Jay Jaffe did a career retrospective on Buehrle for his annual Hall of Fame series:

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/jaws-and-th ... k-buehrle/

He understandably concluded that Buehrle is not Hall worthy, but it's cool to see the whole Mark Buehrle story in one place. I had no idea he signed for a $150,000 signing bonus. That's pretty high for a 38th round pick.

I think Buehrle falls short but if you take a deep look at the numbers there are some interesting things.

There are 15 pitchers in MLB history with 15+ seasons of 30 or more starts. All of them are in the HoF except Roger Clemens (who obviously would be on performance alone), Frank Tanana, and Buehrle. And if you take 15 consecutive seasons of 30+ starts all you have is Cy Young, Warren Spahn, Gaylord Perry, and Buehrle. Only 8 guys have ever thrown 200+ innings in 14 straight seasons. They're all in the HoF except Buehrle.

Again, there are too many guys like Buehrle who aren't in- Tommy John and Jim Kaat come immediately to mind. Then there are guys like Billy Pierce and David Cone who I would argue were better.

I think Buehrle falls short but if you take a deep look at the numbers there are some interesting things.

There are 15 pitchers in MLB history with 15+ seasons of 30 or more starts. All of them are in the HoF except Roger Clemens (who obviously would be on performance alone), Frank Tanana, and Buehrle. And if you take 15 consecutive seasons of 30+ starts all you have is Cy Young, Warren Spahn, Gaylord Perry, and Buehrle. Only 8 guys have ever thrown 200+ innings in 14 straight seasons. They're all in the HoF except Buehrle.

Again, there are too many guys like Buehrle who aren't in- Tommy John and Jim Kaat come immediately to mind. Then there are guys like Billy Pierce and David Cone who I would argue were better.

Plus throw in 2 no hitters one being a perfect, guessing that should sway it Buehrles way no??

Cone and Kevin Brown were better, Saberhagen as well.. He's not even as good as the best non hall guys.

He'll be one of the best lefties not in the Hall.

Of course, with your focus on W-L records, I'd think you'd be pretty hard on him. He had too many .500 or near-.500 seasons. That (and the losing streaks) frustrated me.

But for the Sox, he was great.

And his non-perfect one was as close as it gets...he walked Sosa and then picked him off.

He had a really cool career (no hitter, perfect game, world series title, save in the world series) but having watched his entire career, I never thought I was watching a Hall of Famer. How many years would you say he was even a true number one starter? According to the article, he actually is ahead of several starters from a WAR standpoint:

His 59.1 career WAR is 69th among starting pitchers, 14.2 WAR below the standard, and ahead of just 19 of the 65 enshrinees, only six of whom were elected by the BBWAA. Four of those were elected despite short careers (Dizzy Dean, Catfish Hunter, Sandy Koufax, Bob Lemon), but had other things going for them including stellar postseason work and better Hall of Fame Monitor scores, as did the longer-lasting Whitey Ford (whose bWAR is curiously low) and Herb Pennock.

I was thinking to myself that Buehrle was the perfect 1A type starter ideally slotted as a 2. I think if he were a Yankee or Dodger that won a bunch of titles he would get in on personality, durability and wins. He's probably the perfect representative of that 2005 team that was more than the sum of it's parts, but will get no Hall of Famers (other than the Frank Thomas who had a cameo that year). Buehrle was on way too many not good enough 2nd place teams that had zero national exposure, and his number do not pop enough for stat heads.

His winning percentage is way better than Ryan or Blyleven.

If Buehrle had been a part of a Royals like bullpen he would have been a HOFer.

No.


Buerhle had 3 seasons with an ERA under 3.5..and it was barely under 3.5.

Do a 2 for 1 and put Konerko in too.

Here's my controversial hot take: Jose Contreras should be a no-brainer for the HoF. He's almost an exact comp for Satchel Paige. They're both guys who were prevented from playing in the big leagues until advanced age through no fault of their own. And both were already legends when they finally arrived. The game Contreras pitched against the Orioles in Havana in 1999 is still talked about.

Contreras was listed at 31 years old when he got to the Yankees but he was almost certainly much closer to 40. I remember reading about a conversation/ball-busting between Coop, Contreras, and El Duque. Contreras's nickname in Cuba was El Titán de Bronce, The Bronze Titan. Coop asked El Duque if he was El Titán de Aluminio. And then El Duque said, "Seriously, how the fuck can this guy [Contreras] be listed as younger than I am? He was already a legend in Cuba when I was just breaking in."

The only guy to face the minimum three times.