Why everybody should vote Andy Pettitte into the Hall of Fame

November 2020

Sam MillerESPN.com

Shut up.

- Baseball Columnist / Bishop ESPN
- Former editor of Baseball Avenue.
- The only rule he co-authored is that it has to work.

Every year two hunger halls are built.

Okay, that’s not exactly right, but it works on average: 20 future Famers baseball halls (from the Black league and the American and national leagues) were born in the 1910s, and so on:

1920s : 17 Hall of Famers was born
years 1930: 24
years 1940: 18
years 1950: 21
years 1960 19

Average: 19.8 per decade

Twice a year, that creates a good symbolic standard, doesn’t it? When asked what the Hall of Famine is, we can find some esoteric definitions. But one of the two best baseball players born this year really touches you – especially when, as is so often the case, he splits into a pitcher and a batter, a yolk and squirrels in a baseball egg:

1920s: 10 attackers, 7 jars
1930s: 17 attackers, 7 jars
1940s: 10 attackers, 8 jars
1950s: 15 attackers, 6 jars
1960s: 12 attackers, 7 jars

I mention this because Tim Hudson and Mark Byurl will be voting for the first time this year. Neither will be introduced in 2021 – or perhaps never – but voters really need to take one or the other into account. In its current form, and because it is in danger of remaining for a very long time, there are only two players in the Hall of Fame born in the 1970s. It’s a very noticeable drought, and it probably tells us a lot more about the baseball era than about the real talent of the baseball pitcher, which goes back to the evenings of the 1970s.

But more than Hudson or Burl, they should definitely be tapping along with Andy Pettit. Here’s the problem: Everyone should vote for Andy Pettit.

Just so we’re clear: There’s a good reason for Pettyt, who has nothing to do with the decade he was born in. Pettita’s WAR — 60 on Baseball Reflection, 68 on Fangraf, and 61 on Baseball Avenue — is located around the lower level of the Famers’ lobby and at the top near the extrajudicial level, making his case in itself controversial. His Fangrave War is superior to that of Tom Glavin or Roy Halladay (to compare him to his contemporaries), and his Base-Ball-Rephens War is about the same order as that of Juan Marijal and Don Drysdale (to compare him to his ancestors).

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If his war gives us a reason not to abandon him as if he weren’t, then his performance after the war gives us a reason to elevate him to the rank of yes. The chance that he wins in the sixth season has been added for the sixth time. Cooperston’s post-season summary of Jack Morris was (from right to left) much of his Hall of Fame record. Pettitt threw three times as many sets as Morris after the season, with a similar ERA and three times as many wins. Pettit’s record of 19 post-season victories is undoubtedly an advantage for playing in an era of extensive playoffs, but it is also a record that will probably never be broken, at least not until the definition of victory has changed. (No one has more than 15, and today’s mentions are not as regularly used in post-season games as Petit. This year, regulars spent six or more innings in 26% of their post-season games, while Pettitt did so in 80% of his games. He went seven innings 19 times. No starting pitcher managed to make the trip twice this fall))).

But not everything is urgent enough to write about it. I was going to put Kenny Lofton in the Hall of Fame, but I never wrote a column about it. What gives Pettita a complete treatment goes back to the year of her birth: 1972, the good slap in the middle of our striking dry glass in the Hall of Fame. If you think the drought is just a coincidence, there’s nothing to fix. I don’t think it’s a coincidence.

Andy Pettitt made his big debut in 1995. A lot happened in 1995:

1. It was the third year of the offensive baseball explosion. In 1995 the number of jogging successes was higher than for the whole season since 1938. In 1996 the attack increased again and didn’t last long. In the first seven years of his career, a Major League baseball player experienced the longest offensive boom in his history. Prior to Pettittitte’s career, there has been a season in the past 50 years in which the teams averaged more than 4.75 points per game. The competition led him through each of the first eight seasons of his career.

2. Pitchers are increasingly encouraged to throw harder. When Ben Lindberg went through thousands of scout reports from that time, he discovered that the pace of the competition had increased every year since 1995. More importantly, by comparing the overall ranking of the pitching clubs with their speed, Lindberg has found evidence that the teams increasingly prefer speed. Both pitchers were thrown harder than ever, and they were encouraged and motivated to throw even harder.

Fault! The file name is not specified. Andy Pettitt finished third in the Early Bird Competition of 1995, but in turbulent times for young beavers it was not always a quiet sailing sport. At the beginning of July, it received seven editions in Texas at 2⅔. PAUL K. BUCK/AFP on Getty Images

3. The home runs are out of control. The 1994 season, which was shortened by strikes, was only the second year in history that teams got more than one homerun per game. The league then did so every year and set three new league records in the first six years of Pettit’s existence.

4. Clubs have become more patient – or fighters have become more careful, or a higher total number of shots has increased the score, or a combination of all three. But in the fighting it took longer: 3.7 pitches in the PA when it started, compared to 3.58 in half a decade before.

So if you add it all up: longer, more intense sleeves, consisting of longer shots – because every stroke in the composition was a threat to the homerus – and more sleeves that had to be thrown with maximum effort. And the pitchers did it all, harder than ever, for teams that promote more speed than ever. It was a great way to hurt yourself.

Of course, there were big pitchers in those days: Greg Maddux (born 1966), Roger Clemens (1962) and Randy Johnson (1963) are the three candidates for the Goat, all active in the middle of the event. They are Tom Glavin (1966) and John Smoltz (1967) and Kurt Schilling (1966) and Kevin Brown (1965) of Hofer. But all these jars were already well established when these trends started. Even Mike Mussina (born in 1968) was 24 years old and was in the division one with 330 innings when the transition from the pitching league to the bitter league took place in 1993.

My hypothesis is that it was difficult to serve in those years, but it was extremely difficult to be a young pitcher. They were asked to serve with great effort during the long sleeves and with men on the base. They were asked to wet their feet with identification marks full of steroids and to remain confident by hitting their teeth. If you were a young pitcher, this would be the worst competition for your debut. And if you have a pitcher a little more prone to injuries, because young pitchers would be the worst competition to stay healthy in terms of results.

So don’t compare Pettita to Maddox or Clemens, but to the pitchers who had to do what he had to do: who had to do it from the miners of that time, who had to make their debut in the mid-1990s, in their early to mid-20s, and who had to survive their first half dozen seasons in the midst of a rapid offensive explosion.

If we agree that these jugs – the ones that were born around 1972, the ones that were named around 1990 and the ones that started around 1995 – are real contemporaries of Pettyt, then he starts to look really good. Only two other kickers from the seventies – Pedro Martinez and Roy Halladay – had more careers at WAR than he did. (And note that Halladay almost lost his career at that time when he returned to Class A after publishing the worst ERA in the history of the Major League at the age of 23).

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Sixty wars may not be so extraordinary for a generation born in the sixties, but for a pitcher born in the seventies, it is an absolute highlight.

But if the Pettitte affair – 60 WAR – is really great for a modern pitcher, how about the unpleasant facts about Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, Clayton Kershaw and Zack Granke – all born in the mid-80s, all probably 70, 80, maybe 90 career wars.

It is true that many of them grew up with the same challenges as the pitchers of the seventies: longer shots, a greater emphasis on shots and speed, a relatively high offensive environment, not to mention the fact that they threw more bullets into the streets and shop windows throughout the year, which many consider dangerous for young guns. It is probably true that throwing away a young hand today is just as cruel as when Pettit and his contemporaries were young hands. In the 2000s, however, medical care caught up. Reinforcement of the shoulder joint resulted in a significant reduction in the number of shoulder injuries, Tommy John’s rehabilitation was more effective, and so on.

This is reflected in the success rate of power consumption in the 1990s and beyond. I once noticed that there were four times as many WAR spots produced on a site in 2008 as there were twice as many rounds on a site in 1993. (This wasn’t a one-year accident… the trend was fairly consistent).

All this indicates that it is very difficult to put Pettitas 61 WAR in the perfect context. But it is a competitive number, supported by its star status and key role in the office dynasty, that makes its career very consistent. If one adapts to one’s peers from birth, the fact that it is unusual – like all the rooms in the Holodomor – seems to be strong.

It’s a case against him:

1. He was on the PED. Honestly! If this cover disqualifies you, he will be disqualified. But so far, 60% of voters have supported Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, and nearly 30% have supported Manny Ramirez, who was banned from the league twice after the tests began. So we know that at least 60% of the voters are willing to vote for a DEP user. And at least 30% are willing to vote for a PED user (even a recidivist PED user) who may not be the biggest success or the biggest pitcher in history. It was clearly not the PED that gave Pettit about 10% of the votes in two rounds of voting.

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2. He hasn’t received a superstar award in his career: No Sai Yang, just three stars. It’s normal! But his Cy Young shares are similar to many other Famers halls (e.g. Mike Mussina, Bert Blyleven, Don Sutton and others). Maybe his lack of star appearances reflects his willfulness: He was much better in the second half than in the first: 4.06 ERA, 0.589% of the profit before the break, 3.60 ERA, 0.670% of the profit after the break. Curiously, this is by no means a factor that determines its value to his club. The point of a career is not playing all-star games.

Usually there are also the best actors who are not in the audience – but there are also the worst. It is very likely that no one born after him will ever surpass his 256 victories, especially if he can hold Kershaw.

At the moment, the number of Hall of Fame snowshoes born in the 1970s is also low by historical standards – there are still five, but that will change in the coming years. Ichiro Suzuki and David Ortiz will probably participate. Adrian Beltre will be automatic. Alex Rodriguez too, unless voters punish him for his suspension of the PED and the many PED scandals. There’ll be nine, and it probably won’t stop there: Scott Rowan’s mood is growing exponentially, Carlos Beltran has to do it, and people are going to write columns in the name of Chase Utley, the second best player in NL in half a decade. Three other players in the running – Andrew Jones, Todd Helton and Manny Ramirez – received more support than Pettit. The attackers will be fine.

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But none of the launchers of the decade currently enjoy the same support, or seemingly without any attempt to catch up. If people don’t vote for Pettit (60/68 WAR), they probably won’t vote for Mark Burle (60/52) or Tim Hudson (58/49). They have already left behind the short but brilliant career of Johan Santana (52/46) and a slightly longer and less brilliant career of Roy Oswalt (50/53). They’re not broadcast in the relay after Mariano Rivera, Billy Wagner and Joe Nathan. All we have to do is… …no one. There’s no one else.

And even the first third of the eighties may not be represented if CC Sabathia does not appear in Sabatia. After reading this article you probably won’t be surprised that I think Sabatia should be involved. Luckily, I think he’s really coming in. And also:

Pettit: 60 B-Ref WAR, 68 FanGraph WAR, 256 victories, 117 ERA+
Sabathia : 63 B-Ref WAR, 67 FanGraph WAR, 251 win, 116 ERA+.

But you see, somebody has to be in the Hall of Fame next to Roy Halladay and Pedro Martinez. More than 2000 days separate Pedro’s birth from Hulladay’s birth, and more than 2000 days separate Hulladay’s birth from Justin Verlander’s birth. Almost six years, very long. Pettitte is definitely the best pitcher in the world produced in the first third and Sabathia is definitely the best pitcher produced in the second third. Bring them both in.