Hall of Fame Pyramid - Honorable Mention Starting Pitchers 4
Oct 6, 2019 6:36:48 GMT -5
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Post by sansterre - Milwaukee Brewers on Oct 6, 2019 6:36:48 GMT -5
And now, for the last player section on the Honorable Mention floor, Starting Pitchers section 4!
Starting off with some crossover players, we have Justin Verlander! Verlander pitched almost 3200 innings over his career, starting at 22 with Detroit in 2005 and finishing in 2022 at 39 with the Angels. Verlander had a weird career. First, he wasn’t dominant at any one thing. While he was a pretty capable strikeout pitcher when he was young he retired with 7.9 K/9, 2.9 BB/9 and 1.0 HRA/9, all of which are good but none of which are great. The other weird thing was that he didn’t have a regular career arc. He opened hot for Detroit, putting up 5+ rWAR four times in five years (including a Rookie of the Year win). Two years later at age 29 he had his best year, an 8.8 rWAR season for San Francisco (that 97-win team had a rotation including Verlander, Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum). He struggled in his early 30s but at 34 and 35 had two 3+ rWAR years for Atlanta, was injured for an entire season and then came back at age 37 for a 5.5 rWAR farewell tour with the Dodgers. Verlander was consistently excellent, but short of the Hall.
Up next in a similar vein, Cole Hamels! Hamels is like Verlander’s slightly less effective twin, with career peripherals almost identical (Hamels had slightly better control, Verlander had slightly better stuff). Hamels broke in with the Phillies at age 22 in 2006 and didn’t leave until 2016, ten years later. During those years he broke 5 rWAR four times (a 5, 6, 7 and 8). After the Phillies he bounced around the league for several years with a series of above average seasons and by age 37 he was more or less done. His best years with the Phillies were squandered on a team not able to get him to the playoffs. Hamels was consistently good and had several very strong years, but was definitely short of the Hall.
Same era, weirder name, Jair Jurrjens! I don’t know what was going on at this time in the MLB/PBL crossover because Jurrjens is the third of a long series of players that retired in the 2020s that come up as Honorable Mentions. Jurrjens started with Detroit in 2007, played two excellent years in Atlanta (3.7 and 7.3 rWAR) and was then picked up to become a linchpin in EJ Joseph’s Tampa Bay machine (four seasons at 4.4 rWAR or higher). After several quality playoffs and a ring he was traded to Seattle and then bounced around the league for the next nine seasons. He did put up three 4+ rWAR seasons in that time but never consistently and never for the same team. Jurrjens was notable for having fairly low K/9 for an Honorable Mention pitcher (6.3) but his low HRA/9 (0.8) mostly balance it out.
The fourth of the eight 2020s retirees in Honorable Mention, and the second leg of the 2012 Giants pitching triumvirate, Matt Cain! Cain was a surefire Hall of Famer whose shot was crushed by injury. Cain broke in with the Giants in 2005 at age 20 and played for them until 2013. Starting in 2006 his rWAR totals: 3.5, 5.0, 4.8, 7.2, 4.5, 7.6, 9.8, 5.3. That’s 47.7 rWAR in eight seasons, or about 37 JONS points, where you need about 40 give or take to make Bronze, and this is all by age 28. So what happens? Cain signs with the Pirates and is promptly injured in his first game; out for the year. He’s traded to Baltimore where he is injured after 58 innings, out for the rest of that year and the next. By age 32 he could only break 100 IP every other season and was a shadow of his former self. Matt Cain before age 29 was one of the best pitchers in the league; Matt Cain after age 28 was a replacement level pitcher. A sad end to a great beginning. Cain was a curious pitcher in that his K/9 and BB/9 weren’t that great even during his peak (mid 7s and low 3s) but his strength was keeping the ball in the park. He was a great pitcher in his day and we’re sad that he didn’t make Bronze.
Up next, Neftali Feliz! He pitched 3100+ innings but it took him 19 seasons to do it, starting at age 21 (2009) with the Rangers and retiring at age 39 (2027) with the Mets. Feliz exploded into the league with a monster fastball/curveball combination that let him break 10 K/9 twice in his first few seasons. As he aged he relied more and more on his curveball with great success, retiring with 9 K/9 for his career. He was a bit wild (3.6 BB/9) but his dominating stuff made up for it. Feliz was consistently excellent, with an astounding fourteen seasons at 3+ rWAR, but rarely one of the best in the league (only three seasons above 5 rWAR and only one above 5.2, the 7.5 rWAR season at age 30). He is in Cooperstown but it’s a little hard to see why. He was consistently very good but he falls short of the standards for Bronze. He was very good for a long time, but his lack of serious peak (minus his one great year) really hurts his case.
The sixth of seven Honorable Mention pitchers to retire within a seven-year period, Ubaldo Jimenez! Ubaldo (who really betrayed a hundred nicknames by not shaving his head bald) was the quintessential keep-the-ball-in-the-park pitcher. He’s even more Matt Cain than Matt Cain. He has a career K/BB just barely above 2 (7.0 K/9 and 3.4 BB/9) but he actually had an excellent career on the back of surrendering only 0.7 HRA/9. Also, during his peak (2009-2017, ages 25-33) he put up 200+ IP seasons every single year (3600 innings total). At the intersection of his durability and his consistent quality he put up a ton of good seasons: twelve 3+ rWAR years and five 5+ rWAR seasons, including a peak season of 7.7. It was an excellent career, even in spite of his striking out less than 6 per 9 in his 70+ playoff innings.
The seventh and final Honorable Mention from this decade Daniel Tuttle. Tuttle was excellent at avoiding mistakes; he allowed only 0.7 HR/9 and 2.7 BB/9, which meant that even given a low K/9 rate (7.2) he was generally excellent. He bounced around between 7 teams over his career (only 2800 innings) and pitched for no team more than four seasons in a row (though he pitched five for Miami, split between two stints). Tuttle was dependant on his ability to limit mistakes; on the seasons where he surrendered walks or home runs his strikeouts weren’t enough to keep things in check. This means that he had a very hit or miss career. He had six 4+ rWAR seasons, with a 6.8, a 7.0 and an 8.1. But he only had eight 3+ seasons, which is a pretty low number. He was also a fantastic postseason pitcher, boasting a 7-3 record and a 2.73 ERA (3.3 fWAR and 4.2 rWAR in only 110 innings). Between his postseason credentials and his single Cy Young (2020, the 8.1 rWAR year when he was the best pitcher on the Pennant-winning Pirates and lead a trio including Taillon and Strasburg) Tuttle has a legitimate argument for Bronze. We think he’s just short (and really missed his calling by not going as Daniel “Snapping” Tuttle). Pretty good for a guy who broke 8 K/9 twice in his career!
Jumping forward eight years, thank the baseball gods, Pedro Vargo! Vargo was one of those rarities, a player that played for the same team through his entire career (almost). He came up in 2022 (age 22) and played for them until 2035, pitching almost 2800 innings for the franchise. While the Rockies were generally weak during that time, they did have a dominant five-year stretch (2025-2029) where they made the playoffs all five years and won Colorado’s first championship and Vargo was a big part of the last three years, putting up 20.7 rWAR. In the 2027 playoffs (en route to the championship) Vargo was superb, going 2-0 over 33.2 innings with 34 Ks and only 4 BBs. As far as the rest of his career, the knock on Vargo was that his peak was quite narrow. Between ages 27 and 31 his years: 7.8, 6.4, 6.5, 4.0 and 5.9 rWAR. Outside of that peak, his top 5 years: 3.5, 3.5, 3.5, 2.9, 2.8. In other words, during his peak (during which he made All-Star each year) he was one of the best pitchers in the league, but aside from those five years he was merely good. Vargo was a control pitcher, averaging only 6.9 K/9 for his career but keeping his BB/9 to 1.7. One of the best pitchers the Rockies have ever had.
Let’s move forward a bit to Fernando “Truth” Ramirez! The Truth (tee hee) is that Ramirez pitched more innings than any other Honorable Mention PBL pitcher. Pitching full time from ages 21 to 41 he racked up 3700+ innings (fourteen of those twenty one seasons were for Atlanta). One may reasonably infer that if you can enjoy that level of endurance but not crack the Bronze cutoff, that you probably weren’t super dominant. And he wasn’t. He’s kind of like the PBL Don Sutton; throwing up twelve 3+ rWAR seasons but only have two above 5 rWAR, a 5.1 and a 5.4. He won Rookie of the Year in 2022 for a 3.5 rWAR season, made All-Star eighteen years later for a 3.7 rWAR season, and that concludes all of his hardware. Fernando Ramirez was never one of the best in the league; he was never even close. He was simply a very reliable pitcher who pitched for a long time at a very good level.
One of the worst strikeout pitchers to be in this building, give it up for Chris Sampson! Sampson broke in with Boston in 2028 (age 23) with a 2.5 rWAR season, in which he struck out 5.5 batters per nine. His stuff didn’t really improve from there; his best ever season was 7.4 K/9 and he retired with 6.0 K/9. Luckily, his other skills were on point (0.8 career HRA/9 and 2.0 BB/9). The end result? An Honorable Mention pitcher. His rWAR and fWAR tell two different stories. His rWAR shows several really nice spikes (an 8.7 rWAR season (Miami, age 34) where he won the Cy Young, a 7.6 and a 6.1) but his fWAR doesn’t at all (5.8 fWAR is as high as it goes and everything else is below 5). By rWAR he’s barely a Bronze pitcher (the aforementioned three great years plus another three 5s plus a lot of 3s and 4s) but fWAR barely has him squeak in at Honorable Mention. So while rWAR is the ultimate determiner, we know there is some luck involved so we kept Sampson short of Bronze. His career is a testament to how long a low-stuff pitcher can be effective, given that Sampson was arguably better in his mid 30s than his mid 20s or even at 30.
Up next, Dave “Buttermilk Tommy” Bean! I’m personally disappointed that his nickname wasn’t “Old”, because I feel like “Old Bean” and Daniel Tuttle would have been part of a very posh pitching tea club. But anyhow. Let’s set the scene. The year is 2028. The Marlins have just won 62 games, and 50 the year before that. Their last playoff season was 2023. The next year Dave Bean enters the scene. Bean pitches 214 innings, wins 13 games, puts up 4.7 rWAR and the Marlins win 89 games. In the coming years Bean and James Solof combine for superb pitching at the top of the Marlins rotation. For that decade (2029-2038) Bean plays for the Marlins and puts up eight 3+ rWAR seasons, of which six are 4+, four are 5+, one is 6.5 and one is 7.2 rWAR. During this eleven year span the Marlins make the playoffs every year and break 100 wins three times, culminating in a championship in 2039. Here’s the sad part: under financial pressures (the Marlins in the late years of this push were supporting payrolls around $150 million) Bean was allowed to depart. Despite helping the Marlins to the playoffs for a straight decade, he was let go the year before they actually won it all; a rough end to a great tenure with the team. Then, of course, the wheels fell off of Miami where, after an average season in 2040, they have never won more than 72 games in a season. Dave Bean bounced around the league with several teams, putting up 3-5 rWAR seasons from ages 32 to 35. By then his strikeout ability had disintegrated and he retired after two weak years.
Dave Bean was actually good at everything. His career K/9 rate (7.9 obscures the fact that at his peak he had five seasons at 9 K/9 or higher. He also allowed only 0.7 HRA/9 and 2.2 BB/9, all of which are very impressive. In fact, his ERA- and FIP- are both very low (77 and 81 respectively) some of the very best numbers in the Honorable Mention section. So why isn’t he Bronze? There are three contributing factors. First, while he was consistently really good, he never had a super-dominant season or two, despite finishing in the top four of fWAR four times. Second, he struggled with workload, missing two seasons almost completely and having five seasons *total* where his IP were above 200. His total IP of 2639 is quite low, even for Honorable Mention. And lastly, he struggled in the playoffs. While his K/BB was unchanged, his HRA/9 doubled to 1.4. In 138 playoff innings he put up 1.6 rWAR, making him a slightly above average pitcher. A dominant postseason showing would have been enough to push him to Bronze. Bean is right on the fence of the next level, but these three factors keep him on the ground floor.
*** Sorry about how short some of these are. The fact that none of these guys have history in the game makes building a narrative pretty time consuming.
Starting off with some crossover players, we have Justin Verlander! Verlander pitched almost 3200 innings over his career, starting at 22 with Detroit in 2005 and finishing in 2022 at 39 with the Angels. Verlander had a weird career. First, he wasn’t dominant at any one thing. While he was a pretty capable strikeout pitcher when he was young he retired with 7.9 K/9, 2.9 BB/9 and 1.0 HRA/9, all of which are good but none of which are great. The other weird thing was that he didn’t have a regular career arc. He opened hot for Detroit, putting up 5+ rWAR four times in five years (including a Rookie of the Year win). Two years later at age 29 he had his best year, an 8.8 rWAR season for San Francisco (that 97-win team had a rotation including Verlander, Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum). He struggled in his early 30s but at 34 and 35 had two 3+ rWAR years for Atlanta, was injured for an entire season and then came back at age 37 for a 5.5 rWAR farewell tour with the Dodgers. Verlander was consistently excellent, but short of the Hall.
Up next in a similar vein, Cole Hamels! Hamels is like Verlander’s slightly less effective twin, with career peripherals almost identical (Hamels had slightly better control, Verlander had slightly better stuff). Hamels broke in with the Phillies at age 22 in 2006 and didn’t leave until 2016, ten years later. During those years he broke 5 rWAR four times (a 5, 6, 7 and 8). After the Phillies he bounced around the league for several years with a series of above average seasons and by age 37 he was more or less done. His best years with the Phillies were squandered on a team not able to get him to the playoffs. Hamels was consistently good and had several very strong years, but was definitely short of the Hall.
Same era, weirder name, Jair Jurrjens! I don’t know what was going on at this time in the MLB/PBL crossover because Jurrjens is the third of a long series of players that retired in the 2020s that come up as Honorable Mentions. Jurrjens started with Detroit in 2007, played two excellent years in Atlanta (3.7 and 7.3 rWAR) and was then picked up to become a linchpin in EJ Joseph’s Tampa Bay machine (four seasons at 4.4 rWAR or higher). After several quality playoffs and a ring he was traded to Seattle and then bounced around the league for the next nine seasons. He did put up three 4+ rWAR seasons in that time but never consistently and never for the same team. Jurrjens was notable for having fairly low K/9 for an Honorable Mention pitcher (6.3) but his low HRA/9 (0.8) mostly balance it out.
The fourth of the eight 2020s retirees in Honorable Mention, and the second leg of the 2012 Giants pitching triumvirate, Matt Cain! Cain was a surefire Hall of Famer whose shot was crushed by injury. Cain broke in with the Giants in 2005 at age 20 and played for them until 2013. Starting in 2006 his rWAR totals: 3.5, 5.0, 4.8, 7.2, 4.5, 7.6, 9.8, 5.3. That’s 47.7 rWAR in eight seasons, or about 37 JONS points, where you need about 40 give or take to make Bronze, and this is all by age 28. So what happens? Cain signs with the Pirates and is promptly injured in his first game; out for the year. He’s traded to Baltimore where he is injured after 58 innings, out for the rest of that year and the next. By age 32 he could only break 100 IP every other season and was a shadow of his former self. Matt Cain before age 29 was one of the best pitchers in the league; Matt Cain after age 28 was a replacement level pitcher. A sad end to a great beginning. Cain was a curious pitcher in that his K/9 and BB/9 weren’t that great even during his peak (mid 7s and low 3s) but his strength was keeping the ball in the park. He was a great pitcher in his day and we’re sad that he didn’t make Bronze.
Up next, Neftali Feliz! He pitched 3100+ innings but it took him 19 seasons to do it, starting at age 21 (2009) with the Rangers and retiring at age 39 (2027) with the Mets. Feliz exploded into the league with a monster fastball/curveball combination that let him break 10 K/9 twice in his first few seasons. As he aged he relied more and more on his curveball with great success, retiring with 9 K/9 for his career. He was a bit wild (3.6 BB/9) but his dominating stuff made up for it. Feliz was consistently excellent, with an astounding fourteen seasons at 3+ rWAR, but rarely one of the best in the league (only three seasons above 5 rWAR and only one above 5.2, the 7.5 rWAR season at age 30). He is in Cooperstown but it’s a little hard to see why. He was consistently very good but he falls short of the standards for Bronze. He was very good for a long time, but his lack of serious peak (minus his one great year) really hurts his case.
The sixth of seven Honorable Mention pitchers to retire within a seven-year period, Ubaldo Jimenez! Ubaldo (who really betrayed a hundred nicknames by not shaving his head bald) was the quintessential keep-the-ball-in-the-park pitcher. He’s even more Matt Cain than Matt Cain. He has a career K/BB just barely above 2 (7.0 K/9 and 3.4 BB/9) but he actually had an excellent career on the back of surrendering only 0.7 HRA/9. Also, during his peak (2009-2017, ages 25-33) he put up 200+ IP seasons every single year (3600 innings total). At the intersection of his durability and his consistent quality he put up a ton of good seasons: twelve 3+ rWAR years and five 5+ rWAR seasons, including a peak season of 7.7. It was an excellent career, even in spite of his striking out less than 6 per 9 in his 70+ playoff innings.
The seventh and final Honorable Mention from this decade Daniel Tuttle. Tuttle was excellent at avoiding mistakes; he allowed only 0.7 HR/9 and 2.7 BB/9, which meant that even given a low K/9 rate (7.2) he was generally excellent. He bounced around between 7 teams over his career (only 2800 innings) and pitched for no team more than four seasons in a row (though he pitched five for Miami, split between two stints). Tuttle was dependant on his ability to limit mistakes; on the seasons where he surrendered walks or home runs his strikeouts weren’t enough to keep things in check. This means that he had a very hit or miss career. He had six 4+ rWAR seasons, with a 6.8, a 7.0 and an 8.1. But he only had eight 3+ seasons, which is a pretty low number. He was also a fantastic postseason pitcher, boasting a 7-3 record and a 2.73 ERA (3.3 fWAR and 4.2 rWAR in only 110 innings). Between his postseason credentials and his single Cy Young (2020, the 8.1 rWAR year when he was the best pitcher on the Pennant-winning Pirates and lead a trio including Taillon and Strasburg) Tuttle has a legitimate argument for Bronze. We think he’s just short (and really missed his calling by not going as Daniel “Snapping” Tuttle). Pretty good for a guy who broke 8 K/9 twice in his career!
Jumping forward eight years, thank the baseball gods, Pedro Vargo! Vargo was one of those rarities, a player that played for the same team through his entire career (almost). He came up in 2022 (age 22) and played for them until 2035, pitching almost 2800 innings for the franchise. While the Rockies were generally weak during that time, they did have a dominant five-year stretch (2025-2029) where they made the playoffs all five years and won Colorado’s first championship and Vargo was a big part of the last three years, putting up 20.7 rWAR. In the 2027 playoffs (en route to the championship) Vargo was superb, going 2-0 over 33.2 innings with 34 Ks and only 4 BBs. As far as the rest of his career, the knock on Vargo was that his peak was quite narrow. Between ages 27 and 31 his years: 7.8, 6.4, 6.5, 4.0 and 5.9 rWAR. Outside of that peak, his top 5 years: 3.5, 3.5, 3.5, 2.9, 2.8. In other words, during his peak (during which he made All-Star each year) he was one of the best pitchers in the league, but aside from those five years he was merely good. Vargo was a control pitcher, averaging only 6.9 K/9 for his career but keeping his BB/9 to 1.7. One of the best pitchers the Rockies have ever had.
Let’s move forward a bit to Fernando “Truth” Ramirez! The Truth (tee hee) is that Ramirez pitched more innings than any other Honorable Mention PBL pitcher. Pitching full time from ages 21 to 41 he racked up 3700+ innings (fourteen of those twenty one seasons were for Atlanta). One may reasonably infer that if you can enjoy that level of endurance but not crack the Bronze cutoff, that you probably weren’t super dominant. And he wasn’t. He’s kind of like the PBL Don Sutton; throwing up twelve 3+ rWAR seasons but only have two above 5 rWAR, a 5.1 and a 5.4. He won Rookie of the Year in 2022 for a 3.5 rWAR season, made All-Star eighteen years later for a 3.7 rWAR season, and that concludes all of his hardware. Fernando Ramirez was never one of the best in the league; he was never even close. He was simply a very reliable pitcher who pitched for a long time at a very good level.
One of the worst strikeout pitchers to be in this building, give it up for Chris Sampson! Sampson broke in with Boston in 2028 (age 23) with a 2.5 rWAR season, in which he struck out 5.5 batters per nine. His stuff didn’t really improve from there; his best ever season was 7.4 K/9 and he retired with 6.0 K/9. Luckily, his other skills were on point (0.8 career HRA/9 and 2.0 BB/9). The end result? An Honorable Mention pitcher. His rWAR and fWAR tell two different stories. His rWAR shows several really nice spikes (an 8.7 rWAR season (Miami, age 34) where he won the Cy Young, a 7.6 and a 6.1) but his fWAR doesn’t at all (5.8 fWAR is as high as it goes and everything else is below 5). By rWAR he’s barely a Bronze pitcher (the aforementioned three great years plus another three 5s plus a lot of 3s and 4s) but fWAR barely has him squeak in at Honorable Mention. So while rWAR is the ultimate determiner, we know there is some luck involved so we kept Sampson short of Bronze. His career is a testament to how long a low-stuff pitcher can be effective, given that Sampson was arguably better in his mid 30s than his mid 20s or even at 30.
Up next, Dave “Buttermilk Tommy” Bean! I’m personally disappointed that his nickname wasn’t “Old”, because I feel like “Old Bean” and Daniel Tuttle would have been part of a very posh pitching tea club. But anyhow. Let’s set the scene. The year is 2028. The Marlins have just won 62 games, and 50 the year before that. Their last playoff season was 2023. The next year Dave Bean enters the scene. Bean pitches 214 innings, wins 13 games, puts up 4.7 rWAR and the Marlins win 89 games. In the coming years Bean and James Solof combine for superb pitching at the top of the Marlins rotation. For that decade (2029-2038) Bean plays for the Marlins and puts up eight 3+ rWAR seasons, of which six are 4+, four are 5+, one is 6.5 and one is 7.2 rWAR. During this eleven year span the Marlins make the playoffs every year and break 100 wins three times, culminating in a championship in 2039. Here’s the sad part: under financial pressures (the Marlins in the late years of this push were supporting payrolls around $150 million) Bean was allowed to depart. Despite helping the Marlins to the playoffs for a straight decade, he was let go the year before they actually won it all; a rough end to a great tenure with the team. Then, of course, the wheels fell off of Miami where, after an average season in 2040, they have never won more than 72 games in a season. Dave Bean bounced around the league with several teams, putting up 3-5 rWAR seasons from ages 32 to 35. By then his strikeout ability had disintegrated and he retired after two weak years.
Dave Bean was actually good at everything. His career K/9 rate (7.9 obscures the fact that at his peak he had five seasons at 9 K/9 or higher. He also allowed only 0.7 HRA/9 and 2.2 BB/9, all of which are very impressive. In fact, his ERA- and FIP- are both very low (77 and 81 respectively) some of the very best numbers in the Honorable Mention section. So why isn’t he Bronze? There are three contributing factors. First, while he was consistently really good, he never had a super-dominant season or two, despite finishing in the top four of fWAR four times. Second, he struggled with workload, missing two seasons almost completely and having five seasons *total* where his IP were above 200. His total IP of 2639 is quite low, even for Honorable Mention. And lastly, he struggled in the playoffs. While his K/BB was unchanged, his HRA/9 doubled to 1.4. In 138 playoff innings he put up 1.6 rWAR, making him a slightly above average pitcher. A dominant postseason showing would have been enough to push him to Bronze. Bean is right on the fence of the next level, but these three factors keep him on the ground floor.
*** Sorry about how short some of these are. The fact that none of these guys have history in the game makes building a narrative pretty time consuming.