Blyleven Plea Makes Case for Jack Morris
By Mike Silva ~ December 28th, 2009. Filed under: Hall of Fame, Mike Silva.
Bert Blyleven made a personal plea to the Hall of Fame voters on NBC Sports. I personally believe that Blyleven belongs in the Hall of Fame and I feel better about that logic after reading his rationale. One of the points he made in the article was the inability of a pitcher to control wins and losses. This is a raging topic in the baseball community and even led me to write a facetious piece last month stating that we should eliminate the won/loss record. There is some validity to the argument, but at the end of the day someone needs to have the W or L attached to their name other than the manager. The very same reason you should overlook Blyleven’s won/loss is the reason Jack Morris, another bubble candidate, should be elected.
Take this statement from Blyleven:
One thing a pitcher can control is how far he lasts in each start. The better you pitch, the longer you last. This saves wear and tear on your bullpen, which in turn helps the starters who follow you in the rotation. Every time you pitch a complete game, your team benefits. That’s why I think complete games and shutouts are better stats to look at than wins.
Jack Morris is barely on the outside of the “Top 100” in this category. When he became a full time starter in 1979 he missed 200 innings only four times (strike year excluded) and won double digits every year but twice. Murray Chass says it best when he talks about vintage Morris in Game 7 of the 1991 series:
“Morris was not about to lose that game. He would stay on the mound as long as it took Minnesota to win the game and the World Series. That’s the kind of pitcher he was. His way could not be measured by the statistics that have infested baseball in recent years – FIP, WHIP, VORP and assorted other acronyms.”
Winning a professional baseball game, much less Game 7 of the World Series, is no easy task. Sure you have “vulture wins” by relievers, or pitchers like 2006 Steve Trachsel and 1987 Shane Rawley rack up wins despite poor pitching, but if it were that easy Mike Silva should be able to go out and win double digits for the Yankees- right? You can’t say Morris’s 254 wins are just a product of playing on good teams. He had to go out there and earn each and every victory. He also did this in the American League which, to quote some AL elitist, is the tougher league. No doubt the designated hitter helped contribute to his 3.90 career ERA. Up and coming teams such as Toronto and Cleveland added Morris to their staff because he knew how to “win”, which they felt would help get their young stars over the top. No surprise Morris and his 21 wins was a big reason why the Jays won their first ever championship in 1992.
Blyleven ended his piece by stating that “pitchers who are already in the Hall of Fame know how hard it is to win a ballgame. How hard it is to put together a career like I (Blyleven) have.” He is 100% correct and that is why Jack Morris, just like Blyleven, should have a plaque in Cooperstown.
December 28th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
“You can’t say Morris’s 254 wins are just a product of playing on good teams.”
No, but you can say Morris’ 254 “wins” are just a product of being a pretty decent pitcher playing on good teams, for a pretty long time. Kind of like Jamie Moyer’s 258 wins or David Wells’ 239 wins. You’ve got to be a pretty good pitcher to rack up that many wins…but that’s all, just pretty good. It’s just not nearly enough to deserve to be in the Hall conversation (much less to actually get in).
December 28th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
Morris allowed 4.22 runs per 9 innings in his career, his run support per 9 innings was 4.9, and his IP/GS was 7.1; he finished with a .577 W%.
Blyleven, on the other hand, allowed 3.67 R/9, his run support was 4.2 runs per 9 innings, and his IP/GS was 7.2; he finished with a .534 W%.
Blyleven allowed fewer runs and pitched more innings than Morris yet had a lower W% because of his run support, which was 14% less than Morris’s.
December 29th, 2009 at 1:40 am
I believe I am correct in saying that no man inducted into the Hall for his pitching in the major leagues had fewer than 3 seasons in which he held opponents to an average of less than 3 earned runs per nine innings pitched (ERA under 3). Jack Morris never had an ERA under 3 in any season in his career.
Bert Blyleven had 9 such seasons of an ERA under 3, and indeed, over the first 12 consecutive seasons of his career, including 3,000 IP, Blyleven’s overall ERA for that entire period was under 3. In fact I’ll do one more and point out that if you add together Blyleven’s performances in his 15 lowest ERA seasons you get 3,776 IP, just about the same number of innings Morris pitched in his entire career, and in those 15 seasons added together Blyleven’s overall ERA, if I’ve calculated correctly, was 2.95. While Morris went his entire career without a single season with an ERA that low.
December 29th, 2009 at 8:12 am
Birtel
You make a great point about Morris. Not sure if you agree with this, but I often cite precedent (just like in legal cases) for the HOF. If Catfish Hunter can get in based on a few good seasons, we need to recognize someone like Jack Morris. Perhaps new media and advanced metrics would have been helpful when the Hall started, and prevented certain players from getting in, but they’re there. Do you agree once you let the “cat out of the bag” it’s hard to go back. How can you keep Morris out when someone like Hunter is in?
Blyleven should be in – I agree 100%, and the record is deceiving. I think Tommy John should be in as well. I am going to perhaps make a case for Jamie Moyer when he retires. If you pitch long enough, you will win ballgames, even if you were a member of the St. Louis Browns. Maybe Morris is looked at differently if he pitched for those awful Mariners teams, but Mark Langston did and he still won quite a few games. If not for injuries we might be talking about him as well!
Great points thought!
December 29th, 2009 at 10:20 am
Mike: The problem with taking the least impressive inductees the BBWAA votend in and then admitting everyybody who matches that level of performance is that you create enormous momentum downward on HOF admission standards. The BBWAA can and does, every once in a while, make mistakes:, and they are of two different kinds: it can allow in an ocassional guy who doesn’t meet their usual standards, and it can keep out guys who do meet their usual standards. The problem with the first kind of mistake is that it is utterly irreperable — you can’t kick a guy out who you mistakenly admitted. If you then turn around and make these mistakes the standard by which everybody is admitted, you have to let in way more people per year than has ever been considered acceptable. The BBWAA in its history has voted in only 35 pitchers. To have a persuasive case for voting in a pitcher, it seems to me therefore, using as you say “precedent” like a lawyer, one should be looking for pitchers who are no further down in value than, say, the top 50 pitchers of the past 100 years. Otherwise you are watering down the standard. Almost all the BBWAA elected pitchers are in that Top 50 group. Catfish Hunter is not in that Top 50 group or even close to it, and thus in my mind was a mistake that violated “precedent”, and should not be repeated over and over. Jack Morris is not in that Tpo 50 group or even close to it. Bert Blyleven is in that deserving group, though in the lower half of it.
Blyleven pitched in 22 seasons. In his first 11 seasons, his prime, his overall ERA was 2.96. In his last 11 seasons, the downside of his career, his ERA was 3.87. Jack Morris’s full career ERA was higher than that — 3.90. So in Bert Blyleven’s worst half of his very long career he was still surrendering slightly fewer runs per game than Jack Morris did over his entire career. And Jack Morris was a very good pitcher, which shows you how great Blyleven was.
January 1st, 2010 at 2:14 pm
How’s this for a Bert Fact: He pitched eight seasons where his team either won 90 or more games or was in serious contention for a division title (’70, ’77 – ’80, ’87 – ’89). He averaged 230 IP and approximately 33 starts during those eight seasons. Now consider these two facts:
1. He average 12.5 wins per season over those eight seasons.
2. His winning percentage – .546 – was lower than the .562 winning percentage posted by his teams.
This is a Hall of Famer?
January 1st, 2010 at 2:22 pm
Tommy
I see where you are going with that, not sure if that is completely fair, but it’s interesting. In 1988 Sid Fernandez had an outstanding year for a great Mets team and had a losing record. It’s not uncommon for someone on the staff to draw the “short straw” when it comes to run support.
Jed Weisberger, who contributes to this site and writes for MILB.com, compared Blyleven as an “AJ Burnett type”. Not in terms of numbers, but how he was very good or very bad. I didn’t see him pitch till his final years, but knowing that Jed covered the guy it explains why he might have fallen short in the W’s