the Red Sox in '70s pennant races. We differ on Blyleven, but Baseball Crank's evaluation of Blyleven is one of the few I've seen that candidly acknowledges the faults in Blyleven's HOF resume: the generally mediocre win totals and winning percentages even when pitching for solid teams.

I'll discuss on the next page Baseball Crank's discussions of Luis Tiant and Ron Guidry. I think Baseball Crank would agree that upon closer examination Guidry has many of the same qualifications as Tiant. I also think that Baseball Crank would agree (fair-minded fellow that he is) that in one instance he grossly mischaracterized Guidry's record.

The Crank begins by noting that Tiant posted particularly outstanding ERAs in '68 and '72:

"Consider: between 1921 and 1993, only three pitchers qualified for the ERA title with an ERA below 2.00 more than once: Sandy Koufax, Hal Newhouser, and Luis Tiant. Tiant's 1.91 mark in 1972 was the lowest at Fenway between Babe Ruth's 1916 season and Roger Clemens in 1990; his 1.60 ERA in 1968 remains the lowest in the AL since Walter Johnson in 1919. Those gaudy ERAs are less impressive when you consider that 1972 and 1968 were the low points for scoring in the AL after 1920, but the translated ERAs for the two seasons are still impressive, 1.99 and 2.16."

"As the TR for Tiant indicates, he was a guy who would have been a winner even on average teams; his offenses, on balance, just weren’t that great."

"...[W]ith him the question is simple: did he stay on the mountaintop long enough? Maybe it’s just a gut feeling at this point, but I say no. His ERAs and other numbers in 1983 and 1985 just don’t say “Dizzy Dean” or “Ed Walsh;” he was a very good pitcher with a very good offense in those years, but he wasn’t carrying the team on his back. That really just leaves a 3-year stretch (1977-79) when he dominated the league, and in two of those years he fell short of 20 wins. Guidry was only a slightly healthier version of Saberhagen or Gullett – great pitchers all when 100%, but rarely all in one piece. He's OUT."

"Three kinds of players dominate the Baseball Hall of Fame: batters who hit a lot, sluggers who homer a lot, pitchers who win a lot. Their glitzy stats jump out of the bios sent to electors. But there are equally deserving players who don't make the Hall: men whose numbers aren't catchy enough and whose contributions are often too subtle to be summarized. Some of them are subsequently elected by the Veterans' Committee, but that group's deliberations don't begin until 23 years after a player has retired.

"One way to try to right these wrongs is to build up support for worthy but underrated players before they get lost in the shuffle. I have in mind three current players who merit election to the Hall but possibly will not make it based on past voting patterns: Tony Perez, Ron Guidry and Ozzie Smith."

SI's Jim Kaplan was prophetic - or at least 67% prophetic. Tony Perez and Ozzie Smith have indeed been inducted into the cherished Hall. Ron Guidry, however...

I highly recommend the article. Kaplan succinctly stated the case for Perez, Guidry and Smith, and also neatly summarized the rather narrow perspective of the typical BBWAA voter. Click here to read the whole article.

There is a very telling quote in Kaplan's article from Ray Miller, the manager of the Twins at the time and former Oriole pitching coach.

"Ron definitely deserves to be in the Hall. He throws strikes and has great leverage when he comes over the top. And he's one of the best fielding pitchers I've ever seen. Sure, his fastball isn't what it used to be, but he throws two different sliders and mixes in curves and change-ups. The only problem with Guidry is that he doesn't talk up his own case."

Indeed, Guidry does not talk up his own case. It's just not Guidry's nature to tout himself. I fear the accomplishments of the Quiet Cajun have been overshadowed by the legends and myths surrounding the outsized personalities in the Bronx Zoo - Steinbrenner, Jackson and Martin. A few more trips to the SI archives might help remind the Veterans Committee of how highly Guidry was regarded in his time.

"So when you look at pitchers like [Blyleven and Morris], like a Ron Guidry, you look at a Goose Gossage, that you go out there and you face everyday, and you knew they were going to be the best."

I've posted a link to Cooperstown Chronicles at LestersLegends.com. Ryan Lester is the proprietor of LestersLegends and he offers his views of the HOF qualifications of various Hall of Famers and HOF prospects. While I don't always agree with Ryan, I find his insights interesting and illuminating. Here's his take on Ron Guidry's candidacy for the HOF:

"I would have liked to see Ron Guidry get more than the 170 victories he totaled. If he got 30 more at the same winning percentage (.651), I think he would have been a no-brainer. He had a nine-year stretch when he was one of the very best pitchers in the game. His 25-3, 1.74 ERA in 1978 is legendary. His 3-1, 1.69 ERA in World Series play shows he could elevate his game. I’m a Red Sox fan, but I appreciate how good Ron Guidry was. I think he should be a HOFer. If he’s good enough for to have his number retired by the Yankees and a spot in Monument Park, then he’s good enough for Cooperstown."

"How long does Bert Blyleven have to wait until the Hall comes knocking on his door. He has 287 wins…287 wins. He pitched 22 seasons. Do the math and you see that if he won about .5 more wins per game in his career he would have the magical 300 wins and I wouldn’t be typing this post. The fact that he pitched on some pretty bad teams should factor into the equation. I understand he never won the Cy Young awards, but neither did a lot of pitchers…including Nolan Ryan. I’m not saying he’s on the same level as Nolan, but they do have some similarities...

"...There are thirty nine pitchers in the HOF with less wins than Bert (take a look for yourself ). Now Bert is a good broadcaster for the Twins. Given his past success and his continued involvement in baseball, I believe it’s time to let him in."

"Gone are the days of 300 wins careers. With five-man rotations, you just don’t start enough games to reach the plateau. If the voters can’t look past not reaching that mark, starting pitching will got the way of the dinosaur in terms of the Hall of Fame. There has to be more to it than just numbers. If someone is a top five pitcher for a decade with a history of big games in the postseason and unmatched durability, he’s a Hall of Famer in my book."

"He was one of the best pitchers of his era, as judged by his numerous Top 10 finishes in the major pitching categories and the slew of All-Star Game appearances. Perhaps just as important was his role in forming the Players Association. Looking at his numbers though, and I’m left puzzled. I’m not exactly sure how Bunning got into Cooperstown. I suppose his overall impact on the game is enough to get him in, but he is Exhibit A why some of the other pitchers I’ve profiled deserve inclusion as well."

"Most young fans know his name for the surgery that has he made famous, but Tommy John was a heck of a pitcher too. He won 288 games (5th most among lefties) at a .555 winning percentage and a 3.34 ERA over a career that spanned 26 years. He also had a 6-3 record with a 2.65 ERA in postseason play. Tommy was a four-time All-Star and won the Hutch Award and the Lou Gehrig Memorial Award. He was in the top 10 in ERA and wins six times, Win-Loss % 10 times (led the league in ‘74), Walks/9 innings pitched 12 times, Complete Games 4 times, and Shutouts 7 times (led the league three times). He injured the ulnar collateral ligament in his pitching arm in 1974, and after a revolutionary surgical operation he was able to pitch until he was 46. For the amount of victories, the brilliant control he exhibited over his lengthy career, as well as his lasting mark on the game with the surgery he helped coin I believe Tommy John is overdue induction into baseball’s hallowed Hall."

Pretty damn dominant. There are various measures of pitching dominance, but in the final analysis it's about not surrendering runs. Guidry was the best in the business at Job One for pitchers in the years '77, '78 and '79, leading the American League in ERA twice and compiling a major league leading 161 ERA+ over those three years.

It turns out that Guidry's 161 ERA+ over a three year period is a pretty unusual achievement, so unusual that Guidry was only the third American League pitcher in the modern era (i.e., post-1920) to accomplish the feat. If you exclude the War Years (when Hal Newhouser did it) then Guidry was the first American League pitcher to turn the trick since Lefty Grove in the '30s.

We'll look at the select group of pitchers who've managed to maintain this level of dominance over a three-year span and examine the curious concentration of these achievements in two brief and distinct periods in baseball history.

Since 1920 there have been 15 pitchers to average a 160 ERA+ or better over a three year span. Only three pitchers accomplished it before WW II: Dazzy Vance, Lefty Grove and Carl Hubbell. Hal Newhouser did it from '44 to '46. Twenty years passed before Koufax and Marichal accomplished the feat from '64 to '66. Gibson did it from '68 to '70 and Seaver from '69 to '71. Guidry did it from '77 to '79. Clemens did it from '90 to '92. The explosion in offense over the last 15 years has produced a profusion of these dominant ERA+ performances, with Greg Maddux, Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson averaging over 160 over more than a decade span, and Kevin Brown over a six-year span. Clemens did it a second time between '96 and '98. Johan Santana maintained a 160 ERA+ during the 5-year span between 2002 and 2006. Before this explosion in 160+ performances Lefty Grove had been the only pitcher in modern baseball history to maintain a 160 ERA+ for more than five years.

Of the 15 pitchers to accomplish this feat nine did it during two relatively brief and distinct periods: Koufax, Marichal, Gibson and Seaver did it during the era of pitching dominance from '64 to '71; Maddux, Brown, Martinez, Johnson and Santana have done it during the recent offensive heyday in baseball. This is not coincidental. The standard deviation in the distribution of ERAs during very low scoring and very high scoring periods tends to increase. During periods like the 1950's and 1980's, when scoring is more in line with the historical average for the 20th century, the standard deviation contracts.

Averaging a 160 ERA+ for a three year span is a tremendous achievement. Bunning and Drysdale never reached a 160 ERA+ for even a single season. Neither did Blyleven or Morris.

Again, to be clear, I am not arguing that any achievement or performance over a mere three-year period should be sufficient, in and of itself, to qualify one for the Hall of Fame. My purpose is to put into context Guidry's dominance during this period. He dominated to an extent few have, and in a way even many of the greats never did.

There have been 19 pitchers who led all starting pitchers in their league in MVP balloting in consecutive seasons. Fourteen have been eligible for the Hall of Fame. Ten have been inducted into the Hall. (Five of those ten are pictured above; from left to right: Dizzy Dean, Hal Newhouser, Red Ruffing, Bob Feller and Dazzy Vance.)

The only pitchers to have been rejected so far are Bucky Walters, Mort Cooper (who did it during the War years), Denny McLain (whose personal life imploded the year after pulling off the feat 1969) and Ron Guidry. Guidry led all AL starting pitchers in MVP balloting in '77 and '78.

Roger Clemens, Pedro Martinez, Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and Chris Carpenter each led all starting pitchers in their league in the MVP balloting but have yet to be eligible for the Hall. All but Carpenter are certain to make it (unless Roger is rail'roided). The ten Hall of Famers who've achieved this are Dazzy Vance, Burleigh Grimes, Carl Hubbell, Dizzy Dean, Red Ruffing, Bob Feller, Hal Newhouser, Warren Spahn, Sandy Koufax and Jim Palmer.

Guidry led all AL starting pitchers in MVP balloting in '78, of course. I think most people would expect that the other year would be '79, when Guidry led the league in ERA and went 18-8, but '77 was the other year. Guidry edged out 20 game winner Jim Palmer in MVP balloting among starting pitchers, largely on the strength of his great second half - 10-2 with a 2.16 ERA, including wins in seven straight starts between Aug. 21 and Sept. 25th as the Yankees prevailed in a three-way dogfight with the Red Sox and Orioles.

Guidry's five top-three MVP finishes among starting pitchers is another category in which he ranks among the best pitchers of the last 50 years. It's more top-three finishes than Drysdale, Bunning, Schilling or Morris. It's as many as Marichal and Palmer.

Could someone please tell me why Ron Guidry isn't in the Hall of Fame?

...is the only American League pitcher to win consecutive ERA titles and be rejected by the Hall of Fame? Did you know that he is the only pitcher since WW II - A.L. or N.L. - to win consecutive ERA titles and be rejected by the Hall?

My last post compared Guidry and Drysdale and argued that they had very similar Hall of Fame qualifications - relatively brief careers but sustained excellence and exceptional records as big game pitchers. As I've noted, however, there are many who consider Drysdale's HOF qualifications marginal, a view apparently shared by many in the BBWAA, who waited ten years and ten ballots before inducting the Dodger great.

I'm very conscious of the fact that comparing HOF candidates to the most marginal inductees can lead to a gradual loosening of HOF standards. If a sufficient argument for induction is that a candidate is 95% as great as the most marginal Hall of Famers, then HOF standards will gradually be eroded. That's not to say that Guidry is any less deserving of the Hall than Drysdale, because in my opinion he is every bit as deserving and his induction would in no way represent a loosening of HOF standards. If there's any doubt about that, just compare Guidry to two Hall of Famers whom no one would suggest were marginal inductees.

Here's a comparison of the top seven seasons of three great pitchers, one of whom is Guidry. In the case of each pitcher these top seven seasons comprise the overwhelming bulk of their HOF qualifications. These are the respective averages of the top seven seasons for each of these three pitchers:


Pitcher 1 is Juan Marichal, who was inducted into the Hall in 1983 in his third year of eligibility. Pitcher 2 is Jim Palmer, a first-ballot inductee in 1990. The ERAs actually represent the ERA+ for each pitcher and an assumed league average ERA of 4.00.

Both Marichal and Palmer obviously made more starts and pitched more innings because they pitched in the conventional 4-man rotation that prevailed in the '60's and most of the '70s. Guidry, by contrast, pitched exclusively in a 5-man rotation throughout his career. Leaving aside that consideration, the average of their respective top seven seasons is remarkably close. I defy anyone to argue that Marichal and Palmer are solid and unquestionable Hall of Famers but Guidry is not.

Here's a year-by-year comparison of Guidry and Drysdale. The seasons are listed on the basis of wins, in descending order.