You know what will bug me the most if Clemens returns? By taking himself off the HoF ballot this winter, he increases Jack Morris' chances.Damn. I hadn't thought of that -- and I was just thinking the other day about how great it was that the crazy ballot this year basically would kill off Morris. He certainly would be a terrible selection...the worst since, what, Tony Perez? Perez was in 2000...since then we've had Andrew Dawson, who for me was right on the line, and also Kirby Puckett and Jim Rice. Puckett and Rice? I think they were poor selections, but I guess they were in some ways more excusable than Morris. He, like Perez, is purely a creation of circumstance and luck in the way we tabulate things; if pitcher's wins had never been invented, no one would think Jack Morris was a HOF candidate.
The thing about the HOF, at least from the point of view of the fans, collectively, is that it's much more important to keep the bad choices out than to ensure that the good ones get in, at least in the short run. I mean, yes, it was too bad that in 2005 the Hall didn't have Ron Santo, Bert Blyleven, and Goose Gossage, but those mistakes have now been fixed. It's much more of a problem that the Hall in 2005 had, I don't know, Catfish Hunter and Rollie Fingers (who is beginning to look like a really significant error), because nothing has been done or will be done about it.
(Of course, from the point of view of the players, that's not true, since every year you're not in is a year in your life that you're not in, up to the point of posthumous selections which presumably you can't enjoy yourself).
Anyway, I think we're still probably safe from Morris even if Clemens isn't on the ballot, but it will make it somewhat more likely that they'll screw this one up. Remember, there are six HOFers new to this year's ballot: Rocket, Bonds, Piazza, Biggio, Sosa, and Schilling. It's hard to believe that Morris gets more votes than he did last year, even if only five of them are there.
Looking...the guy who really will be killed off this year is Palmeiro. Hard to believe there are a lot of people who would put Palmerio ahead of Bonds, Piazza, Clemens, or Biggio, right? Sure, I can imagine someone who voted for Dale Murphy but not Bonds. Palmeiro? Nope. I suppose I can imagine someone who puts Palmerio over McGwire, though...I wouldn't, but I can imagine both good and bad arguments for it. I suppose there might be a few writers who won't vote for Bonds for personality and not steroid reasons, and therefore might support Palmerio, but that can't be a big group, right? Anyway, he only got 13% of the vote last year, and it wouldn't surprise me if that totally collapsed this year. He's the guy who should be rooting for the Rocket to return.
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Admittedly, I haven't followed baseball for awhile, especially since I moved out of the country, but I really wish you would give some reasoning for your opinions because it is hard to understand why you like some over others. But since I was a Tiger fan back then, I do understand your feelings about Morris, he was always overrated.
ReplyDeleteFair enough. I usually do a more proper analysis in the winter when the voting is...basically, yeah, Morris just isn't a HOF-level pitcher. I mean, a guy with a 105 ERA+, even over a fairly long career, just isn't close, and it's not as if he had a stretch of 3-5 years where he was the best in baseball, either; there are tons of guys with better peaks.
DeleteThere's just nothing that makes him stand out for dozens of guys -- and I bet there are at least a dozen with careers who overlapped him who had better careers and are not in the Hall. That's not a HOF-type profile.
I completely agree about Morris. It's easy to find comparable pitchers from his era who didn't come close to making the HOF. If, say, Rick Reuschel had pitched for the Tigers instead of those awful Cubs and Pirates teams, he likely would have had about as many career wins as Morris. And Reuschel got only 0.4% of the vote in his first year of eligibility.
DeleteCurt Schilling a HOF? Unless you're giving him extra credit for the bloody sock, I'm having a hard time buying the case for that.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the case against him? Not enough innings? He did have some injury issues and got somewhat of a late start as a full-time starter I guess. But he had a pretty long career, put up 8.6 k/9, walked less than 2 per 9, and had some truly amazing peak years.
DeleteHe has very similar numbers to Smoltz, only without the successful stint as a closer. If you think Smoltz should go in, you pretty much have to think SChilling should, at least based on numbers.
Schilling wouldn't be a bad choice -- 127 ERA+, 79 WAR (26th all time among pitchers and 63rd overall). Plus he was excellent in the post-season -- 11-2, 2.26 ERA. It wouldn't be a tragedy if he didn't make it, but if he didn't he might be the best pitcher not in there.
ReplyDeleteYeah; I was mostly referring here to who will go, not who I think should (and, yes, Bonds and Sosa and Clemens will eventually get in), and I think it's pretty much certain that Schilling will get in -- but I suppose I'd probably vote for him, too.
DeleteReuschel better than Morris? Please. The Tigers of that era really weren't that good, other than the magical 1984 season. So you should put aside the idea that they would have carried Reuschel to some lofty heights. Morris earned whatever he got on that squad.
ReplyDeleteSchilling is an Eastern media product and nothing more. Mickey Lolich goes to the HoF, if that guy does. Let's get serious here.
Morris also, as much as any pitcher, brought on prime adoption of the "splitter" ... which Tiger pitchers at that time began to reference as the "split finger fastball", as the Tigers and Morris wanted to have a fastball mentality and delivery while throwing that pitch, as opposed to a breaking ball approach. I'd call that the only revolution in the pitching arena in my lifetime, the rise of the splitter, which has taken its own station in the game today, which it didn't have 40 years ago. Morris was the guy who did that, carried that ball and PUT it on the map.
It required fresh approaches to the catching position as well. No more big Fisk slugs behind the plate... they had to be mobile, with those splitters coming down the pipe and bouncing off the deck. But teams saw that pitch as an outmaker, so they made that transition at the catching position, to accommodate their fresh crop of splitter flinging pitchers.
Morris was a pioneer, in other words. One of the guys who drove that baseball revolution. He did it... out on the field... not fantasized over scotch and sodas. The on the field stuff is what gets you into legitimate Halls of Fame... not bloody socks and wisened and drooly Boston Globe hacks.
My recollection is that Bruce Sutter popularized the split finger fastball, not Jack Morris.
DeleteI wouldn't agree that Sutter popularized anything. He was a reliever, and was looked on as a sort of specialist, almost like a knuckleballer. Morris brought that pitching approach into the mainstream, not Sutter.
DeleteI mean, it wasn't just Morris, obviously, because people have been gripping baseballs and throwing them behind the barn for going on 2 centuries now. There is nothing new under the sun. The question is what gets mainstreamed, and when, and by who?
But to have a guy that takes the hill and is stubborn enough to throw that pitch with a guy on 3rd, and do it consistently, while all of baseball says "no"... that guy is a revolutionary. That was Jack Morris. Everybody else caught on, after they saw it could work.
And again, you KNOW it's true if those changes brought on systemic changes to another position, namely catcher. Lance Parrish could not be a regular major league catcher in today's game, imo. But he had to catch for Morris in the 80's because that's what the game dictated, and that's all they had available, a big slow body, ill suited to keep stray pitches in front of him. Morris forced MLB to transition, or at minimum was one of a very few guys who did so.
...and please remember, Lance Parrish was a borderline All Star catcher in that era, an era that ended soon after. Now look at these catchers, today. They play like shortstops.
DeleteFor the record: Morris was a rotation starter for the Tigers from 1979 through 1990; they were over 500 all but the last two years, topping 600 twice. Then at the tail end he went to division-winners in Minnesota and Toronto, and finished off with a very good Indians team. The Morris Tigers were an excellent team overall.
DeleteFor the record, no, the 80's Tigers were not an "excellent team overall". They were mediocre in the outfield, very weak at 3rd and always scrambling at 1st. There was probably more platooning in play with the 80's Tigers than any other team I've ever seen play. When you take out Trammell and Whittaker... the rest was just a free for all.
DeleteNow, that was one of the better PLAYING teams of the 80's, but that had to do with guys like Morris more than anything... great competitors and leaders. Morris was the best MLB pitcher of the 80's... that's indisputable... and it wasn't because of the Detroit Tigers roster. He earned it. (not to mention, Sparky soaked the ground in front of home plate like a bayou swamp to absorb Morris-induced grounders).
What were Toronto and Minnesota before Morris got there, by the way? Toronto didn't win a pennant 'til 1992, when Morris showed up. And he'd won the World Series with Minnesota the year before, knocking out Toronto as I recall. The Tigers were snakebit after Morris left. It was doomsday for that franchise the day Morris walked off the roster. He WAS the franchise.
No, there's no good reason to put those other inferior players into the HoF before Morris. He did more than they did, in addition to revolutionizing the game.
I'm glad to hear that Jack Morris' mom is still with us.
DeleteI understand that Morris' stats don't really measure up, but don't you have to ask yourself: If not Morris from the early-mid 80's, then who? Pitching is (almost) half the game; surely there must have been SOME Hall of Fame pitchers in baseball before Clemens had his first big year in '86? It's hard to envision that there's ever been a year of modern MLB that didn't have even ONE future Hall of Famer pitching in his prime.
ReplyDeleteMy memory, as a Mets fan of that era, is that Doc had about the best peak before Clemens-- or if not him, Valenzuela. Fernando probably had the best overall numbers, and he pitched in Dodger Stadium. But neither of them finished out Hall of Fame careers, either way?
So who else was the best pitcher in baseball in, say, 1983-85? Dave Stieb? Mario Soto? They're not Hall of Famers, either.
Jack Morris may not measure up statistically, but I think he kind of benefits from the mindset of "We have to elect SOMEONE." Between the demise of the Seaver/Carlton/Palmer generation and Rocket, there was... Jack Morris. And a bunch of guys who never made the most of their talent.
The problem with the case for Morris is that he wasn't particularly good in those years. He peaked at 5th in b-r's WAR a couple of times; he was 4th in ERA+ once, and that was earlier, in 1979. The standout pitcher in the mid-80s in the AL was clearly Dave Steib. If his career is just too short for you, that's fine, but it's not as if Morris was even seen at the time as the best of the bunch. No CY, didn't even finish 2nd, and only even made the AS team half the time.
DeleteI don't see how that translates into a legit HOF case.
Stieb didn't win the Cy Young, either, or finish higher than 4th. You might be right that he was the best AL pitcher of the era-- his # of hits/innings in his good years is just insane-- but nobody's putting him in the Hall, ever.
DeleteI just think we're dealing with, historically, a very weird era for pitchers in which it's hard to tell who was legit. The Cy winners from 1980-85, in both leagues:
AL: Steve Stone (seriously?!), Rollie Fingers (reliever), Pete Vuckovich (um...), LaMarr Hoyt (SERIOUSLY?!), Willie Hernandez (reliever), Bret Saberhagen (great pitcher, too many injuries)
NL: Carlton (approaching the end of the line), Valenzuela (falls short), Carlton again (more good years in this era than I thought, but still clearly a 70's star, not 80's), John Denny (back to: seriously?), Rick Sutcliffe (solid pitcher, nothing more), Doc (alas...)
So the NL fares better than the AL; in the Junior Circuit, things are just wacky. Given the emphasis on wins at the time (however misguided), I think it is reasonable to argue that Morris was seen as the AL's best, even if they kept giving the CYY to a different fluke season every year.
The 80's kind of get hit coming and going-- their big-hitting stats look anemic next to the 90's, and most of their good pitchers flamed out. Again I say, gotta elect *some*one.
I do have to revise my statement that no Hall of Famer was at his peak in that era, though: Of course, Nolan Ryan was still going strong, although '81 was really his only good year in that stretch and he, too, is kind of a freakish example, more impressive than great...
My guess is that 3000 hits still has the cache to get Biggio through, and may even bring Bagwell up and in with him this year. Piazza may need to wait a year or two. I expect Morris to make it in, but the loaded ballot might throw off the math for everyone this year.
ReplyDeleteNone of the 'suspected' PED players make it - my thinking is that a current Hall of Famer will need to admit steroid use, and that will give the writers an opening to throw up their hands and go back to voting on stats.
That's an interesting observation about when suspected PED players might get in, JS. I guess it's a cliche to say that Bonds was a Hall of Fame player before his homer binge but I saw him often in Pittsburgh, and he was.
DeleteSpeaking of Pittsburgh and original pitches, does anybody remember Roy Face and the fork ball?
Remember as in remember about him, or remember watching him when he was active? Yes on the former, but he's definitely before my time.
DeleteDefinitely one of the ways that they'll get in is if a current HOFer admits to it. But it's not impossible that we'll get Clemens or Bonds in...it's really not clear how the voting is going to go over the next few years. Again, I assume that the 20-24% for McGwire will vote for Bonds/Clemens; they'll also get any writers who either don't think McGwire belongs regardless (I've heard at least some say that), or those who are OK with those who in their view would have gone in anyway (and I've heard that argument also).
Not impossible, but I don't currently see a path for Bonds or Clemens, which probably explains Rocket's 'comeback'. He'll gladly give up 5 years of official Hall of Fame status (which he's almost certainly not going to get anyway) for an extra five years of chances down the line, hoping the tides of opinion will change.
DeleteMcGwire is a one-dimensional HoF candidate, so I would expect Bonds and Clemens to do better if they both face the vote this winter. But if they can't crack 50% with their respective credentials, I think that would be too high a hill to climb unless there is a radical change in the writer's zeitgeist on the PED issue.
If they get close to 60%, I think that would be enough to open a new conversation among the media, the fans and the actual voters. I don't see it happening though.
Also, too: If some current HoFers were just to come out and voice their support for the idea of letting these players get in, that might also be an event which prompts conversations about re-assessing the hard line against PED users. (But that's another possibility that I just don't see happening.)
It's instructive how this steroid thing has the fantasy league geeksters in such a tizzy, re the HoF. They feel compelled to submit to their sabermetric cult norms, and yet those norms are ill equipped to deal with the split finger fastball that the steroid issue throws them.
ReplyDeleteNow, a fuller and more comprehensive view of the game of baseball would permit more balanced analysis, unencumbered by sabermetric myopia. It'd have more historical relevance, because it would seek more than just columns of numbers. Such an approach would allow, for example, the comprehensive review of such as Jack Morris, and what they did in the game, as well as the steroid crowd's contributions and foibles. It would be comprehensive. That's what the sabermetric geeksters don't understand, although I'm sure they win their fantasy league every year. ;-)