David Cone and Orel Hershiser

[Chef2]

Hershiser, with his scoreless inning streak, has the equivalent of Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak. And from 1985-88, he was the best pitcher in the National League. Only four years, but without him, the Dodgers don't win the World Series in '88. The Dodgers don't get past the Mets in the NLCS and probably don't even make the playoffs. His 1988 season was one of the greatest in the history of baseball.
The pitcher I want to see in the Hall of Fame who probably won't ever make it is Jack Morris. He was probably the best pitcher in the decade of the 1980s, but is never in the discussion.

Morris turned in the greatest Game 7 pitching performance in World Series history. If he'd done it for the Yankees instead of the Twins he'd already be in.

Game, set, match.

 

[Azrael]

If the new math is to disregard or only lightly regard 'wins' in voting for the Cy Young, when do we start to dis/lightly regard wins in HoF voting? Honest question.

 

[Boom_70]

With the new math, Matt Garza should win the Cy Young this year.

 

[Dick Whitman]

If the new math is to disregard or only lightly regard 'wins' in voting for the Cy Young, when do we start to dis/lightly regard wins in HoF voting? Honest question.

I think we're pretty much there. IP and ERA will typically tell all of the story that needs to be told. Wins are good shorthand and probably even a little more useful as shorthand over the course of a long career than over a short season with its volatility and aberrations, but you don't necessarily need them. I like ERA+ and WAR myself as shorthand. When you check out the career rankings in those categories, they really seem to be indicative of a pitcher's value (as do wins, incidentally).

 

[Mizzougrad96]

If Morris had pitched that Game 7 for the Yankees, Manky would be on here with touting him as the next Whitey Ford.

 

[shockey]

To me, somebody probably needs to have a stretch in their career that at least resembles Hershiser's 85-88 stretch to be HOF material unless their accumulated stats just knock your socks off (a slightly more significant version of McGriff).

Hershiser's four-year stretch was just greatness. It was doomed to end though because his delivery was so odd it put all that torque on the shoulder and the rotator cuff injury was probably an inevitability given the pressure his delivery put on his shoulder. For the life of me, I don't see how he managed to pitch as long as he did without needing Tommy John surgery too because it just looked like there was all sorts of stress on the elbow in his delivery.

Of all the non-HOF mentioned in this thread, he's by far the best if you take them all at their peak (possible exception of Morris?). But I say that as somebody who, at the time, was a Dodgers fan (not so much any more).

bullspit. take a look at guidry's fiver years ('77-'81) and get back to me. add two more great 20-plus win seasons after that and you get SEVEN hof-worthy seasons. is gator the victim of yankee backlash? so many folks here falsely believe n.y. players are over-hyped and often unworthy of awards they receive; i'd argue the opposite is true.

seriously. examine gator's year-by-year numbers and get back to us. you'll be wowed, i promise you. i'm not a big compiler's guy. i like my hof'ers to have truly DOMINATED for a length of time. guidry certainly did that. also factor in pitching in the a.l. vs. n.l. factor. much like pedro's astounding numbers with thr bosox, having a season with a 1.78 era in the a.l. is AMAZING when you're facing lineups w/o a pitcher, which has a great impact on era and strikeout numbers.

guidry's era was sub-3.00 in four of his first 5 seasons. (i included the strike-shortened '81, when he was 11-5 with a 2.76, among his hof-worth seasons):

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/guidrro01.shtml

anyone who makes a case for herhiser damn well better put guidry in first. any way you slice it, he was the more dominant pitcher, both at their 'peaks' and in terms of longevity. want to talk about 'criminal?' look at guidry's numbers and ask why didn't he get more support?

 

[JC]

Gator?

 

[sgreenwell]

To me, somebody probably needs to have a stretch in their career that at least resembles Hershiser's 85-88 stretch to be HOF material unless their accumulated stats just knock your socks off (a slightly more significant version of McGriff).

Hershiser's four-year stretch was just greatness. It was doomed to end though because his delivery was so odd it put all that torque on the shoulder and the rotator cuff injury was probably an inevitability given the pressure his delivery put on his shoulder. For the life of me, I don't see how he managed to pitch as long as he did without needing Tommy John surgery too because it just looked like there was all sorts of stress on the elbow in his delivery.

Of all the non-HOF mentioned in this thread, he's by far the best if you take them all at their peak (possible exception of Morris?). But I say that as somebody who, at the time, was a Dodgers fan (not so much any more).

bullspit. take a look at guidry's fiver years ('77-'81) and get back to me. add two more great 20-plus win seasons after that and you get SEVEN hof-worthy seasons. is gator the victim of yankee backlash? so many folks here falsely believe n.y. players are over-hyped and often unworthy of awards they receive; i'd argue the opposite is true.

seriously. examine gator's year-by-year numbers and get back to us. you'll be wowed, i promise you. i'm not a big compiler's guy. i like my hof'ers to have truly DOMINATED for a length of time. guidry certainly did that. also factor in pitching in the a.l. vs. n.l. factor. much like pedro's astounding numbers with thr bosox, having a season with a 1.78 era in the a.l. is AMAZING when you're facing lineups w/o a pitcher, which has a great impact on era and strikeout numbers.

guidry's era was sub-3.00 in four of his first 5 seasons. (i included the strike-shortened '81, when he was 11-5 with a 2.76, among his hof-worth seasons):

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/guidrro01.shtml

anyone who makes a case for herhiser damn well better put guidry in first. any way you slice it, he was the more dominant pitcher, both at their 'peaks' and in terms of longevity. want to talk about 'criminal?' look at guidry's numbers and ask why didn't he get more support?

[blue]Well if he had played for the forking Yankees he'd already be in![/blue]

 

[Dick Whitman]

I think Guidry probably needed another great season or two good ones. Dwight Gooden is another one I thought deserved more than his 3.3 percent, one-and-done vote total. Surprising that Guidry's vote totals never picked up steam. Wonder how that would play out in the post-"Moneyball" era. Probably a little differently. Maybe not enough to get him in, but definitely more conversation.

 

[Dick Whitman]

Kevin Brown's 2.1 percent this year and then off the ballot was also criminal.

Luis Tiant might have gotten in eventually with a Blyleven-type campaign behind him, but got 30.9 percent his first year and never approached that again.

I will also throw this one to Buck Weaver, our historian emeritus: Why isn't Tony Mullane in?

 

[shockey]

I think Guidry probably needed another great season or two good ones. Dwight Gooden is another one I thought deserved more than his 3.3 percent, one-and-done vote total. Surprising that Guidry's vote totals never picked up steam.

i suppose voters would've liked a couple of more quality seasons out of guidrry, though i'm not sure why seven wasn't enough, especially given some of the knuckleheads talked about on this thread.

you yankee hatahs who contend yanks undeservingly get awards they don't deserve, guidry is one of the counter-arguments. besides the regular-season numbers already discussed, his resume' also includes 1 cy young award, 1 second, 1 third a fifth cy young finish, 4-time all-star, 5-time gold glove winner, 5-2, 3.09 postseason record, and he started and won one of the most storied regular-season games of all-time, the '78 1-game playoff vs. the bosox. and he held or shared the 1-game record for strikeouts in a game (18) for a good stretch.

so guidry had the overall numbers, season-by-season numbers AND postseason success often demanded of hof members -- or at least certainly of those deserving to be in the discussion more often than he is or was.

 

[shockey]

I think Guidry probably needed another great season or two good ones. Dwight Gooden is another one I thought deserved more than his 3.3 percent, one-and-done vote total. Surprising that Guidry's vote totals never picked up steam.

i suppose voters would've liked a couple of more quality seasons out of guidrry, though i'm not sure why seven wasn't enough, especially given some of the knuckleheads talked about on this thread.

you yankee hatahs who contend yanks undeservingly get awards they don't deserve, guidry is one of the counter-arguments. besides the regular-season numbers already discussed, his resume' also includes 1 cy young award, 1 second, 1 third a fifth cy young finish, 4-time all-star, 5-time gold glove winner, 5-2, 3.09 postseason record, and he started and won one of the most storied regular-season games of all-time, the '78 1-game playoff vs. the bosox. and he held or shared the 1-game record for strikeouts in a game (18) for a good stretch.

so guidry had the overall numbers, season-by-season numbers AND postseason success often demanded of hof members -- or at least certainly of those deserving to be in the discussion more often than he is or was.

Gator?

'gator' and 'louisiana lightning' were guidry's nicknames -- the latter a media creation; 'gator' was what teammates called the him, i guess 'cause of his tales of coming across alligators while hunting in cajun country.

i try not to use player nicknames here but i occasionally feel the need to do so as a changeup on posts to avoid using the name over and over and over... i certainly don't mean to imply we're close buds or anything like that...