Blyleven's Shutouts

Man, there are a lot of baseball websites out there. Today I found BaseballAnalysts.com, which has a whole series of articles on whether Bert Blyleven should be in the HOF. This is definitely a bunch of guys with a lot of time on their hands.

As you know, I’m all for Bert getting into the Hall. My principle argument is that he’s 5th all-time in strikeouts, and he has more than Walter Johnson. Walter Johnson is my Mason-Dixon line. If you have more K’s than The Big Train, you’re in. Well, for Bert, not yet.

In one of the articles on the BaseballAnalysts.com site, they compare Blyleven’s shutout totals to his contemporaries in the Hall. Those contemporaries are: Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan, Don Sutton, Bob Gibson, Steve Carlton, Jim Palmer, Gaylord Perry, Juan Marichal, Fergie Jenkins, Phil Niekro and Catfish Hunter. This is an awfully good list of pitchers. Here’s what they said:

Shutouts may not be as meaningful of a gauge in today's era when complete games are a rarity, but they were a great measure of pitching prowess prior to the 1990s. More than anything else, dominant pitchers threw shutouts….

Blyleven, who ranks ninth in career shutouts, is third among his HoF contemporaries in blanking the opposition, one behind the leaders (Nolan Ryan and Tom Seaver). He ranks sixth in shutouts as a percentage of games started. As such, you can see that Blyleven's success was not just about longevity. He had more white washes and notched them at a greater rate than Don Sutton, Steve Carlton, Gaylord Perry, Fergie Jenkins and Phil Niekro.

Blyleven won 15 1-0 games - more than of any of these pitchers. He ranks third all time in the number of 1-0 victories, trailing only Walter Johnson and Christy Mathewson. On the other hand, Blyleven lost nine 1-0 games - also more than any of these pitchers. That's not a negative. If anything, it is indicative of his poor run support over the years (which, according to Chris Jaffe's Run Support Index or Pete Palmer's SUP, ran about 3-4% below average for Blyleven's career).

He’s third all time in 1-0 victories behind WHO?? Holey Moley! Dem’s some big names!
The more I look at Blyleven, the more I wonder how the hell Catfish Hunter got in the Hall. Hey, I like Catfish. But his numbers pale in comparison.