Comments on: Bert Blyleven

By: fredbeene

fredbeene — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 23:09:51 +0000

I like Bert. I hope he gets in. He amassed some very good numbers on some very bad teams.

I wonder what his percent of wins is per each season played. Trying to gauge against the Carlton year.

If Cleveland could have played some decent ball during his stint, he would easily have made the extra 13 wins to get the magical 300 number.

min was 1st, 5th, 3rd, 3rd, 3rd, 4th
tx 4th, 2nd
pitt 2nd, 1st, 3rd
cle 6th, 6th, 7th,6th, 7th
min 4th, 6th, 1st,2nd
cal 3rd, 4th, 5th

By: Devon Young

Devon Young — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 22:17:38 +0000

Yeah I’m puzzled about Murph too. Dawson and him have near identical stats…and played almost the exact same seasons, in the same league. How does one person think that one was THAT much better than the other?

By: seaver41

seaver41 — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 19:51:34 +0000

up until the early 1990s, dale murphy was one of the harder answers to that great barroom trivia question asking you to name the one player at each position who had won back-to-back mvp awards (with outfield not broken up into left/right/center). he was in there with some pretty fair company.

but i remember his slippage very well, as he was on my strat-o-matic team the final years of his career (as were non-hall-of-famers mark mcgwire, tim raines, edgar martinez, and roberto alomar, whose careers were just getting going to some degree back then).

By: thunderfan24

thunderfan24 — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 19:40:35 +0000

The baseball HOF is just a messed up organization and by extension so is baseball. I dont’ think there’s another “fame” type of institution that’s as misunderstood and ill-defined as this one.

I would put the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame at the top of the list.

By: sb1902

sb1902 — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 18:51:28 +0000

The thing I don’t get about Andre Dawson is that the second half of his career he was slow and didn’t play good defense, but it seems his first seven years won the day. The thing that gets me is how little support Tim Raines gets. That is very puzzling to me.

By: soundbounder

soundbounder — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 16:25:36 +0000

I agree that he is better than he gets credit for, and as a tough grader for the HOF, I have no gripes about him being elected. But I also do not consider it an outrage that he has not been elected yet.
To me he seems like a pitcher who would get in after many years, or even by the veterans committee. That seems like an example of the system working correctly.

By: Josh Wilker

Josh Wilker — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 16:07:02 +0000

If you check out the Lederer article, he follows the one mention of Tommy John in the list of accomplishments with some info that clearly separates Blyleven from John.

I never really thought of Blyleven as being in the same league as Seaver, Feller, Gibson, etc., and I still think of him as a shade below those immortals, but I’ve found it interesting and enlightening to follow Lederer’s deep inspection of the numbers, which makes a really strong case that Blyleven was better than most people thought he was.

By: soundbounder

soundbounder — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 14:09:15 +0000

Does that mean we have to put Tommy John in also?
Blyleven was a strikeout pitcher who had a very long career. He was very good for a long time, but I am not sure he was one of the greatest. His durability gives his career some impressive compiled numbers, but he lacks that period of dominance.
I have no problem with him getting in. But I do have a problem with some of the arguments being made on his behalf.

By: Josh Wilker

Josh Wilker — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 13:50:51 +0000

Here’s Blyleven’s great advocate Rich Lederer on the near-miss:

http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2010/01/400_down_5_to_g.php

Lederer shines a light on Blyleven’s dominant efforts with the use of an interesting stat called Runs Saved Above Average, which “combines quality (runs saved per inning vs. the league average) and quantity (innings pitched).” He also reiterates the following recap of Blyleven’s standing with regards to more well-known stats:

“Bert Blyleven ranks fifth in career strikeouts, ninth in career shutouts, and in the top 20 since 1900 in wins. Every eligible pitcher with 3,000 strikeouts is in the Hall of Fame except Blyleven, who has 3,701. Every eligible pitcher with 50 shutouts is in the Hall of Fame except Blyleven, who has 60. Every eligible pitcher in the top 20 in wins since 1900 is in the Hall of Fame except Blyleven and Tommy John.”

By: soundbounder

soundbounder — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 13:16:21 +0000

The 1970′s and ’80′s are confusing for the HOF voters. Tucked between the big bats of the ’60′s and 90′s, voters don’t know how to properly evaluate that era.
I consider myself a tough grader. I am not sure Murphy belongs, and I would not have voted for Rice or Dawson. I have no problem with Blyleven taking 9 years to get in. He is a borderline candidate to me.