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Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Pettitte for hall of fame?
Let me give you a little trick when you are confronted with these questions. Take the player you are interested in, find out when he was born, and then find out all the player 5 years younger and 5 years older than him. And figure out where he ranks in that group (or you expect him to rank by the time everyone’s career is over). The top 10 pitchers and the top 20 nonpitchers are viable HOF candidates of this pool of players. More or less. Pretty much. It’s a little trick.
So, how about Pettitte? Pettitte was born in June 1972. That means, his peer group is all pitcher born from 1967 to 1977. Who are the best pitchers in that birth class?
Here are the guys, roughly in order, of how I figure their careers will end: Pedro, Mo, Smoltz, Mussina, Doc, Oswalt, Hoffman, Carpenter, Lowe, Hudson, Appier. Quibble all you like. Add a few more pitchers if you like. I’m not putting much effort into this. Pettitte I think is right in the middle of all those players. And unless you want to argue that this class of pitchers is below the standard for an 11-year period, that makes Pettitte a viable HOF candidate.
The greatest period of talent is arguably the 1962-1971 time period (from Clemens to Pedro, including RJ and Maddux, not to mention Smoltz, Mussina, Glavine, Ke Brown, Schilling, Mo, and Hoffman).
And the sad period was 1952-1961 (post-Blyleven, pre-Clemens).
You may want to check the 2010 Hardball Times Annual actually… I touch upon this a bit.