Hall of fame voting is just around the corner and I thought it would be fun to open a discussion on the canidates.  There are 32 canidates on the next ballot.  Two of them: Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn, are automatic enough that they are not worth discussing.  In fact I'm sure pretty soon we will be reading about how great they were, ad-nauseum.  At least twelve others don't seem to be very serious canidates, including: Albert Belle, Dante Bichette, Bobby Bonilla, Jay Buhner, Tony Fernandez, Wally Joyner, Scott Brosius, Eric Davis, Paul O'Neill, Bret Saberhagen, Devon White and Bobby Witt.  Two more are likely black-balled for admited steroid use: Ken Caminiti and Jose Canseco. Of course, Mark McGwire has been discussed, and I am guessing LBoros will do a column on his candidacy sometime in the near future.

That leaves fifteen men worth discussing: Harold Baines, Bert Blyleven, Dave Concepcion, Andre Dawson, Steve Garvey, Rich "Goose" Gossage,
Orel Hershiser, Tommy John, Don Mattingly, Jack Morris, Dale Murphy, Dave Parker, Jim Rice, Lee Smith, and Alan Trammell.

Depending on how this one goes, once or twice a week, I'd like to post a new diary to discuss each of these men.

To start things off, I'd like to discuss probably the most interesting of these cases, that of Bert Blyleven.

The basic case for him lays in his career totals.  Over 22 years he won 287 and lost 250 games for a good but not great winning percentage of .522.  He was on a few winners, but generally played for mediocre teams.  He spent some of his best years with the cellar dwelling Indians, including 1984 when he finished 3rd in the Cy Young for a 6th place team.  Blyleven also had to pitch in some of the better hitter's parks: Three Rivers Stadium and the Metrodome.  The overall records of his teams was .502 (1833-1821), which is of course about as mediocre as it gets.  

Wins, of course, don't tell much as everyone in this sabermetric era knows.  Blyleven's (adjusted) ERA+ is 118 for his career and his WHIP is 1.19.  Both numbers are just outside the top 100 career leaders.  His ERA averaged 0.59 better than the league.  According to ESPN, twenty-one pitchers in history have thrown 4,500 innings and had an ERA a half a run better than the league average.  Of these pitchers, all that are eligible are in the hall, save Blyleven.  I tend to be skeptical of stats like these, but I didn't have any list for direct comparison.  So instead I looked at some of his better contemporaries.  Steve Carlton's was 0.48; Charlie Hough's was 0.23; Tommy John's was 0.35; Jerry Koosman's was 0.35; Jack Morris' was 0.18; Phil Neikro's was 0.60; Nolan Ryan's was 0.38; Tom Seaver's was 0.78; Don Sutton's was 0.26; Frank Tanana's was 0.21.

When he retired he was 3rd all-time in strikeouts (3,701) but has since been passed by both Roger Clemens and Randy Johnson.  Everyone else in the top 20, save Frank Tanana(20) and Micky Lolich(17) is either in the hall of fame or is still active and will be at least serious hall candidates.  It should be noted that that list is dominated by men who played in the past 40 years or so.  Only two old-timers: Walter Johnson(8) and Cy Young(18), crack the top 20.  Only four more old-timers are even in the top 40.

Bert Blyleven is also 13th in innings pitched at 4,970.   All twelve men ahead of him are in the hall.  In fact, of those eligible, only five players out of the top 31 are not in the hall.  Two guys on that list, Tommy John(19) and Jim Kaat(26) are (or were) perennial HOF candidates.  The others are a couple of 19th century near HoFers: Bobby Mathews, Tony Mullane, and a turn of the century Brownie great, Jack Powell.  They provide for some entertaining digressions that you can read about in the discussion.

Bert Blyleven is 9th in shutouts.  Everyone ahead of him is in the hall of fame and in fact you'd have to go all the way down to number 21, Luis Tiant before you could find a pitcher that isn't in the hall.  Of the top 34, only Jack Powell, Doc White, who won the World Series clincher for the "hitless wonder" White Sox of 1906, and Tiant are not in the hall.

The case against Blyleven, can be best made using the Bill James' Keltner Test  You can go through the mechanics of the test yourself, but it boils down to this: He simply was never really dominant.  He was never the best player in the game nor was he ever the best pitcher in the game.  He was the best player on his team only two or three times: in 1977 for the Rangers, in 1984 for the Indians, and in 1985 for the Indians again.  

For the teams that needed him the most, the 1970 Twins, the 1978 Pirates, the 1979 Pirates and the 1987 Twins, he was pretty good but may not have even been the best pitcher on his team.  Jim Perry and Jim Kaat were better in 1970; John Candelaria was about as good in 1978 and 1979.  Frank Viola was better in 1987.  Blyleven was a combined 50-36/ 3.38 in those years.

Blyleven was a good player but not great player past his prime.  He had a good year for the Twins in 1987 at age 36 and a great year for the Angels in 1989 at age 38.  But his worst year was sandwiched in-between the two and he dropped off a cliff after 1989.

Blyleven was only an all-star twice, though he should have made the team, perhaps four times.  He was never close to an MVP and the closest he came to a Cy Young was 3rd place in 1984 and 1985.  If he were the best player on a team, they wouldn't have been especially likely to win a pennant and he isn't historically significant other than what has already been mentioned.  He was, however, known to be a prankster and good teammate, for what that is worth.

So what does everybody think?  Is 2007 Bert's year?  Does he deserve to be in?

---[Update]---
Since, the big knock against Blyleven is that he was never dominant, I thought it would be interesting to compare him to the last several starting pitchers voted into the hall of fame. I looked at the 12 starting pitchers, not including the Negro Leaguers, inducted since 1987: Nolan Ryan in 1999, Don Sutton (1998), Phil Neikro (1997), Jim Bunning (1996), Vic Willis (1995), Steve Carlton (1994), Hal Newhouser (1992), Tom Seaver (1992), Fergie Jenkins (1991), Gaylord Perry (1991), Jim Palmer (1990) and Catfish Hunter(1987). I compared their Cy Young finishes, MVP finishes as well as the number of their All Star appearances to Blyleven, Tommy John, Jim Kaat and Jack Morris. Here are the results:



Obviously, some of these guys are pretty irrelevant to Blyleven. Vic Willis was a turn of the century Red Sox and Pirate great and Hal Newhouser was a WWII era ace for the Tigers, but everybody else offers an interesting comparison. Looking at Cy Youngs, MVPs and All Star selections, there is quite a bit of truth to his lack of dominance, at least as seen by the writers at the time. In any case though, despite the lack of dominance, Blyleven has a pretty compelling case. Its hard for me to imagine that he stays out very much longer. If nothing else the Veterans Commitee (or whatever replaces it)will get him in.