Are half of HOF-eligible retired MLB players pitchers? It’s not even close on the ballot this year.
Out of curiosity I went to baseball reference to check the record, took the 69 starting pitchers in the hall, and broke down how many had started their career in any given decade.
1870s 4
1880s 6
1890s 7
1900s 8
1910s 10 (9 if you don’t count Ruth)
1920s 4
1930s 5
1940s 4 (counting Satchel Paige as starting in 1948)
1950s 5
1960s 10
1970s 1 (2 if you count Eckersley as a starter)
1980s 4 (3 if you don’t count Smoltz)
1990s 1
So if Clemens, Mussina, and Schilling all get in eventually, that’ll make the 1980s above-average in terms of how many pitchers made it.
(Too late to edit - Mussina actually started in the 90s, which will probably ultimately save that decade from ranking with the 70s in lack of starting pitching).
That does seem odd, but over time, it should average out, unless pitchers are less likely than position players to make 10 years in the bigs.
OK, why not? What is more reasonable to you than saying the top X % of players at their position in their time should go in? If pitchers do burn out more quickly, then making 10 years maybe should mean that the percent you vote for should be higher than for other positions.
He was as svelte as Rafael Palmeiro. You can’t tell, and you can’t ever be sure about anyone. There were also some guys who tried it once or twice to see what would happen, and others who shot up more juice than the East German Olympic Team. Eliminating guys who you know or simply suspect did something that was as prevalent in the game as amphetamines used to be just makes your choices largely random. The only way to maintain a consistent and defensible moral standard about PED’s is either to accept and ignore it as a factor, or just refuse to vote for anyone from that era, right?
Is there only one proper approach to evaluating candidates, yours? Only one proper way to decide how to choose and weight information? :dubious:
That’s what I was thinking. Relievers churn through quite a bit more than positional players do, because they’re so marginally valuable.
About 40% of “starting” positions in the AL and a bit more in the NL are held by pitchers. That’s counting 5 starters and 1 closer, versus 8 or 9 offensive positions. (If you’re a middle-innings reliever you have 0% likelihood of being considered for the hall.)
Because a lot of pitchers are middle relievers or spot starters. There aren’t as many opportunities for great pitchers to emerge.
In the actual HOF, pitchers make up 34% of position players. That seems about right.
https://baseballhall.org/hall-of-famers/hall-of-famers-by-position
But there are a lot of roster spots available for them, and the talent pool may be shallower. It may be easier for a marginal athlete to make the bigs as a pitcher than a hitter, meaning a higher percentage of pitchers are unworthy, so there’s an argument for a lower percentage. But marginal athletes don’t often last 10 years in the bigs and don’t qualify anyway.
I have to disagree that great pitchers have any trouble at all emerging. The game screams for pitching talent, and has for a long time. Even adequate pitchers emerge pretty easily.
Considering that there were typically no more than 10 or so pitchers out of a 25-man roster for most of the game’s history, yes, it does. But more recently it’s been closer to 50%, so shouldn’t the ballots reflect that too?
Yeah, that didn’t come out quite right. Maybe better to say there aren’t as many “high profile” pitcher positions available? Point is, you’ve got 8 position players (plus a DH in the AL) but (usually) only 5 starting pitchers. Plus a closer, who for whatever reasons may have more difficulty getting into the HOF.
I will say that voters do seem to be stricter with modern pitchers than those of years past.
The issue, I think, is that most of that increase reflects teams carrying additional middle relievers*, a role which someone has already noted as being one that’s going to be very, very unlikely to produce Hall-worthy candidates. Who’s the best middle reliever in the game right now? Who’s the best set-up man? Who’s the best LOOGY? 
Even if there were definitive answers to those questions, those are roles that simply don’t have the visibility of a starter or a closer.
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- the exception being that, 40 years ago, a 4-man starting rotation was the norm, and now a 5-man rotation is the norm.
Ugh, Morris and Trammell elected. Neither are worthy, they belong in the Hall of Very Good.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/sports/tigertown-jack-morris-alan-trammell-elected-to-baseball-hall-of-fame/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Hall%20of%20Fame%20121117&utm_term=SPORTS_YES
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I can live with Trammell but not Morris. Talk about lowering the bar. Morris wasn’t even the best pitcher being considered (Tiant.)
NBC Sports also agrees. Morris isn’t a Hall of Fame guy.
NBC Sports - HardballTalk: Jack Morris should not be in the Hall of Famehttp://mlb.nbcsports.com/2017/12/10/jack-morris-should-not-be-in-the-hall-of-fame/
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Morris had a good enough record and was a consistent winner over a long period of time but his 3.90 ERA is too high for a HOF pitcher. It’s like selecting someone with a .240 lifetime batting average.
Trammell, on the other hand, deserved to be selected during his first go-around. What hurt him was the fact he played during a time when there were not only a lot of great shortstops in the MLB but also in the AL East (the division the Tigers were in at the time). The fact he missed out on being named AL MVP didn’t help. For example, he definitely should’ve won in 1987. If he had, I think he would’ve gotten into the HOF a lot sooner.
Durned shame that Lou Whitaker didn’t even make the cut-he was significantly better than Morris.
Elvis:
The typical MLB team carries 5 starters, is a 3rd-or-worse starter a likely All-Star? Then there’s a 6-or-more man bullpen, the closer might be star-level, and recently, teams have had as many as 3 star-level relievers (e.g., the 2013-2015 Royals), but that still leaves a lot of scrub pitchers in there.
That takes the 1984 Tigers off the very small (maybe even exclusive?) list of World Series championship teams with no Hall of Famers. (Obviously, those long enough ago that all members have been retired long enough to be HoF-eligible).
That’s interesting trivia. I’m not going to hunt for a WS champ without a hall of famer, but I’m pretty sure the 1997 Florida Marlins will be such a team (unless one of these feckless panels backdoors Gary Sheffield.)
I just checked several recent teams, and it looks pretty dire for the 2002 Angels and 2008 Phillies (Chase Utley is the best candidate on the 2 teams, and his candidacy depends heavily on how you evaluate his D. And he’s still 150 hits short of 2000…).
The HOF ballot eliminates anyone who wasn’t good enough to stay in MLB for 10 years, which I suspect takes care of more scrub pitchers than scrub position players. Among the players who *were *good enough to make 10 years, aren’t pitchers underrepresented? Isn’t the prime for a pitcher typically shorter than for a hitter?
Kudos to Jack Morris, btw, way too late, though - the committee remembered the stated election criteria. But Trammell was always just very good, never one of the dominant players at his position.