Free Friday: What Will a Hall of Fame Pitcher Look Like in 20 Years?
I cannot begin to explain to you just how loud the cicadas are outside our home here in Charlotte. It’s crazy loud. It’s like Porsche-revving loud. I suppose this is a time to appreciate the raw beauty of nature—The New York Times ran a TMI article called A Cicada’s Guide to Periodical Romance—and I do, you know, but, I mean, these cicadas are really loud.
We head to college today to pick up our younger daughter—so I’ll give you a few scheduling updates (whew, it’s looking pretty involved) and answer one Brilliant Reader question today. We’ll do a more complete Brilliant Reader question post on Monday.
We’re 130 days out from the publication of WHY WE LOVE FOOTBALL, which means I’m about to start signing a whole lot of books. I just got three boxes of tip sheets. These are pages that I will sign (and, if you preorder the book from Quail Ridge, I will inscribe them any way you like). The tip sheets will then be inserted into the finished book. It’s a pretty cool process. It’s also going to lead to severe writer’s cramp. I need to start doing some pre-autographing exercises.
I will be at the Gaithersburg Book Festival next Saturday, May 18. I’ll be talking some WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL at the Rachel Carson Pavilion at 12:15 p.m., and then signing books afterward. If you click on the link, you can get a little book review from Gaithersburg mayor Jud Ashman. If you’re in the Washington, D.C., area, come on out. We’ll talk some Nationals ball.
The following Thursday, May 23, I’ll be at Park Road Books in Charlotte to celebrate my buddy Tommy Tomlinson’s wonderful new book, Dogland.
That next day, Friday, May 24, I’ll be in Cooperstown for the unveiling of The Souls of the Game: Voices of Black Baseball exhibit; I was fortunate enough to be on the advisory committee. Then, the next day, there’s going to be an East-West All-Star Game as a special tribute to the Negro Leagues. Some of the players participating: Ken Griffey Jr., Jim Rice, Fergie Jenkins, Eddie Murray, Ozzie Smith, Dave Winfield, Lee Smith, Fred McGriff… I mean, that’s pretty good stuff. Come on out to Cooperstown!
On June 2, I’ll be in conversation with the wonderful Kimmery Martin at the SouthPark Regional Library in Charlotte. Apparently, this is going to be a whole thing, with summer cocktails and charcuterie and pickleball. It’s going to be… wait, pickleball? Nobody told me there was going to be pickleball. I definitely was not alerted about the whole pickleball thing. Anyway, tickets are available here.
I will be in London all around the Mets-Phillies Series on June 8 and 9. It’s going to be so much fun, as I talk about the UK release of WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL. We’re hoping to set up a couple fun events—right now, one hope is that we’ll be able to do some sort of signing, meet-and-greet thing at the Waterstones Trafalgar Square on Friday, and then have all of us repair to a pub to be named later. I do not believe I’ve ever used the verb “repair” that way. It sounds right to me, but it might very well be wrong. Anyway, when all of the details for my London trip are finalized, I’ll let you know.
There’s more after that—including my hopes of being at Rickwood Field for the Giants-Cardinals game on June 20. But, honestly, I started hyperventilating about halfway through this list, so, you know, one day at a time.
Happy Friday! Our Friday posts are free so everyone can enjoy them. Just a reminder that Joe Blogs is a reader-supported newsletter, and I’d love and appreciate your support.
From Brilliant Reader Mike: Fast-forward 20 years… What will a Hall of Fame pitcher look like?
This is something I think way too much about. For the longest time, voting pitchers into the Hall of Fame was kind of an easy thing. Here is every starting pitcher* elected by the BBWAA since 1990, and you can begin to see what a Hall of Fame pitcher has looked like.
*Relief pitchers are a whole other thing.
1990: Jim Palmer. The Hall of Fame age of the 300-game winner is about to begin. Palmer didn’t win 300, but he did win 268, along with three Cy Young Awards.
1991: Fergie Jenkins. Won 284 games and a Cy Young, threw 4,500 innings. Was elected on his third ballot—it took that long, presumably, because of his drug suspension in 1980 (Jenkins has always maintained his innocence).
1991: Gaylord Perry. Won 300. He, like Jenkins, was elected third-ballot. In his case, it was probably a statement about his use of the spitball.
1992: Tom Seaver. Won 300 and three Cy Youngs.
1994: Steve Carlton. Won 300 and four Cy Youngs.
1997: Phil Niekro. Won 300. But, without a Cy Young, his election took five ballots.
1998: Don Sutton. Won 300. But, without a Cy Young, his election took five ballots.
1999: Nolan Ryan. Won 300 and is the all-time strikeout king.
2004: Dennis Eckersley. I’ll include him on here even though he was elected more as a reliever than a starter. He did win 197 games and had 390 saves. Won a Cy Young and an MVP.
2011: Bert Blyleven. First full-time starter to be elected by the BBWAA in more than a decade; it took Blyleven 14 years to get elected, despite 4,970 innings pitch, 60 shutouts and 3,701 strikeouts. Well, he didn’t win 300 (only 287) and he didn’t win a Cy Young.
2014: Tom Glavine: Won 300 and two Cy Youngs.
2014: Greg Maddux: Won 300 and four Cy Youngs.
2015: Randy Johnson: Won 300 and five Cy Youngs.
2015: Pedro Martinez: He won “only” 219, but he had three Cy Youngs and went in first-ballot on the Sandy Koufax short-career plan.
2015: John Smoltz: An Eckersley-type hybrid pitcher with 213 wins and 154 saves. Won a Cy Young.
2019: Roy Halladay. Two-time Cy Young winner who died tragically about a year before the Hall of Fame voting. Won 203 games.
2019: Mike Mussina. Didn’t win 300 or a Cy Young, but after six ballots he was voted in anyway.
Here’s the count:
17 starters have been elected since 1990.
9 of them—more than half—won 300 games.
4 more won at least 260 games. After Justin Verlander—and he hasn’t quite gotten there himself yet—we might never have another 260-game winner.
2 of them were starter/reliever hybrid pitchers.
That leaves only two—Pedro Martinez and Roy Halladay. We’ll separate out Pedro because he was a once-in-a-generation kind of pitcher.
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So is Halladay actually the prototype for the Hall of Fame pitcher going forward? You look—he won 203 games, took home a couple Cy Youngs, posted a career 65.6 combo WAR… is that basically what Hall of Fame pitchers will look like for the next decade or two?
I’d say, yeah, that’s not a bad look. Here are the starters I think will be elected to the Hall of Fame in the next 10 or so years:
Justin Verlander, 258 wins (so far), 2 Cy Youngs, 81.3 combo WAR
Clayton Kershaw, 210 wins (so far), 3 Cy Youngs, 76.3 combo WAR
Max Scherzer, 214 wins (so far), 3 Cy Youngs, 73.3 combo WAR
Zack Greinke, 225 wins (so far?), 1 Cy Young, 69.5 combo WAR
CC Sabathia, 251 wins, a Cy Young, 64.2 combo WAR
That should take us into the mid-2030s.
And after that? Well, the picture is fuzzy after that. Here are your highest combo-WAR pitchers by age:
Age 36: Jacob deGrom (42.3 combo WAR): Dominant force, winner of two Cy Young Awards, but do you know how many career wins deGrom has? Whatever your guess is, go ahead and cut it in half. He’s won 84 games.
Age 35: Chris Sale (48.5 combo WAR): He’s shown a really nice resurgence this year, so we can hope for a second life to his career. But he has never won a Cy Young, he has 145 career victories, and the last time he threw even 160 innings in a season was 2017.
Age 34: Sonny Gray (31.2 combo WAR): Totally underrated pitcher, I think. But he has yet to win a Cy Young, and has 102 career victories.
Age 33: Kevin Gausman (27.2 combo WAR): He has a 90-94 career record with a 109 ERA+. He did lead the league in FIP in 2022.
Age 32: Gerrit Cole (42.4 combo WAR): He looks like your next Hall of Fame starter… but he’s also hurt at the moment. We keep hearing good health reports; fingers crossed. He’s 145-75 and has won a Cy Young.
Age 31: Aaron Nola (34.0 combo WAR): We know Ellen Adair will vote for him.
Age 30: Max Fried (18.0 combo WAR): He hasn’t yet won a Cy Young and he has 64 career wins. I mean, we can hope, right?
Age 29: Shane Bieber (19.6 combo WAR): Hey, he’s won a Cy Young… but he’s also out for the year.
So… I’m not sure this is much of an answer to the question, but it seems clear to me that, barring a shift in the game, the idea of what a Hall of Fame starter looks like will dramatically shift after Verlander, Scherzer, Kershaw and Greinke officially retire. I think we’ll completely throw pitcher wins out the window. We’ll look at Cy Youngs and overall dominance.
One thing I wonder is: Will this retroactively make short-career guys like Johan Santana and Felix Hernandez more viable Hall of Fame candidates?
JoeBlogs Week in Review
Monday: Talkin' Baseball.
Wednesday: Expos-Braves: May 6, 1994.
Thursday: The Best Players in Baseball Since 1901 (Part 2).
I think in a few years, starters will get about 2/3 or maybe 3/4 of the way to Cooperstown. Let's say Kingston? Maybe Binghamton?
Then someone will call for a reliever, who'll pick him up and drive him the rest of the way there.
The baseball HOF has a counterproductive longevity bias, in my opinion. Guys like Jim Kaat and Don Sutton are fine, deserving HOFers. But these guys were never “Best Pitcher In Baseball!” tell-your-grandkids-about-them players.
Meanwhile, when I was coming of age, guys like Valenzuela and Hershiser and Gooden and Saberhagen were these type. The HOF would be a lot more fun and seem a lot less stuffy and staid if the voters were more open to voting for guys like this.
For more recent guys—Johan Santana was hands down the best pitcher in baseball over a five-year stretch. Felix was the face of an otherwise snakebitten franchise, a perennially Cy Young contender, and a perfect game thrower.
These were the stars of baseball—give them a bust in Cooperstown!