Bonafide Baseball Hall of Famers

Couple things about Mark Buehrle.

I think this is a fair question: What if he pitched for the Yankees or Red Sox or even on the other side of his city? He's an absolute folk hero to one side of Chicago, on the short list with Nellie Fox and Luis Aparicio as the most beloved White Sox of all time, but that doesn't carry the same heft as it would for some of those other teams.

The ERA thing is interesting. I will say this, from watching him start-in, start-out for a decade. Three or four times a year, Mark Buerhle will deliver an absolute, positive stinker. I think it comes with the territory of being a low-strikeout guy. He doesn't miss many bats, and once in a while he pays dearly for it. I think his ERA is misleading. I'd be curious about quality starts. I know there was one stretch where he made about 35 starts in a row where he pitched a least six innings or more.

He lost the streak, by the way, because he threw at somebody in retaliation for a teammate getting hit, so you've got to love that. Also was accompanied by great Hawk Harrelson audio: "That is B.S.!!!!"

 

Pedro Martinez is a lock. He is better than Glavine. Buehrle isn't in yet, he's won more than 16 only once.

 

Is Andy Pettie a HOFer? He has a better case than Buehrle, I think. What about Cone? This isn't about East coast bias, he's just not as good as he was yesterday.

 

I think if he pitched for the Yankees, Red Sox or Cubs, he would still be nowhere close to the Hall of Fame. This isn't about not knowing who he is. He's a very good pitcher. I know that well. He just isn't a Hall of Famer at this point.

The argument about the ERA really doesn't hold up. He still gave up those runs. They count and they need to be considered. You think other good pitchers don't have ugly days they wish they could remove from their statistics?

The low-strikeout guy works slightly against him and it should Strikeouts aren't nearly as good of an indicator of performance as ERA or even wins, but they do count and that is a negative for Buehrle.

 

I don't have the answer. That's what I'm wondering.

 

Well, Buehrle's career ERA+ is 123--same as Juan Marichal and Mike Mussina, one point better than Bob Feller (and Babe Ruth), two points better than Don Drysdale and CC Sabathia. Now, in the cases of Marichal, Feller and Drysdale, their ERA+ includes their late-career regression...Buehrle's best seasons don't really compare to their best seasons. He's been a remarkably durable, consistent pitcher; what's probably going to end up costing him is that from 2006-2008 (when he was 27-29 years old, some of his prime years), he only managed a 37-34 record and had an ERA of about 4. Unless Buehrle has a few elite, Cy Young-worthy seasons (his best was a fifth-place finish in 2005, the only year he received any votes it seems like) and pitches into his early 40s, he's probably on the outside looking in. He kind of reminds me of a left-handed Dave Steib, and if he stays true to his word and retires after 2011, their stats will look remarkably similar.

 

And Mussina. I kind of like the Steib comparison, but I think steib had a better peak. I bet he some high finishes in the Cy Young voting. For some of those years, he was right up there with the best pitchers in the league. I don't think buehrle had any seasons that good.

 

Good point about Mussina--I keep forgetting he's no longer active.

As for Steib, his highest finish in the Cy Young voting was 4th in 1982 (he has 19 complete games that year!)...he also had a 5th and two 7ths, so that's not all that different from Buehrle. Steib also had multiple seasons when he pitched better than his record (he was 14-13 in '85 despite leading the league in ERA). Something I never really realized: Steib led the league in HBP five times. Kinda bizarre for a low-strikeout guy like him. But look at his career arc and Buehrle's, including the random down season in the middle of their careers.
Here are the BR pages...
Steib: http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/stiebda01.shtml
Buehrle: http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/buehrma01.shtml

 

Clemens will have to wait awhile. There are at least 26% of HOF voters who are not going to vote for someone they suspected did HGH/PEDs. And you left off Maddux.

 

Speaking of the performance-enhancers part of the HOF debate, Bill James has finally weighed in. I thought it was an interesting take: http://www.actapublications.com/images/small/PressReleases/Cooperstownandthe'Roids_F2.pdf