The Shock of This Years HOF Election

No, it's not in who made it, or even in who came close. We predicted that Bert Blylevin and Roberto Alomar would be in this year, even though we'd have preferred Jeff Bagwell over one of them, but recognized that he wouldn't make it. Thought his percentage was about where it would be, in the middle of the electorate pack. But the shock of this election, ... no doubt about it for us, ... was in the one and done candidacy of one of the best pitchers of his age, yet below the radar for most, Kevin Brown.

Ask most baseball fans who Kevin Brown was and you'll likely get a shrug. There's the reason, folks, he didn't get in. He's also getting that shrug from the writers. But that's just not fair. Kevin Brown, during some years, was one of the most dominant pitchers in the game. Yes, he moved from team to team to team. And that hurts. No, he didn't pitch as long at the top of his game as he should have. We recognize that, too. However, there were those 211 wins sprinked across the baseball landscape of Texas, Baltimore, Florida, San Diego, the Dodgers, and the Yankees. From 1996 to 2000, he won 82 games and pitched over 230.0 innings each year, some of that during the peak of the steroid era. His ERA those years had a low of 1.89 and a high of 3.00.

Let's track those years and how he ranked among all pitchers for those 5 seasons.
1996 - #2 behind John Smoltz
PEVA 40.004 (#65 best pitching year in baseball history)
1997 - #9 behind Clemens, Maddux, Martinez, Schilling, Neagle, Randy Johnson, Kile, Pettite
PEVA 22.694
1998 - #2 behind Maddux
PEVA 42.712 (#47 best pitching year in baseball history)
1999 - #3 behind Pedro and Randy Johnson
PEVA 29.265
2000 - #4 behind Martinez, Maddux, Johnson
PEVA 23.960

Only future Hall of Famers above him.

Oh, sure, he was pretty good those years, but overall, he didn't have enough wins. Maybe that's an okay reason to keep him out of the HOF, but it's certainly not enough to kick him out after the first year of eligibility.

And BTW. Don Drysdale had 209 wins. Hal Newhouser 207. Pedro Martinez has 219 and he's gonna get in in the first year. And let's not rank on his winning percentage. Kevin Brown was 211 and 144. 59.4%. Hey, I wanted Bert to get in, but his winning percentage was 53.4%. Brown's career ERA was 3.28, Blylevin 3.31, Jack Morris (the new darling of the not yet in crowd) 3.90. And Brown pitched in a much more difficult era to pitch than either.

There needs to be a do-over here and the writers who vote should be ashamed. Again, I'm okay that a pitcher like Kevin Brown is on the outside looking in, but he should be on the outside looking in after he gets the same 15 years consideration of any other pitcher with more than 200 victories. If after those years, he still is not in the Hall, so be it. He's not an automatic lock to us, but better than a bunch of others already in.

And at the end of the day, perhaps even after the Veterans Committee considers Brown way down the line, he'll might be the best pitcher in baseball history not to make the Hall of Fame. Geez, this is one time I hope those men on the VC quickly rectify this overlook, and at least give Brown a fair shot to make his case the same way Blylevin did and Jack Morris will.

To check out more about Brown and where he ranks in baseball history, buy the Stat Geek Baseball, Best Ever Book, now in the updated 2011 version.