Bert Blyleven elected to Hall of Fame: say it ain't so!

As expected the writers elected Bert Blyleven to the Hall of Fame as announced yesterday.

Blyleven had ten or more losses 15 times: 17,17,17,17,16,16,15,14,13,12,12,10,10,10,10.

Maybe we need the old way back machine used by Sherman and Mr. Peabody from the The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. I'm guessing that if you went to pretty much any game in which Blyleven pitched and suggested to attending fans that Blyleven would one day be elected to the Hall of Fame they'd respond along the lines of: "Are you nuts!?".

SABRites are orgasmic by their victory of the obscure over the obvious.

Less eloquent are talking head types like those on MLB network, former players who wouldn't know a SABR concept if it ... I don't know, did something. Their claims for Blyleven seem limited to:

From baseball-reference.com

1. #5 in career strike outs (some claim #3, don't know why)
2. #9 in career shutouts.

They omit:

1. #14 in innings
2. #8 in home runs
3. #15 in hits
4. #27 in wins; Cy Young leads with 511
5. #10 in losses; Cy Young leads with 316
6. #29 in walks
7. #11 in earned runs
8. #14 in batters faced

OK, enough with the totals, Blyleven pitched a long time.

Let's look at Blyleven's rank in some SABR stuff, which most of us do not understand, except for ERA+, i.e., ERA adjusted for time and place: years and ball parks

Minimum of 1000 IP, 3000 PA, 500 games (fielding), 200 stolen base attempts (catchers) and 100 decisions for career and active leaderboards for rate statistics.
1. #142 in ERA+
2. #12 in Base-Out Wins Saved (REW)
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This statistic is computed from play-by-play data which is only complete from 1974 to the present. From 1950-1973, the data is incomplete, though for most seasons only less than 20 games per season total are missing.

3. #12 in Base-Out Runs Saved (RE24)
4. #26 in Win Probability Added (WPA)
5. #15 in Sit. Wins Saved (WPA/LI)
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For all pitchers:

6. #23 in Adjusted Pitching Runs
7. #19 in Adjusted Pitching Wins

Here is a spreadsheet with the record of his teams:

1,762 1,729 .505 Not great but not terrible.

From Hall of Fame website:

http://baseballhall.org/news/personality/turn-two

Blyleven pitched in 22 seasons with the Minnesota Twins, Texas Rangers, Pittsburgh Pirates, Cleveland Indians and California Angels and compiled a 287-250 record with a 3.31 ERA, 242 complete games, 60 shutouts and 3,701 strikeouts in 4,969 1/3 innings.

I guess that pretty will much be the inscription on Blyleven's plaque.

I think what happened is that younger writers wanted to show off their understanding of more than batting average for batters and wins/losses for pitchers as they correctly did by awarding the 2010 AL CY to Felix Hernandez (13-12). From my post:

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2010  Lazy media: check the facts!

Hernandez leads AL in innings, strike outs and ERA
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Those meat and potatoes stats were readily available in Blyleven's seasons but those writers did not reward Blyleven in CY voting as generously as they just did in Hall of Fame voting. I think the younger writers got a little too full of themselves.

Blyleven is not a terrible choice but he's not a great one either, certainly not the no-brainer that some would have us believe. The Hall of Fame would be better without Bert Blyleven.