I have been a strong defender of voting
Bert Blyleven into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame. I've been at least as adamant about keeping
Jack Morris out.
That leads to this question:
Among post-1900 players now in the Hall of Fame, whom would you remove?
Here’s the list
of all pitchers.
And, the list
of all hitters.
I’ll also simplify by ruling out all players who were Negro League inductees.
That said, before we get started, I have a bone to pick, a small one, with Baseball-Reference’s HOF lists. The comparative sabermetric tools we value, like WAR, OPS+ and ERA+? Why aren’t they included on these lists? It would make the comparisons much easier.
And, why are HOF pitchers who ever, more than once, swung a bat in their lives, listed again under the “batters” category? Ditto for managers who had a cup of coffee in the major leagues.
That said, on to the matter of hand. This post, I tackle pitchers.
I use two basic stats for starting the analysis, then bring in a third.
Those stats? WHIP and ERA+. Pitchers can control their walks, and, with partial allowance for the quality of fielding behind them and the size of park in which they pitch, can still, by pitch location, etc., control their hits surrendered. So, WHIP is a good comparison measure. And, from how well they bear down against batters when they have runners on base, how well they hold those runners, etc., they can control ERA, and ergo, ERA+, pretty well.
My standards? A HOF-worthy pitcher should have an ERA+ of 110 or better AND a WHIP of 1.25 or lower. Miss one or the other, and I’ll start raising an eyebrow. Miss both, and I’ll raise both eyebrows. If a pitcher just barely misses both, then the third comparison stat — WAR — comes into play.
Anyway, among pitchers that I would consider voting out would be
Red Faber,
Waite Hoyt,
Clark Griffith (he was inducted as a player),
Bob Lemon (he was the
Jack Morris of his time),
Burleigh Grimes,
Jesse Haines, T
Ed Lyons,
Hal Newhouser (got lucky to pitch during WWII, take those years away and he’s mediocre),
Eppa Rixey,
Red Ruffing, and possibly even
Early Wynn. (If sabermetrics have taught us that wins aren’t the only thing to matter for a
Cy Young award or even a Hall of Fame election, then, if metrics otherwise are bad enough, then we shouldn’t blanche at considering the possibility of ejecting a 300-game winner. AND, Wynn’s other metrics ARE bad. An ERA+ of only 107 and a WHIP of a horrible 1.329. Throw in the fact that his WAR is only 50.2, and outdoes
Jack Morris in the definition of “lucky pitcher.”)
And, as discriminating baseball buffs know, there are unlucky pitchers, too.
Felix Hernandez just last year. Or
Bob Gibson, who somehow managed to “lose” nine games in 1968 despite a 1.12 ERA.
The pitchers I would consider throwing out of the HOF remind us, again, of why we need to keep the Jack Morrises of the world from getting in there in the first place.
