Bucky Walters?

[The Dude]

You might think of him as a WWII pitcher. Yes, he did have some good years during the war, but his 3 best seasons all came before the war. The fact that he had such horrible years after the war, could be due to the fact that his career was declining rapidly.


Is Walters worthy of the hall of fame, or just a good pitcher?

[MasonDixon]

I think he's a bit short of the Hall of Fame, but he had some really great seasons and I don't think he gets nearly as much credit as he deserves. He does have one of the best Black Ink scores of all-time.

[iPod]

He was certainly a lot more effective than my knee-jerk opinion of him, but no, not a HoFer. He is, however, the subject of my favorite NHBA entry.

[Cougar]

One of the very best pitchers of his era, and he wouldn't be entirely out of place in the Hall.

But there are too many pitchers as good as him or better who are not in to seriously support him.

[The Dude]

Like to bring this thread back as not many people responded the last time.

-26th all time in black ink for pitchers. Of the top 40 in Black Ink for Pitchers, no other 20th Century pitcher is not in the HOF (Curt Schilling is the only active pitcher in the top 40 who might not make it).
-Even if you take away his wartime black ink, that puts him at 32 all time.

Around a year ago, Mark held a series of polls finding out the BBF members opinions on who the top 50 pitchers were. Hal Newhouser, you might say a contemporary of Walters, finished in the polling at 34.

-Newhouser pitched in 60 more games, yet Walters pitched around 110 Innings more.
-Newhouser however, does have an ERA+ of 130 to Walters 115, and around 800 strikouts more.

As I mentioned earlier, Walters falls to 32 all time if you take his wartime black ink away. Newhouser without black ink falls to 129th all time.

Now, since both had wartime seasons, lets look at Walters vs Newhouser seasons with at least 200 IP, going by their ERA+

Newhouser: 195(W), 188, 161(W), 145, 132, 124, 108,
Walters: 168, 152, 146(W), 127, 123(W), 107, 93(W), 91, 89

On the area of postseason, both won a world series and were key pitchers for their teams. Also, both won a triple crown.

If you take out their war seasons, walters is still loosing, yet they're somewhat close.

Now, there's no doubt that Newhouser is the better pitcher, I rank him so myself. However, when taking into account the fact that Walters is ahead of Newhouser already in Black ink, and if you take away their war seasons, Walters is even farther ahead. I have Newhouser about 10 or so spots above Walters in rank, but isn't Walters close enough to Newhouser that Walters should be a HOFer as well?

[leecemark]

--There is a surplus of hitters from the 20s and 30s, but pitchers from that period get a little shortchanged. A large part fo that is voters just not putting the stats into context, although the hitting explosion had faded from the NL by the time Walters took the mound.
--Walters was the best player on the 1939-40 pennant winning Reds, ahead of that team's lone Hall of Famer, Ernie Lombardi. He has the best NL pitcher and maybe the best pitcher in baseball in the late 30s-early 40s, but he did have a short career and much of it was in the war. Of course, the first part of his career was wasted since he came up as a 3B and actually learned to pitch on the job in the majors. He reminds me more of abother Hall of Famer, Bob Lemon, than Hal Newhouser (Prince hal peaked much higher than either) due to that circumstance.
--I can see a case for Bucky Walters, but I don't know that its more compelling than that of contemporaries Wes Ferrell, Tommy Bridges and Lon Warnke (or much better than Mel Harder or Mort Cooper or Harry Breechen or...). Walters might have been one of the top 50 pitchers ever, but he wasn't special enough to reach back into the dust bin of history and single him out. Or at least there is no chance that it is going to happen.

[KCGHOST]

I don't see much of a case here. Walters had a fine career, but nothing to justify a Cooperstown parade. He wasn't as good as Newhouser by a noticeable margin and Newhouser's claim to the HoF is not the strongest.

[abacab]

As a pitcher who had a great peak during a hitter's era and also an excellent hitter himself, Walters is very comparable to Wes Ferrell. I think Ferrell is clearly better though, because he pitched in an extreme hitter's era, while Walters pitched in a moderate hitter's era, so Ferrell needs to be elected before I'd support Walters.

[Fuzzy Bear]

--There is a surplus of hitters from the 20s and 30s, but pitchers from that period get a little shortchanged. A large part fo that is voters just not putting the stats into context, although the hitting explosion had faded from the NL by the time Walters took the mound.
--Walters was the best player on the 1939-40 pennant winning Reds, ahead of that team's lone Hall of Famer, Ernie Lombardi. He has the best NL pitcher and maybe the best pitcher in baseball in the late 30s-early 40s, but he did have a short career and much of it was in the war. Of course, the first part of his career was wasted since he came up as a 3B and actually learned to pitch on the job in the majors. He reminds me more of abother Hall of Famer, Bob Lemon, than Hal Newhouser (Prince hal peaked much higher than either) due to that circumstance.
--I can see a case for Bucky Walters, but I don't know that its more compelling than that of contemporaries Wes Ferrell, Tommy Bridges and Lon Warnke (or much better than Mel Harder or Mort Cooper or Harry Breechen or...). Walters might have been one of the top 50 pitchers ever, but he wasn't special enough to reach back into the dust bin of history and single him out. Or at least there is no chance that it is going to happen.

This is pretty much how I assess Bucky Walters. He's in the group with Ferrell, Bridges, and Warnke. Any and all of those guys would have made the HOF if they had broken the 200 win mark, but none of them did.

Walters' case is, IMO, no more impressive than Ferrell, Bridges, and Warnke. One of those four is that best, and one is the worst of the four, but who rates where is not really clear (unless you want to give Ferrell extra credit for hit hitting). I can't see a big difference that projects Walters to the front in this group.

[Bothrops Atrox]

This is pretty much how I assess Bucky Walters. He's in the group with Ferrell, Bridges, and Warnke. Any and all of those guys would have made the HOF if they had broken the 200 win mark, but none of them did.

Walters' case is, IMO, no more impressive than Ferrell, Bridges, and Warnke. One of those four is that best, and one is the worst of the four, but who rates where is not really clear (unless you want to give Ferrell extra credit for hit hitting). I can't see a big difference that projects Walters to the front in this group.

Why in the world wouldn't you give Ferrell extra credit for hitting? The man hit like Carlos Zambrano on 'roids. The runs Ferrell created with his bat helped his teams win as much as the run prevention.

So how much did his offense help? He created over 100 runs more than the average pitcher offensively. If you converted the runs created to runs prevented, that would add 9-10 ERA+ points, giving him a career ERA+ of 123 or so.

Ignoring offensive contributions of pitchers remains one of the largest oversights in current pitching analysis. This is why Carlos Zambrano, while not the best pitching pitcher this year, is probabl ythe most valuable player who plays the pitching position this year.

Ferrel is a step above the pack here (solid HOF guy), with Bridges in the middle (borderline), and Warneke and Walters at the end (close to borderline, but not quite.)

[Fuzzy Bear]

Why in the world wouldn't you give Ferrell extra credit for hitting? The man hit like Carlos Zambrano on 'roids. The runs Ferrell created with his bat helped his teams win as much as the run prevention.

So how much did his offense help? He created over 100 runs more than the average pitcher offensively. If you converted the runs created to runs prevented, that would add 9-10 ERA+ points, giving him a career ERA+ of 123 or so.

I tend to agree with this. Not everyone factors Ferrell's hitting into the equation. He is unique in that regard; he could have been a tremendous position player if he had played the field.

[Bothrops Atrox]

I tend to agree with this. Not everyone factors Ferrell's hitting into the equation. He is unique in that regard; he could have been a tremendous position player if he had played the field.

Ruffing and Lemon could probably have been very good position players too.

[Paul Wendt]

Bucky Walters was a good batter, closer to Ferrell than to average. Batting is one of the points on his resume.

In his prime seasons 1939-1946, age 30-37, after he learned to pitch on the job in the majors (as someone says above), Walters pitched 2000+ innings at ERA+ ~129.

Was that a modest batter's era or no batters era?

>>
he wasn't special enough to reach back into the dust bin of history and single him out. Or at least there is no chance that it is going to happen.
<<

I think that he is one who will be in the discussion now, the real discussion about whom the new veterans committee might or should elect.