Rick Reuschel belongs in the Hall?

[dabynsky]

http://www.highheatstats.com/2013/02/beyond-era-why-rick-reuschel-had-hall-of-fame-value/

Interesting article about Rick Reuschel. I will have to think about it before I say I agree with the author, but I am certainly more behind Reuschel making it than Jack Morris.

 

[Rice Cube]

I think if Jack Morris gets into the HOF then they kinda need to let Andy Pettitte in. And as much as I like Andy Pettitte, I don't think he deserves to get into the HOF.

 

[Rice Cube]

Didn't see any comparison to Morris in the article.

The comment section was kind of funny. I liked the guy who basically concludes that Reuschel pitched better than Catfish Hunter.

There is a case for that...

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/hunteca01.shtml (Catfish)

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/reuscri01.shtml (Rick)

Basically the same pitcher. One pitched a bit longer with a higher career ERA+, the other had better postseason success.

 

[Rice Cube]

But its an odd way to compare the two pitchers, because they had completely different career arcs. To conclude that they were "basically the same pitcher" misses the reality of the situation. Hunter was arguably the best pitcher in baseball over a 6-year period, then arm troubles took their toll and he was out of baseball. Reuschel had a much longer career, but its more hit-and-miss. You can't define a period of sustained excellence. I don't see how you could make any HOF argument for a pitcher who was never anything more than above average. At least with Hunter, you could point to something on his resume as being worthy of Cooperstown. As a GM, which would you rather have....6 excellent seasons, or 14 average/above average seasons?

Its like comparing Moses Malone to Robert Parish and saying "they were basically the same player". Not a chance.

You could compare the two by individual seasons as well. Catfish had the six year run as you said with the sparkly ERAs, but you'll note that their control (BB/9) and strikeout ability (K/9) were about the same. Maybe that's somewhat mitigated by the fact that the AL adopted the DH soon after Reuschel's debut, but Rick had some pretty good seasons too. They were just spread out. I don't know what would have happened to Catfish if he hadn't developed arm issues. But if we're looking at peripherals then it's not out of line to suggest that they were essentially the same type of pitcher. It just so happened that one of them had a little bit better luck in terms of the postseason (and possibly his defense), while the other had better luck in terms of his health.

 

[brett05]

I think if Jack Morris gets into the HOF then they kinda need to let Andy Pettitte in. And as much as I like Andy Pettitte, I don't think he deserves to get into the HOF.

I kinda agree here, but what hurts Andy is he took drugs. And he didn't have the teams that Jack did in the post season. Both have to go in long before Rick IMO

 

[dabynsky]

Didn't see any comparison to Morris in the article.

The comment section was kind of funny. I liked the guy who basically concludes that Reuschel pitched better than Catfish Hunter.

The article doesn't make the comparison, but I was commenting on it since Jack Morris seems to be the fringy Hall candidate that is getting a lot attention recently.

 

[Rice Cube]

Jack Morris gets a lot of the "Fame" part of the equation because he won championships and stuff and pitched one of the greatest postseason games of all time.