Jack Morris is going to be a Hall of Famer, and that's OK.

By Bill


I've been about as critical of Jack Morris -- or, more accurately, of his Hall of Fame case -- as anyone traversing this here information superhighway ever has been. I'm not ashamed. One post in particular was probably one of my two or three favorites among all the baseball things I've ever written, comparing Bert Blyleven to Morris + Mariano Rivera.

But that's enough, now. More than enough. By now, every single person in a position to care -- and that includes every single BBWAA voter, or close enough to it -- has heard all the arguments. They know he wasn't really the best pitcher of the 1980s, that his career stats don't stand out in any meaningful way from those of Frank Tanana or Dennis Martinez, that his ERA was only a touch better than average, and would be the highest of any pitcher in the Hall. They even know -- or have heard, at least, if they won't allow themselves to be convinced -- that he didn't actually "pitch to the score." There's nothing new under the Jack Morris world's intense angry red mustachioed sun.

Oh, there might be new ways to say things to keep it interesting and worth saying -- I'd humbly suggest that the post above might have qualified, and this one last week, by BPro's Jonathan Bernhardt, certainly did -- and every now and then you might just need to lash out against something that's obviously, objectively wrong and happens to be about Morris ... but just spitting out stats and comps and telling people he's not qualified, whether on Twitter or your blog or anywhere else, doesn't cut it anymore. It's browbeating, and it's counterproductive at this point.

Here's the thing: he's going in. There's absolutely nothing you, or I, or all of us together can do about that. And that's okay.

Blogfight, A Gentleman's Game

By The Common Man

First of all, Bill, The Common Man cannot believe we're fighting over Jack Morris, about whom TCM doesn't really care if he gets into the Hall or not.  But, like the ACLU, you have to defend a few Klansmen before you can defend a gay teenager who just wants to go to Prom.  It's the principle of the thing.

The Common Man Is So Very, Very Wrong

By Bill

The other day, in response to a Twitter conversation/debate TCM and I had, he wrote a piece on why Jack Morris "fits" in the Hall of Fame that basically involved laying out his whole general Hall of Fame theory.  It was a good piece, written well as always, as persuasive as one could make it.  You should read it, if you haven't.

I find myself entirely unconvinced.  Here's why, in a format that'll be pretty familiar if you stopped by yesterday:

According to FanGraphs, his Wins Above Replacement would rank below David Cone, Chuck Finley, David Wells, and Bret Saberhagen.

This comes in the midst of a paragraph that explains perfectly why Morris clearly doesn't belong in the Hall of Fame.  And Baseball-Reference's version of WAR (which goes back further than Fangraphs') agrees as to those four, and also puts him behind Larry French, Tom Candiotti, Wes Ferrell, Brad Radke, Bob Welch, and barely-thirty-year-olds Mark Buehrle and C.C. Sabathia.  He's 140th all time, and is actually the #2 Morris: a nineteenth-century hurler named Ed Morris managed to accumulate more WAR than Jack in just seven seasons.

Just keep that in mind as we continue.

Does Jack Morris Fit in Baseball's Hall of Fame?

By The Common Man

This post actually came out of a Twitter conversation that Bill and The Common Man were having yesterday. Here’s the timeline. Tyler Kepner wrote a thoughtful and persuasive article for the New York Times, in which he argues that there is room for Jack Morris in the Hall of Fame, saying “Numerous studies clearly prove that Blyleven was a lot better, so the point is not worth debating. One has nothing to do with the other…. It’s a feel thing with Morris, and that’s not always wrong. Emotions mean a lot.”

TCM agreed, saying that he would “be happy to support Jack Morris for the Hall of Fame, but only after Bert Blyleven is ushered in.” This got Bill up in arms, because Bill doesn’t think Morris is an acceptable candidate, and he challenged TCM “to explain this so we can go on being friends.” Bill’s joking, of course. We were never friends. But in the interest of continuing our productive partnership here on the site, The Common Man figures he owes you and Bill an explanation that is longer than 140 characters. So here goes:

Blyleven vs. Mo(rris)

By Bill

It's that time of year, when most people just think about Christmas and stuff, but baseball freaks like us spend way too much of their time thinking about Hall of Fame voting.  And for the last few years, it's been that time of year when everybody talks about Bert Blyleven and Jack Morris.  Jon Heyman and Buster Olney, among what I'm sure are at least a few others, have already publicly admitted to voting no on the former and yea on the latter.

So that's what I was thinking about, and I started thinking about this fun little exercise:

It's the winter of 1994. Just a couple months ago, for the first time in ninety years, October passed without a World Series.

Mirror Image

Wife week seems to have morphed into Jamie Moyer Appreciation Week.

The other day, The Common Man wrote a short post on The Daily Something about Jamie Moyer’s longevity, in which TCM claimed that Moyer is not Hall of Fame material. This prompted the following comment from the blog’s purveyor and good friend,

“He's not a Hall of Famer...but it's always important (to me) to note that if he's not, neither is Jack Morris. Nearly identical IP and ERA+, and Moyer now has almost as many strikeouts and many fewer walks. To believe Morris is a Hall of Famer, you have to believe that one really good World Series game is all it would take to propel Jamie Moyer there.”

Touche, Bill. As Bill points out, the difference between Moyer and Morris is an eyelash at this point (that eyelash being a 10 inning shutout and that they throw with opposite hands). Compare the following chart:


Relative to their leagues, the two players are pretty similar on a superficial level. That said, Moyer has more innings, much better control, and a higher WAR than Morris, according to BaseballReference.com. And while Morris made his bones in the World Series (4-2, 2.96), his overall playoff record (7-4, 3.80, 0.9 HR/9, 3.1 BB/9, 6.2 K/9, and 2.0 K/BB) is much more in line with his overall numbers. And those ALCS starts count too. Plus, it’s not like Moyer has been a slouch in the postseason (3-3, 4.14 ERA with a lower HR/9 and BB/9 and a higher K/9 and K/BB). In fact, if we remove one disastrous start for Moyer against the Dodgers in 2008 (when he gave up 6 runs in 1.1 innings), Moyer’s postseason ERA is 2.93. The main difference between the two hurlers in the postseason seems to be innings pitched, where Morris has more than twice the experience in October. So, while Morris does get some extra credit for his postseason heroics, it’s probably not enough to substantially separate himself from Moyer, if we’re looking at their careers objectively.

So what do we make of this? Morris was never an elite pitcher in the American League, just a good pitcher for a long time. Similarly, Jamie Moyer was probably never an elite pitcher in either league (only one all star appearance, a few high finishes in Cy Young voting but never top 3). The two are each the second most similar pitcher to one another according to Bill James’ similarity scores (amazingly, the most similar pitcher to each of them is Dennis Martinez). Given the general qualifications of Hall of Fame pitchers, neither really passes the bar.

That said, The Common Man has recently become more of a “Big Hall” kind of guy, and can envision a Hall of Fame that welcomes both the twirler of the greatest game in World Series history and the pitching with the biggest post-30 career turnaround ever. After all, we all enjoyed the careers of both Morris and Moyer, and TCM sees nothing wrong with reliving those memories when we browse the plaques in the Cooperstown Hall of Fame Gallery.

So The Common Man revises his earlier statement. Moyer for the Hall! And Moyer! And Santo! But all of them have to line up behind Blyleven.