Johan Santana’s Cooperstown Case: The Puckett Clause

Some of that is true but it's also a little out of context. Morris had more seasons in the top 10 of k/9 than Johan and more seasons in the top 10 in strikeouts as well. When he retired, he was 19th all time in strikeouts. The massive change in the game the last twenty years has changed our perception of strike outs. (Blyleven's k/9 was less than Scott Baker's). And he certainly has a pretty strong claim to the Cy Young in 83 when Hoyt's 24 wins got him the award. While Morris didn't lead in ERA part of the reason is probably due do too many innings, which can water down rate stats. If he threw 50 less innings each year, would his ERA have improved? Probably.

 

But again, they are both borderline candidates but for completely different reasons. Santana, at his best, was inner circle HOF. Very few pitchers could touch that. Morris had longevity. His career is comparable to HOFers like Carl Hubbell and Jim Palmer while Santana relies more on Koufax. They don't compare to each other very well. I'd love to see both in the HOF. Because I prefer longevity and his post season success, I'd probably put Morris in first but you can certainly argue that short high peaks should be HOF worthy as well. (And I think guys like Santana and Nomar Garciaparra should be strongly considered).

Diagree with your analysis here; it's far too generous to Morris. Palmer and Hubbell (who are actually pretty decent comps for each other despite pitching in very different eras) were both substantially better pitchers than Morris.

Palmer didn't deserve as many Cy's as he got, but he definitely should have gotten at least one, arguably two. But both pitchers were significantly better at run prevention than Morris. ERA+: Palmer 125, Hubbell 130, Morris 105. bWAR: Palmer 68.1, Hubbell 67.8, Morris 43.8. Both Palmer and Hubbell had Morris' greatest strength (ability to eat up a lot of innings) but coupled it with greater ability to prevent runs. Palmer and Morris both had the benefit of fine defenders playing behind them (Palmer especially had some of the best defenses of all time working behind him) but even taking that into account, Palmer is still a significantly better pitcher.

I brought Morris into the discussion because a) someone suggested that Santana shouldn't be in if Morris wasn't, and there's been a fair amount of commentary about Morris getting in off the small committee vote that is looking at players from his era. (BTW, I really don't think Morris was robbed in '83; Hoyt shouldn't have won as he wasn't even the best pitcher on his own team. But Dave Steib is the guy who really should have won it. Morris is in a pack with Dotson and MacGregor and a few others. Steib is probably the most underrated pitcher from that time frame, and had a four year run where he was almost certainly the best pitcher in the AL and should have won 2 Cy's; he was tremendous from '82-'85)

I do agree that the Koufax case has some similarities for Santana; Koufax was better and had to quit at the height of his powers because of injury, and also had the post-season success to go with it. But Sandy is considered a no-doubter HoF guy. No one really argues it. If that's where your starting point is on Santana, that's pretty strong for your case. 

As much as I would like to see Santana get in eventually, I think him and Puckett are different stories.

Santana's shoulder slowly gave out on him until it got to the point he couldn't pitch anymore.  That is his body wearing out.  Similar to if he was great for 5 years and then just couldn't pitch well anymore because he was aging and/or wear and tear over the years wore him down.  Happens to lots of great players.  Their bodies can't holdup to the rigors of a long MLB career.

Puckett on the other hand was hit in the face by a fastball.  He went from All-Star player to practically blind in one eye basically over night.  His body was probably good to go for another 3-4 years, but fastballs to the face can change that. 

So Santana is a guy that could have become an all-time great if he stayed healthy long enough.  Puckett was on the verge of becoming one already and tragically had his career end abruptly at the tail-end when he basically just needed to be ok for few years to reach HOF miles stones (3000 hits, etc).

Basically what I am trying to say is I put body giving out in similar category as skills diminishing.  While getting smoked in the face is put in a different grouping all together.

Puckett's career ended because of glaucoma, not because he was hit by a pitch in the face. The glaucoma had nothing to do with the HBP. 

yes.  The pitch actually did very little damage to his eye, but the glaucoma which had gone un-diagnosed for so long came back to bite him big time.  Once the damage is done it's irreversible.  That's why it's imperative that you get your eyes check often because it can be prevented.

Steib is the most overrated underrated player going right now.  In his career he threw 2900 or so innings and 44 WAR. From 80-91, Morris threw 2900 innnings and 44 WAR. In 5 more seasons he tacked on another 11 WAR. 

 

While you noted their bWAR you didn't note their fWAR Morris (55.8) Palmer (56.6) and Hubbel (56.5).  I suspect the difference between those has to do with the defense - Palmer's babip for his career is .249. Of pitchers with 3000ip or more, only Catfish Hunter is better and third best is sitting at .258. Hubbel (.267) and Morris (.270) aren't close to that. Brooks Robinson was really, really good.

 

Again, if you like WAR, he's comparable to Palmer and Hubbel.

I used bWAR in part because I think their modelling makes more sense for evaluating a pitcher's season (Rany explains it better than me: https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2017/11/29/16712482/future-of-war-aaron-judge-jose-altuve-bill-james-debate ) The defense does explain some of it, but Morris also pitched behind excellent defenders, trammel & whitaker most notably, for basically his entire career...and according to fWAR some years he got bailed out by his defense and some years he didn't. considering how we're still trying to evaluate defensive value, I don't love the way fWAR uses FIP to calculate WAR, especially when you consider cases like Nolan Ryan as Rany presented in the link above.

I'm not saying Stieb is a HoF pitcher, but you're sort of making my case for me: Stieb and Morris are interesting comps for each other in the 80's and ain't no one talking about Dave Stieb for the Hall, yet people act like it's this great injustice that Jack isn't in. (fWAR has them as basically the exact same pitcher in the time frame you highlight; bWAR would tell you to take Stieb every time and that was basically Stieb's career.) I can't say I love the argument that Jack should be in the Hall and not Dave because Jack stayed healthier for a few years longer and some people are pretty sure Dave pitched in front of better defenses.

I used bWAR in part because I think their modelling makes more sense for evaluating a pitcher's season (Rany explains it better than me: https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2017/11/29/16712482/future-of-war-aaron-judge-jose-altuve-bill-james-debate ) The defense does explain some of it, but Morris also pitched behind excellent defenders, trammel & whitaker most notably, for basically his entire career...and according to fWAR some years he got bailed out by his defense and some years he didn't. considering how we're still trying to evaluate defensive value, I don't love the way fWAR uses FIP to calculate WAR, especially when you consider cases like Nolan Ryan as Rany presented in the link above.

 

I'm not saying Stieb is a HoF pitcher, but you're sort of making my case for me: Stieb and Morris are interesting comps for each other in the 80's and ain't no one talking about Dave Stieb for the Hall, yet people act like it's this great injustice that Jack isn't in. (fWAR has them as basically the exact same pitcher in the time frame you highlight; bWAR would tell you to take Stieb every time and that was basically Stieb's career.) I can't say I love the argument that Jack should be in the Hall and not Dave because Jack stayed healthier for a few years longer and some people are pretty sure Dave pitched in front of better defenses.

Let's say, just for fun, that Johan wasn't injured at the end of 2010, and instead ended up playing 11 more years, staying relatively healthy but pitching substantially worse overall. Let's say he doubled his career innings, averaging the following stats over that stretch: 9-8 record, ERA of 4.00 and an ERA+ of 110 (approximate midpoint of Patrick Corbin's and Chris Archer's ERA+ from this year, since they both had ERAs just barely over 4).

Then, overall, Santana's career numbers would look like this:

238-166 (.589), 3.60 ERA, 123 ERA+

Even if he never won a World Series, those numbers look Hall-of-Fame worthy to me.

By comparison, Mike Mussina's career numbers are:

270-153 (.638), 3.68 ERA, 123 ERA+

Also: Don Drysdale's career ERA+ was 121, John Smoltz's was 125. You get the idea.

...

And now compared to Jack Morris:

254-186 (.577), 3.90 ERA, 105 ERA+

3 points to be made of all of this:

1) Johan's candidacy is in a different league than Morris. Morris is really only relying on slightly above-average pitching, win totals, and 2 great postseasons (leaving aside the crappy postseasons he had). As a Twins fan, I'd find emotional satisfaction in Morris getting elected, but he's well below the admittedly-subjective 'standards' for the hall. Let's also not forget that most of Morris' wins came before the steroid era. Santana, by comparison, could have had 11 more years of mediocrity and his career numbers would still far exceed those of Morris.

2) If Johan doesn't get elected (which he won't) and perhaps even falls off the ballot (a distinct possibility), then he will basically have been penalized for not having 11 years of middle-of-the-rotation caliber pitching. Is that really what we want the Hall of Fame to be about?? In my personal opinion, a player that has a 4-5 year stretch of awesomeness (like Johan) is just as solid of a candidate as someone who was steadily above average for a long time (like Mussina), and both of those players are very worthy selections.

3) The saddest part, I believe, is that Johan's candidacy is being reduced due to market sizes. He was arguably better than peak Sandy Koufax from 2003-2007 with the Twins, but there was slightly less national attention paid to that because it happened in Minnesota. Then he went to the biggest media market in the US and had 1 great season. Hence, the lasting image from the NYC market perspective is more focused on the guy whose Mets career sadly faded due to injuries than the guy who was a monster for 5 years in Minnesota. Unfortunately, that's the perspective of most HoF voters too

Just that some of his regular season numbers are better than Koufax after adjustments for ballpark & league-wide offense during the era. It's a popular comparison. I personally wouldn't make that argument, but it's waaaay closer than most people think, especially based only on regular season performance. So yeah, *arguably* better in the sense that you could make a reasonable argument if you had to

I don't think Morris is a slam dunk guy. I think he's borderline but he is comparable to HOFers, his numbers when he retired were pretty good and he has his own unique story (as Poz would put it) that I would push him in. Stieb isn't anywhere close to that. I think Santana is a borderline candidate as well with a totally different story. They just don't seem comparable to me.

Personally, I prefer a guy who pitched at the absolute peak but got cut a little short on the years over the guy who never really dominated the same way but had the full length and health of a typical HoF guy. Johan was a comet and while that's always going to make you a little borderline, I think he deserves it. Johan wasn't just a "maybe" guy for best pitcher in baseball; for five years straight if you didn't bring him up in that conversation you were an idiot. That says a lot.

Stieb doesn't have the story, and played basically his entire career in canada, but the most significant difference between him and Morris is Jack stayed healthier for a few years longer. (which basically accounts for their difference in fWAR; bWAR is another tale) The other difference is Jack played in more post-seasons; Jack was great in 2 of them, bad in two of them. Stieb was good in 1, bad in 1. I'm not advocating for Stieb for the Hall, but Morris and Stieb overlapped almost their entire careers and ended up as not unreasonable comps for each other. I just don't think 2-3 additional seasons of ok pitching is enough to get you into the Hall.

This assumes an infallibility of FIP that I'm not willing to accept.

 

 

It doesn't assume an infallibility in FIP at all, it assumes FIP tells a BETTER story about how a pitcher pitched than ERA or RAA does. Not a PERFECT story, just a better story.  DRS and UZR aren't infallible either, but they are better than errors and fielding %.  WAR isn't perfect either, but I like it better than, say, looking at BA, HR, RBI, Stolen bases and errors/fielding % stats.

I'm not going to hold on to old stats until the mythical PERFECT stats replace them.  

Now, what I have noticed is that for a lot of starters with long careers, the FIP and ERA stats come very close to each other.  That's why I don't mind looking at, say, ERA (well, really ERA+) when comparing pitchers who have finished their career. That and because it keeps the FIP haters at bay :-)

Absolutely. I'm not really bashing FIP, as I think it's very useful.

 

But there are pitchers who seem to defy FIP predictions to varying degrees. Like Santana to a small extent. His FIP/ERA split is .22 runs. Now, that's not a lot and well within a margin of error IMO but the guy has 2400 career IP.

 

And then you have guys like Nolasco, whose FIP is about .6 runs lower than his ERA. The guy has just shy of 1900 career IP. He has played for multiple teams in multiple leagues so that discrepancy simply should not exist to that degree.

 

And that's my point about FIP. I think it's a pretty good indicator of future performance (and often a good indicator of past performance) but there are guys out there that are doing something FIP cannot measure.

But again, that belief assumes ERA is the true indicator of performance, right?  We get phrases like 'pitchers out-perform' or pitcher 'under-perform' their FIP.  ERA is too dependent on things out of the pitcher's control to be the indicator of performance.

True, but it measures actual runs allowed and all pitchers play under the same rules regarding ERA.

 

 

Do they play with the same defense behind them? :-)

I enjoy debating you, BTW, you are respectful at all times even when you disagree and are truly open to many trains of thought.

I am exactly opposite. I much prefer the FIP based WAR (which is fWAR) then bWAR cause I dont think we should take into account the defense behind the pitcher.

bWAR isn't *really* including defense, It takes the average defense for the team and checks to see if the pitcher had better or worse defense behind him than what is usual for that team. It's not granular defense in that pitchers are penalized/awarded for defense, it's an attempt to level the playing field for pitchers.

https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=F2E5D8FC5199DFAF!8063&ithint=file,xlsx&app=Excel&authkey=!AAAsz3uDsmqy_Vw

Of the 12 public ballots already released, Johan and Johnny Damon are the only two guys still shutout.  Clemens and Vlad are 12/12.   Bonds is 10/12 but lost a vote from someone that voted for him last year, which is kind of odd.

Is there an argument for Santana in the Hall?  Yes.  But it's silly to compare him to Kirby Puckett (or Sandy Koufax).  Postseason and championships matter...and they should.  Especially when you are the undisputed star/leader of the championship team...more than once.  As the very first poster mentions, the much more realistic (non-pitcher) comparison would be Tony Oliva.

Would I put Santana in?  No.

The big difference is that Puckett’s glaucoma had nothing to do with activity on the field. Santana isn’t the first nor will he be the last to have his body not be able to sustain excellence simply due to the rigors of playing the game.

Puckett’s situation is more akin to Lou Gerhig’s or Dave Dravecky.