Will Roy Halladay make it to 300 career wins?

[Judge Jude]

"I have looked back through the thread and have no idea where this "inner circle" concept"

see the post above yours

When it's Koufax, it's all about dominance, apparently, but when it's Halladay vs Hudson, it's all about total stats. Which is it?
Halladay has been significantly more dominant than Hudson, not even close. Hudson's best Cy finish is 2nd, a year when he had a 4.14 ERA and a 113 ERA+. Not exactly Halladay territory.

Meanwhile, let me know if you think any of these pitchers would "merit Hof consideration":
Bender
Bunning
Chesbro
Coveleski
Dean
Drysdale
Faber
Gomez
Grimes
Haines
Hoyt
Hunter
Joss
Lemon
Lyons
Marquard
McGinnity
Newhouser
Pennock
Ruffing
Rusie
Vance
Willis

[chancellor]

Fans and "experts" didn't understand park effects and era differences at the time, so they took Koufax as almost literally the greatest pitcher ever just because his ERA was so low.

Wow....this is just wrong. Yes, his ERA was low. He was also +70 in win differential during his 4-year peak (97-27). He struck out over 1228 batters in 4 years and 1193 IP. He gave up only 825 hits in those 1193 innings.

He was, by the common metrics of the day, ridiculously dominating. He won 3 Cy's during that time, 1 MVP, and finished 2nd in MVP voting two other times. He didn't win those Cy's merely because his ERA was low - he won 25, 26, and 27 games those years.

[TS Garp]

Wow, that's some serious prescience on your part, Judge Jude, knowing that someone would eventually come up with something resembling an "inner circle" comment!


To answer your question, it's about both dominance and total stats. Cy Young voting patterns, as I just noted, are pretty meaningless. Remember how shocked we all were that King Felix won a Cy with his poor record? Yeah, because Cy Young voters have been traditionally far more likely to vote for Tom Glavine when he wins 20 or Ferguson Jenkins when he wins 24 (instead of Seaver, who only managed 20 wins to go with his 1.76 ERA).

Tim Hudson's top 3 years of ERA+ --- 165, 145, 138
Roy Hallday's top 3 years of ERA+ --- 167, 163, 159

Edge to Halladay, but not by a mile. And, as noted, their career numbers are really similar. Again, and hopefully for the last time, Halladay has had a better career than Tim Hudson, but the gap is not really that wide.

And the next best 3 after those:

Halladay: 157, 152, 145
Hudson: 131, 129, 129

The second 129 for Hudson is in only 188 ip. If we're only going with seasons over 200 ip, it's 119.

The gap between Halladay and Hudson is larger than you're acknowledging.

[TS Garp]

LOL, ok. Halladay, despite having remarkably similar career stats to Tim Hudson, is really far better and not just better. Neither are Hall of Famers. If Roy Halladay's career ended right now because of his injury, I would not vote for his induction into the Hall of Fame nor would he deserve said induction.

So, is Albert Pujols just a bit better than Lance Berkman?

[TS Garp]

That gap is far, far wider. Extrapolation fail.

If you say so.

[Judge Jude]

"He was, by the common metrics of the day, ridiculously dominating. He won 3 Cy's during that time, 1 MVP, and finished 2nd in MVP voting two other times."

Koufax deserved those kudos. He was the most dominating pitcher, even with adjustments.

I was talking about how the mindset at the time was roughly "a 1.62 ERA in 1965 is better than a 1.82 ERA in 1933," which we now realize, is preposterous. Once you make the proper adjustments, Koufax's peak remains so great that he's a Hall of Famer anyway. But the proper adjustments weren't made back then, which is why he was perceived as the peak-iest guy ever when that's not necessarily so.

A player be both overrated and still great. "Koufax is not the best pitcher in baseball history" is not an insult.

[cavebird]

Fans and "experts" didn't understand park effects and era differences at the time, so they took Koufax as almost literally the greatest pitcher ever just because his ERA was so low. Gibson got that benefit in 1968, when no one seemed to notice how low ALL of the numbers were.
Now, Koufax and Gibson are both Hall of Famers anyway, but we now better put their accomplishments into context.

Koufax has a 4-year or 6-year peak that is right up there, even with adjustments, with all-time greats. But it's not BETTER, and most of those other greats have another 5-15 years of merit where Koufax has none, so it's silly to rank Koufax with them overall. Koufax also retired at his peak, so there was no decline phase. If he went 20-30 over a couple of forgettable seasons to finish, he'd still be short of 200 wins and his ERA wouldn't look as dazzling, so the "story" would be lessened (though he'd still be worthy from his peak).

Is Koufax a top 10 all-time pitcher? Most would have said so 20-30 years ago; far fewer would now as the context is clearer. If you'll consider him around the top 10, I'm saying, then how can you knock Halladay out of the HOF completely? Less dominant, but very dominant, and for several more years. Either peak matters, or it doesn't. Halladay has a really good peak AND prime.

Halladay has a postseason no-hitter and did more memorable things than a Mussina did.....

This sure sounds to me like a confession that your Koufax is in the "inner circle" argument is a straw man based upon the thoughts of unidentified, under-sabermetrically educated "fans and experts." Hence your problems with the argument---nobody here is embodying the straw man you created.

[onejayhawk]

The thing that first turned my head about Koufax is this. Over a two year period he was 9-0 with three runs in support. Over the same period he was 6-3 with 2 runs. With one run, he ws 3-1. That's 18-4 when the opponents ERA was under 2.00.

J

[Judge Jude]

my post was:
"If Halladay was done now (and he isn't), it would be awkward for Koufax-lovers.
Sure, Koufax's peak is better, even park-adjusted and playing era-adjusted, but Halladay's prime is right there (Koufax only has six seasons worth talking about).
If Koufax is an all-time inner-circle great, then it's impossible to say Halladay isn't even a Hall of Famer. Halladay even has the "cool stuff" to boot, like those no-hitters."

that's not a straw man, imo
"A straw man is a type of argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position."

Whose opinion did I misrepresent? No one's. The words "would be" are a good hint of that. I don't think that's customary in straw man arguments, lol. A straw man argument tries to twist an opponent's argument and then attack that as if that was the argument in the first place.

For a straw man example, see chancellor's response to my post......

[chancellor]

I was talking about how the mindset at the time was roughly "a 1.62 ERA in 1965 is better than a 1.82 ERA in 1933," which we now realize, is preposterous. Once you make the proper adjustments, Koufax's peak remains so great that he's a Hall of Famer anyway. But the proper adjustments weren't made back then, which is why he was perceived as the peak-iest guy ever when that's not necessarily so.

With the possible exception of Lefty Grove (and that's arguable), no one before him had a greater peak. With the exception of Pedro Martinez, no one after him had a greater peak.

Now, downgrading Koufax due to limited longevity is valid. But he still had one of the best peaks of any pitcher ever...maybe even the best, if you look at a 4-year window as a peak.

[OaklandA's]

Now, downgrading Koufax due to limited longevity is valid. But he still had one of the best peaks of any pitcher ever...maybe even the best, if you look at a 4-year window as a peak.

For example, take a look at Greg Maddux's 5 year stretch from 1994 to 1998:
Maddux ERA+ (1994-98): 271, 260, 162, 189, 187
Koufax ERA+ (1962-66): 143, 159, 186, 160, 190

You can argue the merits of ERA+, especially at the extremes like these two pitchers, but it's hard to say that Koufax's peak is clearly better than Maddux's.

[Judge Jude]

"Koufax did pitch around 50% more innings per year than Maddux did."

again, context helps, unless you think every park and every generation had the same degree of difficulty.
also, Maddux's 1994 and 1995 were in roughly 110 and 144-game seasons. I assume you're not assuming Koufax would have prevented those labor battles.

Maddux IP ranks there: 1 1 2 8 3
Koufax IP ranks there:: x 3 x 1 1

x being "not even in the top 10 of a league with fewer teams"

[chancellor]

Well, a couple nitpicky things, but Chancellor did say 4 year peak and Koufax did pitch around 50% more innings per year than Maddux did.

Good point, but I'll even concede Maddux...though I'll bet Koufax would have struck out 500 with a 24" wide strike zone like Maddux had.

[Lurker765]

Good point, but I'll even concede Maddux...though I'll bet Koufax would have struck out 500 with a 24" wide strike zone like Maddux had.

What about Randy Johnson 1999-2002. Signed as a free agent and won the Cy Young award for each of the first four years of that contract. ERA+ of 184, 181, 188, 195 with IP of 271, 248, 249, 260 and strikeouts of 364, 347, 372 and 334

THAT is an impressive four years.

[Controller Jacobs]

I do think ERA+ starts to fail during extreme pitching seasons. The reason being there must be some practical minimum for era, given 180+ IP.

e.g.
Koufax's 1963 ERA of 1.88 is viewed vs a league average of 3.29. So his ERA+ is 100*3.29/1.88=159. That's similar to holding a 2.50 ERA when the league average is 4.00.
The issue I have is that, for practical purposes, nobody's pitching a full season and getting below a 0.50 ERA (after the deadball era, anyway). Since 1920, Gibson got near 1 and a couple guys got near 1.5.
So I'd say a more practical era+ would apply a minimum of 0.5 instead of 0. That would put Koufax 1963 at 202 (=100*(3.29-.5)/(1.88-.5)), and the 2.50 ERA in a 4.00 league at 175.

I also think runs vs earned runs could use some review. Maddux's 1995 is clearly better than his 1994. The most notable difference is his R/ER dropped 44/35 to 39/38. Both ERA and ERA+ hide that. While this probably doesn't effect Maddux, I think pitching errors should not "unearn" runs, and every home run should count as an earned run itself, regardless if there were two outs and two errors were made earlier.

(None of this is meant to put anything negative on Maddux, who I think can fairly be called the best pitcher of all time)