Friday, April 22, 2011

S20 Hall of Fame Preview: The Pitchers

On to the pitchers. First, note that there's a slight difference in how pitchers are scored due to the reduced value of a Gold Glove for your pitchers. I'm also a little less confident in my choice of categories for rating pitching, as there's probably a little more overlap when I use both K and K/9 and ERA, WHIP and FIP (the most conveniently available defense-independent (sort of) pitching stat). Still I think the results are reasonably valid.

Just Finished Engraving The Plaque
Vitas Sobkowiak won 4 Cy Youngs. In truth though, we should be calling them Vitas Sobkowiak awards, because this guy set the standard. 302 wins and 10 All-Star appearances for the big righthander leave everyone else in the dust (except for Banjo Melhuse). (6889 pts)

The #2 man among pitchers is as far ahead of the rest of the field as Vitas is ahead of him. Jerome Turner was Morgan's answer to John Smoltz and Dennis Eckersley. The Cy Young and Fireman of the Year winner made 7 All-Star teams, and ranks #1 among eligibles with 1500+ IP with 7.91 K/9. His 3.98 FIP is the second best among the eligibles (more on that later). (4176 pts)

No one else is really deserving of much consideration, but the analysis did turn up some interesting results. Start with #3, B.C. Sierra. Sierra will never get real consideration because he didn't get a chance to rack up the career totals necessary, but remarkably, the guy is #2 in winning percentage, and #1 in FIP at 3.95. Sobkowiak is 4th (4.06) after Sierra, Turner and Robin Sullivan. A Cy Young and 5 All-Star bids over a 10 year career? Pretty impressive run.

Mike Andrews, Joel Coleman, Pedro Acosta, and Ramon Ramirez are the next best of the not good enough.

As for my ballot, I'm voting for Sobkowiak, Goya, Thomas, O'Malley, and Durbin.

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