Baseball Writers Elect Two to Hall of Fame

Today the results of this years Baseball Hall of Fame balloting was announced. Congratulation to Rickey Henderson and Jim Rice on their elections.

Henderson was a no brainer choice as the all time leader in both stolen bases and more importantly in runs scored. Bill James once, when asked about whether Henderson was a Hall of Famer, replied "you could cut Henderson's career in half and you'd have two Hall of Famers."

Jim Rice is a somewhat controversial pick. He was elected on his 15th and final year on the ballot. Rice had a few great years, a few really good years and then he fell off a cliff performance wise. He will not be the worst player in the Hall of Fame, but the there are several better players who aren't close to election. Just looking at other left fielders, Albert Belle was a comparable if not better player and he fell off the Hall of Fame ballot after one election. Regardless, congrats Mr. Rice.

More egregiously than the selections were the omissions, the writers have not elected a starting pitcher whose career started in the last 40 years. The most glaring oversight is the continued failure to elect Bert Blyleven. Blyleven pitched from 1970 to 1992 and finished his career 3rd all time in strikeouts. Even being retired 16 years he remains 5th all time in strikeouts and 9th in shutouts with 60. The thing the myopic writers seem to be holding against Blyleven is his won loss record which is as much or more a reflection of the offensive talent of a pitcher's teammates than the pitcher's talents. Bert is credited with 287 wins. Thirteen more and he'd have 300 would likely have been elected on his first or second go around. Sully of Sully Baseball took a game by game look at Blyleven career and found 42 games where he got a loss or no decision that likely would have gone the other way with a little offensive support. Here is a little of his research:

1971 with Twins
LOSS - 8 IP, 0 ER, 2 BB, 6 hits, 5, K's. Twins lose 1-0. May 2.
NO DECISION - 10 IP, 0 ER, 1 BB, 5 hits, 6 K's. Twins lose 2-0. September 1.

1972 with Twins

LOSS - 10 1/3 IP, 1 ER, 2 BB, 7 Hits, 9 K's. Twins lose 1-0 in 11 innings. September 27.
NO DECISION - 10 IP, 0 ER, 6 BB, 7 Hits, 10 K's. Twins lose 1-0 in 11 innings. July 8.

One thing that jumped out from that data was how many times Bert pitched more than nine innings. I knew he was a horse that pitched a lot of complete games, I just didn't realize how many times he pitched ten or more innings. I wonder what the modern record is for number of games pitching more than 9 innings. Bottom line: If voters stopped looking at matters largely outside a pitcher control (wins and losses) and actually took the time to evaluate his K's, WHIP, ERA, ERA+, SHO's, CG's, etc, which measure his performance they would have to consider him worthy.