Bert Blyleven

November 28th, 2009 @ 06:26pm

Classic card. An historic pitcher in the middle of his delivery just after his windup. How can you not love this? Seeing the big Cleveland “C” on his cap, just makes you feel the pain of being a great talent on a pithetic team, which seems to sum up his career.

There’s so much written about Bert’s pitching prowess that you’ve probably already heard that Blyleven is one of the All-Time leaders in wins (27th), strikeouts (5th now, 3rd when he retired), and some advanced & interesting stats. I’m going to share a few stats you might not be aware of though, which show the depth of his greatness.

Did you know that Bert had 75 CG losses? This includes 15 games where his defense allowed at least 1 unearned run—turning a no decision or possible victory, into a loss. It’s a great example of why pitcher wins & losses are overrated. Also a great example of how confident his manager was in Bert’s pitching ability.

Did you know that the more outs there were in an inning, the tougher it was to hit Bert?

Outs	BA	SLG	BABIP
0 Out	.255	.373	.293
1 Out	.254	.369	.291
2 Out	.233	.357	.272

That’s the mark of a rally preventing pitcher. Notice as the inning progresses, the BA drops 22 points, SLG drops 16 points, and BABIP drops 21 points. If you can’t hit the ball when there’s someone on base and the pitcher ain’t walkin’ you, it’s just going to be very very hard to score any runs. That gives your team the best chance to win.

of course, if somebody ain’t the best pitcher on their team, they certainly don’t deserve to go to Cooperstown…no matter how many games they won or lost. So how did Bert rank among the others pitchers on his teams? Here’s how he ranked in fielding independent stats & ERA, among pitchers on his team who had at least 10 W’s & 50 IP during the time he played for each team—

Team	ERA	K9	BB9	HR9
Twins (70′s)	1	2	2-t	2
Rangers	1	1	2	1
Pirates	7	1	5	8
Indians	1	2	1	2
Twins (80′s)	7	4	3	8
Angels	5	4	1	6

So when he was on the Twins (70′s), Rangers, and Indians, he was pretty much the best pitcher on his team. That covers 12 1/2 years of his career. He wasn’t the best when he was on teams like the Pirates (who had good pitching), and after he turned 35 when he played for the Twins (80′s) and Angels. Very few pitchers after age 35 will be the best starter on their team, so this is completely understandable.

He was clearly one of the best pitchers on his teams ’til he got old. Even in Pittsburgh, he managed to strikeout a lot of batters, even though he had a tough time getting used to NL hitters.

I could go on and on about Bert Blyleven. He’s clearly one of the best pitchers not in the Hall of Fame, if not the best.