# Bert Blyleven belongs in the Hall of Fame. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 28, 2002, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bert-blyleven-belongs-in-the-hall-of-fame/121278 "2002-07-28T21:20:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2002, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bert-blyleven-belongs-in-the-hall-of-fame/121278/61 "2002-08-02T03:18:38Z")
For the record: Bert Blyleven career, postseason: 8 games 5-1 record 2.47 ERA 47.3 innings pitched 36 strikeouts/8 walks Yup. Awful. ---
**Author:** ![barton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@barton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barton)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2002, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bert-blyleven-belongs-in-the-hall-of-fame/121278/62 "2002-08-02T03:32:18Z")
Bert should be in. The K’s, his reputation and his longitivity are enough. I’d vote him in if he had a losing record. I think of him in the same breath as Nolan Ryan or Steve Carlton. As for throwing out postseason performance, here’s a doozy - Ty Cobb, lifetime BA of .370, ten batting titles, most career triples and steals of home, second in hits… he wouldn’t make the cut. He was useless agains the 1907 Cubs and the 1909 Pirates, though he did pretty good in 1908. As throwing the postseason in, then Kirk Gibson should be at the top of the HOF list for a single at-bat that destroyed the '88 A’s, not forgetting he’s hit 6 other homers in the postseason and helped win the '84 Series too. ---
**Author:** ![Parthol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/dec6dc/32.png) [@Parthol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Parthol)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2002, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bert-blyleven-belongs-in-the-hall-of-fame/121278/63 "2002-08-02T05:14:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ElvisL1ves \* > …My complaint is with those who get so deeply absorbed in numbers that they actually lose sight of the game, as I fear at least one poster in this thread (along with most of SABR) has done. They’re the folks who think that, just because something can be quantified, it’s significant, and, sadly, that anything that can’t be quantified cannot be significant - or at least they don’t know enough to care. **ElvisL1ves** , this statement is painfully incorrect in two regards: 1. SABR is clearly not what you think it is. From their own web site, \*\*"The Society for American Baseball Research was established in Cooperstown, New York in August of 1971. The Society’s mission is to foster the study of baseball, to assist in developing and maintaining the history of the game, to facilitate the dissemination of baseball research, to stimulate interest in baseball, and to safeguard the proprietary interests of its members’ research efforts. SABR, which is pronounced “saber” and whose acronym led to the creation of the word sabermetrics (mathematical tools to analyze baseball), _is about much more than stats. In fact, only a minority of members pursue “number crunching” research."_\*\* (italicized emphasis mine) 1. What statistical research they _have_ done is for exactly the opposite reason than you state above. They don’t collect stats and ascribe significance to all of them willy nilly. They look at stats with a critical eye, _to discover the ones that are truly meaningful_. It’s the SABR-metricians, in fact, who realized that some commonly-used stats – RBI and AVG to name two – _aren’t_ as significant as people generally think. As for finding non-statistical things insignificant – well, I’m guessing you don’t know many people who belong to SABR. I know a few myself (though I’m not a member), and they’re awfully passionate about plenty of non-statistical baseball-related things. I’ve been a lurker on these boards long enough to know that, if you’re going to make a derrogatory blanket statement about a group of people, you should probably provide a cite, or evidence, or something. > [@](#): > > Just to illustrate the stat-geek issue further, using only a single topic, it’s been said here that a pitcher cannot influence the number of runs his team scores. To a stat geek, maybe that’s obvious. But to a _fan_, it’s clear that the greatest performers have an ability to inspire their teammates to perform at a higher level themselves - if you still are stuck with stats, compare Scotty Pippen with and without Michael Jordan alongside him, for instance, or the 1972 Phillies with and without Steve Carlton, or the Yankees with and without Roger Clemens last year, or Ferrari before and after Michael Schumacher. The reverse can be true, too - if a team has a superstar performer, it can be easy for his teammates to depend too much on him and to slack off a little. But I would suggest that such an ability to inspire teammates is a hallmark of greatness, and a major Hall of Fame qualification in any sport. Maybe Bill James can geek up an index that adequately describes it, probably not - but an actual fan knows it anway, and a stat geek does not. Anyway, yes, a pitcher can affect the number of runs his team scores - and that’s just one topic. Look, I’m all for romanticizing certain things about baseball, but not when there’s real recorded evidence that those things just aren’t true. To address your examples: 1. Basketball is a much different game than baseball. With five guys essentially playing simultaneously, they have a much greater influence on the minute-to-to minute play of their teammates. 2. I’m curious – did the Phillies score more runs for Steve Carlton than for other pitchers in 1972? Or did he win so many of that team’s games because he gave up _less than half as many runs per inning as Ken Reynolds, the next best starter for the Phils that year?_ And what happened in 1973, when his ERA was almost exactly at the league average, but his record was 13-20? Did he forget how to inspire his hitters that year? Look, I’d love to discover a pitcher who could spur his team score more runs whenever he pitched. But if there has been such a pitcher, wouldn’t there be _one small shred of evidence?_ There just isn’t. Run support wavers from year to year even for the greatest pitchers. Roger Clemens, whom you cite in your example, is getting mediocre-at-best run support this year – he’s 40th in the majors, and getting over 2 runs less per game than his teammate David Wells. Never mind the lousy run support he got during his last few years with the Red Sox. What happened to his ability to inspire between last year and this year? Don’t you think it’s more likely that run support is simply a thing that pitchers don’t influence, regardless of how great they are, or how much their teammates love them? I root and cheer with my heart, but I think with my brain. There’s room in my baseball life for both. > [@](#): > > Darn right. Gotta be a fan of the game, not of the stats - or you’re going to embarrass yourself with geekery like claiming that good-but-not-great players really were great, despite what the fans and players actually saw. Maybe watching a good soccer game would help these poor sods. I’ll bet a vast majority of both fans and players would tell you that “good teams win the close games.” That must make it true, huh? Well, except that, like many things that people don’t scrutinize closely, it’s not true at all. Am I not an “actual fan” because I went and found that out? I _would_ be interested in seeing more newspaper articles written at the time about Bert, or real quotes about him from contemporary players. Anyway, I doubt I’ll convince you of anything, when better minds than mine have failed. > [@](#): > > **RTFirefly** , well said, every time. You clearly have your priorities straight. At last, something on which we can agree. 🙂 -Parthol [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bert-blyleven-belongs-in-the-hall-of-fame/121278.md?page=3)