Tom Glavine pitched for the Braves and the Mets. I also recall him serving as color analyst for post-season baseball.
Mark Buehrle pitched for the lowly White Sox, Marlins, and Blue Jays.

Despite them being comparable, that's why one is in the HoF and one is not. 100% agree if the standard is Glavine, Buehrle should be in.

and yes....Sabbathia was more dominant pitcher. His HOF worthiness smells much stronger than Glavine or Buehrle.

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It's only like a 42% difference

Sure, Glavine has a winning percentage about 30 points better than Buehrle and that has to count for something, but at least some of that has to be because Glavine played on teams that dominated their division over the course of his career.

I've never said that the teams a guy pitches for is absolutely meaningless, just that over enough starts a guy is going to show you who he is. There is no great starting pitcher with a losing record. Joel Horlen is probably the best and he's one game under .500.

If you think Glavine's better winning percentage is the thing that makes him deserving of enshrinement over Buehrle, you can argue that. The post by Antioch cites some things that tilt in Buehrle's favor. Someone can argue that if they want. Me, I think they're both just below what I want in my Hall of Famer. And just with White Sox guys, I could never put Buehrle in ahead of Billy Pierce.

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Ecclesiastes 5:8

1. Thee three players I mentioned, plus Zack Greinke, are all Sabathia's contemporaries and have better numbers;
2. The relative importance of starting pitching has been in decline since at least the 80's. Therefore, I think it's perfectly acceptable that fewer starting pitchers will get into The Hall; and
3. The importance of relief pitching has been on the rise for a longer period of time than the importance of starting pitching has been in decline. More relief pitchers should get enshrined.

So, are you grudgingly admitting that run support is a real phenomenon? If you're not, are you saying that only defense and relief pitching can increase a starting pitcher's win total?

I wouldn't call it "run support."

The term "run support" is most often used to excuse a losing pitcher for his own failings. And really, all "run support" is in such conversations is the lower ERA of the guys who faced the guy someone is claiming to be good or great. The differences in the W/L records of Jack McDowell and Jose DeLeon or Mark Buehrle and Jose Quintana aren't due to "run support."

As I said, if you want to use Glavine's clearly superior .600 winning percentage as the deciding factor to put him in the Hall over Buehrle and his .572, go ahead.

If I were arguing for Glavine, I would go with his 1200 more innings pitched which are clearly reflected in his greater number of decisions, both wins and losses. Said decisions supported by similar ERA and K/9 numbers and producing a winning percentage nearly 30 points better.

There are also arguments to be used in favor of Buehrle. You can find some of them in Antioch's post above.

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Ecclesiastes 5:8

Starting pitching is the most important part of the game. MLB just doesn't know it.

One big argument against Buehrle is probably his streakiness. He'd go 6 weeks without winning sometimes (at least it seemed). And if he wasn't on, it was ugly.

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"Julian's thinking is clearer than Ricky's thinking."

That's the problem with all soft tossers. They don't have room for error. If they're having a day where they can't locate, there's gonna be a lot of baseballs whacked pretty hard. It's why a guy like Sabathia is better than Buehrle or Glavine.

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Ecclesiastes 5:8

That should show up in their numbers, and outside of Ks, Buehrle and Sabathia had very similar stats. ERA, WHIP, WAR, etc.,…they’re all extremely close.

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I suppose that's a fair argument, but as you know, I don't put a lot of weight on aggregate stats which is why I value winning percentage so much. Each game is a discrete event.

Those overall stats are like the popular vote. They aren't the way we decide the games. And I know that over the course of all the games they pitched, there were many situations where Sabathia's greater ability to retire batters without the ball being put in play resulted in his team winning.

Also, there's an aesthetic to a strikeout. I will argue all day long that Buehrle was a superior pitcher to Nolan Ryan but I think Ryan is more deserving of Hall of Fame status. Ryan was a special guy with the ability to do things that no one else could do or ever has done. Does that make sense?

Sabathia isn't in Ryan's category but he did win 61% of his decisions over 560 starts and he struck out a lot of guys doing it.

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Ecclesiastes 5:8

Outside of WAR, those aren’t aggregate stats (and Buerhle played 3 fewer seasons so you’d think hall of famer CC Sabathia would blow him out of the water on counting stats).

If you’re looking at win percentage, Sabathia started 560 games and had 251 wins. That’s a hair under 45%.

Beurhle started 493 games and won 214: 43%.

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No decisions aren't part of winning percentage. I'm not sure Buehrle having fewer no decisions than Sabathia is a positive for Buehrle. I guess it could be.

I know this may seem contradictory because I generally don't place a super high value on strikeouts the way some do. I don't believe balls in play are random. And ironically- or perhaps not- Buehrle is a good example of why. But I do think when we're looking at players for the Hall of Fame, I put more value on Ks than I would in just comparing pitchers for purposes of who I'd prefer pitching for my team. I just want a winner and as you pointed out, the numbers are baked in. It's the old Kerry Wood vs. Buehrle argument that was popular on message boards back in the day.

To put it more simply, despite Glavine's better winning percentage, I find him very similar to Buehrle (and Andy Pettitte).

Sabathia, on the other hand, had the ability to "dominate" batters in a way they didn't and that's something I put more value on in evaluating a guy for the Hall of Fame than I do when deciding who I prefer to take the mound for my team.

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Ecclesiastes 5:8

If you’re only counting decisions, it’s around 61% to 58%.

Buerhle had decisions in about 76% of his starts vs. 73% for Sabathia.

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Where does Tommy John fit in? I read an article a long time ago that pegged 12 "shoulda wons" for him with the White Sox. I think three were good teams, and five were horrendous teams.

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"Julian's thinking is clearer than Ricky's thinking."

Fuck, he has the ligament surgery, why does he deserve anything else? (R.I.P. Piglets original ligament.)

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2018
#ExtendLafleur
10 More Wins

I hate how no one calls Lou Gehrig's Disease Lou Gehrig's Disease. However, I wouldn't mind calling a torn UCL a Hawg Arm.

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"Julian's thinking is clearer than Ricky's thinking."

RESPECT

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2018
#ExtendLafleur
10 More Wins

To me he's in a group with Buehrle, Glavine, Pettitte, Jim Kaat, etc. A couple of those guys are in.

His career was a little shorter than all of those guys, but I'd say Jimmy Key was better than all of them.

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Ecclesiastes 5:8

Buehrle was a wonderful pitcher who probably was the most unique pitcher of the past 30 years, maybe of the entire expansion era. I've said on many occasions that we need more Mark Buehrle type pitchers in baseball. A lot more.

But are we really trying to put Buehrle and his one top 5 Cy Young voting in the same group as Tom Glavine and his two Cy Young awards, two 2nd place finishes, and two third place finishes?

Sure, Glavine had some nice teams to play for that helped him reach 300 wins. But also you know who was a big part of those successful teams? Yeah Tom Glavine.

Availability is the best ability. The reason that Tom Glavine won 300+ games and Buehrle didn't has less to do with the teams that each of them played on, and a shit ton more to do with the fact that Glavine started 189 more games than Buehrle. If Buehrle started as many games as Glavine and performed at a .572 winning clip, you know who would be in the 300 win club, yeah, Buehrle.

For reference 189 games is a handful fewer than a guy like Blake Snell has started in his career.

Is Glavine the most dominant member of the 300 win club? Certainly not. But he's nonetheless a 300 game winner.

Buehrle was done as a pitcher at the age of 36, Glavine pitched more or less successfully through the age of 40. That's a skill, to be an above average MLB pitcher when you are that old. Buehrle was better as a young pitcher, Glavine was better at his peak, and was waaay more successful as an older pitcher. Long live Buehrle but these guys aren't in the same class.

Happy to listen to an advocate for a Buehrle HOF position, but saying he's Tom Glavine adjacent aren't the droids you are looking for.

I heard a radio conversation today between two former big leaguers about the Dodgers 2025 rotation. They are nine deep with starters, and two of them have options remaining (along theoretically with Sasaki). The question was whether any of their starters will have 24 starts this year, since with three Japanese pitchers and a perpetually hurt guy in Glasnow they will probably go to a six man rotation if not a seven man at times.

If a six man rotation becomes commonplace in MLB, the standards for the HOF in 15 years are going to be watered down even more.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

You're speaking my language in this part of your post and I agree with the paragraphs above. Guys don't win 300 games because of "run support."

If 300 wins is an HoF benchmark for you, obviously you put Glavine in. It's not so important to me. Don Sutton is another 300 game winner who I'd put in the same category as Glavine and Buehrle. I don't need any of these guys in my Hall of Fame.

I'm not saying there is no case for Glavine (or Buehrle). I don't care about postseason awards that are voted on by writers that may not even watch certain guys play. But considering Cy Young awards is fair if that's how you want to separate guys.

You've cited some things Glavine did that Buehrle didn't. Antioch cited some things Buehrle did that Glavine didn't. I'm not knocking either guy as a pitcher. I love Buehrle. He's my second favorite Sox pitcher of all time. But neither guy is a Hall of Famer in my book.

To really stir the pot here, I'll say my favorite Sox pitcher, Jose Contreras is more deserving than either Glavine or Buehrle. He's a modern day analog to Satchel Paige. He was prevented from playing in the big leagues through no fault of his own. He had a long remarkable career where he could play. And when he finally got to the bigs at an advanced age and as a shadow of his younger self he was undoubtedly the best pitcher in the game for over a year.

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Ecclesiastes 5:8

Where are we at in society today?

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Of course you don't get to 300 wins on nothing but run support but, as you acknowledged earlier, playing on a team that dominates its division will get you more wins. I suppose I'm agreeing with you more than disagreeing with you, but Glavine probably doesn't get to 300 wins if he spent the bulk of his career with the White Sox.

Don Sutton is probably the best comp for Glavine. Buehrle still isn’t in their group. Here is what I wrote about Sutton, it apples to Glavine. It does not apply to Buerhle.

I think the criticism of a complier (Sutton or otherwise) ignores one skill set that is essentially uniform to a complier. They were good to very good players as underaged players (think 23 and younger) and were good to average as older players (37 and older). That's a very unique combination.

All good/great players are studs from age 24-33, but they didn't have the skillset to be valuable to a major league team before that or after that. I never understood why the skill to be a good MLB player is something that isn't valued if the player can do it for 20 seasons.

In addition to that compliers are often remarkably healthy. So to flip the criticism, people have prejudice against "compilers" because they were essentially no worse than average, but predominately good to very good for 20+ MLB seasons, and never got hurt? That's an argument against a guy?

A guy like Glavine more or less had the peak years of a guy like Saberhagen, and then also 10 or so additional years where he was a good MLB pitcher. If Buehrle was able to pitch effectively through the age of 41 like Glavine, he would have been in the HOF already.

Like I said above, it shouldn’t be a criticism of Glavine that he was able to win 81 MLB games after the age of 35, to the contrary that’s a really good pitcher.

Glavine is still in the HoF with 275 wins. He has two Cy Youngs.

I don't disagree. I offered the White Sox example to show that, while wins are important (JORR is mostly right), they're variable and not the end all be all.

the pool of future starting pitchers in MLB that the hall of fame is going to be so diluted, one day kris benson will get in.

I totally agree on #2. I think #3 isn’t quite right. It isn’t like the best relief pitchers are throwing more innings. It’s the opposite, your best guys only pitch their 3 or 4 outs in high leverage situations. We aren’t increasing the usage on the best relievers, we are just increasing the usage of more relievers. Not many guys or going to the HOF pitching 50-60 innings a year, nor should they.

Innings and value used to be concentrated in SPs, hence a lot of SPs entering the HOF. By fragmenting outs over more pitchers you are fragmenting the value. 8 guys throwing 9 innings and striking out 14 guys is valuable in the aggregate, but you don’t put guys in the HOF as an aggregate. Nolan Ryan is in the HOF because he did that on his own and concentrated value.

Like if teams started platooning guys at an unreal rate, and your league leaders received something like 400 at bats a season we justifiably would see fewer position players in the HOF.

Will Jon Lester go into the HoF as a Cub or Red Sock?