Article: A Hall Without Jack Morris Is No Hall at All

[OldManWinter]

Levisthan: it could be some of us place more weight on what we saw and were aware of over Jack Morris' career rather than a comparison of stats.

 

That is valid too. Consider since the beginning of MLB time the baseball people made their player decisions without any metrics. Can anyone imagine Ozzie Guillen or Jim Leyland pouring over metrics to make their player decisions?

 

That is not to discount metrics, only to say there are different ways of coming to conclusions. After all, for most of us baseball is entertainment and these are only opinions.

 

That JM had a high ERA is a fact and that it is higher than most in the HOF is also a fact. Whether they are serious enough to disqualify HOF membership is an opinion. I think he belongs.

[TheLeviathan]

Levisthan: it could be some of us place more weight on what we saw and were aware of over Jack Morris' career rather than a comparison of stats.

 

That's fine....up to the point that you rely on that biased perception to the point of erroneous beliefs. For example, Barreiro and then people here suggested that his high ERA was the result of pitching past exhaustion late in games. The stats show that this is completely false.

 

If you want to romanticize beyond the stats - that's fine. But romanticizing a player's value in direct contrast to the stats is an issue. As the link Brock posted above demonstrates - there is a LOT of that in play with Morris for whatever reason.

[cmathewson]

Levisthan: it could be some of us place more weight on what we saw and were aware of over Jack Morris' career rather than a comparison of stats.

 

That is valid too. Consider since the beginning of MLB time the baseball people made their player decisions without any metrics. Can anyone imagine Ozzie Guillen or Jim Leyland pouring over metrics to make their player decisions?

 

That is not to discount metrics, only to say there are different ways of coming to conclusions. After all, for most of us baseball is entertainment and these are only opinions.

 

That JM had a high ERA is a fact and that it is higher than most in the HOF is also a fact. Whether they are serious enough to disqualify HOF membership is an opinion. I think he belongs.

 

The problem with this is you were not able to see all the pitchers of Jack's era as often as you saw Jack. So, naturally, you will recall his performances more than other pitchers who are just as worthy or worthier. That's one reason we have stats, which, by the way, we have always had. They were just less reliable before Sabremetrics. Stats are our way of correcting the biases that happen naturally no matter how much time we've spent watching the game we love. In the case of the HOF vote, there are so many voters to correct for these biases. The fact that he didn't get in after years and years of such votes is an indicator that he doesn't belong, at least not his bust.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

If you want to romanticize beyond the stats - that's fine. But romanticizing a player's value in direct contrast to the stats is an issue. As the link Brock posted above demonstrates - there is a LOT of that in play with Morris for whatever reason.

 

Of course we are romanticizing! Because for many people Morris's value transcended his stats (which were still pretty good). Ask me in a year what Morris's career ERA is and I will have forgotten but will probably tell you it was something like 2.45 and then we'll launch into a barstool debate about the players -- besides Rollie Fingers and Jack Morris -- who had the greatest moustaches in baseball, which is a heck of a lot funner than arguing about some guys fWAR vs bWAr

[Guest USAFChief]

That's fine....up to the point that you rely on that biased perception to the point of erroneous beliefs. For example, Barreiro and then people here suggested that his high ERA was the result of pitching past exhaustion late in games. The stats show that this is completely false.

 

If you want to romanticize beyond the stats - that's fine. But romanticizing a player's value in direct contrast to the stats is an issue. As the link Brock posted above demonstrates - there is a LOT of that in play with Morris for whatever reason.

I don't think someone's opinion about the worthiness of a player for MLB's HOF is "an issue."

[old nurse]

Glavine made it in on his first ballot. Other than pitching 4 years longer, what did Glavine do that was better than Mussina? Wins are a team stat. Cy Young awards are a popularity contest. Mussina had the audacity to retire when he was still good, Glavine did not. Cy Young awards are votes based on a subjective opinion on who had the best year, see 1998 Cy Young results. The only thing Glavine did better than Brown or Maddux was win more games. For a career Gavine won 35 more games than Mussina. That was enough to get 409 more HOF votes. What made his career better than Mussina's? A team stat and a beauty contest.

There are no individual benchmarks for pitchers other than 300 wins, except if you are Roger Clemons. After Randy Johnson and Mariano Rivera get in there might not be another pitcher for a while.

 

When you look at Morris's career, he never won a beauty contest, he wore out before he could get to 300 wins. He was over the time he pitched one of the best for durability and consistency. He pitched 2 teams to WS wins. In the end, not quite enough.

[TheLeviathan]

I don't think someone's opinion about the worthiness of a player for MLB's HOF is "an issue."

 

You took a comment completely out of context. Especially in light of the fact that the discussion started with the implication that stat-oriented people were arriving at conclusions and then finding facts.

 

My point was that if you are trusting your romanticized bias of a player over (and especially in direct contradiction to) stats, there is an issue with your reasoning. Especially if you're lobbing that kind of accusation around.

[Mike Sixel]

the thing about observation bias and MLB is this.....

 

Did anyone that "saw" how great a player was really watch all 162 games for all the teams? If not, how do you know he was better w/o using measurment?