Dave Stewart

[Cowtipper]

Dave Stewart pitched in the big leagues from 1978 to 1995, going 168-129 with a 3.95 ERA. He won exactly half of his games in a four-year stretch from 1987 to 1990, when he went 84-45 with a 3.20 ERA, averaging 21 wins, 10 complete games, two shutouts and 265 innings pitched a year. He won 20 games each of those seasons.

Stewart, a one-time All-Star, led the league in games started four times, batters faced three times, complete games twice, innings pitched twice, shutouts once and wins once. In the field, he led pitchers in fielding percentage once as well.

In the postseason, he always seemed to perform well. He pitched in 22 games (making 18 starts) and went 10-6 with a 2.77 ERA. He posted sub-3.00 ERA in eight of the 11 seasons he pitched, and sub-2.00 ERAs in four of the Series. He worked in five World Series, walking away with three rings--his postseason accolades include the 1989 Babe Ruth Award, the 1989 World Series MVP Award, the 1990 AL ALCS MVP Award and the 1993 AL ALCS MVP Award. He also won the Roberto Clemente Award in 1990.

Statistically, the righty is similar to Rick Sutcliffe, Kevin Appier, Virgil Trucks, Bob Buhl, Dave Stieb, Mike Flanagan, Bob Forsch, Al Leiter, Andy Benes and Joe Coleman. He actually performed kind of well in Hall of Fame voting, receiving 7.4% of the vote in his first year of eligibility. In his second year, he just missed the cut-off, receiving 4.9%.

The Fan EloRater places him at #250, ahead of Hooks Wiltse, Claude Hendrix and Frank Lary, but behind Rick Rhoden, Firpo Marberry and Brandon Webb.

What do you think about Dave Stewart? Should he be in the Hall of Fame? Did he have Hall of Fame potential?

[Los Bravos]

Like Mike Cuellar, he got a late start as a dominant starter, had a terrific peak but falls short.

Even so...he'll always own Roger Clemens.

[dgarza]

Nice 4 year peak, and that's all. 70% of his WAR came in 25% of his career.

[Freakshow]

A poor man's Jack Morris. Overrated due to being the workhorse on a strong team. Cuellar is an excellent comp. Last man to pitch 800 innings over three seasons.

[Cougar]

I think if Dave Duncan had gotten hold of him five years earlier, his career would look a lot like Jim Palmer's, without the Cys.

As is, just too late a peak to amass the career numbers a player needs for the HOF.

[KCGHOST]

Not even Dave Stewart seriously thinks he should be in the HoF.

[Second Base Coach]

This is a good case for wudda-cudda-shudda.

If he stayed in Dodger Stadium and pitched a little better when he first came up, I am supposing the Dodgers would have put him into the rotation. I cannot say for sure if he would have the win rate like he did for that Oakland A's team, but it would have been interesting to find out. Who knows, maybe he would have learned to throw more strikes.

This scenario adds about a thousand innings to his career stat line. He has almost no historical value prior to his age 29 year. For all intents and purposes he had half a career for someone who played in parts of sixteen MLB seasons. He was 49-51 away from Oakland stretched out over parts of eight seasons. That is a lot of part-time duty...

[dgarza]

From 1978-1995, 93 pitchers had a seasonal WAR of 5.0+ at least once. Dave Stewart was not one of them. Perhaps he might have done it if he had a better start, but seeing that he didn't even do that with Oakland makes me think maybe not.

[Biofury]

Definitely not, only mentioned due to that 4-year peak with Oakland. Had he at least doubled that performance, then yea, HOF due to peak value.