OC Register: As their standards for success evolve, starting pitchers face an uncertain path to Hall of Fame

[AngelsWin.com]

Imagine a Hall of Fame without any more 300-game winners.

One voter I spoke to recently couldn’t do it.

“Wins still matter to me,” he said with unwavering assurance.

Bartolo Colon (245 wins) and CC Sabathia (243) are baseball’s active leaders in this red-headed stepchild of pitching statistics. While this voter acknowledged that neither Colon nor Sabathia represents his ideal candidate, his self-imposed standard belittles the careers of Clayton Kershaw (147), Max Scherzer (154) and Justin Verlander (198). When we spoke, this voter wasn’t sure how he would reconcile the dilemma.

Kershaw, Scherzer and Verlander are undoubtedly among the best pitchers of their generation. They have been for years. Yet each will need to pitch at or near his peak level until at least age 40 – and overcome a league-wide trend toward shorter starts – in order to reach 300 wins. That’s an unrealistic expectation.

The Hall of Fame electorate’s collective reckoning with performance-enhancing drug use is ongoing, a debate defined by moral and ethical gut-checks and Mitchell Report name-checks. In time, however, each player on the ballot will have played in an era when positive drug tests were met with suspensions. Violations will have been recorded by Major League Baseball and chided by fellow players. The moral lines will be drawn in black ink, not pencil.

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The next generation of voters will face a different challenge. While the ethical ambiguity of the Hall of Fame’s so-called “character clause” might persist forever, it will soon be joined by a new brand of statistical ambiguity.

Almost every player with 3,000 career hits is in the Hall of Fame. The exceptions are Pete Rose, who has been banned from baseball for life; Alex Rodriguez, who has yet to appear on a ballot; Rafael Palmeiro, whose vociferous denial of PED use did not endear him to voters; Seattle Mariners special assistant Ichiro Suzuki, who played his last game in May; and two active players, Adrian Beltre and Albert Pujols.

Can 3,000 hits remain a benchmark forever?

A fan cheers on Albert Pujols before his last at bat of the night during the Angels’ 12-3 victory over the Baltimore Orioles at Angel Stadium in Anaheim on Thursday, May 3, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

To this point in 2018, batting average (.247) has fallen to its lowest mark since 1972 (.244). It’s only half a season, hardly enough to make a trend, and may ultimately prove to be the low end of a cycle. Yet there’s also an unmistakable shift toward home runs and away from singles, the kind of hits that defined the careers of Rose, Ty Cobb, and many others atop the career list. Compiling hits was never treated as such a superfluous goal prior to our launch-angle era.

Consider the Hall of Fame cases of two second basemen: Dee Gordon and Chase Utley.

In an average season, Gordon is capable of 50 or more stolen bases, close to 200 hits, and a .300 batting average. He hasn’t played long enough to be eligible for Hall of Fame consideration – 10 years is the minimum – but in another era having 300 stolen bases by age 30 would put him on an early watch list. Gordon’s versatility on defense, if nothing else, ought to keep him employed for years.

Gordon is a throwback to a different era, from his style of play down to his high leggings. Hits, steals and a 2015 Gold Glove Award are his best claims to the traditional definition of Fame. But his career .326 on-base percentage (through Tuesday) falls short of the standard for a modern leadoff hitter. His stolen-base success rate is considered good but not elite, in an era when every out on the basepaths bears more weight in the eyes of evaluators than raw stolen base totals. A 2016 PED suspension could further cloud Gordon’s case.

Utley is a throwback too. His 16-year career will end after this season with fewer than 2,000 career hits. He never won a Gold Glove Award. Other than runs (once, in 2006) and hit by pitches (three times), Utley never led his league in a traditional counting statistic.

And yet, contemporary fielding metrics like UZR and DRS rate Utley as the best fielding second baseman of his generation. His stolen-base success rate (87.4) is the highest of all-time. He has more Wins Above Replacement as a second baseman than even Jackie Robinson, for whom WAR was an entirely different concern. In a twist of irony, the oldest of today’s “old-school” players might be catapulted into Cooperstown by the most modern of statistics.

Utley will be a fascinating litmus test when he appears on his first Hall of Fame ballot in 2024. For as much as analytics have changed the definition of offensive greatness, it’s affected pitching even more. Start with the Win, that former Hall of Fame staple.

“It used to be that unless you got to that 250 threshold, you had to be exceptional,” said Seattle Mariners general manager Jerry Dipoto, a former major league pitcher himself. “You had to be Sandy Koufax or Don Drysdale. You had to be in that 250-or-up zone to be considered in that class. I don’t think that’s the case anymore.

“I think now it’s about brief dominance. It’s about things you did while you were out there. There’s general thought that baseball will cycle back, but I’m not sure the thing that will cycle back is the 300-game winner. I don’t think the thing that will cycle back is the 250, 300-inning starter.”

Dipoto is holding one end of this rope. Starting pitcher wins have steadily declined as pitch counts have become lower and more sacred, but any general manager could simply instruct each manager in his organization to emphasize pitcher wins – and by extension, higher pitch counts. This would defy contemporary theory about pitcher health, so it would take a bold front office to reverse the trend.

That front office will not be in Seattle.

“I think the next generation, they’re going to be looking toward starting pitchers for 140 to 170 innings, and may use them for brief starts, and you’re going to see more of a multi-inning bullpen element as the game evolves,” Dipoto said.

Since I interviewed Dipoto in spring training, his theory has only drawn closer to reality. At the time, Dipoto was directly responsible for the career of pitcher Felix Hernandez, who was sitting on 160 wins and about to turn 32 years old. This is the other end of the rope.

Hernandez made six All-Star teams and finished in the top 10 in Cy Young Award voting six times from 2009-15. He won a Cy Young Award in 2010. Besides any postseason appearances, the biggest thing missing from Hernandez’s resume, arguably, was a traditional Hall of Fame-caliber win total.

Now Hernandez is averaging 5 1/2 innings per start while sporting a 5.14 ERA, which would be his highest ever in a full season. He’s won only eight of his 20 starts, casting even more doubt on his ability to reach even 200 wins.

“I’m hoping like heck that Felix gets to 200 because that’s only another 40 for him,” Dipoto said in February. “He is still a generally young guy … he’s just been around since he was 19.”

Even if Hernandez falls short, he will be in good company. For the third consecutive year, no starting pitcher will give a Hall of Fame acceptance speech this weekend in Cooperstown. Mike Mussina, Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling have all been on the ballot for at least five years with no luck. Roy Halladay, Andy Pettitte, Roy Oswalt, and several other starting pitchers – all of whom fell short of 300 wins – will get their first chance next year.

Voters must ask if each met the standard for a Hall of Fame starting pitcher. More importantly, will they remain on the ballot long enough for a new standard to take hold?

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