Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

Pope, you are hereby circled.

 

Absolutely. He probably isn't the best left-hander of all time, but he needs to be included in the conversation.

 

Murray Chass is why Cy young and MVP voting from the past cannot be taken seriously. People use the lack of Cy Young votes against Blyleven, look at the logic used behind those votes back then.

 

Thank you, sir.

 

An update: http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/newsstand/newsblog/

% Leaderboard after 101 Full Ballots…

89.2 - Blyleven
89.1 - Alomar
81.2 - Dawson
59.5 - J. Morris
56.4 - Larkin
42.6 - T. Raines
40.6 - Edgar
38.6 - Lee Smith
34.7 - McGwire
25.7 - Trammell
20.8 - McGriff
9.9 - D. Murphy
8.9 - Parker
7.9 - Baines
5.9 - Mattingly
Top Partial Ballot Leaders… (126 Full/Partials)

96 - Alomar
91 - Dawson
85 - Blyleven

 

The resume is pretty amazing. He has the five Cy Young Awards. He finishes his career second all-time with 4,875 strikeouts. He has 303 victories. He has the signature World Series performance, going 3-0 with a 1.04 ERA for the Diamondbacks against the Yankees. He led his league in strikeouts nine times and ERA four times, racked up 37 career shutouts and finished with a 3.29 ERA and 1.17 WHIP.

Oh, and he threw a perfect game and once struck out 20 batters in nine innings (though he is not officially tied for the record because the game went 11).

I'm not even sure all of that captures how dominating he truly was. The shutout total is particularly interesting to me. He is only tied for 57th all-time, but that does him an injustice by not recognizing how rare even complete games are now. The next active pitcher is Pedro Martinez with 17.

 

Can never get enough of that photo.

First, I think Bert should be in the Hall so this next part is not an attack. Blyleven is a victim of expectations, which I think is what Chass was trying to get at. A lot of people thought he was going to tear up the league when he went to Pittsburgh because he would be playing for a contender. Especially, the wins. That didn't happen. And even though, he won a lot for the 1987 Twins, most people likely think of him as the guy was was always .500 on bad Twins teams in the 1970s...kind of a Nolan Ryan lite. And having a great year in 84 for a bad Indians team...kind of a Steve Carlton lite circa 1972.
Before anyone flames me, this is not my opinion. This is what I believe the average fan is thinking, which I base on conversations in the last month.

 

I think you are giving Chass too much credit. Chass does not believe Bert is a Hall of Fame pitcher and is latching to any plausible-sounding argument he can find, facts be damned.

 

It's cherry-picking worse than that: Blyleven was 7-7 with a 4.49 ERA through July 8, so his "year" didn't get really bad until after the All-Star break. Even then, he was 9-11 through Aug. 21.

Guess he should be kept out of the Hall for five bad weeks at age 37, right Murray?

 

Probably, I was just pointing out the perception thing.
Also just to throw this against Murray as well...Blyleven was 5-1 with a 2.47 ERA in the postseason for his career, 47.1 innings pitched and 36 strikeouts. So, when his teams were at their best and needed him the most, he came through.

 

Common sense says you can keep the known juicers out simply by not voting for them. McGwire ain't ever getting in. He sealed that deal when he said he wasn't there to talk about the past.

Prediction: R. Alomar, Blyleven, Dawson.