The Pecan Park Eagle

Cy Young's Pre-Modern Media Era & Physique Didn't Help Him Build His Case Much for the First Hall of Fame Class, But Those 511 Career Wins Spoke Loud & Clear Enough!

Cy Young

Charlie Sheen

Which of these Cleveland pitchers looks more like a Hall of Fame candidate? The guy on the right with the fit-looking body and the”Wild Thing” nickname? Or the guy on the left with the big waist and the 511 big league wins?

You guessed it. The Baseball Hall of Famer in the above photos is the one and only Cy Young. Charlie Sheen may earn one in the Hall of Fame for OC/Addictive Disorders someday, but that’s neither here nor there for our purposes in this discussion. Charlie’s image is just here to show again how you can’t judge a book by its cover when it comes to the Baseball Hall of Fame.  If they expelled all members who got to Cooperstown with something less than an Adonis-like body this afternoon, Babe Ruth, Cy Young, Yogi Berra, Honus Wagner, and Ernie Lombardi, among so many others, will be on the street by nightfall.

I want to talk about pitchers and Cooperstown today? What s the benchmark for greatness that gets some people in the door while keeping other, perhaps, even more deserving members out? Has it changed over the years? Or does it simply hang on the thin air of popular spin, a candidate’s personality dominance, or a political pull with veterans committee members, or simply a guy’s eternal association with some great moment in baseball history?

With pitchers, “300 wins” seems to have become the standard for serious Hall of Fame consideration of starting pitchers, although, if you look at all pitchers in the Hall of Fame, it’s easy to see that the “300” club line has not always been the standard. Just look at the career records for all pitchers in the Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, New York (Graph Courtesy of Baseball Almanac.Com):

Yesterday I made the point that Joe Niekro’s 221 career wins places him above fifteen predominantly starting pitchers who are members of the Hall of fame. I might add that Gaylord Perry’s brother, Jim Perry, had a similar experience to Joe Niekro. Both these brothers of Hall of Fame pitchers Phil Niekro and Gaylord Perry were excellent in their own rights, but neither ever earned serious Hall of Fame consideration. And what did Joe Niekro and Jim Perry share in common in this comparison? Both came up about 79 to 85 wins short of the “300” win mark.

The 22-year career of the great Bert Blyleven (287-250, 3.31) is our greatest example of how foreboding that “300 win” gate on the Hall really is. People who oppose Blyleven point to his 250 losses as a barrier to his consideration, but these critics fail to take into account that Bert played for a lot of mediocre teams from 1970 to 1992. He’s lucky to have won 287 games, playing under those circumstances,

The relievers in the Hall of Fame are evaluated more on the basis of “save” totals, but where does that leave the middle relief guys who pick up far fewer wins than starters and virtually no “saves” in this era of increasing specialization?  Other than “out in the cold” from the Hall of Fame, I have no idea.

It’s also going to be interesting to see how things shift on the “300 win” door as time goes by from here. With starters going fewer innings, starters are losing wins to relief staffs that cannot hold leads. (See Roy Oswalt of the Astros, for example.) Where does that leave people like Oswalt who do have the ability to put up Hall of fame numbers, but do not get their wins over time? It most likely leaves them on the same bench with people like Bert Blyleven – on the outside, looking in.

I’m not sure Roy Oswalt is a Hall of Fame candidate, although I once thought he might be. Roy cannot get his wins unless he ends up playing for a club with a strong pen. Plus, we’re not even sure he wants to play long enough to qualify for consideration with enough wins. Players today make so much money that even the really durable ones may choose to walk away from shorter careers as big leaguers for the sake of some other new career or retirement direction. If that happens enough, the “300 win club ” shrinks even  further and the HOF has to either shut the door on new candidates, or else, start looking at pitchers and their qualifications for greatness far differently than their win totals.

What do you think? Please record your own thoughts on what qualifies a pitcher for the Hall of Fame as a reply to this column on the subject.

Also, speaking of greatness locally, please check out the column I wrote yesterday in support of the Astros retiring Joe Niekro’s number 36 this season or asap. If you agree, please weigh in there by leaving a comment on that subject with that column. That link is as follows:

https://thepecanparkeagle.wordpress.com/2010/07/13/its-time-to-retire-joe-niekros-astros-36/

Tags: Baseball, Hall of Fame

This entry was posted on July 14, 2010 at 2:12 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.