Why Jack Morris is not a Hall of Famer
by icemanDan on Jan 10, 2012 4:51 PM EST
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PrintFirstly, congratulations to Barry Larkin on getting into the hall on the third try. His election is well deserved and uncontroversial. However, something I feel should be a source of controversy (and embarrassment, if the BBWAA were capable of it) is that Jack Morris was collectively deemed the player second-most deserving of enshrinement on the ballot, and by a pretty wide margin at that. It is beginning to look like Morris' candidacy has the momentum to gain the additional 10 percent he will need over his remaining two years on the ballot (closely resembling Jim Rice's circuitous journey to Cooperstown). Aside from the obvious point that if Morris has not been deemed hall-worthy for 13 years, the 14th and 15th should produce the same result (I don't think his career numbers are likely to improve), anyone who takes the least bit of effort to look into his statistics can see that he was a very good and reliable pitcher, but seldom dominant.
You often will read that Morris won the most games in the 1980's, and for many writers that makes him ipso facto the best starting pitcher of that decade. The readers of this blog are well-acquainted with the arguments for why pitcher wins is a flawed statistic at best, so I'll not reproduce them. Instead, I will look into the argument that he was the premier "Ace" of the 1980's (setting aside the issue of arbitrary endpoints) by looking at a far more telling statistic. Baseball Reference has a page which displays the top ten starting pitchers in terms of ERA+ for every year dating back to the 1870's (http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/earned_run_avg_plus_top_ten.shtml). This stat is intended to show how much above or below average (100) a pitcher's performance was when compared to his peers. During his supposed decade of dominance, Jack Morris' name appears exactly zero times out of one hundred. His best year in terms of ERA+ was actually 1979, a year in which he did manage to crack the top ten (5th). Matt Morris accomplished this feat as many times as Jack Morris.
I write this not because I dislike Jack Morris. In fact, one of my first and fondest sports memories was watching his legendary 10-inning shutout against the Braves in the first World Series I ever watched. He was also a part of the first Blue Jays championship run shorty thereafter. I have every reason to want him in the hall based on anecdotal or even apocryphal arguments. There is undoubtedly a mystique around him which obfuscates the reality: Jack Morris was not a dominant enough starting pitcher during the regular season to warrant him making it into the hall of fame. He is essentially the Bernie Williams of starting pitchers: known more for what he did in October than in the preceding six months.
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Yeah, he's grossly overrated.
And his ‘92 season was average at best, when he benefited from great run support. He was only the Jays third-best starter behind Guzman and Key. In the postseason he was godawful. The only reason he was called the team’s ace was due to his reputation and salary.
by Defense Counts! on Jan 10, 2012 7:18 PM EST reply actions
Arbirtary Endpoints
I know you mentioned this, but the “best pitcher of the 80’s” argument was always my favourite one to discount. Even if the claim could be objectively proven, the fact that a pitcher’s dominance happened to occur during a specific decade could be used as a deciding factor is ridiculous. Great read iceman!
At least I don't live in Cleveland
This ^
By using “best pitcher of the 80s” Morris looks better than he was because of the lack of decent starters in the early 80s, which inflates his value relative to superior pitchers that came around in the mid-80s like Clemens, Gooden, Saberhagen and Cone. Morris won the counting stats race because his only real competition for the entire 80s was Dave Stieb and Stieb never got the shiny win totals because he played for a lesser offensive team.
Hic sunt fortuna dracones
There is only 1 "n" in Hutchison
Good point
Really underscores why the whole “Best of (insert decade)” argument is patently ridiculous. Speaking of Steib, if you looked at the chart you may have noticed that he was tops in ERA+ in 84’ in MLB and tops in the AL the year after as well. In terms of peak value he was better than Morris but longevity and durability do matter as well.
WAR
In addition to his postseason performances he also accumulated 56.7 fWAR. That is a borderline HOF WAR number (and 9.4 more than Bernie Williams).
by JaysSaskatchewan on Jan 11, 2012 10:33 AM EST reply actions
WAR likes horses
Morris had many seasons of over 240 IP and double-digit complete games. Again, I’m not arguing that there isn’t value in a pitcher who goes out there and consistently gives you 6+ innings with an ERA around 4. That just doesn’t happen to fit what I feel the criteria for a HOF player should be, which is a combination of durability/longevity and sheer dominance. Incidentally, if Bernie Williams had been put in left field after age 29 like he should have been his WAR total would be much higher. This is why WAR must be used with grain of salt at times, its a good stat but should not be taken as gospel.
If you ignore WAR, wins, and postseason performance he isn’t a HOF. Otherwise, he is borderline.
by JaysSaskatchewan on Jan 11, 2012 4:13 PM EST up reply actions
even his postseason numbers aren't that great
except for that one game, he was mediocre
His 2011 wRC+ is 26
depends on if you use fWAR or rWAR
fWAR says he was borderline, rWAR says he was a very-good-not-great player
His 2011 wRC+ is 26
(see below)
fWAR doesn’t think he’s better, you just need more fWAR to be a borderline hall of famer than you’d need rWAR
"Look at me! I'm Tomokazu Ohka of the Montreal Expos!"
As has been discussed on this site before
1 fWAR is actually quite a bit less valuable than 1 rWAR (the ratio is about 0.8 : 1.0). Thus, the 56.7 fWAR Morris is actually more like 45 rWAR.
"Look at me! I'm Tomokazu Ohka of the Montreal Expos!"
He is definitely borderline
If there existed a Hall of Very Good he would go in on the first ballot. I’m more of a “small hall” guy. I don’t ignore WAR, wins should be largely ignored (Roy Halladay will likely win far fewer games than Morris and be borderline inner-circle, same for Pedro Martinez). Playoff performance is tricky because players don’t control how many opportunities they get and at the end of the day they really are just a small sample of baseball games that are played under the same rules and conditions as any other.
wow I'm speechless
Not to pick a fight, but well, you guys just don’t get it.
Question:
How many free homeruns did he give up to the bleachers in Tigers Stadium? You know, the ones that would have been fly ball outs in any other park in the majors?
Question:
How many outs did he lose by playing all those games in a park with basically zero foul territory?
Question: How much better would the stats you guys like to keep preaching about have looked if he could have handed over games to a bullpen in the seventh instead of pitching ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY-FIVE complete games.
Question:
Did any of you statamaticians notice that he pitched 175 complete games?
Questions:
Did you know that over a nine year period in the middle of his career, he averaged over 250 innings pitched a year?
Question:
Since when does winning it all NOT count?
I have to go do the dishes or else I would continue.
Honestly guys, I don’t get how this guys isn’t a shoo-in. I guess that’s why I’m just a fan.
X
Answer: His career league/ballpark adjusted numbers, namely ERA and FIP, were only slightly better than average, at 95 and 97. His lowest adjusted ERA was 77, a number matched by 17 starters in 2011. His lowest adjusted FIP was 85, a number matched by 24 starters in 2011.
Answer: The numbers have been adjusted for ballpark, so, again, moot point.
Answer: The amount of innings he has pitched are already put into the equation; it’s basically the only thing exceptional about Morris.
Answer: With a 3.90 ERA durrr
Answer: Great. Unfortunately he didn’t pitch all that well. He was good, not great.
Answer: Are you referring to his WS rings or his win count? Both are kind of irrelevant.
His 2011 wRC+ is 26
Let's bring a few facts to the discussion
Answer 1:
Morris gave up 321 home runs in his Detroit career. Of those, 167 were at home and 154 on the road. So that’s 13 extra HR at home. If we take those out, at an average run value of 1.7 per HR, that’s 22 less runs over slighly more than 3000 IP, or roughly a reduction of 0.07 in his ERA. Which doesn;t make a difference for assessing his Hall of Fame credentials.
Answer 2:
Fewer foulouts should mean a higher batting average on balls in play. His career BABIP was .268 at home and .276 on the road, so we actually see that he got more outs on balls in play at home than on the road. SO my answer would be, not very many lost outs.
Answer 3+4:
Yes, we noticed. And all those extra innings made him more valuable. It was also a different game than today, where there are more specialized bullpens. That’s not to take away from what he did – he was a very durable pitcher, who ate a lot of innings.
Answer 5:
Yes, he did average a lot of innings – and he gets credit for that in stats like WAR, which are a function of innings pitched and how good those innings were. Other guys pitching similarly high number of innings – Dave Steib (as an example) averaged over 230 over his best 9 year stretch, that doesn’t make him a Hall of Famer either.
Answer 6:
Winning it all matters a lot. But it says a heck of a lot more about a player’s team and teammates than it does about a specific player.
I would love to see what else you have in favour of his candidacy
wait foulouts are considered balls in play?
huh. I guess that makes sense, but it feels kind of strange to me.
His 2011 wRC+ is 26
No
But the ball is still put in play by the hitter, and when an out is recorded, it’s a ball in play
Not really
If the pitcher induces a weak popup beside third base, just foul, it’s an easily made play…if the fielder doesn’t make it, it gives the batter an another chance, instad of the pitcher being out of th inning. It’s perfectly intuitive, considering that an error is fo rplays that should have been made
but there's a huge difference between getting another chance (with an added strike) and getting on base on an error
His 2011 wRC+ is 26
True that there is a huge difference between the two
But the same can be said for all types of errors. There is a big difference between the error in the outfield that turns a single into an inside the park homerun then the SS fumbling with the ball and allowing a base runner to reach 1st base.
by Playoffs!!!!1 on Jan 11, 2012 10:05 PM EST up reply actions
that wasn't my point though
I was saying that errors on balls withing the foul lines would be much much more beneficial to the hitters than errors on balls outside the foul lines. I don’t really see how a misplayed ball in the foul lines should be errors.
This is just splitting hairs over trivial matters though. Just found it interesting/weird.
His 2011 wRC+ is 26
Hmmm....
Not to pick a fight, but well, you guys just don’t get it
For some reason that line made me think of an old Simpson’s quote:
“Hey you, let’s fight!”
“Them’s fightin’ words!”
by Playoffs!!!!1 on Jan 11, 2012 9:22 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
Just a fan too
I’m no sabermetrician, but I do think that to make an objective assessment of a player all we really have to go on is their statistical record. When you look at the things Morris had total control over (unlike wins, playoff appearances) he doesn’t do well. Take for example his 1.78 to 1 strikeout to walk ratio, a mediocre number at best. As for the complete games, I’d agree they are one of the better arguments in his favour, but you have to put them in context. During his career you needed around 20 complete games most years to be in contention for the league lead, whereas now you can often lead with 9 or 10. Today his average of 10 CG’s a year for his career would be an outlier but from 1978 to 1991 (his prime years) it was fairly commonplace.
He is essentially the Bernie Williams of starting pitchers: known more for what he did in October than in the preceding six months.
I don’t agree with this. He was amazing in 1984, and very good in 1991, he was pretty darn awful in 1987 and 1992. Too many people cite that one game where he went bonkers as evidence that he was great in the postseason.
His 2011 wRC+ is 26
As far as Tiger stadium hurting him
The thing I remember is they had about the tallest infield grass of any park. A lot of balls that would scoot through most infields turned into outs. Would be interesting to see what his home/road BABIP splits were.
They weren't doing the grass for Morris' benefit though
They did it because they had two superb infielders and it made sense to play to this strength defensively.
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