Tuesday, June 15, 2004

Rating the Great Pitchers - Feedback

The great AstrosMike (one of the top NFL handicappers in the country) sent me a quick note about some of the pitchers I may have missed:
Chris,

Some other possibilities that you may have overlooked or never saw:

Hall of Famers - Wynn, Lemon

Memorables - Newcombe, Reynolds, Gossage, Burdette, John, Face, Pierce, Lyle, Sutter, Quisenberry, Maglie

Mike G.

I though it was worthwile to address the names that Mike brought up. (I should also fess up and acknowledge that I pretty much completely overlooked most of these guys and as usual I bow to the sports historical knowledge of Mike.)

Hall of Famers - Wynn and Lemon. Completely forgot about Early Winn and Bob Lemon. Wynn did have 300 wins but it took 23 seasons and his ERA+ was just 106. Bob Lemon was inducted into the HOF as a player (but I think it because he was such a gentleman as a manager that put him over the top). It took 18 years to get Lemon elected to the HOF (Lemon had 207 wins over 13 season - including seven 20 win seasons).

Memorables - Don Newcombe (one great season in 1956 when he won the MVP and Cy Young but he only played 10 years - obviously he wasn't memorable to me but I would put him on the list); Shane Reynolds (umm... no. I know you're an Astros fan but he was no more memorable than Al Nipper); Goose Gossage (310 saves - many people would argue that he deserves to be in the HOF but I'm not one of those people. I do agree that he should have been on the memorable list); Lew Burdette (again - I have to say no on this one - career ERA+ was less than the league average); Tommy John (I should have remembered Tommy John and a very good case could be made for him being in the HOF); Roy Face (again no); Billy Pierce (before my time but I could see putting him on the memorable list); Sparky Lyle (Danny fucking Cater - yeah I guess I find Sparky memorable); Bruce Sutter (excellent case can be made for Sutter for the HOF - at the very least he's on the memorable list); Dan Quisenberry (more dominating than Gossage or Lyle but he played in KC - on the memorable list) and Sal Maglie (more memorable for his nickname of "The Barber" than for being HOF caliber - kinda like Al Hyrboskie).

A bunch of other pitchers could have been mentioned like David Cone, Lee Smith, Jeff Readon, and Dave Righetti but I wanted to focus on the top of the list more than the bottom of the list.

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