The real reason Jack Morris' Hall of Fame candidacy has persisted so long is this: At this point, NO starting pitchers whose careers began after 1970 (Bert Blyleven's rookie season) are in the Hall.
None.
Now, everybody expects Greg Maddux to be elected when the votes are announced later today, and possibly Tom Glavine as well, but they didn't gets started until the mid-80s. There's a giant gap, essentially a generation of pitchers, without Hall representation.
Morris was the biggest winner of the pitchers of that gap, which, not coincidentally, corresponds with the start of the DH era. So he winds up the standard bearer for the late Baby Boomers.
But should he be? In the post linked to above, I suggested that Ron Guidry or Rick Reuschel might be better choices. Let's apply the win points formula, explained in Tueday's post, to those two:
Reuschel: 214-191, .528 winning percentage, 23 games over .500: 136 win points.
Guidry: 170-91, .651, 79: 190
Yes, Morris (215) beats those two, Reuschel handily, Guidry by a smaller but still substantial margin. And Big Daddy and Louisiana Lightning beat Black Jack by a wide margin on ERA.
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This has nothing to do with Morris, but with fresh speculation this week about the possibility of Johan Santana signing with the Twins, I thought I'd run win points on Jo-Jo at this stage of his career.
Santana: 139-78, .641, 61: 150.
Despite a four-year run in which he was universally deemed the best pitcher in baseball, Santana's record doesn't match Guidry's (a rather comparable pitcher) and Guidry never cracked 10 percent on the writers ballot. I think Guidry was unjustly overlooked, but his precedent suggests that Santana will need a substantial comeback to be a serious Hall candidate.
For the sake of an argument, let's say Jack Morris missed "The Hall" by only one vote.
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