An amazing Bert Blyleven statistic that I wouldn’t wish upon any major league pitcher:
From his 1970 rookie season through 1977 I’ve accumulated his quality starts that I’ve defined as: 6innings, 2earned runs or less; 7,8,9innings, 3earned runs or less; and 9innings+ 4 earned runs or less in which he garnered a no decision or a loss only……

The totals are:
82 games
658 innings
583 hits
185 runs
160 earned runs
184 base on balls
540 strikeouts
2.19 ERA
His record: 0 wins and 53 LOSSES. I repeat 0 wins and 53 losses with a 2.19 ERA

1970 0-3 2.09 9 games
1971 0-6 1.90 9 games
1972 0-9 2.35 13 games
1973 0-8 2.55 9 games
1974 0-8 1.80 10 games
1975 0-6 2.00 10 games
1976 0-8 2.29 15 games
1977 0-5 2.45 7 games

I understand that pitchers put up great games and get snakebit on occasion, but this accounted for almost 1 of every 3 starts, 82 of 279 to be exact or 29%. Show me a Hall of Famer that had to go through this year by year. Fortunately once Blyleven ended up in Pittsburgh and later some good Minnesota teams, this trend eased to what I would consider normal levels (I had researched this in the past but don’t have the numbers on hand)

Imagine 1974, your 17-9 in 27 games, and in the other 10, all of which are essentially quality starts, you post a 1.80ERA and go 0-8. You end up 17-17. If you don’t know the facts, and your voting for the Cy Young award, and you see 17-17. Do you cast a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place vote? Probably not. This is what Blyleven faced in yesteryear, and the same writers, who I contend do not know the facts, are what Blyleven faces every year in the HOF vote.

Go ahead, plug in a different year, or harken back to Baseball-reference and neutralize the stats, do it for every one of Blyleven’s contemporaries. The numbers don’t change much, but for Bert Blyleven, they do. The example given above is my attempt to show why. Teams that didn’t score runs and booted the ball around like it was a soccer match.

For Game 7, hard to say. But Morris’s playoff stats aren’t as slam dunk as the perception and take a look at Blyleven’s (http://www.baseball-reference.com/b/blylebe01.shtml) – he went 3-1 during the Twins 1987 playoff run and 2-0 with Pittsburgh in 1979. So I’m seeing it as Blyleven was 2 for 2 in his playoff runs and Morris was 2 for 4.

There should be no doubt Blyleven was better than John or Kaat. He beats them in every non-team dependent stat.

There’s also no doubt that Blyleven and Morris are hurt/helped by ‘perception’. One of the reasons I did this analysis was to test those perceptions. I don’t see anything in Blyleven’s stats that show he wasn’t an HOF pitcher. And I don’t see anything in the data that shows Morris was an HOF pitcher.

Perception (aka subjectivity) has trumped statistical reality in many a HOF nomination (especially the Veteran’s Committee) and I’m sure it’ll impact more to come. Keeps it interesting

I hate to repeat what’s consistently said about Blyleven and that is that he’s not as good as Kaat or Tommy John and neither of them are in the HOF. Maybe things would be different if he wasn’t a contemporary of so many other HOFers, but he’ll always be a great pitcher but not a HOF pitcher in my book.

It’s never been about Blyleven’s numbers. It’s always been about perception, and he has never been perceived as a dominant pitcher despite all the wins, strikeouts, and shutouts in the world.