...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."