Congratulations to Bert Blyleven!

Baseball Statastic would like to congratulate Bert Blyleven on his induction to the Hall of Fame in 2011.

Yes, we've been away for awhile, but don't count us out just yet.

According to our world tracker, we've had hits in Japan and India! With such a global fan base, why not see if there aren't a few more statistics we can pick apart!

Bert Blyleven should be in the Hall of Fame

Shame on you.

Shame on you, baseball writers.

That we're mere days ahead of the announcement of Hall of Fame inductees for 2010 and Bert Blyleven is not already in the Hall is shameful.

Thanks to Baseball Reference, we can see where Blyleven falls on the all-time pitching lists, but we can also see where he lands on the list of Hall of Fame pitchers.

There are 68 pitchers in all. Six of those were elected primarily because of their status as a relief pitcher. We can subtract Babe Ruth as well who got into the Hall due to his...what was it... managerial record?

That brings us down to 61 starters. How does Blyleven fare? Pretty well.

Wins: at 287, only 20 pitchers have more wins and they all have at least 300.

Starts: with 685, only seven pitchers appeared on the bump at the beginning of a game more often.

Shut outs: 60--Blyleven is 9th all-time, 9th on the list of Hall-of-Famers. Come on. Only eight more pitchers in the history of the sport walked off the mound at the end of a game having given up no runs over an entire game. Come on.

Innings: Blyleven comes in at number 13.

Strike outs. Strike outs indeed! Perhaps the most incredible statistic in Blyleven's defense. At 3,701, Blyleven is 5th on the all-time list. When he retired he was third and he's still third when comparing him to the Hall-of-Famers. Randy Johnson and Roger Clemens are the two yet to be eligible.

Blyleven has amassed more strikeouts than 59 other Hall-of-Fame starting pitchers and he's not in the Hall of Fame.

Critics point to Blyleven's winning percentage: .534. True, Blyleven lost a lot of games, 250 to be exact, "good" enough for 10th on the all-time list, 9th on the list of Hall-of-Famers. Whereas the average Hall-of-Famer won 58.9% of his decisions, he has good company in a few very good pitchers: Gaylord Perry (.542), Robin Roberts (.539), Phil Neikro (.537), Nolan Ryan (.526).

Blyleven gets a bad rap regarding home runs given up. In a couple of seasons late in his career, he gave up 96 homers in 538 2/3 innings. In fact, he still holds the single-season record (50). However, the truth is, Blyleven was stingy with homeruns for much of his career. In six seasons, one of those coming after those two weird seasons, he finished in the top ten stingiest.

Blyleven's 3.31 ERA is higher than most. Again, though, he has some good recent company toward the bottom of the list: Jenkins (3.34) and Neikro (3.35).

Add to Blyleven's credentials two World Series rings (Pirates, Twins), and he pitched well in both (2-1, 2.35 ERA).

Bert Blyleven should be in the Hall of Fame. Best wishes for a fruitful 2010, Bert Blyleven!

How did Bob Gibson lose 9 games in 1968?

Ever since I was a kid collecting baseball cards, I've wondered how Bob Gibson could've ended up with any losses in 1968, let alone come within one loss of breaking double digits.

Why? His league-leading mark for the 1968 NL Pennant-winning Cardinals: a 1.12 ERA.

We're not talking about his World Series ERA. That was an unsightly 1.67 in three complete-game starts. After winning his first two starts and striking out 27 batters, he lost Game 7 to Mickey Lolich and a slightly better Tigers team 4-1.

No, Bob Gibson did something in 1968 that no one has come close to since that year and what only three other pitchers in the history of the game have bettered. And they pitched in the 1800s and early 1900s.

In 1968, Gibson pitched 304 2/3 innings and gave up 38 earned runs. No one pitches close to 300 innings any more so to put this into perspective, let's take a pitcher who pitches 204 2/3 innings. If he only gives up 38 runs, his ERA would be 1.67. Since 1968, only two pitchers have come in under that mark: Luis Tiant (1.60) and Greg Maddux twice (1.56, 1.63).

So how does a pitcher who barely gave up more than a run every nine innings go 22-9?

Five of Gibson's losses came in his first eight decisions. After those 10 starts, his ERA was 1.52. Aside from his first loss of the season, a 5-1 "blow-out" to the Cubs, the next four were barn-burners: 3-2, 1-0, 2-0 and 3-1.

Gibson then rattled off 15 wins between June 2 and August 19. After the first 12 of those wins, the Cubs once again found away to beat the Cards, winning 6-5 in a no-decision for Gibson. Before this game, Gibson's ERA had fallen below a buck: 0.96. Ten of the 15 wins were shutouts!

Despite a 1.20 ERA in his last 11 starts, including three more shutouts, Gibson could only manage a record of 7-4. His losses: 6-4, 3-2, 1-0 and 3-2.

One might have expected 30 wins from Bob Gibson in 1968. Afterall, his AL Cy Young winning counterpart finished 31-6 in 41 starts. It's important to note, though, that Denny McLain's run support outpaced that of Gibson's by almost 75%! McLain enjoyed 5.23 runs-per-game average against his 1.96 ERA, while Gibson's Cards could only muster a bit more than three runs per game (3.03).

Juan Marichal, 26-9, had an ERA more than twice as high as Gibson's (2.43), but Marichal's run support was 62% more than Gibson's at 4.91.

His impact on the National League. The league ERA for the season was 2.99, yes, much lower than we'll ever see again. However, take Gibson's season out of the mix and the league ERA jumps three points to 3.02!

On a final note, you can look at Gibson's amazing season on Baseball Reference. And the many other great pitching seasons. In all, seven pitchers finished the season with ERAs below 2.00, and it was a year that the AL had only one qualifying batter to finish about .300: Carl Yastrzemski with his league-leading .301.

But what you can't see as readily is the season of pitching against Bob Gibson in 1968. Imagine pulling that duty. Here's how they did in 34 starts (including a Gaylord Perry no-hitter!):

CG:9-----IP:234 1/3-----W-L:8-21
H:202-----R:81-----ER:68-----SO:159
BB:54-----SHO:3-----ERA:2.61-----HR:10

How to raise a Hall of Fame hitter

If you're going to shoot for the Pros with your young slugger in mind, why would you stop at a cup of coffee. You put all that money into baseball camps, private hitting coaches, showcases, and all you want is for your son to reach the Major Leagues? Come on--they're a dime a dozen. Let's work towards a Hall of Fame career.

But how do you do that? A look at the Hall of Fame hitters for the last 20 years (1989-2009) yields some interesting information.

It seems that while fathers all over the baseball world are impressed with their little guys hitting the seams off the whiffle ball, then the baseball, they should really be looking at whether or not he can take a base. Yes, take a walk.

The average Hall of Fame hitter from Henderson and Rice way back to Bench and Yastrzemski walked every 8.37 at bats. The best walkers were Joe Morgan (4.97) and Rickey Henderson (5.01). The biggest hacker was Kirby Puckett at one walk every 16.10 at bats. Take out these extremes and the rest of the hitter still walked once every 8.86 at bats.

Patience is a one virtue that is not rewarded at youth levels, high school, and even college levels. If a player walks at a showcase baseball camp, the option is usually offered to send in a "pinch" runner and allow the hitter to swing away. Being able to take pitches and walk runs up pitch counts and it puts runners on base ("A walk's just as good as a hit," my middle school coach used to say).

The question is: does patience and a good eye lead to higher batting averages? A question for another day....

Thanks baseballhalloffame.org, baseball-reference.com

Guys hitting in front of pitchers--not the easy out they used to be?

Growing up in the 70s and 80s, it was a given that a weak hitting NL shortstop would be plugged into the 8th hole right in front of the pitcher.

In a recent study of 162 random games from June, it seems that the number 8 hitter is no long a slouch.

In this "season" the number 8 hitter batted .261 with seven homers and 47 runs batted in. "He" scored 59 runs in 536 at bats, hit 21 doubles and had six sac bunts.

Number 8 batters don't walk as much as one might expect (43) since pitchers with the bases empty and two outs don't really need to pitch to this person. Part of this may also do with the fact that managers tend to bat players who can draw walks further up in the line-up.

But when you look at a couple of guys I remember hitting in the 8th hole, Larry Bowa and Ted Sizemore, you're talking about .260 and .262 lifetime hitters respectively. Both had homer-to-at-bat ratios that were much lower to the one in the above-mentioned sample.

Thanks: baseball-almanac.com

Helping your own cause

It's one of those overused clichés in baseball: if a pitcher gets a hit and especially if he drives in a run or scores, he's helped his own cause.

But is really? Does it make a difference that pitchers like the Cubs' Carlos Zambrano and the Reds' Micah Owings can hit?

A random analysis suggests that it can. I looked at 33 random starts (Group A) made by National league pitchers with 33 being considered a full season. I then looked at 33 starts made by National League pitchers who had either gotten a hit, a walk, or a sacrifice bunt (Group B).

Group A pitchers hit .103 (6 for 58) with an OPct. of .133. They had two walks and six sacrifice bunts. As a "pitcher" they combined for a record of 10-13 in 203 innings with a 3.72 ERA. They averaged 98 pitches per start.

Group B pitchers hit, of course much better, posting a .341 (15 for 44) batting average with an OPCT of .453. These pitchers walked 6 times and had 18 sac bunts. They logged much fewer at bats than Group A pitchers due to the higher number of walks and sac bunts. And it would seem that hitting better made a difference. Their record was an impressive 17-6. Although these pitchers had achieved something positive at the plate, they didn't log as many innings (187) and they averaged five less pitches per start (93). Their ERA was also higher at 3.99.

An interesting follow-up: how well does a pitcher do who YIELDS a positive result by an opposing pitcher? Does it work negatively on a pitcher's psyche if he doesn't convert what "should" be an easy out?

If you look at the pitchers from 1986 to 2006 who led the National League in hitting, they share an interesting aspect: longevity. (I excluded Brooks Kieschnick who in 2003 was 21 for 70 but his at bats were primarily pinch hitting appearances as he was a seldom-used reliever with 42 appearances) Pitchers in this time span averaged a career length of 14 years. Only four of the seasons were represented by pitchers with less than 10 years in the Majors.

Above all, you might say that these pitchers were superb athletes. For this 20-year "career", the pitchers compiled a record of 261-212 for a WPCT of .552.

Wes Ferrell (193 wins) was perhaps the strongest hitting pitcher of all time. This 15-year veteran from the late 20s to the early 40s hit .280 with 38 home runs, the most by a pitcher who pitched his entire career (Babe Ruth hit 714 homers, but...). Ferrell, like Micah Owings today, was an oft-used pinch hitter. Not as often, though, as Red Lucas (157 wins from the early 20s to the late 30s). Lucas didn't show the power that Ferrell did, but his teams relied on him to pinch hit for a total of 437 at bats resulting in 114 hits.

Thanks: baseball-reference.com, thebaseballcube.com, sportsillustrated.com