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 Crank acknowledges, '68 and '72 were the two most pitching dominated years in modern American League history. Still, Tiant's ERAs were outstanding, translating to a 186 ERA+ in '68 and a 170 ERA+ in '72. There were only eight pitchers between 1921 and 1993 who posted more than one season with a 170 ERA+ or better: Lefty Grove, Lefty Gomez, Ted Lyons, Dazzy Vance, Whitey Ford, Sandy Koufax, Hal Newhouser and Tom Seaver. A trio of lefties - Spahn, Carlton and Hubbeel - narrowly missed achieving the feat.


Tiant's '68 and '72 ERAs were indeed outstanding, and he maintained an impressive 119 ERA+ for the first 3000 innings of his career before a late-career decline dragged caused him to finish with a 114. But I would point out to the Crank that as great as Tiant's '68 and '72 ERAs were, if you averaged Tiant's ERA+ for his best three seasons ('68, '72 and a 133 ERA+ in '74) you get a 154 ERA+, a lower ERA+ than Guidry maintained over three consecutive years from '77 to '79. In fact, you can throw in Guidry's 129 ERA+ from the strike-shortened '81 season and his four-year average is 156, slightly higher than Tiant's average over his best three years.

The Crank then makes the following observation relative to his discussion of Tiant's outstanding ERAs in his best seasons:

"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."

Sorry, Crank, but this is simply not correct. Tiant's offensive support during his years with Boston - the bulk of his HOF resume - was very, very good, if not great. In five of Tiant's seven full seasons with the Sox his run support ranged from .7 to 1.5 runs/game higher than the league average! Even adjusting for the Fenway factor, this is tremendous run support. Throw in the other two years, when his support from the Sox approximated the league average, and Tiant's run support from the Sox was approximately .7 runs/game higher than the league average over the period '72 to '78.

The Crank then compares Tiant's career statistics to the stats of eight HOF pitchers (including Bunning, Drysdale, Hunter and Newhouser) and draws the following conclusion:

"The best case for Tiant is that he meets the standard they don't: a guy who would still have had very good records even with just average teams. Yeah, Catfish won more games in the postseason, but tell me that Tiant wasn’t as good a big-game pitcher as anyone in his time; counting the postseason, Peter Gammons in “Beyond the Sixth Game” noted that Tiant’s September/October record with the Red Sox – in some of the tightest pennant races and series ever – was 32-10. 32-10!"

It's not clear what Tiant would have done with "just average" teams, but it's very clear what he did with good teams because the Sox averaged more than 90 wins a season and compiled a cumulative .562 winning percentage from '72 to '78. It's true that the Cleveland teams Tiant pitched for in the '60s were generally mediocre, but the Crank would have to admit that Tiant didn't compile "very good records" with the Indians other than in '68. The Crank's suggestion that Tiant's teams weren't as good as those Drysdale and Hunter pitched is misleading; the Sox teams were very good and any edge the '60s Dodgers or '70s A's may have had was due to deeper pitching staffs and bullpens, because the '70s Sox teams were very good hitting teams.

One quibble with the September stats the Crank so astutely references: Tiant was 31-12 with Sox in September and October, not 32-10. However, I completely concur with the Crank's assertion that Tiant was one of the great big game pitchers of his time. Tiant's 31-12 Sept/Oct record with the Sox certainly deserves the exclamation point the Crank attaches. But if 31-12 deserves an exclamation point, then Guidry's pennant race record - 26 wins in 30 starts - deserves a fireworks display.

Here's the Crank's take on Guidry's HOF qualifications:

"...[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."

I'll offer brief rejoinders to the Crank's first two claims. First, Guidry stayed "on the mountaintop" at least as long as Tiant, and his mountaintop was higher. Tiant had arguably eight very good seasons (seven with the Sox and one with the Tribe) during which he was 142-83 (a .631 win%) with a 126 ERA+. Guidry's totals for his best eight years were 144-56 (a .720 win%) with a 129 ERA+. Here's the really startling fact, however: the Sox and Indian teams over those eight years had a .543 winning percentage when you subtract Tiant's records; Guidry's Yankee teams had a .552 winning percentage without his contribution. Simply put, Tiant's winning percentage relative to his teams was great, but Guidry's was astounding.

Second, as for Crank's contention that Guidry's ERAs in ' 83 in '85 "just don't say 'Dizzy Dean' or 'Ed Walsh'", I would respond simply that Guidry's ERAs in those two years compare quite favorably with Dean's ERAs (though neither compares with Walsh, who compiled the lowest career ERA in baseball history during an era when the game barely resembled the game Dean and Guidry played). The Crank cites the '83 and '85 seasons because Guidry had great W-L records in those years but comparatively pedestrian ERA+ of 113 and 123, respectively. Contrary to the Crank's claim, however, those ERAs say "Dizzy Dean" quite clearly - Dean had ERA+ of 124 and 114 in his 3rd and 4th best years (i.e., '36 and '33). I'd further point out that Dean's ERA+ of 159 and 135 in his two best seasons don't begin to compare with Guidry's peak years from '77 to '79. Dizzy Dean was a great pitcher, one who averaged nearly 27 wins per season in the 3 1/2 years preceding Earl Averill's line drive off Dean's toe in the '37 All-Star game, and he clearly belongs in the Hall in my opinion. But the Crank's unfavorable comparison of Guidry's ERAs to the Diz's is off target.

That brings me to my final rejoinder to the Crank's characterization of Guidry's HOF bona fides. The Crank calls Guidry a "slightly healthier version" of two famously injury-plagued pitchers, Don Gullett and Bret Saberhagen. The Crank couldn't be further off the mark with this one. In fact, I'm completely mystified by this claim because Guidry was virtually injury-free except for the '84 season. During Gullett's peak from '71 to '77 he average only 181 innings per season and failed to pitch enough innings to qualify for the ERA title in four of those seasons. Saberhagen averaged approximately 200 innings per season during his peak from '84 to '91 and failed to qualify for the ERA title in three of those years. Guidry, by comparison, averaged 230 innings during his peak from '77 to '85, pitching enough innings to qualify for the ERA title every year. Just to illustrate the absurdity of the Crank's characterization of Guidry, consider that the consensus "iron man" of the '80s, Jack Morris, averaged 262 innings per season from '80 to '88 (adjusting for the strike-shortened season); surely the difference between an "iron man" and "injury plagued" can't be a mere 30 innings per season.

I liked the Crank's take on these Hall of Fame debates, but his views of Tiant's and Guidry's comparative HOF qualifications reflected a few glaring misconceptions. Bottom line: I second the Crank's nomination of El Tiante to the Hall, and argue that Louisiana Lightning is even more qualified than the crafty Cuban.