Jon Heyman Still Doesn't Get It

Bert Blyleven.  Do you disagree?

It's admirable that Jon Heyman made his Hall of Fame ballot public, but his choices, reasoning and explanations just defy any logic, coherence or simple understanding of what makes a Hall of Famer.

As we all know by now, the major discrepancy between Heyman's ballot and simple logic isn't the inclusion of Jack Morris on his ballot, but the stance that he was a better pitcher than Bert Blyleven.  The case for Jack Morris usually considers the following:

1. Clutch pitching, headlined by his 1991 World Series Game 7 performance--10 innings 1-0 shutout.
2. Impressive 254 wins and 175 complete games
3. 3 World Series rings
4. Excuses for his high rather ERA, as Heyman notes: "Morris has a high lifetime ERA, 3.90. But some of that is due to the 6.19 and 5.60 marks he put up in his final two seasons. And part of it is due to him pitching to the scoreboard, which the very best pitchers could do."
5. The "you had to be there" stance.  Since the numbers don't quite add up (3.90 ERA, and less wins than many pitchers in the Hall and out of the Hall) Morris supporters resort to a "gut feeling" or some intangible argument.

I understand that Hall of Fame voting can be a very personal matter, and if you are going to include Morris because of some "gut feeling" about him being better than his numbers may indicate (Reason #5), then fine, include him, whatever.  I don't have a problem with that.  My problem comes when you use his numbers as reasoning, because then your entire argument falls apart (Reasons 1-4).  

If you want to include Jack Morris, but not Blyleven, your argument should start and end with the 5th point.  In points 1-4, Blyleven will always come out on top, it's simply a matter of fact as his numbers are better.  Essentially when you criticize Blyleven's numbers, you are simultaneously criticizing Morris'.  The only argument for Morris is the intangible, "gut feeling" "you had to be there" argument.  Saying anything else beyond that just undermines Morris' case.

For instance, just look at some of Heyman's comments on Blyleven:

"The scarcity of complete games in recent years has also shined a light on some his lifetime achievements."

If the scarcity of complete games in recent years shines light on *some* of his lifetime achievements, why highlight Morris' 175 complete games as reason for his inclusion when Blyleven had 67 more?

"[He] never dominated even one season or certainly a series of seasons. He never finished higher than third in the Cy Young balloting and only four times finished in the top 10, meaning he was never considered among the two best pitchers in his league during his time."

Two things.  First, the fact that voters were stupid to not give Blyleven more love shouldn't hurt him now. Second, Jack Morris never finished higher than 3rd in the Cy Young balloting, meaning he was also never considered among the two best pitchers in his league during his time.  Ah, let's give a third thing, just because Blyleven wasn't considered great, doesn't mean he wasn't great.  I suppose when evolution wasn't "considered" a fact it meant it wasn't right?

"Blyleven was never considered to be in the category of the game's best pitchers during his career. He simply outlasted almost everyone else and kept pitching effectively into his 40s. He never led the league in wins or ERA"

We've already been through this, and Morris was never considered to be in the category of the game's best pitchers during his time either.  Also Blyleven didn't pitch effectively in his 40s, at age 39 he had an ERA over 5, he didn't pitch at age 40 and at age 41 he was below average.  Anyways, in what world should it be held against Blyleven that he pitched longer and more effectively than Morris? Just a few points ago it was fine to dismiss Morris' last few seasons as an excuse for his high ERA, if we do the same for Blyleven his ERA drops to 3.14 from 3.33, again,over half a run better than Morris'.

"He only received MVP votes twice, finishing 26th in 1973 and 13th in 1989." 

Here we go again, if voters made a mistake in the 70s, we shouldn't compound their mistake in 2011.  Plus, it's not like Morris was a great MVP candidate.  He received MVP votes in 5 separate years compared to just 2 by Blyleven but he finished 13th twice, 15th, 20th and 21st.  Neither pitcher was ever a legitimate MVP candidate, making this point rather useless.

"According to baseball-reference.com, he ranks 936th alltime in MVP shares at 0.09."

This may be true, but if one is going to site a statistic on baseball-reference.com, this is cherry-picking one that is both unimportant and the only one where Morris may outrank Blyleven.  We've already established that Morris received more MVP votes, instead of going down that path again let's take a look at some actual important measures on baseball-reference.com that tell us perhaps who *should* have won more awards:

WAR: Blyleven 90.1, Morris 39.3.  That's a pretty darn huge difference.  Maybe you think that WAR is a great way of comparing pitchers and maybe you don't, but almost statistic with that large of a discrepancy should tell you something.  And it's not like WAR is just any old random statistic, it's a pretty well established one at this point. 

ERA+: Blyleven 118, Morris 105.  At least according to ERA, Blyleven was legitimately better than Morris, and did it over 1,000 more innings too.

Also, baseball-reference.com has 4 Hall of Fame stats, let's take a look at each one:

Black Ink Test, average HOFer ~40: Blyleven 16, Morris 20

Grey Ink Test, average HOFer ~185: Blyleven 237, Morris 185

Hall of Fame Monitor, average HOFer~ 100: Blyleven 120, Morris 122

Hall of Fame Standards, averag HOFer ~50: Blyleven 50, Morris 39

Now, Blyleven doesn't blow Morris out of the water here, but he's definitely better.  Morris beats him in 2 of the tests, but both are minor differences, and in one (Black Ink) neither of them qualify.  

What seems to happen every year in the Morris v. Blyleven Hall of Fame debate is that Morris supporters who lived to see both players pitch have this intangible, gut feeling that Morris was the better pitcher.  That's their opinion and I'm not going to kill them for having it but even those people (like Heyman) don't feel comfortable relying on just that for their argument.  And in the process of using reason to explain why Morris is a better pitcher, their argument always come up short, likely because there is no reason to explain Morris as a better pitcher.  It may seem counter intuitive, but less is more in the Morris HOF debate because once you bring numbers into the equation, there is no justifiable reason to include Morris and not Blyleven.

This type of problem comes up all the time, and quite frankly, I'm getting pretty tired of it-- if you don't like  statistics, then don't use statistics.  Heyman and co. come off sounding pretty stupid when they cite an MVP shares statistic but run for the hills when someone brings up a valuable statistic, that, you know, tells us how good a player is like ERA+ or WAR.   If you rely on just what you saw while you may seem pretty ignorant at least you'd be consistent.  

In his argument to not include Blyleven, Heyman for some reason unknown to me, brings up Bobby Abreu as a comparable player to Blyleven, where numbers don't tell the entire story:

I've already seen hints from the numbers guys that they believe Abreu could have a strong Hall of Fame case based on his statistics, which currently include a .296 lifetime average, eight seasons of 100 RBIs and eight of 100 runs scored. I can imagine him becoming the next Blyleven, a very good player whose career numbers lead to an Internet campaign on his behalf. To me, both were excellent players who were consistent, durable and compiled impressive numbers. But they're not Hall of Famers.

If you put Blyleven's lifetime numbers through a computer, the computer would probably determine that he (and Abreu, for that matter) is a Hall of Famer. But the game is about human beings, not just numbers. It's about impact. 

This would be a worthwhile point if  the "numbers guys" believed Abreu to have a strong Hall of Fame case.  It may be true that Abreu in his prime was maybe a tad underrated, as is ability to draw walks and steal bases at a great percentage, occurred without much attention.  But, it's likely the non-numbers guys that will point to his life time average and RBI totals as reason for enshrinement.  The "numbers guys" will actually point to his awful defense and overall value not being able to justify himself as a Hall of Famer.  Heyman tries using Abreu to bait you into believing that you can't rely on statistics, but he fails pretty miserably with Abreu being a pretty piss-poor example.

While I think it's quite stupid and wildly disagree with Hall of Fame voting coming down to intangibles, "you had to be there" arguments and as Heyman so eloquently says, "impact", that's each voter's prerogative on how they want to measure a Hall of Famer.  But please, stop trying using reason, logic or statistics to back up your choice when those things simply don't exist in your argument.  It's not that there isn't a case to be made for Morris as a Hall of Famer, it's that the argument for Morris would need to occur after Blyleven gets in.

At least we don't have to argue about Jeff Bagwell, right?  Wait, you're telling me Heyman decided he's not worthy but Don Mattingly, Dave Parker and Dale Murphy are?  Until next time...