Admittedly, for most of this morning, I had no idea as to what I would write about today. The disappointment of my Yankees getting swept at Fenway and virtually ending any hopes at the postseason weighed on me and I couldn't come up with any topics that I felt compelled to write on. So, in need of some inspiration, I began playing my all-time favorite game, Strat-O-Matic baseball. For those of you unfamiliar with the game, it is a card and dice baseball simulation in which the players' cards are supposed to reflect on that particular player's real life performance.The game has been around since the early '60s, and I still have no idea why it took me until my freshman year of college to find it. The game is a great two person game, and I will recommend it strongly to any baseball fan. However, there is another aspect to it that I love just as much. There is a computer version that allows you to do season replays with boxscores and stats that the computer keeps and updates after every at bat. I am in the process of replaying the 1927, 1964, 1977, 1998, and 2012 seasons currently. But my inspiration for today's post came from the 1977 replay.
In an early May Dodgers-Mets game I played this morning, Los Angeles sent the 3-1 Tommy John to the hill to face John Matlack, who was 1-1. The Mets scored a run in the 5th frame, and again in the 9th, but in between the Dodgers scored 3 runs to take a 3-2 victory. More importantly for this story, Tommy John went the distance, allowing just 3 hits. This would be right on par for John, who, in real life went 20-7 in 1977. That is one of the other cool things about this game; It allows you to see just how good players (who you may have actually never seen) were. One of the next games I played took place at old Jack Murphy Stadium, as the Phillies took on the Padres. I saw that Jim Kaat was on the mound. In the real 1977, Kaat finished the year 6-11 with an ERA over 5. On this particular" Strat-O-Day" (in Kendrick-speak, any day where I play more than 5 baseball games), Kaat surrendered a first inning home run to Merv Rettermund, but a 6 run second inning for the Phillies gave him all the cushion he needed. A master of "pitching to the scoreboard", Kaat went 6 innings, allowing 3 runs, and picked up the win for Philadelphia.
Now, without looking up the stats, I know a few things about Kaat. I know he played for a long time. I know he won somewhere in the neighborhood of 280 games (I checked it a little while later...Kaat won 283 games in his career). I know Kaat won 16 Gold Gloves, and is widely regarded (along with Greg Maddux and possibly Mike Mussina) as being one of the best defensive pitchers of all-time. And lastly, I know that Jim Kaat is NOT in the Hall of Fame.
So, having played Strat baseball games that involved both Kaat and John, I thought "those are two really solid pitchers who aren't in the Hall of Fame. Why?" And there ya have it! That's how we got to today's topic. I also considered adding Jack Morris to the list (1991 World Series Game 7 anybody?) but for the time being, we'll just assume the 3.90 career ERA has swayed the voters negatively. Now, without further ado, let's look at the careers and Hall of Fame cases for John and Kaat.
TOMMY JOHN
"When they operated on my arm, I asked them to put in a Koufax fastball. They did, but it turned out to be Mrs. Koufax."
A 26-year career that spanned from 1963 to 1989 is incredible and remarkable enough, but today Tommy John is known more for the surgery that now bears his name. It's unfortuante, if you ask me, that his career is barely remembered. In fact, I remember talking to someone about his career over the summer, and when I mentioned John's name they said "Isn't that the guy the surgery is named after?" But in his career, John was a 3 time 20-game winner and 4 time All-Star. Interestingly enough, he never won 20 games before the surgery and only had 1 All-Star appearance before it.
John's career began in 1963, when he spent the end of that season, and part of the next in Cleveland. He posted a record of just 2-11, but the 3.61 ERA that accompanied it suggests he was a victim of poor run support. It is a little telling when only 1 player has more than 20 home runs and only 2 players drive in 75+ runs. The Tribe's best pitcher that year, Sam McDowell, sported a 2.70 ERA but only won 11 games. Unfortunately for John, the run support only got worse when he was traded to the White Sox before the 1965 season. The Sox were notorious for awful offense, not just at the time, but seemingly throughout their history. In 1906 when they won the World Series, they were known as the "Hitless Wonders". In 1959, when they won their first pennant since the ill-fated 1919 team, the White Sox finished worst in the league in home runs, 6th in runs scored (out of 8 teams) and 6th in batting average. It wasn't really until the early '70s of Bill Melton and Dick Allen and the late '70s of the "South Side Hitmen", that the White Sox really began to shed their label of being an awful offensive team.
Tommy John spent seven seasons on the White Sox pitching staff. He won 14 games his first two years there, but never won that many again. All told, when he was traded to the Dodgers in 1971 (which , coincidentally was the trade that sent Dick Allen to Chicago), John posted an 82-80 record with the White Sox, despite a glistening ERA of 2.95. John went 11-5 and 16-7 his first two years in Los Angeles, and it seemed to everyone that he was finally on the verge of becoming a star. And in fact, the following year, he was well on his way towards having the best season of his career. With the Dodgers en route to the 1974 pennant, John was leading the charge, thanks to his 13-3 record and 2.59 ERA, when in his 22nd start, he tore his UCL. When noted surgeon Frank Jobe performed the procedure in late September of that year, it was expected that John's career had reached a premature ending. John sat out the entire 1975 year while undergoing rigorous rehab. In 1976, John made his triumphant return to the Majors, winning 10 games for the Dodgers. Starting with his age-34 season, John then began the most dominant stretch of his career. Over the next four seasons (2 with the Dodgers and 2 with the Yankees, who he signed with as a free agent), he won 20, 17, 21 and 22 games. Injuries plagued him the remainder of his career, but he would go on to win double digit games four more times. When he retired at age 46 in 1989, John had amassed a 288-231 record, 3.34 ERA, and had logged over 4,700 innings pitched. The spotlight was never an issue for Tommy, as he achieved a 6-3 record and 2.65 ERA in the postseason (including three trips to the World Series).
The biggest knocks against John are threefold. First, his record of only 288-231 is skewed horribly because of the poor run support he received early in his career. Had he not labored so long as a member of the offensively challenged White Sox, there is no doubt John could have won the 12 additional games needed for 300 victories. Secondly, many people say the only reason John won as many games as he did is simply because he played for so long. But the argument to that is simply that a player who wasn't good enough would never have made it as long as John did. Baseball Reference has a section called Similarity Scores, in which a players' career is compared to other players to give an indication of who their numbers were most similar to. The pitchers who scored the 2nd through 10th most similar careersincluded Hall of Famers Blyleven, Robin Roberts, Jenkins, Wynn, Glavine, Grimes, Sutton, and Rixey. The player who was the most similar to John? Jim Kaat.
JIM KAAT
Like John, Jim Kaat's critics will point to the length of his career as a negative, not a positive. It took Kaat 25 years to register his 283 victories, and yes, there are Hall of Famers who did it in much shorter amounts of time. But again, Kaat would not have lasted that long if he weren't a valuable asset to the teams he played on. And not only was he a valuable asset pitching from the mound, but he carved out a long career showing his prowess fielding from it as well.
Also like Tommy John, Kaat's first two seasons in the Majors were only partial seasons, as he pitched (rather forgettable years) for the Washington Senators. When the Senators moved to Minnesota to become the Twins in 1961, Kaat finally completed his first full campaign. Despite a 9-17 record, Kaat's 3.90 ERA and 3.53 FIP (Fielding Independant Pitching, which, in the most watered down terms, is his ERA without any effect of his defenders behind him) indicated that he was certainly better than his record would lead one to believe. In 1962, Kaat was named to his first All-Star game, winning 18 games for the Twins. He also won the Gold Glove award as the best defensive pitcher. He would not relinquish that title for 12 years.
From 1962 to 1976, Jim Kaat had double-digit win totals every season and only twice saw his ERA rise above 4.00 (10 years apart, in 1963 and 1973). His best season came in 1966, when he led the majors in victories with 25, posted an ERA of 2.75, and also led the league in starts with 41, innings with 304.2, and complete games with 19. For good measure, he also paced the league with the lowest BB/9 ratio at 1.6 and the best K/BB ratio at 3.73.
His stranglehold on the American League Gold Glove award came to an end in 1973, but after a two-year period, he regained the award again and held it for another four years through 1977. 1978 was the last season in which Kaat was primarily a starter, when he went 8-5 with a 4.10 ERA. For the next few seasons, until he retired after the 1984 campaign with the St. Louis Cardinals, Kaat was used primarily out of the bullpen with mixed results. All told, he compiled a 283-237 record, 3.45 ERA, 3 All-Star appearances and 16 Gold Glove awards.
"I'll never be considered one of the all-time greats, maybe not even one of the all-time goods. But I'm one of the all-time survivors."
I have to disagree with you, Mr. Kaat. Sure, your pitching numbers aren't like Nolan Ryan or Randy Johnson, sure your name isn't mentioned with the likes of Bob Feller and Whitey Ford, but you are an all-time great in your own way. My biggest issue with Kaat's absence from the Hall of Fame is this: Ozzie Smith and Bill Mazeroski are in the Hall primarily for their fielding, and rightfully so. They were easily some of the greatest defenders at their respective positions, if not of all time. Neither of them were particularly gifted offensively (although the Wizard of Oz sure had some speed he used to his advantage on the basepaths). In the same way, look for Omar Vizquel to eventually make a case for the Hall as another top defensive player. So, with that being said, why ISN'T a guy who won the award for best defender at his position 16 times not included in the Hall of Fame? Oh by the way, he also missed the 300 victory mark by only 17 wins. It seems almost a crime to me. Kaat, in an interview earlier this year, suspects that the mediocre ending to his career has hurt his chances. He also thinks if he had retired after 15 seasons (after the 1975 season when he went 20-11 with the White Sox), that he would have had a better chance at being inducted.
Ultimately, I believe it is a shame that two of the greatest pitchers of their era have been denied entrance into the hallowed halls of Cooperstown. There is no doubt in my mind they deserve to be there. Kaat and John both achieved great success, and their longevity should be viewed as a testament to their ability, not as an excuse for their statistics. Greatness deserves to be recognized, and in this case, it simply has not been given due recognition. Your move, MLB Veterans Committee.
Lost in ALDS to Cleveland
Credit: Baltimore Sun
