Bert Blyleven

[Crash Course]

When does the Scooter Rizzuto rule set in........
when Bert becomes more famous for not being in the Hall
than he would for actually being elected?

[pjl7]

Bert never played in NYC so it won't work for him. Rizzuto, yes. Santo, no. Hodges, yes. etc.

[KCBOOMER]

Unlike Scooter, Bert doesn't have a Pee Wee Reese to play off of.

[Crash Course]

Hey, it's working for Rose, no, maybe Bert needs to write a book?

[pjl7]

True that Bert doesn't have a direct rival to play off of, but I actually spent some time playing with the numbers of his contemporaries in the HOF as well as those who (IMHO) should be. The group included Hunter, Bunning, Jenkins, Kaat, Marichal, Tiant, Carlton, Ryan, Drysdale, Ford, Niekro, Koufax etc. Even excluding the non-HOFers Bert stood soundly in the middle of that group on every single measure. In fact, if you took that group without names, you would be hard pressed to come up with excuses to keep Bert, Luis, Kaat or Tommy John out.

[nyy26wc]

True that Bert doesn't have a direct rival to play off of, but I actually spent some time playing with the numbers of his contemporaries in the HOF as well as those who (IMHO) should be. The group included Hunter, Bunning, Jenkins, Kaat, Marichal, Tiant, Carlton, Ryan, Drysdale, Ford, Niekro, Koufax etc. Even excluding the non-HOFers Bert stood soundly in the middle of that group on every single measure. In fact, if you took that group without names, you would be hard pressed to come up with excuses to keep Bert, Luis, Kaat or Tommy John out.

I can come up with plenty of "excuses" to keep Kaat and Tommy John out--

Kaat
only 144 RSAA
Just limiting ourselves to the timespan that Kaat played (1959-83), among the many pitchers who exceeded his figure were Steve Rogres, Ron Guidry, Larry Jackson, Rick Reuschel, Andy Messersmith and was tied with Jerry Koosman.
Among all of history, those who were +/- 5 of him is the impressive list of Brad Radke, John Franco, Bob Shawkey, Jim Devlin, Dan Quisenberry, Kent Tekulve, Pud Galvin, Mort Cooper, Freddie Fitzsimmons, Jerry Koosman, Andy Messersmith, John Tudor, Max ZLanier, Lee Smith, Ed Reluback, Firpo Marberry, Jose Rijo

John & Tiant
only 173 RSAA for John, 172 for Tiant
Among history, those who were +/- 5 of them were ANdy Pettitte, Mel Harder, Larry French, Frank Dwyer, Red Ruffing, Larry Corcoran, Sam Leever, Wilbur Cooper

[pjl7]

Let me add a little color to the previous comment. I didn't use derived measures of value in my tinkering. I don't disagree that some more in-depth analysis would lead to different results. The numbers that I looked at were nearly all raw stats, with the execption of the really basic such as ERA and Winning %. I don't give the HOF electorate credit for being smart enough to look past those.

Obviously, there are a few HOFers on the lists that you provided, although none of us would argue that those guys are standard by which inductions should be measured.

Of course, we could send the debate back to the basics of what the institution was created for and how that drives who is honored, but that is the subject of another thread.

[Barca]

The group included Hunter, Bunning, Jenkins, Kaat, Marichal, Tiant, Carlton, Ryan, Drysdale, Ford, Niekro, Koufax etc.

Some of that group is a bit older than Bert - 'Gentleman' Jim, Sandy, Drysdale, Ford, even Tiant and Marichal.

But growing up, it was always Palmer, Ryan, and Blyleven being talked about as the Cy Young candidates. With Carleton in the NL and Niekro being a longevity candidate.

[hopbitters]

Kaat also posted 16 Gold Gloves (company : Maddux, Gibson), pitched for 25 years, was the last active original Senator, and I believe still holds the Twins record for victories. Of course, we're talking about the HoF, so we can dismiss trivial things like defense and history.