View Single Post
Old 06-22-2005, 01:40 AM   #168 (permalink)
Big Train
Major Leagues
 
Join Date: May 2002
Location: Canada
Posts: 317
Thanks: 0
Thanked 0x in 0 posts
I think a big part of the argument here is peak performance vs longevity and consistently being very good, is dominating the league for a few years and then getting injured or whatever and having a shorter carreer better than being among the top 10 for a very long time even if never rising to the level of best in the league.

I don't think anyone is arguing that we should just throw out other stats and only look at wins or that wins aren't influenced by run support and other factors but over a certain point a large number of wins do demonstrate a sustained level of greatness. Some Hall of Famers are never or very seldom thought of by anyone as the very best pitcher but they are consisitantly good enough for a long enough period of time to rack up a lot of wins, maybe that is helped by the team they play for but staying in a good team's rotation for a long time and racking up good win totals every year is a feat in itself.
Don Sutton comes to mind when I think of this category and Rafael Palmiero as a hitter who will surely get in now and if Mussina has 4 or 5 decent seasons left he will be in this category as well. If he retired today I don't think he would be a Hall of Fame pitcher but he's fairly close.


Of course as others have pointed out when you get over a certain number of wins other statistics will tend to fall into line as well, you don't see many 300 game winners with high ERAs or other bad stats.

There's an extreme on both sides, I don't think Jack Chesbro, Joe Wood or Roger Maris should be in the hall based on one great season and I don't think someone like Rube Marquard or Jesse Haines should be there who won a lot of games but not enough in my opinion to make up for the fact that a lot of their other stats are less than stellar.

Like a lot of things a balance between how good a player was at his best and how long he was able to sustain that level of performance or close to it.
Big Train is offline   Reply With Quote