The Man Who Changed Baseball

RIP Tommy John, who should not have died outside the Baseball Hall of Fame

Let’s start with a little Hall of Fame pitcher history: In 1988, Gaylord Perry made his first appearance on the Hall of Fame ballot. Perry won 314 games in his big league career. He was the first 300-game winner to appear on the ballot since Warren Spahn 15 years earlier, in 1973.

We tend to think now of 300 wins basically punching a pitcher’s ticket for the Hall … but that wasn’t the case in 1991. Perry was a controversial figure, you know, because of all the spitballs and feigned spitballs, and it took him three ballots to get elected. He was elected the same year as Fergie Jenkins, who won 284 games.

The next year, 300-game winner Tom Seaver was elected first ballot.

The next year, 300-game winner Phil Niekro came on the ballot — it took him five ballots to get elected.

The next year, 300-game winners Steve Carlton and Don Sutton became eligible. Carlton went in right away; Sutton. like Niekro, needed five tries.

In 1996, crazily, there were TWO 300-game winners on the ballot but nobody was elected.

Then in 1999, with all the other 300-game winners of his time now in the Hall, Nolan Ryan appeared on the ballot and fell just six votes shy of a unanimous election.

Since Ryan, four pitchers have won 300 games. Three were elected first ballot. The fourth is Roger Clemens, who is his own story.

The point is that somewhere along the way, I believe, 300-game winners did start getting special Hall of Fame consideration the same way 500-homer hitters did before the Selig Era. But what about those pitchers who fell JUST SHORT of 300-wins?

In 1999, the year Ryan was elected, three of those pitchers were on the ballot.

• Jim Kaat, 283 wins, 20.1%

• Tommy John, 288 wins, 18.7%

• Bert Blyleven, 287 wins, 14.1%

In my memory, the three of them were thrown into the same bucket because of their win totals. All three were considered fine pitchers, but, according to most voters, not Hall of Famers because they were not aces. None of them won a Cy Young Award. None had that superstar aura while they played. The Hall of Fame was much more of a gut check then than it is now. You’d hear voters say things like, “If you needed to win a Game 7, would you pitch one of these guys?’

Over time, as fans expanded their minds beyond pitcher wins, it became very clear that the three pitchers were not alike at all. Bert Blyleven struck out 3,700 batters in his career. He threw more shutouts than Bob Gibson, Steve Carlton, or Jim Palmer. When people began calculating wins above replacement, it became clear that Blyleven was not only a Hall of Famer but an inner-circle, first-ballot guy — his 94.5 WAR even now ranks 38th all-time, and that includes pitchers and hitters.

The writers eventually figured it out and voted in Be Home Blyleven.

They never came even close to electing Kaat or John. In his last year on the BBWAA ballot, Tommy John got 31.7% of the vote, the only time either of them topped 30% in their combined 30 years of consideration. Neither Kaat nor John had the sort of compelling statistical mic drop that Blyleven had with those 3,700 Ks or 60 shutouts or 95 WAR.

Kaat’s case, beyond the wins, revolved around his remarkable durability and longevity, along with his sterling reputation as a good guy and fine representative of the game as a broadcaster and storyteller. No, it wasn’t enough to convince the baseball writers. But it did convince the Veterans Committee, which elected him in 2022.

Tommy John, meanwhile, has not been elected.

I would not want to be one asked to make a case that Jim Kaat was a better pitcher than Tommy John. It would require all sorts of statistical shell games. I mean, look:

Tommy John: 288-231, 3.34 ERA, 3.38 FIP, 46 shutouts, 71 combo WAR, all-time leader in double plays induced.

Jim Kaat: 283-237, 3.45 ERA, 3.41 FIP, 31 shutouts, 58 combo WAR, second all-time in double plays, 142 behind John.

There’s not a lot of wiggle room here. It sure seems like they were very similar pitchers, and John was better.

But when it comes to a Hall of Fame case, which should take into account the impact of a player’s career, there’s simply no comparison here. Yes, Kaat was a wonderful pitcher, and he is a wonderful man, and I’m glad he’s in the Hall of Fame. But Tommy John fundamentally changed the game. His name is on the mind of every single baseball fan in the world. Tommy John was the first to have and the first to recover from Tommy John surgery.

What pitcher in the last 75 years has changed the game more?

I’ve heard it said that John shouldn’t get too much credit for the surgery since he didn’t perform it — that was Dr. Frank Jobe who, absolutely, should be in the Hall of Fame himself. But it’s utterly preposterous to downplay the role that Tommy John played in all this. He had the surgery when it was nothing more than an idea, an experiment. Then he rehabilitated from the surgery with no blueprint. And then he became an elite pitcher again — he received Cy Young votes every year from 1977-1980 and finished second twice. He paved the way. He showed what’s possible.

I’ve been a proponent of Tommy John’s Hall of Fame case for many years, but as we learn today of his death at 83, I wish I’d been louder about it. Maybe (probably) that wouldn’t have made any difference, I don’t know. But I do know he very much wanted to be elected to the Hall, it meant so much to him, and now it’s too late. Yes, of course, the voters can elect him posthumously the way they elected Dick Allen and Ron Santo and Buck O’Neil and Marvin Miller and so many others, but there’s something crushingly sad about that.

Tommy John won 288 games, more than any modern pitcher not in the Hall of Fame (not counting Clemens). He instigated more double plays than any pitcher ever by a wide margin. He was the first to have the surgery that changed baseball.

He died outside the Hall of Fame. It isn’t right.