This is the piece I wrote:

Bert Blylevin – Somewhere in the last 50 years the “Deciders” who vote for Hall of Fame candidates have established “guidelines” which insure induction in the Hall. One of these guidelines for pitchers is the establishment of the magic number of 300 wins. In all honesty, Blylevin would have had no difficulty making the Hall if he had stuck around for a year or two and reached the mythical 300 win mark. I remember as a kid watching Early Wynn struggle to get #300; I am not certain whether the effort was valiant or pitiful. But the Hall places great value on reaching certain plateaus, and thus anyone who has won 300 games, reached 3,000 hits, or (before the steroid age) hit 500 homers, got a pass go and collect 200 card. The exceptions to this rule are those players who were clearly brilliant, but their effervescence and dominance at their position lasted a comparatively short period of time; examples of such players are Sandy Koufax and Dizzy Dean. After Early Wynn, we have three pitchers – Bobby Mathews (297), Tommy John (288), Bert Blylevin (287), none of whom are in the Hall. Going down the list, we have Tony Mullane (284), Jim Kaat (283); all within striking distance of 300, none of them in the Hall. (One can make a strong case that most if not all of these pitchers should be in Hall of Fame, and it is a certainty that all of them would be enshrined if they had but won a few more games. ) It will be interesting to see how voters perceive Mike Mussina, who had 270 victories, and likely could have struggled to get the magic number, but had the temerity to retire after winning a career high 20 games
An example of a player who never was the best pitcher in any given year, yet managed to have an incredibly consistent career over a long course of time was Don Sutton, who managed to win 300 games, and has been inducted in the Hall of Fame. One method of comparison is the early Sabermetric concept called the Similarity Score, originally created by Bill James in order to compare non-Hall of Fame players to those already enshrined at Cooperstown, in order to determine if an eligible player had been snubbed by the selection committee. Sutton’s career was incredibly similar to Blylevin’s; in fact, utilizing Bill James Similarity Scores, Sutton’s score in reference to Blylevin’s is 914 (any score over 900 means the two players are very similar.) The second most similar pitcher to Blylevin is Gaylord Perry, at 909, also in the Hall. The third most similar is Ferguson Jenkins; a resident of Cooperstown. In fact, of the ten most similar pitchers to Blylevin, eight of them are in the H.O.F.; the two who aren’t are Tommy John and Jim Kaat, who, like Blylevin, are strong candidates for admittance.
Perhaps no one in the modern era, outside of Sandy Koufax, had a better curve ball then Bert Blylevin. MLB Hall of Fame third baseman Brooks Robinson stated “It (his curveball) was nasty, I’ll tell you that. Enough to make your knees buckle. Bert was a terrific pitcher — a dominating pitcher.” Since the beginning of the modern era (1900), Blylevin currently ranks 5th all-time in K’s with 3701, 8th all-time in Shutouts (60), and 17th in Wins, with a life-time record of 287-250. There is only one player in baseball history, Nolan Ryan, who ranks higher in all three categories. And Ryan, a first ballot Hall of Famer, had a lower lifetime winning percentage 324-292, for a .526%, vs. Blylevin’s lifetime winning % of .534. Although Blyleven didn’t win a Cy Young Award during his 22-year career, a pretty strong case could be made on his behalf in 1973, 1977, 1984, and 1985. During his career, more then half of the teams he played for had won-loss records below .500. Blylevin’s lifetime ERA was 3.31; however, his entire career with the exception of three years with the Pirates, was in the American League; his career spanned the advent of the Designated Hitter, which raises ERA approximately 0.50 runs per game in comparison with the National League. Blylevin scores much higher if one uses a Sabermetric Tool called the Advanced ERA, or ERA +, which measures the number of runs a pitcher prevents from scoring compared to the league’s average pitcher in a neutral park in the same amount of innings. A score over 100 is considered above average, and fewer than 100 below average. Blylevin’s ERA+ of 118 is better then that of Ferguson Jenkins, Jim Bunning, and Catfish Hunter, all residents of Cooperstown. The group average of the eight most similar pitchers in the Hall of Fame is 115, lower then Blylevin. With consideration for all of these achievements, Blylevin is ranked as the 39th greatest hurler of all time. in Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, ahead of a number of other worthy Hall of Famers, including, Old Hoss Radbourn, Joe McGinnity, Early Wynn, Tim Keefe, and Rube Waddell, amongst others.

Reference – ‘http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2004/12/bert_blyleven_f_1.php

I might have read the Pearlman thing wrong (it takes a lot of beer for me to get through a day of college football), but is he saying that he won’t vote for a player he suspects of using steroids (Bagwell) but he’s cool with voting for a player that definitely used cocaine (Raines)? I have yet to read a reasoned argument for such distinctions. But I don’t know anything about Pearlman’s ability to measure objective merit. All I know about him is from reading his Mets book, which I found entertaining, though mostly because the Mets were balls to the wall.

1973 is a great example that debunks the Ryan “dominance” myth. Most Ryan fans remember from that year Ryan’s all-time record 383 strikeouts. However, Blyleven was better than Ryan in Ryan’s most “dominant” season. Despite setting the record in Ks, Ryan had a far worse ERA than Blyeven (2.87 to 2.52). Why? Ryan fans don’t mention his 162 walks (4 per start!) compared to 67 for Blyleven. Walks kill. So although it looked like Ryan dominated, Blyleven actually dominated more in what matters: giving up fewer runs. The same thing happened the next year. Ryan led in Ks but also he also led in BBs with 202! (that’s 5 walks a start!), and thus again gave up more runs than Blyleven. In fact, year after year, Ryan struck out more than Blyleven, and gave up fewer hits than Blyleven, but gave up more runs than Blyleven. Why? WAY MORE WALKS. So, while Ryan “should have been” one of the best pitchers ever, he was NOT even one of the top 10 in his own league in ERA in most years. Walks kill.

Ryan was a physical freak who was a power pitcher for longer than anyone we are likely ever to see again. But was he a better pitcher than Blyleven? No.

He could probably cut down his (sparsely worded) article and just add more cursing.

Also, happy new year.

Anyhow, good times. Happy 2011.