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Bert Blyleven: Hall of Fame, in or out?

29. December 2008  - Published by Adam Bartel
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"We're going to do this f***ing thing again, because I just f***ed it up...oh we're live?  I didn't know that." - Bert Blyleven, previewing a Twins/Yankees game as a member of the Twins broadcast team, 2006

THE NUMBERS
4970 IP, 287-250, 3.32 ERA, 3701 K

Though the momentum for the Blyleven candidacy seemed to have waned in 2007, it picked up steam last year when he garnered 61.9% of the needed votes for induction.  Now in his 12th year of eligibility, there's a pretty good chance that he'll get the call before his 15 years expires.  Is he deserving of induction?  Well, that's really a matter of perspective.

Let's address the arguments against Blyleven first.  Most of those begin with "he built up those huge numbers only because he threw so many innings".  And he did pitch a lot of innings (14th most all-time).  12 of the 13 who pitched more than him are all members of the Hall, and the other is Greg Maddux, who I think will probably get the call.  But, in order to pitch a lot of innings, you usually have to be a pretty good pitcher - most managers don't leave a guy in that's getting beat around.

Implied in that argument is that Blyleven was one of those guys that hung around too long.  And in 1988, when he went 10-17 with a 5.43 ERA for the Twins, you could say that he probably could have hung it up, rather than signing with the Angels.  But, he ended up going 17-5 with a 2.73 ERA in 1989, so it's understandable that he might want to keep on pitching from there.  His last two seasons were kinda miserable, so that's a fair point there.  If you pull out those three bad seasons, you get a pitcher that went 261-214 with 3415 K's (9th all-time, instead of 5th).  I'm not sure that really changes the discussion that much.

The next argument against him seems to be regarding his record, and that he didn't have enough wins.  His .534 win percentage is pretty bad in Hall of Fame terms.  Of the 24 Hall of Fame starting pitchers that primarily pitched after World War II, only Nolan Ryan had a worse winning percentage.  But his total wins ranks ninth among the same group.  Additionally, most of the teams he pitched for were fairly middling (.500 or below), and as we all know a pitcher only has so much control over wins and losses.

If that doesn't work, then we have to head into the "he didn't have the wow factor/didn't receive enough Cy Young Award votes" area.  As far as the "wow" factor, you need only ask the players of his era what it was like to go against that curveball.  The answer usually is "not so good".  For the Cy Young votes, well, you'll have to ask the voters why they repeatedly gave pitchers with inferior ERA's and far few strikeouts more votes than Blyleven during his best years in the 70's (see Catfish Hunter, Jim Palmer, Dennis Leonard, etc.).  Most likely, it was due to Blyleven pitching for low profile teams.

The arguments against simply don't convince me anymore.  While I was initially against his induction, doing some research shows that he was plenty comparable to the best pitchers of his time, and he should be given induction into the Hall of Fame.

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Comments

Bill Gros
Bill Gros
12/30/2008 1:01:51 PM #
An amazing Bert Blyleven statistic that I wouldn’t wish upon any major league pitcher:
From his 1970 rookie season through 1977 I’ve accumulated his quality starts that I’ve defined as: 6innings, 2earned runs or less; 7,8,9innings, 3earned runs or less; and 9innings+ 4 earned runs or less in which he garnered a no decision or a loss only……

The totals are:
82 games
658 innings
583 hits
185 runs
160 earned runs
184 base on balls
540 strikeouts
2.19 ERA
His record: 0 wins and 53 LOSSES. I repeat 0 wins and 53 losses with a 2.19 ERA

1970 0-3 2.09 9 games
1971 0-6 1.90 9 games
1972 0-9 2.35 13 games
1973 0-8 2.55 9 games
1974 0-8 1.80 10 games
1975 0-6 2.00 10 games
1976 0-8 2.29 15 games
1977 0-5 2.45 7 games

I understand that pitchers put up great games and get snakebit on occasion, but this accounted for almost 1 of every 3 starts, 82 of 279 to be exact or 29%. Show me a Hall of Famer that had to go through this year by year. Fortunately once Blyleven ended up in Pittsburgh and later some good Minnesota teams, this trend eased to what I would consider normal levels (I had researched this in the past but don’t have the numbers on hand)

Imagine 1974, your 17-9 in 27 games, and in the other 10, all of which are essentially quality starts, you post a 1.80ERA and go 0-8. You end up 17-17. If you don’t know the facts, and your voting for the Cy Young award, and you see 17-17. Do you cast a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place vote? Probably not. This is what Blyleven faced in yesteryear, and the same writers, who I contend do not know the facts, are what Blyleven faces every year in the HOF vote.

Go ahead, plug in a different year, or harken back to Baseball-reference and neutralize the stats, do it for every one of Blyleven’s contemporaries. The numbers don’t change much, but for Bert Blyleven, they do. The example given above is my attempt to show why. Teams that didn’t score runs and booted the ball around like it was a soccer match.

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