Your take on these Hall of Fame Pitchers...

[Frank]

What's your take on these Hall of Fame Pitchers? Do you feel these Pitchers all deserve to be in the Hall? Do you feel they were some of the most Dominant Pitchers of there Era's? Just curious.....

1.Don Drysdale
2.Ted Lyons
3.Jesse Haines
4.Jim Bunning
5.Red Faber
6.Herb Pennock
7.Rube Marquard
8.Waite Hoyt
9.Dizzy Dean
10.Lefty Gomez

[frehleyscomet]

The baseball hall of fame is a joke. Players that need to be in are not, and players that shouldnt be are. Pathetic. Its truly a hall of shame.

[rich]

Old Days....Good times I remember

Frank. I saw only 2 on your list pitch, Bunning & Drysdale. They are both Hall worthy in my opinion. To me, stats only carry the day so far but I realize that it's difficult to go by anything but stats for player's of yesteryear.

[Los Bravos]

You can probably make an anti-Drysdale case from his raw numbers but you cannot say he wasn't dominant in his era. Everyone who played against him or saw him play knows that he was.

[RuthMayBond]

What's your take on these Hall of Fame Pitchers? Do you feel these Pitchers all deserve to be in the Hall? Do you feel they were some of the most Dominant Pitchers of there Era's? Just curious.....

1.Don Drysdale
2.Ted Lyons
3.Jesse Haines
4.Jim Bunning
5.Red Faber
6.Herb Pennock
7.Rube Marquard
8.Waite Hoyt
9.Dizzy Dean
10.Lefty Gomez

Here's approximately my career ranking of these guys
Lyons
Drysdale
Faber
Bunning
Dean
approximately my HOF cutoff line
Gomez
Hoyt
Pennock
Marquard
Haines

[THE OX]

If you're judging these players strictly on their career stats, and finding the older ones sort of lacking, it should be remembered that back then most players spent a long time in the minors, and generally retired or were discarded when in their mid-to-late 30s.

Bottom line, if a player didn't come up until age 24 or 25 and whose career was over by age 35 or 36, he only had 11 - 13 seasons to compile his career stats. So they might pale by comparison with those of more recent players whose careers might well be 17 - 20 years in length.

So when you see a pitcher with "only" 200 wins, he might have accumulated them at about the same rate of wins-per-year as the more recent player with 300.

[Paul Wendt]

For any major league pitcher and about 20 season pitching statistics, you can look up the progress of his league rank in the bottom half of his player page at baseball-reference. For example, see Hippo Vaughn, a contemporary of Marquard and Pennock who achieved greater dominance.
--

"Dominance" refers to the time in a pitchers career when he was consistently at his best. Maybe a pitcher with medium or long career of mediocre average quality achieved dominance.

Herb Pennock has one of those uneven careers featuring his first six seasons with the Yankees, beginning 1923 and including three pennants. He ranked thus among the league leaders in two statistics that seem to capture dominance.
: Walks & Hits (WHIP) 5 5 1 1 - 4
: Adjusted ERA (ERA+) 5 4 2 - - 3
WHIP 1.2 is not great today but Pennock led the league with 1.22 and 1.265, about 11 and 11.5 walks and hits per nine innings. Those were high-scoring seasons without the homeruns of this decade.

Rube Marquard's only notable span is three seasons with the Giants, beginning 1911 and including all three pennants. He ranked thus in the same two statistics.
: Walks & Hits (WHIP) 9 - 3 ... (4)
: Adjusted ERA (ERA+) 4 7 9 ... (2)
He was a strikeout pitcher which may also pertain to dominance.
: Strikeout Rate (K/9) 1 3 3 ... (5)
Marquard pitched well in 200 innings for the 1916 Dodgers, another pennant. Because these three are rate statistics, he ranks well then too (1916 in parentheses).

Although their career records show a sort of dominance because they put their best seasons together, these league ranks mark them as no more than clear (Pennock) or marginal (Marquard) all-stars for a few seasons.

Pennock pitched very well in the world series, these three pennants in his prime plus 1932 against the Yankees. Marquard was great in 1911-12, poor in '13 and '16. Reaching the world series several times, and doing it while they were at their best (a precise match for Marquard), probably helped both of them live on in memory and in tale.

[jalbright]

What's your take on these Hall of Fame Pitchers? Do you feel these Pitchers all deserve to be in the Hall?

1.Don Drysdale--Yes
2.Ted Lyons--Yes
3.Jesse Haines--One of the horrible Frankie Frisch-inspired picks.
4.Jim Bunning--Yes
5.Red Faber--Yes
6.Herb Pennock--No, but not too far off.
7.Rube Marquard--UGH
8.Waite Hoyt--A little short of the mark for me.
9.Dizzy Dean--His peak is so high, even a guy like me who emphasizes career can buy his case.
10.Lefty Gomez--If you like peak, he's probably fine. I like career more, and thus he's not to me.

My comments on the HOF worthiness of each are in bold after their names. The "dominance" of their era is even harder for me to define than "HOF caliber pitcher", and I'll pass.

[Paul Wendt]

I agree with Jim in placing Marquard and Haines at the bottom with Yankees Pennock, Hoyt, and Gomez also buying tickets at the door. (Well, I'm sure they will be treated as distinguished guests if they do show up.)

It's my impression that debate about Cooperstown mistakes centers on Pennock, Hoyt, Gomez, and their ilk rather than on the other five, but I may be wrong about that. Strong advocates of a small hall of fame (too late for that at Cooperstown or BBFever but it's possible in some other shadows) presumably take the three Yankees for granted and focus on the other five.

Participating in the Hall of Merit project at Baseball Think Factory for the last four years, Jim Bunning is the pitcher whose evaluation in my mind's eye was most revised --upward. Take a close look at Bunning and the 50s/60s, then it's difficult to see him as borderline.
FWIW, the HOM quickly elected all but Dean from the "other five" and Dean always gets numerous votes. Gomez gets a few votes and the others none. The HOM election is now on annual schedule, in synch with the Cooperstown elections --ie, Rickey Henderson coming up next December.

The Baseball Fever Hall of Fame election is still every three weeks. You can't miss it here in this forum. Faber was elected recently, completing the induction of precisely the "other five" (I think). Jim Albright leads that project.

[Bothrops Atrox]

1. Drysdale - Yes: Drysdale often led or finished in the top 5 in the league in IP. His very good ERA+ is improved when the fact he created 3 ERA+ points of offense is included. Did he play with good teams in a pitcher's park? Yes. Enough to move him out of HOF range? No.

2. Ted Lyons - Yes: Lyons is one of th most underatted players in baseball history. Lots of innings of very high quality pitching. The best pitcher of the group provided.

3. Jesse Haines - No: After Rube Marquard, the worst pitcher in the Hall of Fame, a tough thing to do in a a Hall that includes Marquard, Pennock, Bender, Hunter, and Chesbro.

4.Jim Bunning - Yes: I have Bunning as the best pitcher in his prospective league two times and as the second best pitcher in his league two other times. He had several years in each league where he was an elite pitcher while pitching alongside Gibson, Koufax, Ford, Wynn, Marichal, Drysdale, and even Perry, Jenkins, Niekro and Seaver towards the end, but still in his peak.

5. Red Faber- Yes: his career numbers are similar to Lyons', but a little more disjointed. I could see a case, however, that Faber beter than Lyons during his best years.


6. Herb Pennock - No: See #2

7. Rube Marquard- No: See #2

8. Waite Hoyt - No: I wouldn't out him in, but similar to Grimes, did pitch a lot of innings. He just never had great ERA+s and had a lot of poor years that always followed good ones. A similar career pattern to a guy like Carlton, but never as good at his best, and always worse at his worst.

9. Dizzy Dean - ?: I tend to have im in, but do not as of right now. His short career is well-noted, but his peak isn't even as peakified as people like to think.

10. Lefty Gomez - ?: Gomes was thebest pitcher in the AL twice (with 2 triple crowns), and was second probably two other times. The question has always been- "how much did he benefit from the Yankees that surrounded him?" That is a tough question. Combined with only 2,500 IP, and he is very borderline.