"Chris" is right. Randy's Ws are extremely dependent on the Yanks' insane offense. If Randy pitches the same in 2007 as he did this year, with a 5-point-whatever ERA, but the Yanks' offense drops by a run or two per game, then suddenly Randy's W-L ratio doesn't look so hot.

The reverse is true for Blyleven: if his offensive backing had been greater, then he might have hit 300 Ws and would be a shoo-in for the Hall.

Why would you judge a pitcher's effectiveness by how many runs his team scores? That's like saying a terrible actor in an otherwise fantastic movie should still win an Oscar. Sure the actor's performance is boosted by the ensemble cast, but take the cast away (as you will have to do in the next movie) and you still have a terrible actor.

ERA and other individual factors (such as strikeouts, in Blyleven's case) are much better indicators of how a pitcher will perform regardless of the team that is scoring runs for him. And that is how we should be judging pitchers - as individuals. (Sure, baseball's a team sport, but you can't induct an entire team into the HOF, and you can't sign a single contract for an entire team.) Johnson is a fantastic pitcher and first-ballot HOFer, and his sub-par performance with the Yankees (which would be golden anywhere else) shouldn't necessarily be grounds for dismissal. But Kay is erroneous to hold up Johnson as the Second Coming.

If you hypothetically wanted to meet Michael on his level, I think one could easily look at Johnson's game logs and see how many times he actually did pitch to the score. In other words, was he only allowing big runs with a lead? Or was he winning some games 6-3, while getting blasted in some other games in which the Yankees needed him to keep the score down. If it's a mix, I think that means that he wasn't pitching to the score. He was just a guy pitching well some days and not others, but ultimately getting 17 wins with the help of good run support. In other words, how much of a correlation was there between the runs Johnson allowed and the runs the Yankees scored in each game.

Of course, then you can get into BABIP and all that stuff, but I don't want Michael's head to explode.

I'm not too good at doing what the people at Baseball Prospectus does, but I did figure out that Johnson had a 3.50 ERA in his 17 wins, a 6.39 ERA in his five no-decisions, and a 6.96 ERA in his 11 losses.

He's given up 3 or more runs in 7 of his wins. Of those 7, he's had leads of at least 5 runs in three of those games. In another game, he was actually losing by two before the Yankees scored six runs in their half-inning to give Johnson a 4-run lead.

Interpret all that as you wish. :/

I wouldn't mind if Michael Kay's head would explode. I think I'd be far enough way from the blast to be safe.

Michael Kay is a moron? No way!

I haven't listened to a game he's done in more than 2 years, which is tough considering I watch all the Yankee games. I tried to give him another shot last season, but during the first FREAKIN' game of the year, Kay said "Frank Thomas isn't a Hall of Famer". I had to shut the volume off once again. The guy is an idiot. The end.

Well argued, Rich. I look for RJ to be less than .500 for the Diamondbacks -- maybe much worse. His ERA may be better than in the AL, but not much. I'll be watching to see who does better, Marquis or Johnson.... We can go overboard on some stats, but ERA, like batting average and RBI, isn't one of them. I've been following baseball pretty closely for more than 50 years--but that hardly gives me the authority to dismiss incntrovertible statistical evidence.

In this column, Heyman is a good example of a guy who knows just enough to be dangerous. Stats are deceiving in Blyleven's case, and those of us who are swayed by them can be easily dismissed. But I suspect most of us would be able to tell him that, in Jack Morris' case, winning the most games from 1980-1989 is no more germane as a HOF qualification than winning the most games from 1977-1986. If he's willing to make the latter a qualification for Ron Guidry, then I will make the former one for Morris.

Also, just once, I would love to hear one of Morris' defenders explain why being first in wins in the '80s is a qualification while being SEVENTEENTH in ERA is not a disqualification. (That's among pitchers who logged 1567 innings, one for every scheduled game of the decade. Raise it to 1620 innings and Morris is 15th.) In fairness, Morris is third in strikeouts ... albeit three full seasons' worth behind Nolan Ryan.

Finally, 14 Opening Day starts is a pretty cool stat, but how much of a HOF indicator can that be when first-ballot HOFer Jim Palmer only had six?

Speaking of Blyleven, John Brattain of The Hardball Times is concerned that I may not have anything to write about next December if Bert gets voted in this year. Not to worry, John, I'll be spending my time and energy on The Hall of Fame Case for Tim Raines if that happens

Rich:

Great call.

Heck, you'll be seeing me froth at the mouth if Raines doesn't make it. At BTF in the Andre Dawson thread I posted:

Player         OPS+    RCAA    PA     Outs
Tim Raines     123      516   10359   6670
Andre Dawson   119      216   10769   7621 

If Dawson is "borderline" then Raines is a bloody slam dunk-plus.

So expect some company in "Can't Reign In Raines."

Best Regards

John

With respect to Raines, he's arguably the 2nd best leadoff guy in the last 40 years of MLB, to leave him off the ballot would be tragedy of Shakespearean levels. Expect more support for this one.

Michael Kay and Jon Heyman are like the managers in meetings who make sure to remind everyone that they went to Stanford or Harvard while making lame suggestions.

I saw Blyleven pitch for all of his career. And for most of his career, I thought he was one of the best pitchers in the game. He just pitched for some bad teams and lost a lot of 2-1 and 1-0 games, games in which he would pitch all nine innings and strike out 13 while walking 2. I guess he just wasn't very good at pitching to ths score, except when he pitched for championship teams.

Here is my piece on Raines and the Hall of Fame.

(http://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=2006101711173128)

Good job, Mike. I played APBA and had Tim Raines on my team during the early '80s as well. Gotta love those 11s and 14*. :)

"Had only one 20-win season at a time they weren't so rare and only four years with Cy Young votes."

So, the same group of idiots who don't vote for him now also didn't vote for him for Cy Young in a bunch of seasons where he got hitters out but didn't get 'wins'? Great point, but perhaps not in the way ole Heyman intended.

Look Raines is the man, but don't crap all over my boy "Hawk" Dawson.

Dawson: more than 1000 extra base hits, arguable for the Gold Glove in his first 5 years in CF. It would be unprecedented for the HOF to leave him out based on established patterns (they love CF and they love XBH)

It will be a battle to get Raines elected, but the nimrods will die out, and he'll get in eventually.

Regarding Blyleven and the commonness of 20-game winners, it's interesting that he got started in 1971, when there were 14 such pitchers, but four years later, there were only seven, and the number has been in single digits ever since. Hayman's comment doesn't stand up to scrutiny for the vast majority of Blyleven's career.

Er, Heyman.

Blyleven took a step back with the addition of Ripken and Gwynn on the ballot, polling only 47.7% :(

Keep the faith Rich. He'll get there. Keep pluggin' away.

I'll look after Rock Raines for 2008.

Best Regards

John

Look Raines is the man, but don't crap all over my boy "Hawk" Dawson.

I'd never do that. I'm an old Expos fan remember? :-)

Best Regards

John