My friend Jeff wrote the following to me as an email, and I agree with him. I asked if I could post this, and he said yes.
I've always been pretty annoyed that Jack Morris gets so little support for the HOF, so I did a little research on my lunch break. He has 254 career wins, won more games than any other pitcher during the 80s, threw a no-hitter, and was a key member on three different World Series teams in three different cities.I believe he's been kept out for two reasons-he was terrible with the media and his career ERA was 3.90. Can't do anything about the first(although it wouldn't matter if the voters had any integrity), but I think the second can be explained, namely the era he pitched in. Did you know that there isn't a single starting pitcher in the hall of fame who began his career between 1968 and 1983? (Clemens started in 1984) It's pretty hard to believe that over a 17-year period there wasn't a single HOF-caliber starting pitcher who came into the league. The problem is, it's hard to compare pitchers from different periods,especially ERA-wise. So, I took three different pitchers and looked at where they finished in their leagues in Wins, ERA, and Strikeouts each year. That way, you can tell how they did compared to their peers and not just look at their numbers in a vacuum. The three other pitchers I used were Catfish Hunter, Fergie Jenkins, and Bert Blylevin. I used Hunter and Jenkins because they both got voted into the HOF by the BWAA and I think they're the most comparable to Morris. Blylevin is not in the HOF, he gets about the same amount of support as Morris, but you'll see why I used him later. (Stats appear at the top)
Ok, so if you look at these one at a time, in WINS I think Morris did they best. The only one who is close is Jenkins. Morris finished in the Top-5 in the AL nine times and Top-10 twelve times. I think that's pretty impressive. Also, I think this is the most important stat for a pitcher, the object of the game is to win games, after all. In STRIKEOUTS, Morris was probably third best. Jenkins and Blylevin were simply great strikeout pitchers, but Morris did better than Hunter in this category. In ERA, Blylevin was first by a mile. The interesting thing is that although Morris' career ERA was a ½ run higher than Hunter's and Jenkins', compared to his peers he actually did a little better than them and that was supposed to be his major weakness. Could it be that pitching in the 60s and early 70s when ERAs across the league were way down, helped them? Shouldn't people who vote on the HOF know things like this? I'm guessing a good many of them don't have the cranial capacity to make statistical adjustments for the eras people played in. I also think this is why there is a huge chunk of years when no starting pitchers got voted into the HOF. I think Hunter and Jenkins deserve to be in the HOF. Hunter is given lots of credit for playing on five world champs with the As and Yankees,as I think he should be. Now the interesting one is Blylevin, I put him in there because he's the opposite of how Morris was perceived. He was in the top 10 in ERA practically every year, but seldom near the top in wins. Some say he received the worst run support of all-time. So they want to keep Morris out because, although he won a lot, it was only because his teams scored a lot of runs, as evidenced by his supposedly high ERA. On the other hand, even though Blylevin had a great ERA, he didn't win enough because he didn't get enough run support, so he's out too. I just think that's stupid.
