Smoltz elected to Cooperstown along with Pedro, Unit, and Biggio.

Knucksie said:
It wasn't my point to discuss Jack Morris's candidacy. Since you brought it up, though, obviously a large enough chunk of voters considered it valid enough to keep him close enough for consideration. You must've went over to Fangraphs to scope up his WAR. Posturing is one thing on a message board, but if it came to explain the intricacies, you probably couldn't do it without assistance. Mentioning position players doesn't even enter into the discussion. Nevertheless, there were factors in Jack Morris's favor, despite the relatively high ERA. (If asked, Smoltzie, himself, would probably regard Morris as a HOFer, not least of all with him being his hero.)

The man came up huge in WS for the Tigers, Twins and Blue Jays. Think he had a no-hitter (yeah, it's only one game, but voters pay attention to such things and they "enhance" credentials). A basic question voters would ask themselves is "was Jack Morris among the best pitchers of the 80's?" Those who are old enough, would have to concede that was one of the top pitchers.
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That's the thing....for those of us who watched Jack Morris for his entire career....he is a HOFer. No doubt.
 
Just wondering....game 7 of the WS....do you want Smoltz or Schilling in their prime starting your game? I would take Smoltz in his prime..especially in a National League park.
 
kendiz said:
That's the thing....for those of us who watched Jack Morris for his entire career....he is a HOFer. No doubt.
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Well, that IS the thing. I didn't see Morris until the mid-80s, but . . . naaah. I disagree. He was one of the best pitchers of the 80s—but that's a fairly arbitrary measure. I don't think he's one of the 50 or so best starters of all time. But it's the HOF. It's subjective.
 
kendiz said:
Just wondering....game 7 of the WS....do you want Smoltz or Schilling in their prime starting your game? I would take Smoltz in his prime..especially in a National League park.
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I'm a proponent of Schilling for the Hall, and he was hoss in the postseason, but I'd take Smoltz, with no regrets.

I wouldn't take Jack Morris. ;-)
 
I agree with Zito about Morris. The guy had many bad seasons with a high career ERA. And he did suck in the 1992 World Series btw, so he wasn't the Mr. October of pitchers like some of you believe. I don't have a problem with leaving out steroid users though. Especially the ones who lied about in court like Bonds and Clemens. I think they are doing more harm by lying about it when it was so obvious.
 
zitothebrave said:
215 ERA+ vs 149.
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ERA+ is misleading since ~18% of Brown's runs allowed were unearned, versus ~10% for Smoltz. Sinkerballers often give up more unearned runs due to their reliance on balls in play, and ERA and ERA+ thus overstate their dominance. This problem is corrected in the rWAR calculation which uses RA instead of ERA, and then adjusts for actual team defense. One of many reasons rWAR is better for comparing complete seasons.

Speaking of, this same phenomenon is one of the reasons why Schilling (a noted flyball pitcher) does so well in rWAR, beyond just looking at his IP*ERA+. He gave up just about the fewest unearned runs in history. In just about the same number of IP, he gave up over 100 fewer unearned runs compared to Kevin Brown.

zitothebrave said:
And nearly a full win better isn't within the margin of error.
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Ahem, to quote from the BB-ref book of WAR:

We present the WAR values with decimal places because this relates the WAR value back to the runs contributed (as one win is about ten runs), but you should not take any full season difference between two players of less than one to two wins to be definitive

zitothebrave said:
Smoltz's lone advantage was about 20 more IP.
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Three extra starts from your ace in a season in pretty dang valuable. rWAR accounts for all these things. Pointing out the variables but ignoring the results doesn't make any sense.

zitothebrave said:
Webb's peak wasn't that great, 150ish ERA+ for 2 years. Sure if he could have lasted at that level for a decade you'd have a point, but ti's not like he was Lincecum or Kershaw.
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Um... well, I'll grant he isn't Kershaw, since that dude is like the best pitcher ever (though their first 6 seasons are probably closer than you'd guess). But Lincecum? Let's look at their best 5 seasons (since after 5 seasons Lincecum turned awful):

[table="width: 200, class: grid, align: center"]
[tr]
[td]rank[/td]
[td]Webb[/td]
[td]Lincecum[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]1[/td]
[td]7.0[/td]
[td]7.9[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2[/td]
[td]6.4[/td]
[td]7.5[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]3[/td]
[td]6.2[/td]
[td]4.2[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]4[/td]
[td]5.8[/td]
[td]3.7[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]5[/td]
[td]5.0[/td]
[td]2.3[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Total[/td]
[td]30.4[/td]
[td]25.6[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

Lincecum has a slight advantage in his two very best seasons, but Webb has a noticeably better overall 5 year peak, averaging over 6 WAR a year.
 
Yeah Brandon Webb was a beast. One of the best pitchers in the game during his short career. He was one of my keepers in fantasy baseball back than.
 
Julio3000 said:
Well, that IS the thing. I didn't see Morris until the mid-80s, but . . . naaah. I disagree. He was one of the best pitchers of the 80s—but that's a fairly arbitrary measure. I don't think he's one of the 50 or so best starters of all time. But it's the HOF. It's subjective.
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To me...he was one of the best pitchers of that era on crappy teams. I'm not a stat head though......not that there is anything wrong with being one either.
 
I'm not old enough to see Morris in his prime, but I did catch the tail end of his career. This idea that people thought of him as a future HOF seems bizarre to me. There were plenty of guys who got that label (Ryan, Niekro, Brett, etc.), but I don't remember ANYBODY saying that about Morris. He was just a guy. As a kid I had trouble keeping him and Jack McDowell straight, that's how much of a non-entity he was. Maybe I just missed it.
 
kendiz said:
To me...he was one of the best pitchers of that era on crappy teams.
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That's the thing though, Morris was on good teams almost his whole career. He was on a team with a losing record just a handful of times. Those 1980s Sparky Anderson Tigers were a great team, and after he left he joined up with three straight world series teams (and then the Indians who might've gone in 1994, if not for the strike).
 
Metaphysicist said:
That's the thing though, Morris was on good teams almost his whole career. He was on a team with a losing record just a handful of times. Those 1980s Sparky Anderson Tigers were a great team, and after he left he joined up with three straight world series teams (and then the Indians who might've gone in 1994, if not for the strike).
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Yes those Tigers teams could really hit. Trammel, Whitaker, Gibson, Darrell Evans, Chet Lemon, Lance Parrish ect..That's a big reason why he has a very good career winning percentage despite having a ERA+ of only 105. The year I started following baseball 1984, the Tigers had one of the best teams I've ever seen. Started the year 35-5 and finished with 104 wins. Made the Royals and Padres look like trash in the postseason.
 
Metaphysicist said:
That's the thing though, Morris was on good teams almost his whole career. He was on a team with a losing record just a handful of times. Those 1980s Sparky Anderson Tigers were a great team, and after he left he joined up with three straight world series teams (and then the Indians who might've gone in 1994, if not for the strike).
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Detroit finished third or worse in their division 10 out of his 14 years there...if I counted right. That's not exactly being on good teams. All I know is that he was a dominating pitcher of that era. And if you don't go by era then you don't have any reference points. You can't compare today's pitchers to the 1930s, because the players are different, the game is different, everything is different. Now games won has to be a different stat because pitchers won't have anywhere near the benchmark of 300 wins going forward. You have to take the steroid era right after Morris finished into consideration. Lots of intangibles, in my opinion.
 
kendiz said:
Detroit finished third or worse in their division 10 out of his 14 years there...if I counted right. That's not exactly being on good teams. All I know is that he was a dominating pitcher of that era. And if you don't go by era then you don't have any reference points. You can't compare today's pitchers to the 1930s, because the players are different, the game is different, everything is different. Now games won has to be a different stat because pitchers won't have anywhere near the benchmark of 300 wins going forward. You have to take the steroid era right after Morris finished into consideration. Lots of intangibles, in my opinion.
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Team support or not, Morris was really

just too close to being an average pitcher most of his career. He finished almost as many seasons with an era worse than league as he did better than average. His peak wasn't nearly impressive enough to award enshrinement, especially coupled

6-7 pretty mediocre years sprinkled in between.

Look at his best years compared to the likes of Mussina, Schilling, and Smoltz. Whether you are comparing their best 1, 3, 5, or 10 year stretches, they all three blow him away.
 
kendiz said:
Detroit finished third or worse in their division 10 out of his 14 years there...if I counted right. That's not exactly being on good teams. All I know is that he was a dominating pitcher of that era. And if you don't go by era then you don't have any reference points. You can't compare today's pitchers to the 1930s, because the players are different, the game is different, everything is different. Now games won has to be a different stat because pitchers won't have anywhere near the benchmark of 300 wins going forward. You have to take the steroid era right after Morris finished into consideration. Lots of intangibles, in my opinion.
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That's 3rd or worse in the old division format.

TIgers were regularly over .500 then except the bookend years. 7 of his seasons there they were 85+ wins teams. Not amazing and legendary, but it's pretty good.
 
Would have liked this year to be

Johnson
Pedro
Smoltz
Schilling
Mussina

Then next year Bagwell Raines Biggio Griffey Jr.
 
zitothebrave said:
Lol I was just coming over here to post the same link.

Positives are it seems like Schilling is rising.

Bernardino seems to have basically not voted for Pedro and Johnson knowing everyone else will to keep Walker on the ballot and maybe Mussina as well?
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You are welcome. Now go do something productive with all the free time I allowed you to have instead.
 
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