Demythologizing Bert's Famous "Bad Luck"
The June 1976 SI article was published shortly after Bert's first appearance with the Rangers, in which Bert and Mark "The Bird" Fidrych each went 11 innings, with the Tigers prevailing, 3-2. Including Bert's last two starts with the Twins, this made the third consecutive start where Bert had pitched well and been tied going into the late innings but lost. But the SI article wasn't a product of Bert's disappointing results in tight games over the preceding few weeks. The SI article was prompted by two conspicuous aspects of Bert's record that had persisted for years. First, Bert's W-L record never seemed to match the rest of his record - the superior ERAs, the shutouts, the complete games and the strikeouts. Second, Bert had a propensity to lose a lot of close games in the late innings.
Bert's fanatical supporters always have two deceptively simple explanations at the ready for Bert's mediocre W-L records in the '70s: he received poor run support, and he was unlucky. Each of these two rationalizations offered by Bert's backers fail completely to explain Bert's relatively poor W-L records, and each are particularly absurd for having been offered by people who purport to possess some degree of sophistication in statistical analysis. Each can be dismissed quickly and definitively.
Run Support. Bert's run support was slightly below average for much of the '70s. In this respect, Bert's backers are correct. But Bert's run support in the '70s was enough so that a pitcher with Bert's record of stinginess in allowing runs should have had a W-L percentage of approximately .600!
Bert had completed six seasons in the major leagues when the SI article appeared in June 1976, and had allowed an average of 3.16 runs/game while receiving approximately 4.0 runs/game from the Twins. Plug those two figures into the so-called Pythagorean Theorem with which any of Bert's statistically inclined supporters is familiar and you receive a projected winning percentage of approximately .615. Bert's actual winning percentage from 1970 to 1975 was .528. The Pythagorean Theorem suggests Bert should have been able to compile his .528 winning percentage while receiving only 3.35 runs/game from the Twins.
This disparity between Bert's actual record and his projected Pythagorean record persisted for the remainder of the '70s. At the end of the decade, Bert's winning percentage was .536. The Pythagorean Theorem says Bert should have had a winning percentage of .602.
To put it another way, if Bert's run support in the '70s had been 3.3 runs/game, Bert's backers would have a point about poor run support accounting for Bert's poor W-L record. But Bert's run support was approximately 4.0 runs/game during the decade, approximately 20% higher than the 3.3 runs/game that might have explained Bert's .536 winning percentage.
Bad Luck. It is particularly curious that Bert's backers would resort to this argument, one borne of superstition and anti-rationalism rather than the rigorous statistical analysis Bert's backers purport to favor. It is a wholly unworthy argument - even silly - for two simple reasons. First, the suggestion that Bert's "bad luck" could persist for a solid decade, across 350 starts and more than 2600 innings, following Bert from Minnesota to Texas to Pittsburgh, is pure nonsense as a statistical matter. Second, it is particularly nonsensical given the abundance of statistical evidence demonstrating that Bert had an astoundingly bad record in tight, low-scoring games and that this record was attributable to Bert's unusually poor performance in the late innings of tight games.
The rap on Blyleven, as expressed in the SI article, was that you could get to him in the late innings, and the statistics bear out that reputation. The following table shows Bert's performance in "late and close" situations (i.e., plate appearances against Bert in the 7th inning or later with the batting team tied, ahead by one, or the tying run at least on deck).
The pertinent numbers here are in the last two columns - the tOPS+ (Bert's OPS+ in late and close situations relative to his general OPS+ for the season) and the sOPS+ (Bert's OPS+ in late and close situations relative to the general league-wide OPS+, which by definition is 100 each year). Throughout the '70s Bert suffered declines in performance in late and close situations greater than any other elite pitcher of the era - his tOPS+ for the decade was 119. From 1980 to the end of his career the more mature Bert compiled a very good 86 tOPS+. Not coincidentally, Bert's winning percentage of .533 after 1979 almost exactly matches his projected Pythagorean winning percentage of .530, a stark contrast to the huge disparity between Bert's actual and Pythagorean winning percentages in the '70s.
Bert's improved performance in late and close situations from '80 to the end of his career coincided with a dramatic drop in the number of plate appearances against Bert in late and close situations. During the '70's approximately 14% of the plate appearances against Blyleven came in late and close situations. This figure dropped to less than 9% after 1979. This change is explained primarily by the fact that Bert was pulled from the game earlier in the '80's when he got in trouble in late and close situations, which contributed greatly to Bert's improved late and close performances later in his career. Consequently, Bert faced on average more than 8 batters per late and close game in the '70s, but just over 6 batters from '80 to the end of his career. This trend started in '79, when plate appearances against Bert in late and close situations dropped dramatically as a result of Chuck Tanner's decision to pull Bert at the first sign of trouble. The strategy worked spectacularly for the Pirates, who won 23 of Bert's 37 starts that year (a .622 winning percentage) despite the fact that in the great majority of Bert's 20 no-decisions he left the game either tied or behind.
The late and close statistics reveal that in the seven seasons preceding Tanner's '79 "quick hook" strategy, Bert had five seasons in which his tOPS+ was greater than 130 and his sOPS+ was 100 or greater. During these seven seasons Bert's tOPS+ was 128. No other elite pitcher of the era comes close to this record of performance decline in late and close situations over such an extended period. Bert's sOPS+ was 105, meaning that in these five seasons Bert was an average or below average pitcher in late and close situations. Of the other premier pitchers of the era who, like Bert, had a dozen or more seasons in which they faced 100 or more batters in late and close situations, no other pitcher had more than three seasons in which their tOPS+ was greater than 130 and the sOPS+ was greater than 100. Steve Carlton and Gaylord Perry each had three such seasons and a fourth season that nearly qualified, but these were spread over careers more than 20 years long. The occurrence of five such seasons in a period of seven years during the peak of Blyleven's career explains to a significant degree the striking discrepancy between his actual W-L record and the kinds of W-L records projected by the Pythagorean Theorem.
Boswell on Blyleven (or, "Bert Backers Bash Boswell")
Of all the commentary in the aftermath of the HOF voting results I was most struck by the following comments by Thomas Boswell during the course of an online chat at the Washington Post website:
"The push for Blyleven drives me crazy. I follwed his whole career. His reputation was that, more than any other top stuff pitcher, he would find a way to lose or not to win. He's just not a HOFer, in my book. He only won 20 games one time and more than 17 only twice! And he pitched in the era when top starters got 4-5 more starts a year and 20 wins was easier. BB had nine seasons with 36-to-40 starts and averaged 38 in those years. When Chuck Tanner got him in Pittsburgh the word went around that Chuck had decided, over BB's protestations, to take him out of late-and-close games because he'd never had the stomach for it. 'Take him out before he can lose.' Tanner never said it in public. But BB's winning opercentage gets better."
Well, we'll never know what was in Chuck Tanner's head, and Chuck is a classy guy and he ain't sayin'. But we do know the following: Boswell is absolutely correct regarding Blyleven's reputation, and Chuck Tanner did indeed resort to a quick hook with Blyleven beginning in the 1979 season, a strategy that succeeded wildly and was a critical part of the Bucs' march to the World Series that year.
I get the impression a lot of Bert Backers are too young to have closely followed the game back in the '70s, but Bert's reputation as a guy who lost the close ones and stumbled in the late innings of tight games is simply a fact, and also a matter of record. That was Bert's reputation; Boswell remembers it correctly. I remember it, too, and anyone else who followed the game back then would also remember it. Of course, reputations aren't always earned, and reputations in baseball are sometimes born unfairly out of an incident or two, or out of nothing at all.
However, if the issue is whether Bert actually had the reputation claimed by Boswell, we don't have to rely on Boswell's recollection. Bert's reputation for "finding a way to lose", as Boswell put it, was the subject of a Sports Illustrated article in 1976 published shortly after Bert's trade from the Twins to the Rangers, entitled "The Stuff, and No Nonsense: As a Texas Ranger He is Richer, But Will He Pay Attention?"
After recounting the rather ugly facts regarding Bert's infamous exit from Minnesota (i.e., Bert's heated salary dispute with Twins owner Clark Griffith and his flip-off to Twins fans after Bert's last appearance for the Twins) and offering a comic tableau of Bert losing a battle of concentration with a resin bag, the article shifted to the crux of the matter: "However, what was really at issue was not Blyleven's bad manners or the size of his paycheck, but whether he might now become the big winner so many think he ought to be." The following two paragraphs of the SI article neatly capture the gist of the matter.
When Blyleven does lose, his downfalls seem to occur in the late innings. For this he has blamed the Twins' relievers. Given a better bullpen, he claims "I would have 40 more career victories."
But many baseball people believe his late-inning reversals have been mostly his own doing. "Bert throws basically two pitches," says Bonds, "a hard fastball and a hard curveball. Everything comes in at the same speed, so sooner or later you can get your timing down. It takes a few innings and by then maybe Bert's lost a bit off his fastball. It starts to flatten out. And maybe in later innings his curveball will hang every so often."Bert's problems in late and close situations were common knowledge in baseball, although the theories for the problem varied. (None of the theories, however, focused on the Twins bullpen; notwithstanding Bert's claim of 40 lost victories, Bert lost only 11 wins to bullpen malfunctions between '70 and '76, fewer than Niekro, Kaat, Hunter, Ken Holtzman, Joe Coleman, Andy Messersmith, Carl Morton, Fritz Peterson and Dave McNally, among others.)
The SI article used virtually the precise language used by Boswell in recollecting Bert's reputation as a pitcher who pitched just well enough to lose.
If Blyleven's parts have seemed greater than the whole, he attributes it to his struggles with a mediocre team. But as Dick Williams, the manager of the Angels, says, "I've seen a lot of pitchers who never had Blyleven's stuff win 20 games with teams a lot worse. Some pitchers pitch just good enough to win, whether it's 1-0 or 9-8, and others always seem to pitch just good enough to lose."Dick Williams didn't name his "20 wins for bad teams" all-star team, but he wouldn't have had any problem filling out the rotation. Randy Jones won 20 for a Padres team in '75 that won only 71 games and 22 for a 73-win Padres team in '76; Steve Busby won 22 games for a Royals team that was 16 games under .500 when Busby wasn't the pitcher of record; and Jim Colborn won 20 games in '73 for a Brewers team that won only 74 games. And then there were pitchers who seemed to specialize in winning 20 games a season for mediocre teams, like Ferguson Jenkins, Mel Stottlemyre and Wilbur Wood, each of whom won 20 games three times for teams that were either .500 or below or would have been had their ace pitcher's W-L records been subtracted from their teams' record.
Perhaps the most glaring example of a pitcher who won 20 games without benefit of Bert's stuff and for teams worse than Bert's teams was Jim Kaat. Kaat was rebounding from arm problems when the Twins traded him to the White Sox in '73 and he no longer had the stuff he'd had for the Twins in the 60's. But Kaat put together back-to-back 20 win seasons for White Sox teams that finished behind the Twins in the AL West in '74 and '75. Bert, meanwhile, was winning 17 and 15 games, respectively, in '74 and '75.
The SI article from June 1976 is pretty compelling evidence that Boswell's recollection is correct: Bert had the reputation, fairly or unfairly, as a pitcher who pitched just well enough to lose, a pitcher who didn't produce results worthy of his nasty stuff, and a pitcher who seemed to sag in the late innings of tight games. Bert Backers can contest the fairness of this reputation but they cannot deny the existence of the reputation. I'm fairly certain that won't stop them from attacking Pat Jordan, the celebrated SI writer who wrote the article, or those the article quoted, like Bobby Bonds, Jim Palmer, Dick Williams and Gene Mauch. But they might consider that the source for Bert's alleged tendency to lose his concentration in tight spots was Bert himself, and that Bert's shabby attempt to blame the Twins bullpen for his troubles, absurdly blaming his teammates for costing him more wins than Bert's total number of no-decisions in that period, suggests that Bert was aware of his reputation and rather defensive about it.
I distinctly recall that this SI article was not the only notice the media took of Bert's reputation, but few publications maintain archives of 43 year old articles. I also recall, as apparently Boswell does, that Bert's unwanted reputation only grew after this article, as his late inning troubles in '77 for the Rangers and '78 for the Pirates exceeded his Minnesota woes and became a source of contention with Pittsburgh manager Chuck Tanner.
I believe anyone who reads the SI article will agree that Boswell is owed an apology by those Bert Backers who accused him of fabricating his claim regarding Bert's reputation. Boswell's recollection is correct. The reputation existed. I'll examine in a subsequent post whether the reputation was deserved.
"But If You Put Guidry In The Hall...
...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:
Guidry, by contrast, added three more seasons over the latter half of his productive career in which he had both impressive win totals and an ERA+ significantly better than the average: '81, '83 and '85. He had two more 20 win seasons and two more seasons in which his ERA+ was at least 20% better than league average.
The simple fact is that Doc was never really a premier pitcher in the NL after his first three years. And as great as those three years were, three great years have never put anyone in the HOF. Guidry's first three years were also monumental, but he added three more years in '81, '83 and '85 when he was unquestionably one of the top pitchers in the AL, and was the lefthanded starter on the Sporting News annual all-star teams.
Throw in the big disparity in post-season performances and Guidry's edge over Gooden becomes decisive.
Quite simply, you can put Guidry in the Hall and leave Doc out, and no one could complain too much about Doc being done an injustice.
Pick Five
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.
Here are the identities of these pitching greats:
Guidry's best five seasons (using either the '81 or '83 season as the fifth) compare favorably with the best five seasons of these other great pitchers. Koufax's ERA and winning percentage obviously stand out. Feller and Hubbell were each very big winners, averaging 23 and 24.4 wins respectively in their best years (Koufax would have averaged more wins per year had he not missed two months of the '62 season and the last six weeks of the '64 season). Gomez's best five seasons include two pitching triple crown seasons, but Guidry's numbers still compare quite well. Hubbell's best five include three ERA titles, but Guidry's ERA, particularly if one includes the '81 season, is virtually the same as Hubbell's.
Just to give some sense of how spectacular the peak seasons of these pitchers are, there are seven pitching triple crown seasons among them - three for Koufax, two for Gomez and one each for Hubbell and Feller. Each of the pitchers listed averaged a 140 or better ERA+ over their best five seasons, with Koufax leading the way with a 167 ERA+ (Gibson was second in this group with a 152 ERA+). The lowest winning percentage in the group was Gibson's .667; Koufax and Guidry both maintained an incredible winning percentage over .750 over their five best seasons.
There were a few small surprises for me in these numbers and one big one. The small surprises included Schilling's excellent winning percentage (.731) and Feller's excellent ERA (I was, for some reason, unaware of how good Feller's ERA+'s were in his prime years). The big surprise was that Guidry won a higher percentage of his starts in his best five than Koufax; Guidry won an astounding 64% of his starts to Koufax's 63%.
The Greatest Southpaws In American League History
In ten seasons with the Mariners and two with the Yankees Johnson compiled a 164-93 record, .638 winning percentage, and a 3.60 ERA (a 122 ERA+). He spent his first four seasons with the Mariners learning his craft and struggling to assert control and mastery over his outrageous stuff, a high '90s fastball and wickedly biting slider. He blossomed in 1993 and by 1995 was clearly the best pitcher in the AL, posting an 18-2 record in the strike-shortened season and winning the Cy Young Award (taking 26 of 28 first place votes). He missed almost the entire 1996 season with arm troubles but rebounded in 1997 with a 20-4 record and 2.28 ERA. Only Roger Clemens' triple crown season prevented Johnson from winning a second Cy Young Award. Johnson's impending free-agency and negotiations with the Mariners seemingly distracted Johnson in 1998 and he struggled to a 9-10 with Seattle before being traded to the D'backs and completely dominating the NL over the last two months of the season. He returned to the AL in 2005 at the age of 41 and spent two seasons with the Yankees, going 34-19 with very mediocre ERAs.
Johnson's AL record is almost identical to Guidry's - six fewer wins than Guidry and two more losses - for a .638 winning percentage that ranks behind only Ford, Grove, Guidry, Gomez and Pettitte since the inception of the AL in 1901. His dominance of the AL for four full seasons between '93 and '97 (a five year stretch that includes Johnson's very abbreviated season in '96) closely mirrors Guidry's domination of the AL for the three period between '77 and '79: Johnson was 75-20 (.789 win%) with a 162 ERA+; Guidry was 59-18 (.766 win%) with a 161 ERA+. Johnson won one Cy Young Award and had two second place finishes and one third, as compared to Guidry's first, third and seventh place finishes between '77 and '79.
Johnson's period of dominance in the AL was slightly longer than Guidry's, and that's a plus for Randy. But Randy's AL career was rather shallow aside from those four seasons, and none of his other AL seasons placed him among the AL's premier pitchers. Johnson played nine full seasons in the AL ('89, '96 and '98 were all partial seasons due to either trades or injury) and the four seasons I've mentioned were the only ones in which he received Cy Young consideration. Guidry had six seasons over a nine-year stretch in which he received CY consideration and his career in the AL is accordingly a little deeper than Johnson's.
What really tilts the decision in favor of Guidry are the post-season and pennant race performances. Johnson participated in three tight divisional races in the AL (with Seattle in '95 and '97 and the Yanks in '05) and was outstanding in all three, going a combined 12-0 in 15 starts with a 2.04 ERA, but his 5-0 September record in '95 was the only one in which his impact on the race approached Guidry's '77, '78 and '85 seasons, in which Guidry led two spectacular Yankees comebacks and one aborted comeback. In '97 Johnson made only three September starts in the Mariner's division title push. Although his victory over the Red Sox on the 2nd to last day of the 2005 season clinched the division title and a playoff spot for the Yankees, his 4 victories in six starts were less significant than Aaron Small's five wins in five starts, which included four straight wins in the first 20 days of September while Johnson was logging two no-decisions in three starts. It was Small's four straight wins while the Yanks overcame a four game deficit in early/mid September that keyed the Yanks' comeback.
Guidry's biggest edge is in the October performances. Johnson won his first post-season start in '95 and picked up another win in relief to clinch Seattle's series win over the Yankees in the ALDS. After that he made six starts in AL post-season competition and went 0-4 with a 5.35 ERA. He pitched well in a relief stint for the Yanks in the last game of the 2005 ALDS, but his failures in his six starts contributed significantly to four series losses by the Mariners and Yankees.
Altogether Johnson was 14-4 in 22 starts in AL pennant races and post-seasons, posting a 2.80 ERA in 157.1 innings. As I've noted, Guidry was an astounding 31-6 in 40 starts in pennant races and the post-season with a 2.74 ERA. Guidry's outstanding 3-1 record and 1.69 ERA in the World Series further cement his edge.
Johnson's amazing NL record vaults him to the top of the ranks of major league lefthanders, behind only Grove in my estimation. His .655 winning percentage in the NL equals Koufax's, and his amazing 158 ERA+ in the NL is probably enough to make him the greatest NL lefthander of all-time, a nose ahead of Sandy. Johnson is plainly the superior pitcher in any comparison of Johnson's career vs. Guidry's, but based purely on their AL records Guidry narrowly wins and places fourth on my list of modern era (i.e., post-1920) AL lefties.
Santana obviously had the potential to move ahead of Guidry among AL lefthanders, and he still might if he ever returns to the AL, but his 93-44 record in the AL and only four full seasons as a starter don't provide enough data. Newhouser might have challenged Guidry's standing, but the fact that two of his three dominant years occurred during the war years hurts his case. Plank and Waddell were great in the pre-1920 era, the best of their time, but it's virtually impossible to make valid comparisons with post-1920 pitchers because of the vastly different nature of the game in the early part of the century.
My top ten modern era AL lefties are, in order, Grove, Ford, Gomez (by a nose over Guidry), Guidry, Santana, Pennock, Pettitte, Newhouser, Kaat and Lopat. Jimmy Key, Billy Pierce and Tommy John narrowly miss the cut. Mark Buehrle and C.C. Sabathia can enter into the discussion with three or four more good years.
It somehow strikes my as very odd that the fourth (or even the fifth or sixth) greatest leftie in modern AL history could be rejected by the Hall of Fame. Veterans Committee, are you listening?
Did You Know That Ron Guidry...
...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.
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 Long Does a Hall of Fame Career Have To Be?
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?
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.
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* 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.
Guidry v. Schilling
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:
This number of mediocre records and short seasons are actually a negative, from my point of view, and when the BBWAA considered Bret Saberhagen for the Hall they apparently felt the same way - good pitcher, too many poor or abbreviated seasons.
Guidry has the edge over Schilling in my book because he was a more consistent winner, had the distinctly superior record down the stretch in pennant races, and never stumbled in a pennant race. Schilling was great in October, but uneven in September, and he played a significant role in tanking the D'backs shot at one division title and almost losing another.
I don't know if Schilling belongs in the Hall of Fame, but I'm pretty damn sure he's going in. I'm also sure of one other thing: if Schilling goes into the Hall, Guidry belongs there, too.
A Note About Catfish Hunter
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.
